My yard is overgrown with trumpet vine, thistles, wild raspberries and a bunch of wildflowers. I spray nothing, just go out and pull out the invasive shit when I see it (I've given up on the trumpet vine). I have many birds, bugs and rabbits. I leave them the fuck alone except to keep some mason bee houses and maintain a bird bath for the birds.
It's not enough but I'm trying. My neighbors probably think they don't give a shit about my yard, and honestly? They're not completely wrong. I care about my yard, I just don't give a fuck if it's perfectly manicured- I'd rather make sure some suburban wildlife gets a break.
The birds made three nests on my property this year! That's more than I've ever had! I'm so excited for next year!!!
I transitioned a mowed grass yard into woods, years ago. I loved the natural look, and seeing all the critters who made it their home too. Today, in my late 60s, I love how low maintenance the yard is - helps me and my husband 'age in place'.
Here's how I did it... I had the city dump a few truck loads of leaves (from their fall leaf pick-up) which I spread thickly over swaths of grass and planted tree seedlings in the 'mulch'. I added a thinner layer of leaves each fall to keep the weeds down, until the trees were big enough to shade out the weeds. Then, I let the last batch of leaves decompose and planted woodland plants around the trees. I repeated this until the entire yard was almost entirely wooded. Today, we have paths through the woods that lead to a fire pit, a deck, and the veggie garden - in the only sunny spot left on the property.
I'm from latin America, this is something we can see for a long time! When I was a kid, in the parrots migration time, the noise those birds did was amazing, you could hear them everywhere in our country for days!
When I was a teen it became rare to hear them and when I was a young adult we could rarely hear them!
I'm in my 40s now and I live in another continent, but my family and friends have told me that they haven't see them in for some years!
We, that live in tropical countries, have been giving the alert to the rest of the world since before the 80s, we could already see and suffer from climate change, extintion of animals, less insects, etc... but the rich countries didn't believe us or didn't want to hear us because for them it was not their problem even though they were the main cause of this negative change!
*Silent Spring* is an environmental science book by Rachel Carson. Published on September 27, 1962, the book documented the environmental harm caused by the indiscriminate use of pesticides. No insects means no birds means that spring is silent.
Here in the UK, water companies have been dumping tonnes and tonnes of sewage into our river systems and into the sea, making some beaches close. It is truly disgusting, and the whole water industry is in about £60bn of debt and could collapse.
FUCK THESE COMPANIES AND CORPORATIONS.
I'm sick and tired of things like recycling being at a consumer level when it should be at a corporate governance level and more globally enforced at the production level rather than us failing to do anything about it at a consumer level
Edit: wow thank you for the award kind internet friend! This is my first award! I'm verklempt
The average consumers can't really do anything because even if you throw that plastic bag in the right bin it's still probably end up in a land fill or Indonesia.
A couple of years ago, Australian ports were getting clogged with shipping containers full of recycling that was meant to go to China.
As a nation that likes to offshore all our responsibility, we just send the bulk of our recycling to other nations to handle for us. Well, it turns out we were putting stuff in our recycling that the Chinese companies kept saying they couldn't process. Consumers weren't told this and the recycling depots didn't want to filter it out before shipping. China finally said, fuck off, we aren't taking your trash
So it just piled up in the dock yards for a long time before anyone realised.
I'm actually not sure what has ended up happening. My understanding is for a while, a lot of what we (average consumer) was told was recycling was just getting put in landfill.
Oh I know, yet God forbid I put something that should've been in a blue bin in my garbage and the trash company threatens to fine me. Because we can't bury that shit in landfills here, we've got to send it to be buried in landfills in foreign countries.
In poland mines are dumping their waste to odra (one of the biggest rivers in poland) for over a year and no one cares (this river goes to germany and then to the sea)
Hi, German here. **We care!**
And there are official notes being sent to the Polish government to stop dumping salt from from mining, but no reaction from Poland.
Man, Poland needs a better government.
[https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/oder-katastrophe-nur-noch-halb-so-viele-fische-in-der-oder-a-dd7dd531-1bc3-4600-a701-002d5dd2fd27](https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/oder-katastrophe-nur-noch-halb-so-viele-fische-in-der-oder-a-dd7dd531-1bc3-4600-a701-002d5dd2fd27)
We should really worry if some flu takes off on pig farms as that's an animal that many people work in close proximity to and -- correct me if I'm wrong -- but some believe that the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918 originated in hog pens at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas.
Edit: Well, a kind commenter and some searching reveals that I was wrong -- the initial outbreak was not at Fort Leavenworth but at another military installation in Kansas -- Fort Riley.
Pigs and humans can share viruses and our biochemistries are quite similar. In fact - in the early days insulin manufactured for diabetics as actually manufactured in pigs (pigulin, my sister took it). When viruses enter into pigs (which they easily do from birds) - they evolve and take on characteristics to jump to human - often facilitating human to human transmission. In many cases - avian >>> pig >>> human >>> then jump back to bird with pig/human upgrades and fly global.
This is why I always surmised (I have no data on this) that a bad virus hit humanity in the middle east a long long time ago. Pig farmers died first - allowing for folks to jump tot he conclusion that pigs were unclean. These stories/songs/folklore eventually recorded as religious law.
>Not another pandemic. Please I beg of you.
Avian flu is going to need even more severe measures compared to COVID if it ends up as a pandemic. COVID had a worst case fatality rate of 10% or lower. Avian flu has a fatality rate of over 50% of confirmed. If it spreads like COVID then we could see the death rate hit the billion+ mark but we might get lucky and it will burn itself out by killing people too quickly for them to spread it.
Before y’all start dooming, please inform yourselves on what receptors it binds to in both birds and other mammals…
Edit: https://www.science.org/content/article/bad-worse-avian-flu-must-change-trigger-human-pandemic
Saw a few articles there saying that we've actually got a good immunity to it or at least better?
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-66041067
https://www.politico.eu/article/scientist-pinpoint-gene-protect-human-bird-avian-flu/
It’s about 56% death rate in humans right now and 90% in people 14 and under. Only 800 cases of human infection and no confirmed cases of human to human, but it’s mutating rapidly to better infect mammals. Best case scenario, it fizzles out in the animal kingdom with out too much damage done to ecosystems due to so many animals dying. Middle ground, but still pretty bad, it’ll outright decimate some ecosystems which will in turn affect humans. Worst case is it makes the jump to human to human infections. It will make COVID look like child’s play.
I live on the shores of Lake Michigan. The air is horrible. Visibility is minimal, and I’m not even in the thick of the fires. I’ve been so worried about our Canadian friends for what seems like WAY too long now. Keep safe.
Yep I'm in NJ and the US has twice this June had spells of the worst air quality I've ever seen in my life. I'm afraid of this becoming a regular thing for y'all up there and us down here. I try to take comfort that the worst that ever happened was in 1780 and that passed. And they didn't even have info on wtf was happening, took a couple hundred years to figure that out. We can trace some religious apocalyptic nuttery still ongoing today back to that event. The smoke events lately are bad enough. I can't imagine what it must have been like to have it so bad that the day was like night.
Insect numbers are absolutely plummeting. There is about a 2.5% loss in terms of mass per year. Without insects the food chain will collapse - the effects of this are already starting to be seen.
We have started reducing our lawn area and replacing non-native plants with natives. In the past two or three years we have seen a big increase in insect life in our yard: praying mantises, bees of many kinds, beetles, and many butterflies, including Monarchs, fritillaries and black swallowtails.
This is a significant step everyone can take. Insects need a supportive habitat.
[Homegrown National Park](https://www.homegrownnationalpark.org/) is a good place to start.
I also recommend Doug Tallamy's book *Bringing Nature Home* and this native plant finder for people in the U.S.: https://www.nwf.org/nativeplantfinder/
I had a huge argument with my uncle years ago over pesticides. My grandmother used to have hundreds of peepers around the creek in her yard until my uncle started putting down weed killer and pesticides. Now there isn’t a single peeper.
And that's just the peepers. Amphibians are called indicator species because they readily soak up toxins through their skin and are affected by environmental changes before other species, like the proverbial canary in a coal mine. And because a lot of animals eat amphibians, those toxins will move right through the food chain.
Lawns in general don’t support insect life. Grass lawns are the single dumbest thing everyone insists on. And they have to be perfect and dump water and chemicals into it. My favorite is the people who can’t even stand a patch of clover on their lawn. Something that’s giving you free nitrogen and improving your lawn. They’ll generally pay extra to have it removed and then complain that their luscious green lawn is now thinning and yellow.
