Share whats happening in your hometown, region or country that might not be in the focus of international media!
Please provide a general location. For Example:
Location: Southern Ireland
Picture: Cerberus heatwave over the Iberian peninsula and southern France
Location: Czechia
Absolutely no bugs or birds. It’s on the decline for some years but it’s just earily quiet this summer.
Do you mean that literally? As in no birds what so ever? If so, that’s just so incredible sad.
I’m not sure if you’re being sarcastic, sure I’ve seen some pigeons and heard a bird here and there. But sitting on my balcony, I just hear silence (and some traffic) where birdsong used to almost drown out traffic noise. Two trees in front of my home always had several bird nests, nothing this year. I haven’t seen a single sparrow or woodpecker which used to be common. And I’m barely seeing any insects on places that used to be full of them so I guess there’s just nothing left to eat.
I’m not sure if you’re being sarcastic
I was serious, I’m sorry if I came across as rude.
And I’m barely seeing any insects on places that used to be full of them so I guess there’s just nothing left to eat.
Thank you for sharing this sad news. The reason I asked is that I live in Europe as well, and if things are this severe in Central Europe, than pretty soon the shitshow will come for the rest of us as well. Luckily birds and insects are still going strong here in western parts of Norway, for now that is. Still we’re seeing more jellyfish in the fjords and less fish than before. We’re also experiencing more ticks than earlier years. Things are looking bleak indeed.
Hello neighbor. I’ll be vacationing in the Haugesund area this year.
Things are slightly better in Southern Germany than Northern, and Eastern Germany is declining slower still. The good part is that it’s partly reversible if you restructure agricultural landscapes. Though migrating birds cover a large area, where isolated national policies don’t help that much.
I’ll be vacationing in the Haugesund area this year.
Hi there, if you like hiking you’re in for a treat, just remember to pack your rain gear and prep for cool/cold weather. I live further north in the Molde area and funnily enough my neighbours are from Kiel and they left to get away from the crowdy area. Personaly I like it best in the southern parts of Germany and have been quite a lot in the Stuttgart, München and Ingolstadt area. Used to visit the Christmas market in Stuttgart before Covid, it was amazing.
Thanks! Give me a ring when you’re in Munich again.
Will do, ditto if you’re ever around Molde.
It depends now much industrial monocrop agriculture is nearby and how many local bird feeders are filled throughout the year. You can change the microenvironment in your own garden easily enough, but agricultural and environmental policy is harder to influence. Municipal level is usually where it ends.
Location: Central Germany
Cerberus heatwave mostly spared us here with only Saturday being a freakishly hot day (28°C --> 38°C temp jump for a day) but it showed me once again how badly prepared most older buildings are for what is to come.
Location: Florida
In the past it was normal after driving the highways to have the front of your car covered in insect splatterings, especially during the two love-bug seasons per year. There was a small industry for bug wash, but nets, etc. After a long drive from one end of the state to the other you have to stop and wash the front of your car off just to see. Now, nothing. Nothing at all. First the tiny things go, then the small things, then the food.
We have been very lucky so far. It’s only a question of time before we’re hit by a heat dome like the one that wrecked BC.
I currently make about 100% of my power during the sunny days but it will take an upgrade and investment into a insular and black start capable system with a few kWh storage buffer to be able to run AC when the grid is down. Not cheap and will take some planning.
It unfortuablty also triggers the usual idiots here [as in: here in Germany] that think this is the navel of the world and are shrugging heat waves in other places of because their stupid asses are not sweating. Behaviour like this is so fucking frustrating and one of the main reasons I am very skeptical about humankind surviving in the long run.
The only thing that will curtail the conspicuous consumption here is poverty. (Un)fortunately that is coming, fast. And a nasty side effect will be dysfunctional political landscape. Wagenknecht should do her thing already, if only to limit the damage.
Location: East Coast USA
I can’t be outside today because the air quality index is 118. Everything is blanketed in wildfire smoke haze from Canada. Huge swaths of the continent north of me is on fire. I wore a mask to do outside chores today, and can’t see myself getting outside to weed the garden in this. Plus the garden is struggling with the heat anyway.
Location: Southeast United States.
My local gardening groups are full of posts for failed or unusual crops. Tomatoes not turning red, peppers wrinkling. I’ve lost a lot out of my garden too, it’s alarming but I’ve been expecting this since 2017.
Culturally most people are only complaining about the heat, memes and jokes, the whatnot.
I’m not clear on how many people understand how serious this is. It still feels like people are largely business as usual.
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Location: Northwest England
The weather has been mild wild lots of rain for the last few weeks. This is pretty normal for this time of year in my area. What isn’t normal is the regular torrential rain and thunderstorms every few days.
Thunderstorms usually happened a few times a year, not a few times a week. It’s so strange. Also the storms, usually, lightening, thunder, then a few minutes would go by before the next one. Now, it is constant, the flashes regular and the rumbling of thunder is constant with no breaks.
It is incredibly beautiful but not typical. I’ve only ever seen storms like this in Greece when I lived there.
Location: Massachusetts, USA
First credible flood warnings in my area.
Some context: The region in which I live, after catastrophic flooding in the middle of the 20th century, domesticated and tamed all of the rivers. We have a system of dams and other flood control that mostly keeps our water levels very stable. New Englanders do not understand how artificial the stability of our water levels is, and the kinds of floods we used to have here before all the dams were built to make sure that never happens again.
But now we’re getting rainfall like never before, and it’s not like our dams are any better maintained than our bridges are - and our bridges are a known scandal.
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Thanks for keeping these coming. It sounds like you could profit from splitting your plot into experiments, including baseline for control.
How is your soil pH doing? Have you considered paying for soil analytics once to check for potential problems?
I’ll be adding some wild type sunchokes to my grass roof this autumn. The last time I used commercial cultivars which became a pest but never flowered.
Most of the new plants I add are eaten alive by snails and bugs. Jerusalem artichokes seem to thrive and bear fruit, which is rare.
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Location: suburbs of Chicago, IL
While I usually live in NC, I am visiting family. In this particular brand of suburbia, every single day the streets are alive with the sound of gas powered lawn mowers and leaf blowers. While I watch the news drone on about petty celebrity drama, the graph breaking upward trend of ocean temperatures elicits barely a word from any news source, and people carry on paying to burn gasoline to make already short grass shorter and move the cuttings around.
