Location: Southern Germany
A significant flood following exceptional rainfall. One of these once-a-century events that are likely to happen once-a-decade now.
Increased violence towards politicians, including knife attacks. Further escalation in the NATO-Russia conflict, including attacks on Russia's nuclear triad infrastructure. Obviously trying very hard to provoke use of tactical nuclear weapons.
Things in general continue to degrade: quantity and quality of goods and services, the general economy, mental health of the population.
Down in Texas on gulf coast area, my friends panic buying a house but the mortgage is impossible unless the house is fully insured until it is paid off, the snag is that of all the insurers they called none would insure houses in this location and the house they are buying is not in flood zone and is not adjacent to any water. Big insurance is just straight abandoning huge areas and letting current policies fall off and not renewing
It's underappreciated how much of a story this is. This is happening in wide swathes of the USA. Big chunks of the West are abandoned, because of wildfires, earthquakes, etc and all along the Gulf Coast as well, including big chunks of Florida (which tons of people have moved to in recent years).
Looking at real estate across usa, in places that someone could conceivably want to live or be able to get a job, and so much of it is listed for prices that make no sense to me. By makes no sense i mean who can even qualify for these houses on 30 year loan? not 90% of the population. In canada multiply that 4X or more.
Canada is so fucked right now, its a giant bubble , the medical system is utterly broken, meth is epidemic, the homeless encampments are huge and growing , full of lunatics and druggies, people are paying $600 for a mattress in a basement with other random people paying for mattress in the same basement.
Also canada i noticed the grocery stores have really shitty meat and vegetables, often having mostly bare shelfs with some meat cuts that even the soviet union would consider dogfood. There is an oligopoly and lots of the different stores are under same umbrella i notice after going to multiple stores its all the same shit and same deficit
Down in texas heat records have been broken, tomato plants cant even survive the heat they literally cook to death.
I'm very sorry to hear that about Canada. I visited many times and it was not this bad, but it has been years. They sound like they are well into another stair-step down on the catabolic collapse curve. The USA is too, but not as obviously bad where I am, although the health care system is showing severe strain and will probably go into full blown collapse in a few years with the rate this is going. The Covid era was clearly the inflection point for this process.
If you want to start growing plants inside and plan to move them outside, do yourself a favor and invest in a proper light timer. I've been surprised by how many supposedly non-photoperiod plants can really struggle with a sudden day period mismatch.
Also be mindful of getting plants too warm and then moving them to a cooler outdoor environment, as that really messes up their seasonality. (That's probably common sense but I thought I might as well point it out.)
Location: Upper Midwest, United States
A major climatic shift in late spring from the pattern of recent years. Since 2021, the pattern shifted as meteorological summer approached, with temperatures getting hotter, winds increasing, and drought setting in for the whole summer -- this was repeated in '22 and '23. Now it is humid and stormy with the drought of the past years basically wiped out. I will continue to watch this trend.
Economically, the official story is that things are great. In reality, inflation clearly accelerated this year and leisure/hospitality seem much deader since about the end of last summer. Going out recently, establishments are quieter. It seems there's a widening wealth gap because many people are still spending a lot while many others are pulling back.
Anecdotally, many complain of being unable to find work. But the mainstream says this is not happening.
Not really an observation, but Hansen has shared a draft of Ch. 25 in his upcoming book for feedback and it has a lot of good info in it:
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/Documents/Planet.Ch25.2024.05.13.pdf
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