Symptoms of climate change you've experienced

puella

Berserk forever
This year, in addition to the record heatwaves, I've suffered from the exceptionally strong pollen in Europe. I'm pretty sensitive to it but I've never had this level of allergic reaction before. It seems the general aridity greatly worsened the phenomenon.

And it's not just me, I've heard from quite many people that they were bothered all summer. I found it interesting since it's not exactly the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about the climate. Another thing I've noticed is that I saw a lot less insects in my garden this year, especially butterflies and bees. This loss of biodiversity really saddens me...

Fortunately, I haven't directly faced catastrophes like forest fires, nor have we been put under measures like rationing water or electricity so far, but I am somewhat anxious it may come to that down the line...

How about the area you live in? Have you also been exposed to extreme weather or other phenomena associated with climate change?
 
I was in the United Kingdom this summer and there was a period of about one week where the temperature there soared to 40°C. It was a record high; even news outlets were reporting it.

Now I'm not new to hot weather (I've experienced ~50°C at one point), but this was a bad experience anyway. London just didn't feel like London anymore!

When I went to Hyde Park after that period, the park was yellow instead of green, like it was whipped by the sun. I just hope the animals did okay.
 

Rhombaad

Video Game Time Traveler
We’ve been suffering from some of the worst air quality on Earth in Washington state for the last week, due to the smoke from forest fires in the east of the state and down south in Oregon and California. It makes the sunrises and sunsets pretty, but that’s about the only good it does. We have to keep all of our windows closed, otherwise my wife’s asthma flairs up. If you’re outside for more than a few minutes, it’s murder on your eyes. Not the worst thing in the world, but it’s something we never dealt with until about a decade ago.
 

Grail

Feel the funk blast
It's been a terrible time here in California, but we've also been very fortunate compared to other places.

Wildfires are the most obvious and immediate issue on the western coast of the USA. California, which I suppose used to be known for earthquakes as its regional disaster of choice, is now pretty much synonymous with being on fire during the summer, and for good reason: the turn in the climate has caused our state to become insanely dry, and drier for longer than it ever was in recorded memory. Barbecues, bonfires, and even using too much electricity are events that could have potentially deadly results now, to the point where the smell of smoke while walking outside makes me extremely nervous, and I have to check the news to make sure nothing has been announced in my area. We recently had a scare with a wildfire that went up 10 minutes from our place, and let's just say that I never want to go through that again.

Droughts are another effect of the changing climate, but it's something that I feel a lot of Californians want to ignore or sweep under the rug. It's an incredibly frustrating issue, because so many people have lawns, and beyond that, companies abuse water for their sprawling lawns, production, and other uses. I could go on about this one, because as our state becomes drier and drier, we have to become more and more conscious of our resources. It's funny to think that other states have rain regularly throughout the rest of the year and we barely get any nowadays!

To echo Rhombaad, poor air quality is another area where those of us in the western states have encountered another issue (as a result of the fires I mentioned above). When COVID-19 first hit, many people already had N-95 masks because of the poor air quality.

I can't personally complain about all of these things, because ultimately I have access to a lot of conveniences. It's the disadvantaged, elderly, and wildlife who'll suffer the most from these continuing changes, so I really hope that we can make shifts in our funding to accommodate them.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
It's funny to think that other states have rain regularly throughout the rest of the year and we barely get any nowadays!

What's "interesting" (scary) is that a lot of places now get sudden and very heavy rain, and sometimes just after droughts. That tends to cause floods which can be truly devastating. We've had recurring catastrophes of the sort in France in recent years.
 

Beelzebud

[...] Into the abyss will I run [...]
I live in south Brazil, specifically the "coldest" capital here, when I was kid I remember going to school and seeing frozen plants and cars on the winter, but that's not too cold compared to winter in Europe for example, the temperatures never gets less than -5ºc and the average minimum was 2ºc. But now the average minimum is something about to 8ºc. The most strange changes was the instability in the climate, that year my city had the hottest winter day in history passing 34ºc in July the peak of the winter, and three cyclones have hit the region with high rains and winds, one of then was 2 days before the day of the record hottest winter day and the temperature difference was of 29ºc(from 34 to 5) in two days.


Brazil is a continental longitudinal country(4.394 km from north to south) and in the northern regions we had lot of emergency states passing by desertification, lots of forest being deforested by agricultural reasons while other regions was hit by heavy rain causing floods that never occurred before. Lots of species enter the list of risk of extinction here, mainly on the "Pantanal" a forest in Brazil that had unique Flora and Fauna. The saddest thing is that our president support that deforestation, one of the reasons that I'm moving to Portugal the next months.
 
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