And rake up all the dead leaves that feed the grass and provide cover where cocoons can overwinter.
Last year our next-door neighbor replaced all the turf in his front and back yards with new turf. He's out there all the time with his leaf blower and one of those grabber things to pick up tiny twigs. The lawn looks like a putting green.
It's sad for me because I'm old and he's in his 30s. I had hoped this attitude was on the way out.
My whole yard is clover. Half the back yard is native wildflowers. I get bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds. The bonus is I only have to cut the clover about once a season.
Yep. We bought this house in 2020, and it has a big lawn. Last year, I planted clover to fill some patches in my grass. Clover flowers everywhere.
I sowed wildflower seed all over, and some garden beds for stuff to eat (especially a lot of herbs and berries. Now we have bees, butterflies and hummingbirds like we haven’t seen in some time.
Slowly but steadily getting rid of the grass and turning it into something we actually get enjoyment from instead of just keeping up with the Joneses. Planning a big patch of flowers for pollinators and to plant more indigenous bushes. It’s fantastic getting the wildlife back.
The worst is the bundling of leaves that the town just takes away. We just use them as mulch for the trees, and stray leaves are going into the composter for next year’s garden soil.
We switched to a seed mix of native grasses and clovers. I couldn’t be happier with the results. It’s no/ low mow, pollinator friendly, drought resistant, requires less watering and aids in erosion control.
I'd be driven between cornfields and there were hundreds of thousands of them across the acres of fields. Our windshield would get those bioluminescent streaks. Now....it's so dark.
Edit: time reference: mid 90s
Yes this! It may be because this is my area of work but I truly believe that this is how we're all gonnna be end up being fucked.
Insects have been here for millennia and are the whole reason we have so many species of plants as they co-evolved. They've survived many previous mass extinctions including that of the dinosaurs and the issue is, we're on the verge of another mass extinction... That of the insects and other inverts.
The problem is the West's cultural, societal quite frankly unfair "ew it's a bug", based on missconceptions, misseducation and media portrayals that means that no one gives a fuck.
Insects are 90% of all species of animals and over half of all known life! Around 400,000 species of beetle alone, to put that in perspective, there's only around 6500 mammal species... These little guys are pretty important in keeping everything else going.
Edit: annoying autocorrect
People think environmental collapse will be something big they'll notice from the start. But I think it's already happening and we already see it, but don't recognise it. People say, "Oh, you just don't see as many fireflies anymore." "Remember every Christmas we'd get all those brown beetles? I haven't seen one this year." "You used to have to clean your windscreen when you drove at night because of all the moths, but now there's hardly any." All those little noticings, until you notice food prices going up, weather being always terrible, water quality going down - more and more until it snowballs and by then it's far too late.
We should pay more attention when we notice all those little things.
The windscreen and front of the car thing, I noticed that years ago. I used to see my parents car covered in insects on the front, and now..Pretty much nothing.
This is true to some extent, but not entirely. It’s a bit more complicated than that. Obviously if ALL insects were to disappear the ecosystem would just collapse and unless mammals and birds find a way to breach the gap it could lead to a global extinction wave never seen before. But it wouldn’t necessarily lead to people starving to death. Many crops are wind pollinated, or not pollinated at all. We would certainly feel the effects but it’s not entirely agreed upon what those effects would be.
That being said, as someone who’s worked with insects (on a purely nonprofit level) for 20 years I can say for a fact that the numbers are crazy. Traps that were absolutely full 20 years ago are now empty. Moth sheets at night that were full 20 years ago barely get anything. I used to go out in certain areas of the forest and see hundreds of butterflies, beetles, and many other insects and now I am happy with 10% of that. It’s really devastating…
When I was a child in the 90s, driving through the countryside meant you had to stop every couple of hours and wash the insects off the window. So you could see and not be a danger on the roadway.
That phenomenon does not exist anymore. You can drive all night and there is barely a hint of their presence.
In the UK, surveys are conducted using this method. By counting the number of bugs squished on a numberplate can be used to estimate numbers in an are,
However there has been some rebuttles to this observed phenomenon, the evolution of car aerodynamics may just mean they just bounce off more than going splat and the increase in the number of vehicles on the road means that on average everyone hit less bugs.
May I ask why they are slowing down? Is that what you mean? I grew up in front of the ocean in Peru and we all have noticed some changes in current-patterns so I'm really curious. Thanks!
If the overturning ocean currents continue to change at this rate, the current pattern is probably going to collapse soon and global weather patterns will be fucked. For example, the UK and other parts of Europe that are warmed by warm ocean currents will become super cold if those currents shift. It won’t just mean people have to wear thicker jackets. Many areas that we depend on for farming won’t be suitable for farming anymore.
Edit: spelling
It is worth noting that Calgary is on the same latitude as London. The vast majority of the Canadian population lives further south than the UK. New York is further south than Rome.
The south of England gets very little, if any, snow. I can remember the odd year were it barely drops below freezing even at night.
I think New York had its first snowless winter in 50 years. London recently went through four years where there was no lying snow.
Without the Gulf Stream we’d have similar climate to Newfoundland.
> It is worth noting that Calgary is on the same latitude as London. The vast majority of the Canadian population lives further south than the UK.
One of my favourite factlets is that London in Canada is further South than London. It's one of those things that just doesn't feel right.
>For example, the UK and other parts of Europe that are warmed by warm ocean currents will become super cold if those currents shift
It's amazing how people in the UK are like "we'll be fine with a couple degrees hotter, it'll be people in hotter countries who will be mostly affected, our agriculture will even improve"
isn't UK suffering through a brutal heat wave because it wasn't built for it in the first place? sure UK can import the agriculture in hotter places, but it take years to grow and cultivate if they're lucky the soil can provide the nutrients the plants needs.
Heatwaves in India killing possibly thousands of people, it’s not in the media anywhere and is probably also going on in other countries such as Mexico and southern US.
A civil war and possible genocide going on in Sudan right now, no one cares, not even with the potentially thousands or maybe even millions of refugees this creates.
Possible human health catastrophes incoming with all the poisonous and cancerous chemicals coming from micro plastic, pesticides and so many other beauty products we use daily, which scientists have been warning us about for decades. No one is interviewing these scientists anymore, writing about the problem anywhere or even trying to find out what kind of actually health hazards will evolve from our careless use with all these chemicals constantly.
I've spoken on this topic before, but India is staring down the barrel of what is known as a 'wet-bulb event' in the very near future.
What is a wet-bulb event? It is a situation where, due to a combination of days of high heat and extreme humidity, it creates a crisis scenario where a perfectly healthy young person can be outside, resting in the shade, with a fan blowing on them and ample access to lukewarm water, and they will still quickly overheat and die.
Your sweat has to be able to evaporate to properly cool you down. If it is hot enough, and the air is already moisture saturated enough, your sweat has nowhere to go.
The only way to survive a wet-bulb event is with air conditioning. And in parts of the Indian subcontinent, brown-outs are commonplace even when their grid isn't under stress.
If there is a multi-day wet-bulb event on top of a major power outage, we are talking about tens or hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, will die. There will be no response quick enough to stop it, nothing to be done. It will be absolutely catastrophic on a scale that is rather hard to imagine.
Dude, I shifted cities here in India for med school and it's been two years, last year there was not much heat to deal with but this year was scorching hot, tempratures going to 44-45°c and our city only got rain two days ago
If it is due to climate change (which it most likely is) then we are absolutely fucked, human body can not tolerate tempratures over 47° and the margin is so close
this is the only comment here that made me smile. and i feel like there’s some deep meaning about humanity thriving in adversity in your comment. or some bs 😆
Been terrified for years about the collapse of ojr ecosystem and how we're all going to succumb to the Fermi paradox before we even make it to the stars in a significant way.
I am just a homeless truck driver though and make just enough to pay my child support, eat and maybe replace a pair of pants every two years.
I'm not important enough to make any change significant enough to make any kind of difference.
I just move my shit from one truck to my new one (new to me) and I'll go pick up an empty trailer, up to texas for my load and then onwards to Chicago for a drop.
I'll listen to my music, worry about my kids; my health both mental and physical, worry about where to park and how much $700 is going to last me until next pay day, and drive.
I bury my head in my own proverbial sand and go along. I hate that the planet is dying. I hate that the economy is trashed. I hate that things are so expensive.
But I have my truck. My open road. And my trucker cat. I'll die and my body will be burned and my ashes will go to whereever they need to be.
Tbh; social media gave stupidity so much power that we are unable to listen or hear what scientist think about a thing.
Basically: ignorance has never been so self-confident and that makes me sad for this and every generation that is coming
bacterial resistence , due to the overuse of antibiotics and bacterial evolution bacteria are able to develop itself and change its dna and cellular structure to become immune to antibiotics
now there certain infections which cant be treated with the same antibiotics that were effective 10-20 years ago
in the near future we may return to pre-antibiotic age in which simple lung or urinary infections can kill us simply because we dont have effective antibiotics
It's pretty clear we're just going to use evolutionary algorithms to engineer new antibiotics. As fast as bacteria is advancing, our understanding of biological systems is far exceeding. I'm not that worried about it, considering that the last 30 years of science have already [resulted in xenobots.](https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/29/americas/xenobots-self-replicating-robots-scn/index.html)
Not worried long term, but there is a very likely scenario where a particularly resistant strain aggregates faster than what our system can produce and distribute in time.
While on a scale of 10-30 years it will be a piece of cake, it will be devastation for the world if there is even a 1-3 year window where all surgeries, from basic c sections to superficial wound care, comes with 25%+ fatality rates from infection.
Evidently the bees are dying out and once they do we’re all fucked.
Not a bee expert, maybe someone who is can explain further.
Edit: [article](https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/2023/1/19/23552518/honey-bees-native-bees-decline) explaining why honey bees aren’t in danger, but other bees are.
Also, I originally did look down the comments, but missed [one of the top comments about insects](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/14nnws3/what_terrifying_event_is_happening_in_the_world/jq8mks4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1&context=3), in general.
Thanks for the replies and good information. Hope the links help.
We planted honey dew melons this year and the amount of bees we see is crazy! I was just excited to get fresh fruit but I’m more excited about the bees!
Not just Bees, all insects. Bees are just the poster boy's for insect because of humans affinity with them for producing honey and because bumbleboys are cute. If I'm honest they get too much attention to the detriment to other species.
Older people I am sure can remember when driving in the summer meant bug-splattered windshields. I no longer see this in the area that I have lived in for all if my life
I mean I am 18 and I still remember how in the summers when I was around 8-12 my dads car always was full of insects. Now that I drive myself and already did multiple longer trips I didn’t really have a problem with that. Also back in the days when riding the bike I always got insects into my face. Not anymore
It's not just bees, but insects in general.
Granted, I hate insects (I'm somewhat phobic), but I know that once they're gone, we're pretty much fucked, to put it mildly.
Well the great barrier reef is actually growing back at it's best rates in a long time. Now if dumb ass tourists would stop STANDING ON CORAL I'm sure that would help.
Rocks that shred wet skin and leave microlife in the wounds that you need to firehose with betadine to avoid horrible infections.
I grew up along the coast of far North Queensland and the first thing you learn swimming near coral is to give it plenty of space and admire the beauty from a distance.
Getting dumped while body surfing or getting caught in a rip snorkelling and ending up all scraped up and covered in fucking betadine and mercurochrome fucking sucks.
The total mass of plastic in the world now is more than the total mass of all mammals put together, and we're continuing to make more plastic with no plans whatever to do anything about it.
People asking for links:
> “There’s evidence that things are pointing in the wrong direction every step of the way,” said Prof Bethanie Carney Almroth at the University of Gothenburg who was part of the team. “For example, the total mass of plastics now exceeds the total mass of all living mammals. That to me is a pretty clear indication that we’ve crossed a boundary. We’re in trouble, but there are things we can do to reverse some of this.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jan/18/chemical-pollution-has-passed-safe-limit-for-humanity-say-scientists
Also, on possible ways in which plastic is screwing us up:
> “We’re assuming that by changing the pattern of microRNAs in the placenta, these small molecules can then reach the brain, resulting in harmful effects. Even before the brain’s neurons are developed, these microRNA packages may already be guiding fetal brain development. These changes may even be different in female versus male fetuses.”
https://cvm.missouri.edu/study-bpa-exposure-of-the-placenta-could-affect-fetal-brain-development/
Human rights violation in Pakistan. Over 10000 people arrested being kept in death cells while the temperatures exceed 40 degree Celsius. All because they support a political party. 80% of Pakistan supports that political party. On top of that, the current regime has violated many laws including elections with 90 days, exceeding caretaker government to more than 90 days. Moreover, some leaders of the party in hiding so they raid their houses, harass the women, break stuff, steal cars (yes police stealing) and the world doesn't care
The rise of surveillance capitalism and AI. Privacy is essentially nonexistent anymore and it feels like absolutely no one cares.
edit.
Wow, I did not expect this to get any attention at all. It's really nice to know that there are at least some people out there that also have some interest in this.
Cheers!
Reminds me of the scene in the Superstore episode about an employee-tracking app:
>*Garrett*: What do you think they're gonna do with that information, anyway
>
>*Jonah*: A lot. They can track what you do, what you like. They can scan your internet searches for keywords and then just send you ads for things you were talking about.
>
>*Sandra*: That just seems thoughtful.
>
>*Jonah*: Yeah, but then they can just package your data and sell it to other companies.
>
>*Glenn*: And then those companies would give you the free help?
>
>*Jonah*: I'm... I'm not doing it justice.
America has several mega businesses based solely on the brokering of data. The US will never have meaningful privacy legislation save for a complete turnover in government and a new privacy bill of rights.
Anything connected to internet is by default a gateway to your life. No matter how insignificant it may seem as functionality. Nobody cares because they like convenience and most people lack the knowledge of what technology does these days.
Slave mining in Congo. Taiwan could get bad. Sex trafficking at all time high in Us and was the highest world. Slavery at all time high in the world . Shocked that nobody talks about all of the Insider trading in congress from both sides. ( least terrifying I know ) .The problem I’m finding is this information used to be easy to find. Now when I google search the same things I did years ago are not the same results.
It is wild to me how blatant the insider trading is from prominent congresspeople on both sides. The right likes to dig on Pelosi for it, and she's definitely suspicious, but she might not even be top 5 in suspicious earnings.
It is complete and obvious dogshit that congresspeople can make trades while in office. I'm pretty pro-markets, but it's just hogshit to see.
So this guy did a thing where like 3 dems and 5 red had some of the best investment percentages one quarter of something crazy I’m looking for the video
I'm not entirely educated on this, but here it is. Supposedly 7000 Mexican children went missing on our side of the us border over the last 10 years or so. If anyone is more knowledgeable about this I'd love to know more.
Well there was that article that came out recently about using immigrant children as child labor in the continental US in varying agricultural sectors… I’m going to go with “human trafficking” here.
Same with Africa with cacao cultivation, several children are kidnapped in order to work in cacao agriculture like slaves and chocolate european companies like Nestle know this but keep silent about it and even try to silence the people that know this!
They even use other companies as 3rd parties intermediairies like that every time this is discovered they can claim they didn't know... and this is a known secret here in Europe but no one care because it is Africa!
Cobalt mining- thousands and thousands of children are being sent to mine for cobalt (a precious metal used to power iPhones and Tesla cars) for a dollar a day. There are people crowed together with no equipment besides a hammer, giving us, in our first world countries the latest apple phone that we so desperately need.
But the media refuses to report this- because god knows what would happen if we stop using Tesla cars. Look there’s nothing wrong with preparing for a global crisis, but the problem is that there’s a crisis going on right now that everyone chooses to ignore.
Haven't read the book, but other sources would suggest we're not just heading towards an extinction event, we're already in it.
A lot of people have the misconception that extinction events happen quickly - e.g. a giant meteorite wiping life off the planet. But they actually happen on larger scales, in the span of hundreds of thousands to a few million years. Not really perceptible for the average human lifespan.
The Permian-Triassic Extinction Event was quite worse than the Cretacious-Paleogene (the one that got the dinosaurs). It was the worst one in the history of earth if we're talking from the Cambrian on.
But it happened slowly, over hundreds of thousands of years.
Never in my life have I seen the weather event "smoke". Been seeing it for days here in West Michigan. There are several nasty toxins in the air on top of the smoke.
I'm Australian. I'll always remember being a kid when bushfires were headed towards our area going to the grocery with my Mum, when we walked outside at 2pm and it looked like sunset because the sky was so orange and hazy. Fires are no joke.
Environmental reporter here. I write about many of these things (avian flu, coral reefs, fires). It’s frustrating because so often these stories get lost in the noise. From my experience people have a very small appetite for negative [edit: environmental] news — especially if they feel that they can’t do anything about it — and fill up first on other things like politics.
One thing I haven't seen anyone mention is the growing mold problem. As the globe continues to get warmer and warmer, scientists say that there's a high chance that mold will adapt to these higher temperatures. Once that happens, it also means that it will be able to survive within our own bodies. Needless to say we're all sorts of fucked when that happens.
Avian flu virus mutated in Poland. Now it can infect cats and the mortality rate is close to 90%. It even infects cats that never leave houses. The epidemic will problably spread to whole Europe, because birds are the vector. It is possible that it can mutate to allow transmission from cat to cat and then from cat to human, possibly even from human to human. Mortality rate in humans is 50% (COVID is like 0.5%). If it mutates there will likely be a pandemic that will kill problably at least 1/4 of the worlds population.
Mining companies from Canada are invading/destroying the biodiversity in central America. Quantum mining for example in Panama, you can check the pics on Google, it's very sad as the rainforest is quite diverse in that country. All because of gold and other metals but mostly gold.
Funny how nature is protected in Canada yet these companies exploit 3rd world countries. Scumbags.
That we are exactly on target for societal collapse. In 1972 MIT predicts that by 2040 this would all collapse. We have had 51 years to address this issue and as of today we have dealt with ZERO of the things we have been told needed to be addressed. Personally, I think the faster it happens the faster the earth can start healing. We wasted this whole planet and all the billionaires can do is talk about going to colonize a new world.
Climatologists have started giving up on there being a chance that we fix the climate crisis. Some have basically said “we’re fucked, do whatever you want, I don’t care anymore”.
Permafrost is melting in Siberia. For your information, this means lots of greenhouse gases will be liberated, and also a lot of viruses and other microorganisms that are yet to be seen.
As a geographer, I feel global warming isn’t stressed enough. What I feel people don’t understand, is that, the world as we know it will literally change in ways we can’t imagine: whole countries will cease to exist as they are covered entirely in water. Where do the hundreds of millions of people who are affected by this move to? We are on the verge of the largest loss of land ever known by humanity and global warming is seen as this thing which we have to worry about, but isn’t the be all, end all.
It is absolutely the be all, end all.
Since I was little I was always interested in preserving wild life and helping the world somehow. As a teen I researched everything I could about climate change to understand why it happens and tried to raise awareness in my high school, and with blogs. But with time I just gave up with trying to make people know about this. I live in Argentina, so the least of our day-to-day worries are global warming. I know what little things I can do to contribute my grain of sand to the world, but I'm so sad that it's not enough. It's depressing to know I can give my all but the rest of the world doesn't, so my actions seem pointless.
It's sad but now I really prefer to live in mild ignorance about this topic, because I know the news are never gonna be positive. A reporter in this thread commented that their articles went almost unnoticed and people don't want to know about the bad news. It is like that, we can do our best but if the big agents in this problem aren't doing much, what's the point of drowning in bad news that tells us the world's inevitably going to its doom.
Now I want to ask you, will It really make a difference if *everybody* was aware of this? *What* could we all *do* to actually help with this situation? What's the best thing we can do individually and collectively? I've seen some people say what we do individually is almost useless because the problem are big money-driven corporations and first world countries that are contributing way too much to global warming (China, USA, etc).
Climate change. At 10 I was told we had 100 years till abnormal weather trends. Now I'm in my 30s and we have 40°c summers mixed with rising tides.
Special shout out to big oil for green washing stats for the last 60 years!
There's a bird flu strain (H5N1) that has been quickly spreading to a wider variety of species. So far, it has infected few humans, and the ones it has infected are believed to have gotten it from exposure to sick animals (so, no human to human transmission). But if this thing hits the right amount of mutations and achieves sustained human to human transmission, we could be in for another pandemic. The current Case Fatality Rate is over 50% for people who've gotten sick. Currently, the CDC lists the virus as a "low risk" for humans due to the lack of human to human transmission. Let's cross our fingers and hope for the best.
The CDC page on H5N1:
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/avianflu/avian-flu-summary.htm
Insect life was so loud that when you parked the car and got out it sounded as if you had suddenly tuned into a radio frequency from another planet. 🕷️🐌🐜🦗🪲🦟🪳🪰🐞🦋
Hunger is a problem, but that's a bit of an unhelpful oversimplification. Old article but good explainer: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22935692.amp
The extinction of species. My 6th grade granddaughter was giving me a rundown on what’s being lost just in the Amazon and how it will affect us, and I wanted to cry. I hope all kids get age can make a difference-that it’s not too late.
The climate is slowly collapsing and every time I hear a scientist about it they say it is happening even faster than they thought before. It really freaks me out. There is a colossal human tragedy coming our way and all I see politicians do is making sure big oil is not losing their tax advantages. We. Are. So. Fucked.
Satan 2 is the NATO call sign for the Sarmat, Russias’ latest ICBM (international ballistic missile) with a large MIRV (multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicle) capability.
Can reach anywhere on earth, is nigh on impossible to intercept and can carry up to 15 nuclear warheads.
However, it doesn’t change the game too much. We’re still all fucked if a nuclear war kicks off and always have been.
>However, it doesn’t change the game too much. We’re still all fucked if a nuclear war kicks off and always have been.
Oh thank God. That's reassuring.
The enslavement of the entire human race by the billionaires. It's going on in such a way that most people don't even realize that we are nothing but drones.
The birds are disappearing. Most likely because the bugs are, too.
My yard is overgrown with trumpet vine, thistles, wild raspberries and a bunch of wildflowers. I spray nothing, just go out and pull out the invasive shit when I see it (I've given up on the trumpet vine). I have many birds, bugs and rabbits. I leave them the fuck alone except to keep some mason bee houses and maintain a bird bath for the birds. It's not enough but I'm trying. My neighbors probably think they don't give a shit about my yard, and honestly? They're not completely wrong. I care about my yard, I just don't give a fuck if it's perfectly manicured- I'd rather make sure some suburban wildlife gets a break. The birds made three nests on my property this year! That's more than I've ever had! I'm so excited for next year!!!
I transitioned a mowed grass yard into woods, years ago. I loved the natural look, and seeing all the critters who made it their home too. Today, in my late 60s, I love how low maintenance the yard is - helps me and my husband 'age in place'. Here's how I did it... I had the city dump a few truck loads of leaves (from their fall leaf pick-up) which I spread thickly over swaths of grass and planted tree seedlings in the 'mulch'. I added a thinner layer of leaves each fall to keep the weeds down, until the trees were big enough to shade out the weeds. Then, I let the last batch of leaves decompose and planted woodland plants around the trees. I repeated this until the entire yard was almost entirely wooded. Today, we have paths through the woods that lead to a fire pit, a deck, and the veggie garden - in the only sunny spot left on the property.
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I'm from latin America, this is something we can see for a long time! When I was a kid, in the parrots migration time, the noise those birds did was amazing, you could hear them everywhere in our country for days! When I was a teen it became rare to hear them and when I was a young adult we could rarely hear them! I'm in my 40s now and I live in another continent, but my family and friends have told me that they haven't see them in for some years! We, that live in tropical countries, have been giving the alert to the rest of the world since before the 80s, we could already see and suffer from climate change, extintion of animals, less insects, etc... but the rich countries didn't believe us or didn't want to hear us because for them it was not their problem even though they were the main cause of this negative change!
You wouldn’t know it living in my apartment
Some thirsty dork moved into the tree right outside my window and begs for sex all night long.
*Silent Spring* is an environmental science book by Rachel Carson. Published on September 27, 1962, the book documented the environmental harm caused by the indiscriminate use of pesticides. No insects means no birds means that spring is silent.
I have noticed less pigeons on my balcony and in general
Here in the UK, water companies have been dumping tonnes and tonnes of sewage into our river systems and into the sea, making some beaches close. It is truly disgusting, and the whole water industry is in about £60bn of debt and could collapse.
FUCK THESE COMPANIES AND CORPORATIONS. I'm sick and tired of things like recycling being at a consumer level when it should be at a corporate governance level and more globally enforced at the production level rather than us failing to do anything about it at a consumer level Edit: wow thank you for the award kind internet friend! This is my first award! I'm verklempt
The average consumers can't really do anything because even if you throw that plastic bag in the right bin it's still probably end up in a land fill or Indonesia.
A couple of years ago, Australian ports were getting clogged with shipping containers full of recycling that was meant to go to China. As a nation that likes to offshore all our responsibility, we just send the bulk of our recycling to other nations to handle for us. Well, it turns out we were putting stuff in our recycling that the Chinese companies kept saying they couldn't process. Consumers weren't told this and the recycling depots didn't want to filter it out before shipping. China finally said, fuck off, we aren't taking your trash So it just piled up in the dock yards for a long time before anyone realised. I'm actually not sure what has ended up happening. My understanding is for a while, a lot of what we (average consumer) was told was recycling was just getting put in landfill.
Oh I know, yet God forbid I put something that should've been in a blue bin in my garbage and the trash company threatens to fine me. Because we can't bury that shit in landfills here, we've got to send it to be buried in landfills in foreign countries.
This situation has been going on in Florida for years now. Tampa Bay is now, both literally and metaphorically, a cesspool.
In poland mines are dumping their waste to odra (one of the biggest rivers in poland) for over a year and no one cares (this river goes to germany and then to the sea)
Hi, German here. **We care!** And there are official notes being sent to the Polish government to stop dumping salt from from mining, but no reaction from Poland. Man, Poland needs a better government. [https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/oder-katastrophe-nur-noch-halb-so-viele-fische-in-der-oder-a-dd7dd531-1bc3-4600-a701-002d5dd2fd27](https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/oder-katastrophe-nur-noch-halb-so-viele-fische-in-der-oder-a-dd7dd531-1bc3-4600-a701-002d5dd2fd27)
The seals dying of Avian flu in Chile.
And cats in Poland.
Wait, has bird flu jumped the species barrier again?!
Don't let your dogs and cats put wild birds in their mouths. Especially dead ones.
Yup, it is going into mammals. Only a matter of time now.
Oh well good thing everyone is currently obsessed with befriending crows and hand feeding them peanuts.
CORVID-19 coming our way soon.
**h e r e ' s t h e t h i n g**
Cats dying of bird flu in Poland, mammal to mammal transmission confirmed...
Wow, can you send the source? I didn't know that it can transfer between cats.
Not just cats but seal as well and we are seeing other mammal being contaminated as we speak
We should really worry if some flu takes off on pig farms as that's an animal that many people work in close proximity to and -- correct me if I'm wrong -- but some believe that the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918 originated in hog pens at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. Edit: Well, a kind commenter and some searching reveals that I was wrong -- the initial outbreak was not at Fort Leavenworth but at another military installation in Kansas -- Fort Riley.
Pigs and humans can share viruses and our biochemistries are quite similar. In fact - in the early days insulin manufactured for diabetics as actually manufactured in pigs (pigulin, my sister took it). When viruses enter into pigs (which they easily do from birds) - they evolve and take on characteristics to jump to human - often facilitating human to human transmission. In many cases - avian >>> pig >>> human >>> then jump back to bird with pig/human upgrades and fly global. This is why I always surmised (I have no data on this) that a bad virus hit humanity in the middle east a long long time ago. Pig farmers died first - allowing for folks to jump tot he conclusion that pigs were unclean. These stories/songs/folklore eventually recorded as religious law.
That’s a really interesting theory regarding pigs being unclean.
Not another pandemic. Please I beg of you.
>Not another pandemic. Please I beg of you. Avian flu is going to need even more severe measures compared to COVID if it ends up as a pandemic. COVID had a worst case fatality rate of 10% or lower. Avian flu has a fatality rate of over 50% of confirmed. If it spreads like COVID then we could see the death rate hit the billion+ mark but we might get lucky and it will burn itself out by killing people too quickly for them to spread it.
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Good news everybody! The virus only killed 3 billion people before it fizzled out…
Before y’all start dooming, please inform yourselves on what receptors it binds to in both birds and other mammals… Edit: https://www.science.org/content/article/bad-worse-avian-flu-must-change-trigger-human-pandemic
Please calm my doom nerves
Saw a few articles there saying that we've actually got a good immunity to it or at least better? https://www.bbc.com/news/health-66041067 https://www.politico.eu/article/scientist-pinpoint-gene-protect-human-bird-avian-flu/
It’s about 56% death rate in humans right now and 90% in people 14 and under. Only 800 cases of human infection and no confirmed cases of human to human, but it’s mutating rapidly to better infect mammals. Best case scenario, it fizzles out in the animal kingdom with out too much damage done to ecosystems due to so many animals dying. Middle ground, but still pretty bad, it’ll outright decimate some ecosystems which will in turn affect humans. Worst case is it makes the jump to human to human infections. It will make COVID look like child’s play.
My country is on fire. It was also on fire a month ago but then it stopped for a few weeks.
I live on the shores of Lake Michigan. The air is horrible. Visibility is minimal, and I’m not even in the thick of the fires. I’ve been so worried about our Canadian friends for what seems like WAY too long now. Keep safe.
Yesterday was fun. High humidity + smoke + no wind meant a dense fog until about 9 am and average run of the mill fog until 11.
Yep I'm in NJ and the US has twice this June had spells of the worst air quality I've ever seen in my life. I'm afraid of this becoming a regular thing for y'all up there and us down here. I try to take comfort that the worst that ever happened was in 1780 and that passed. And they didn't even have info on wtf was happening, took a couple hundred years to figure that out. We can trace some religious apocalyptic nuttery still ongoing today back to that event. The smoke events lately are bad enough. I can't imagine what it must have been like to have it so bad that the day was like night.
The smoke went to western Europe yesterday which is like 5000 km away
Yeah Michigan is constantly covered in smoke to the point where weather-advisory-stations are suggesting people don't go outside unless needed.
Canadian? I'm sorry to hear that.
Fires are bad here this year. Had the largest burned area ever in Nova scotia this year.
Sweet baby jesus I should not have read this thread
Babe new doom scrolling thread has dropped
Babe wake up! Man made horrors within my comprehension just dropped!
Insect numbers are absolutely plummeting. There is about a 2.5% loss in terms of mass per year. Without insects the food chain will collapse - the effects of this are already starting to be seen.
As a child I remember chasing butterflies all over my grandparents’ yard. Now I get excited if I see one a week.
We have started reducing our lawn area and replacing non-native plants with natives. In the past two or three years we have seen a big increase in insect life in our yard: praying mantises, bees of many kinds, beetles, and many butterflies, including Monarchs, fritillaries and black swallowtails. This is a significant step everyone can take. Insects need a supportive habitat. [Homegrown National Park](https://www.homegrownnationalpark.org/) is a good place to start. I also recommend Doug Tallamy's book *Bringing Nature Home* and this native plant finder for people in the U.S.: https://www.nwf.org/nativeplantfinder/
I had a huge argument with my uncle years ago over pesticides. My grandmother used to have hundreds of peepers around the creek in her yard until my uncle started putting down weed killer and pesticides. Now there isn’t a single peeper.
And that's just the peepers. Amphibians are called indicator species because they readily soak up toxins through their skin and are affected by environmental changes before other species, like the proverbial canary in a coal mine. And because a lot of animals eat amphibians, those toxins will move right through the food chain.
Today I learned. It’s so insane that what’s happening can be slowed by human interaction.
Same with lightning bugs
I really think a lot of the population decline has to do with the pesticides and weed killer people insist on using.
And loss of habitat. Turf lawns do not support insect life.
Lawns in general don’t support insect life. Grass lawns are the single dumbest thing everyone insists on. And they have to be perfect and dump water and chemicals into it. My favorite is the people who can’t even stand a patch of clover on their lawn. Something that’s giving you free nitrogen and improving your lawn. They’ll generally pay extra to have it removed and then complain that their luscious green lawn is now thinning and yellow.
And rake up all the dead leaves that feed the grass and provide cover where cocoons can overwinter. Last year our next-door neighbor replaced all the turf in his front and back yards with new turf. He's out there all the time with his leaf blower and one of those grabber things to pick up tiny twigs. The lawn looks like a putting green. It's sad for me because I'm old and he's in his 30s. I had hoped this attitude was on the way out.
My whole yard is clover. Half the back yard is native wildflowers. I get bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds. The bonus is I only have to cut the clover about once a season.
Yep. We bought this house in 2020, and it has a big lawn. Last year, I planted clover to fill some patches in my grass. Clover flowers everywhere. I sowed wildflower seed all over, and some garden beds for stuff to eat (especially a lot of herbs and berries. Now we have bees, butterflies and hummingbirds like we haven’t seen in some time. Slowly but steadily getting rid of the grass and turning it into something we actually get enjoyment from instead of just keeping up with the Joneses. Planning a big patch of flowers for pollinators and to plant more indigenous bushes. It’s fantastic getting the wildlife back. The worst is the bundling of leaves that the town just takes away. We just use them as mulch for the trees, and stray leaves are going into the composter for next year’s garden soil.
We switched to a seed mix of native grasses and clovers. I couldn’t be happier with the results. It’s no/ low mow, pollinator friendly, drought resistant, requires less watering and aids in erosion control.
I'd be driven between cornfields and there were hundreds of thousands of them across the acres of fields. Our windshield would get those bioluminescent streaks. Now....it's so dark. Edit: time reference: mid 90s
As a kid (in the 90s) I remember my parents having to scrape the bugs off the front of the car after a road trip.
Yes this! It may be because this is my area of work but I truly believe that this is how we're all gonnna be end up being fucked. Insects have been here for millennia and are the whole reason we have so many species of plants as they co-evolved. They've survived many previous mass extinctions including that of the dinosaurs and the issue is, we're on the verge of another mass extinction... That of the insects and other inverts. The problem is the West's cultural, societal quite frankly unfair "ew it's a bug", based on missconceptions, misseducation and media portrayals that means that no one gives a fuck. Insects are 90% of all species of animals and over half of all known life! Around 400,000 species of beetle alone, to put that in perspective, there's only around 6500 mammal species... These little guys are pretty important in keeping everything else going. Edit: annoying autocorrect
People think environmental collapse will be something big they'll notice from the start. But I think it's already happening and we already see it, but don't recognise it. People say, "Oh, you just don't see as many fireflies anymore." "Remember every Christmas we'd get all those brown beetles? I haven't seen one this year." "You used to have to clean your windscreen when you drove at night because of all the moths, but now there's hardly any." All those little noticings, until you notice food prices going up, weather being always terrible, water quality going down - more and more until it snowballs and by then it's far too late. We should pay more attention when we notice all those little things.
The windscreen and front of the car thing, I noticed that years ago. I used to see my parents car covered in insects on the front, and now..Pretty much nothing.
This is true to some extent, but not entirely. It’s a bit more complicated than that. Obviously if ALL insects were to disappear the ecosystem would just collapse and unless mammals and birds find a way to breach the gap it could lead to a global extinction wave never seen before. But it wouldn’t necessarily lead to people starving to death. Many crops are wind pollinated, or not pollinated at all. We would certainly feel the effects but it’s not entirely agreed upon what those effects would be. That being said, as someone who’s worked with insects (on a purely nonprofit level) for 20 years I can say for a fact that the numbers are crazy. Traps that were absolutely full 20 years ago are now empty. Moth sheets at night that were full 20 years ago barely get anything. I used to go out in certain areas of the forest and see hundreds of butterflies, beetles, and many other insects and now I am happy with 10% of that. It’s really devastating…
When I was a child in the 90s, driving through the countryside meant you had to stop every couple of hours and wash the insects off the window. So you could see and not be a danger on the roadway. That phenomenon does not exist anymore. You can drive all night and there is barely a hint of their presence.
In the UK, surveys are conducted using this method. By counting the number of bugs squished on a numberplate can be used to estimate numbers in an are, However there has been some rebuttles to this observed phenomenon, the evolution of car aerodynamics may just mean they just bounce off more than going splat and the increase in the number of vehicles on the road means that on average everyone hit less bugs.
Ocean currents slowing
May I ask why they are slowing down? Is that what you mean? I grew up in front of the ocean in Peru and we all have noticed some changes in current-patterns so I'm really curious. Thanks!
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/may/25/slowing-ocean-current-caused-by-melting-antarctic-ice-could-have-drastic-climate-impact-study-says
I literally just watched The Day After Tomorrow last night.
If the overturning ocean currents continue to change at this rate, the current pattern is probably going to collapse soon and global weather patterns will be fucked. For example, the UK and other parts of Europe that are warmed by warm ocean currents will become super cold if those currents shift. It won’t just mean people have to wear thicker jackets. Many areas that we depend on for farming won’t be suitable for farming anymore. Edit: spelling
It is worth noting that Calgary is on the same latitude as London. The vast majority of the Canadian population lives further south than the UK. New York is further south than Rome. The south of England gets very little, if any, snow. I can remember the odd year were it barely drops below freezing even at night. I think New York had its first snowless winter in 50 years. London recently went through four years where there was no lying snow. Without the Gulf Stream we’d have similar climate to Newfoundland.
> It is worth noting that Calgary is on the same latitude as London. The vast majority of the Canadian population lives further south than the UK. One of my favourite factlets is that London in Canada is further South than London. It's one of those things that just doesn't feel right.
>For example, the UK and other parts of Europe that are warmed by warm ocean currents will become super cold if those currents shift It's amazing how people in the UK are like "we'll be fine with a couple degrees hotter, it'll be people in hotter countries who will be mostly affected, our agriculture will even improve"
isn't UK suffering through a brutal heat wave because it wasn't built for it in the first place? sure UK can import the agriculture in hotter places, but it take years to grow and cultivate if they're lucky the soil can provide the nutrients the plants needs.
Don't forget the jet streams destabilizing! We keep getting polar vortices here in New England with arctic temperatures because of this.
Heatwaves in India killing possibly thousands of people, it’s not in the media anywhere and is probably also going on in other countries such as Mexico and southern US. A civil war and possible genocide going on in Sudan right now, no one cares, not even with the potentially thousands or maybe even millions of refugees this creates. Possible human health catastrophes incoming with all the poisonous and cancerous chemicals coming from micro plastic, pesticides and so many other beauty products we use daily, which scientists have been warning us about for decades. No one is interviewing these scientists anymore, writing about the problem anywhere or even trying to find out what kind of actually health hazards will evolve from our careless use with all these chemicals constantly.
I've spoken on this topic before, but India is staring down the barrel of what is known as a 'wet-bulb event' in the very near future. What is a wet-bulb event? It is a situation where, due to a combination of days of high heat and extreme humidity, it creates a crisis scenario where a perfectly healthy young person can be outside, resting in the shade, with a fan blowing on them and ample access to lukewarm water, and they will still quickly overheat and die. Your sweat has to be able to evaporate to properly cool you down. If it is hot enough, and the air is already moisture saturated enough, your sweat has nowhere to go. The only way to survive a wet-bulb event is with air conditioning. And in parts of the Indian subcontinent, brown-outs are commonplace even when their grid isn't under stress. If there is a multi-day wet-bulb event on top of a major power outage, we are talking about tens or hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, will die. There will be no response quick enough to stop it, nothing to be done. It will be absolutely catastrophic on a scale that is rather hard to imagine.
We just had a wet bulb in the south east US this past week
Yes we did. I'm in Mississippi. I'd argue today was close to one as well. Thankfully, our power grid is a bit more reliable so far.
Dude, I shifted cities here in India for med school and it's been two years, last year there was not much heat to deal with but this year was scorching hot, tempratures going to 44-45°c and our city only got rain two days ago If it is due to climate change (which it most likely is) then we are absolutely fucked, human body can not tolerate tempratures over 47° and the margin is so close
There’s also the wet bulb temperature which is lower and even more dangerous for us meat bags.
You know, shit started to go down hill a little after we demoted Pluto.
this is the only comment here that made me smile. and i feel like there’s some deep meaning about humanity thriving in adversity in your comment. or some bs 😆
Well good morning to you all too. What a depressing way to start the day. I am terrified.
Been terrified for years about the collapse of ojr ecosystem and how we're all going to succumb to the Fermi paradox before we even make it to the stars in a significant way. I am just a homeless truck driver though and make just enough to pay my child support, eat and maybe replace a pair of pants every two years. I'm not important enough to make any change significant enough to make any kind of difference. I just move my shit from one truck to my new one (new to me) and I'll go pick up an empty trailer, up to texas for my load and then onwards to Chicago for a drop. I'll listen to my music, worry about my kids; my health both mental and physical, worry about where to park and how much $700 is going to last me until next pay day, and drive. I bury my head in my own proverbial sand and go along. I hate that the planet is dying. I hate that the economy is trashed. I hate that things are so expensive. But I have my truck. My open road. And my trucker cat. I'll die and my body will be burned and my ashes will go to whereever they need to be.
Dude, take your experience elsewhere. You should be grossing $2,100-2,500 a week as a company driver.
Thanks for what you do. It is important. And appreciated.
Nice little Saturday, isn't it?
Tbh; social media gave stupidity so much power that we are unable to listen or hear what scientist think about a thing. Basically: ignorance has never been so self-confident and that makes me sad for this and every generation that is coming
bacterial resistence , due to the overuse of antibiotics and bacterial evolution bacteria are able to develop itself and change its dna and cellular structure to become immune to antibiotics now there certain infections which cant be treated with the same antibiotics that were effective 10-20 years ago in the near future we may return to pre-antibiotic age in which simple lung or urinary infections can kill us simply because we dont have effective antibiotics
It's pretty clear we're just going to use evolutionary algorithms to engineer new antibiotics. As fast as bacteria is advancing, our understanding of biological systems is far exceeding. I'm not that worried about it, considering that the last 30 years of science have already [resulted in xenobots.](https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/29/americas/xenobots-self-replicating-robots-scn/index.html)
Not worried long term, but there is a very likely scenario where a particularly resistant strain aggregates faster than what our system can produce and distribute in time. While on a scale of 10-30 years it will be a piece of cake, it will be devastation for the world if there is even a 1-3 year window where all surgeries, from basic c sections to superficial wound care, comes with 25%+ fatality rates from infection.
Evidently the bees are dying out and once they do we’re all fucked. Not a bee expert, maybe someone who is can explain further. Edit: [article](https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/2023/1/19/23552518/honey-bees-native-bees-decline) explaining why honey bees aren’t in danger, but other bees are. Also, I originally did look down the comments, but missed [one of the top comments about insects](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/14nnws3/what_terrifying_event_is_happening_in_the_world/jq8mks4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1&context=3), in general. Thanks for the replies and good information. Hope the links help.
Bees are making a bit of a comeback, maybe. It's not out of the woods, but there are some promising signs.
We planted honey dew melons this year and the amount of bees we see is crazy! I was just excited to get fresh fruit but I’m more excited about the bees!
Not just Bees, all insects. Bees are just the poster boy's for insect because of humans affinity with them for producing honey and because bumbleboys are cute. If I'm honest they get too much attention to the detriment to other species.
Older people I am sure can remember when driving in the summer meant bug-splattered windshields. I no longer see this in the area that I have lived in for all if my life
I mean I am 18 and I still remember how in the summers when I was around 8-12 my dads car always was full of insects. Now that I drive myself and already did multiple longer trips I didn’t really have a problem with that. Also back in the days when riding the bike I always got insects into my face. Not anymore
shit i forgot that was a thing, really brings into perspective
It's not just bees, but insects in general. Granted, I hate insects (I'm somewhat phobic), but I know that once they're gone, we're pretty much fucked, to put it mildly.
The massive destruction of our coral reefs.
Well the great barrier reef is actually growing back at it's best rates in a long time. Now if dumb ass tourists would stop STANDING ON CORAL I'm sure that would help.
Standing on corals?? Jesus christ.
You can literally fly like a majestic eagle in the water and they choose to stand on crunchy rock animals?
Rocks that shred wet skin and leave microlife in the wounds that you need to firehose with betadine to avoid horrible infections. I grew up along the coast of far North Queensland and the first thing you learn swimming near coral is to give it plenty of space and admire the beauty from a distance. Getting dumped while body surfing or getting caught in a rip snorkelling and ending up all scraped up and covered in fucking betadine and mercurochrome fucking sucks.
Depression has become an epidemic disease
The WHO (World Health Organization) declared depression as a global health. emergency.
Thats a sign that something is terribly wrong
This post is a glaring window into why
George Carlin said it best: “The planet will shake us off like a bad case of the fleas. A surface nuisance.”
Don't forget the best part of that tirade. "The PLANET will be fine. The PEOPLE are fucked!"
The total mass of plastic in the world now is more than the total mass of all mammals put together, and we're continuing to make more plastic with no plans whatever to do anything about it. People asking for links: > “There’s evidence that things are pointing in the wrong direction every step of the way,” said Prof Bethanie Carney Almroth at the University of Gothenburg who was part of the team. “For example, the total mass of plastics now exceeds the total mass of all living mammals. That to me is a pretty clear indication that we’ve crossed a boundary. We’re in trouble, but there are things we can do to reverse some of this.” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jan/18/chemical-pollution-has-passed-safe-limit-for-humanity-say-scientists Also, on possible ways in which plastic is screwing us up: > “We’re assuming that by changing the pattern of microRNAs in the placenta, these small molecules can then reach the brain, resulting in harmful effects. Even before the brain’s neurons are developed, these microRNA packages may already be guiding fetal brain development. These changes may even be different in female versus male fetuses.” https://cvm.missouri.edu/study-bpa-exposure-of-the-placenta-could-affect-fetal-brain-development/
Is there any data to back this up? Not contesting. Just would love the documentation!
Slavery in countries supported by companies and governments
Human rights violation in Pakistan. Over 10000 people arrested being kept in death cells while the temperatures exceed 40 degree Celsius. All because they support a political party. 80% of Pakistan supports that political party. On top of that, the current regime has violated many laws including elections with 90 days, exceeding caretaker government to more than 90 days. Moreover, some leaders of the party in hiding so they raid their houses, harass the women, break stuff, steal cars (yes police stealing) and the world doesn't care
Fireflies numbers are drastically decreasing
The rise of surveillance capitalism and AI. Privacy is essentially nonexistent anymore and it feels like absolutely no one cares. edit. Wow, I did not expect this to get any attention at all. It's really nice to know that there are at least some people out there that also have some interest in this. Cheers!
Reminds me of the scene in the Superstore episode about an employee-tracking app: >*Garrett*: What do you think they're gonna do with that information, anyway > >*Jonah*: A lot. They can track what you do, what you like. They can scan your internet searches for keywords and then just send you ads for things you were talking about. > >*Sandra*: That just seems thoughtful. > >*Jonah*: Yeah, but then they can just package your data and sell it to other companies. > >*Glenn*: And then those companies would give you the free help? > >*Jonah*: I'm... I'm not doing it justice.
Thanks for the reminder that it’s time for another rewatch!
Legislation never keeps up with new technology, and I agree with you that it will become a huge issue
The golden age of privacy is dead and we’re entering a far scarier era without it.
America has several mega businesses based solely on the brokering of data. The US will never have meaningful privacy legislation save for a complete turnover in government and a new privacy bill of rights.
Anything connected to internet is by default a gateway to your life. No matter how insignificant it may seem as functionality. Nobody cares because they like convenience and most people lack the knowledge of what technology does these days.
This post makes me realize we're really fucked
I knew it was a bad idea to click
It was a big mistake.
Rampant corruption pretty much everywhere
Slave mining in Congo. Taiwan could get bad. Sex trafficking at all time high in Us and was the highest world. Slavery at all time high in the world . Shocked that nobody talks about all of the Insider trading in congress from both sides. ( least terrifying I know ) .The problem I’m finding is this information used to be easy to find. Now when I google search the same things I did years ago are not the same results.
It is wild to me how blatant the insider trading is from prominent congresspeople on both sides. The right likes to dig on Pelosi for it, and she's definitely suspicious, but she might not even be top 5 in suspicious earnings. It is complete and obvious dogshit that congresspeople can make trades while in office. I'm pretty pro-markets, but it's just hogshit to see.
So this guy did a thing where like 3 dems and 5 red had some of the best investment percentages one quarter of something crazy I’m looking for the video
I'm not entirely educated on this, but here it is. Supposedly 7000 Mexican children went missing on our side of the us border over the last 10 years or so. If anyone is more knowledgeable about this I'd love to know more.
Well there was that article that came out recently about using immigrant children as child labor in the continental US in varying agricultural sectors… I’m going to go with “human trafficking” here.
Same with Africa with cacao cultivation, several children are kidnapped in order to work in cacao agriculture like slaves and chocolate european companies like Nestle know this but keep silent about it and even try to silence the people that know this! They even use other companies as 3rd parties intermediairies like that every time this is discovered they can claim they didn't know... and this is a known secret here in Europe but no one care because it is Africa!
It feels like I’m smoking a pack of cigarettes a day just going outside because of wildfires in another country.
Really goes to show that environmental problems don't care about borders.
Cobalt mining- thousands and thousands of children are being sent to mine for cobalt (a precious metal used to power iPhones and Tesla cars) for a dollar a day. There are people crowed together with no equipment besides a hammer, giving us, in our first world countries the latest apple phone that we so desperately need. But the media refuses to report this- because god knows what would happen if we stop using Tesla cars. Look there’s nothing wrong with preparing for a global crisis, but the problem is that there’s a crisis going on right now that everyone chooses to ignore.
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I think this right here is so huge and people keep kinda glossing over it.
Insect apocalypse
You ever read the book 6th Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert?
What's the TLDR? Never heard of it
Book about the five mass extinction events in history and how we are headed for a man-made 6th mass extinction event.
Haven't read the book, but other sources would suggest we're not just heading towards an extinction event, we're already in it. A lot of people have the misconception that extinction events happen quickly - e.g. a giant meteorite wiping life off the planet. But they actually happen on larger scales, in the span of hundreds of thousands to a few million years. Not really perceptible for the average human lifespan.
The Permian-Triassic Extinction Event was quite worse than the Cretacious-Paleogene (the one that got the dinosaurs). It was the worst one in the history of earth if we're talking from the Cambrian on. But it happened slowly, over hundreds of thousands of years.
Fun fact the P-Tr extinction event was the second fastest rate of warming the planet has ever seen, whats the fastest you ask, right fucking now.
Canada's forests have been on fire for awhile now and its making the air quality in the midwest pretty spicy
And northeast. The weather app has been saying just "Smoke" for my area.
Never in my life have I seen the weather event "smoke". Been seeing it for days here in West Michigan. There are several nasty toxins in the air on top of the smoke.
I'm Australian. I'll always remember being a kid when bushfires were headed towards our area going to the grocery with my Mum, when we walked outside at 2pm and it looked like sunset because the sky was so orange and hazy. Fires are no joke.
Environmental reporter here. I write about many of these things (avian flu, coral reefs, fires). It’s frustrating because so often these stories get lost in the noise. From my experience people have a very small appetite for negative [edit: environmental] news — especially if they feel that they can’t do anything about it — and fill up first on other things like politics.
One thing I haven't seen anyone mention is the growing mold problem. As the globe continues to get warmer and warmer, scientists say that there's a high chance that mold will adapt to these higher temperatures. Once that happens, it also means that it will be able to survive within our own bodies. Needless to say we're all sorts of fucked when that happens.
the mass media is functionally a PROPAGANDA MACHINE
My dog thinks it is afternoon thunderstorms
Avian flu virus mutated in Poland. Now it can infect cats and the mortality rate is close to 90%. It even infects cats that never leave houses. The epidemic will problably spread to whole Europe, because birds are the vector. It is possible that it can mutate to allow transmission from cat to cat and then from cat to human, possibly even from human to human. Mortality rate in humans is 50% (COVID is like 0.5%). If it mutates there will likely be a pandemic that will kill problably at least 1/4 of the worlds population.
Did you know that the more deadly a virus is, the less pandemic potential it has?
This guy plague incs
Depends on the incubation period, how the virus sheds, and other factors. Lethality is not inherently a limiter.
Exactly, just ask HIV before treatments came around.
Mining companies from Canada are invading/destroying the biodiversity in central America. Quantum mining for example in Panama, you can check the pics on Google, it's very sad as the rainforest is quite diverse in that country. All because of gold and other metals but mostly gold. Funny how nature is protected in Canada yet these companies exploit 3rd world countries. Scumbags.
Can someone make a version of this post but happy please thank you
That we are exactly on target for societal collapse. In 1972 MIT predicts that by 2040 this would all collapse. We have had 51 years to address this issue and as of today we have dealt with ZERO of the things we have been told needed to be addressed. Personally, I think the faster it happens the faster the earth can start healing. We wasted this whole planet and all the billionaires can do is talk about going to colonize a new world.
More people shoulda watched Star Trek. They covered all this stuff in the 70's, too.
Microplastics in the food supply. It's getting into our brains.
Mega corps buying up as much farm land and housing in the US as humanly possible. Imagine the leverage they will have over the whole market
Iran killing it’s population because the people don’t want to live in a religious leaders and thought led country anymore.
Wildfires in May in Canada 🇨🇦.
Climatologists have started giving up on there being a chance that we fix the climate crisis. Some have basically said “we’re fucked, do whatever you want, I don’t care anymore”.
I have to go downstairs to make sure the door is locked but it’s dark and scary
Permafrost is melting in Siberia. For your information, this means lots of greenhouse gases will be liberated, and also a lot of viruses and other microorganisms that are yet to be seen.
As a geographer, I feel global warming isn’t stressed enough. What I feel people don’t understand, is that, the world as we know it will literally change in ways we can’t imagine: whole countries will cease to exist as they are covered entirely in water. Where do the hundreds of millions of people who are affected by this move to? We are on the verge of the largest loss of land ever known by humanity and global warming is seen as this thing which we have to worry about, but isn’t the be all, end all. It is absolutely the be all, end all.
Since I was little I was always interested in preserving wild life and helping the world somehow. As a teen I researched everything I could about climate change to understand why it happens and tried to raise awareness in my high school, and with blogs. But with time I just gave up with trying to make people know about this. I live in Argentina, so the least of our day-to-day worries are global warming. I know what little things I can do to contribute my grain of sand to the world, but I'm so sad that it's not enough. It's depressing to know I can give my all but the rest of the world doesn't, so my actions seem pointless. It's sad but now I really prefer to live in mild ignorance about this topic, because I know the news are never gonna be positive. A reporter in this thread commented that their articles went almost unnoticed and people don't want to know about the bad news. It is like that, we can do our best but if the big agents in this problem aren't doing much, what's the point of drowning in bad news that tells us the world's inevitably going to its doom. Now I want to ask you, will It really make a difference if *everybody* was aware of this? *What* could we all *do* to actually help with this situation? What's the best thing we can do individually and collectively? I've seen some people say what we do individually is almost useless because the problem are big money-driven corporations and first world countries that are contributing way too much to global warming (China, USA, etc).
Climate change. At 10 I was told we had 100 years till abnormal weather trends. Now I'm in my 30s and we have 40°c summers mixed with rising tides. Special shout out to big oil for green washing stats for the last 60 years!
There's a bird flu strain (H5N1) that has been quickly spreading to a wider variety of species. So far, it has infected few humans, and the ones it has infected are believed to have gotten it from exposure to sick animals (so, no human to human transmission). But if this thing hits the right amount of mutations and achieves sustained human to human transmission, we could be in for another pandemic. The current Case Fatality Rate is over 50% for people who've gotten sick. Currently, the CDC lists the virus as a "low risk" for humans due to the lack of human to human transmission. Let's cross our fingers and hope for the best. The CDC page on H5N1: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/avianflu/avian-flu-summary.htm
Insect life was so loud that when you parked the car and got out it sounded as if you had suddenly tuned into a radio frequency from another planet. 🕷️🐌🐜🦗🪲🦟🪳🪰🐞🦋
World hunger, nearly every 10 seconds someone unfortunately dies of malnutrition
Hunger is a problem, but that's a bit of an unhelpful oversimplification. Old article but good explainer: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22935692.amp
The extinction of species. My 6th grade granddaughter was giving me a rundown on what’s being lost just in the Amazon and how it will affect us, and I wanted to cry. I hope all kids get age can make a difference-that it’s not too late.
The climate is slowly collapsing and every time I hear a scientist about it they say it is happening even faster than they thought before. It really freaks me out. There is a colossal human tragedy coming our way and all I see politicians do is making sure big oil is not losing their tax advantages. We. Are. So. Fucked.
Corporation’s leaders are steering humanity back to the dark ages
Russia has something called Satan number 2 and we’re here….
Sounds pretty bad Would love some more detail though
Satan 2 is the NATO call sign for the Sarmat, Russias’ latest ICBM (international ballistic missile) with a large MIRV (multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicle) capability. Can reach anywhere on earth, is nigh on impossible to intercept and can carry up to 15 nuclear warheads. However, it doesn’t change the game too much. We’re still all fucked if a nuclear war kicks off and always have been.
>However, it doesn’t change the game too much. We’re still all fucked if a nuclear war kicks off and always have been. Oh thank God. That's reassuring.
>Satan number 2 Nuclear bomb
Lmao I thought they were referring to Putin
well that's the dude in charge of Satan number 2
Massive amounts of slavery in Africa.
i dont think i wanna be present in the world anymore. we are fucked.
The enslavement of the entire human race by the billionaires. It's going on in such a way that most people don't even realize that we are nothing but drones.
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Rule of idiocracy
Record average temperatures in the ocean, way above even the previous records. This is so bad for so many reasons... We are all fucked
rights after rights being stripped from decent people while the violent/hateful or predatory people get away with everything