Nature is upside down: We are in the opening scenes of a climate disaster movie...

Some of you know me as the "SkepticOverlord" from a past life of running this amazing community. Currently, I'm a hobby-farmer working toward a permaculture homestead. The past two years have become difficult, and this year downright wrong. I've been active in the homesteading subreddit, and posted a topic about our observations last night. It exploded... not in a good way. Easily 80% of the conversation supports the notion of the collapse of nature that we're seeing, here's the reddit post

My wife and I have noticed some fundamental changes as we approach our seventh year on our small 3+ acre homestead in Western New York. Are others seeing the same or similar things?

Firstly, wet, really wet, all the time. If it wasn't raining, it was very humid. The ground never really dried. We often needed ice spikes strapped to our boots to avoid slipping as we tended to chores.

Next, fungus and mold is everywhere, even on our stainless steel grill and cattle panels. We had a strange blue mold on wood cuttings for our rabbits and red mold on pumpkins we stored for our chickens. In fact, mold destroyed our entire stash of pumpkins and squash that we had stored successfully in previous years. (We're hearing this from others as well.)

Then weeds, nasty, brutal, spikey, tall weeds (sorry, I don't have pictures now). We usually keep our semi-large garden well-weeded, but we had to focus on processing chickens and rabbits for four days. The garden was overwhelmed, and we could never keep up. Our pasture is typically yellow with dandelions in late spring, and the geese love them, but there are none this year- not just us but also our neighbors.

Our cornish cross meat chickens have a dedicated house, run, and pasture. Last year was ideal, as we processed 50 lovely big 6+/- pound birds. This year, from the same hatchery, most struggled to get above 4 pounds, even after giving them a little extra time. (A friend who works at Runnings had the same issue.)

Our garden harvest was disappointing. The tomatoes, summer potatoes, and carrots were okay. Cabbage, cauliflower, zucchini, and pickling cucumbers all suffered. Last year, we had a bumper crop. (Similar stories from folks we talked to at farm stores.)

Most of our egg chickens (very productive "barnyard mix") are now molting, not laying. Last winter, we'd get 12-15 eggs a day with our lighting timer and set up, now we're lucky to get five a day (same number of birds). Our friend who works at Runnings is having the same issue.

Lastly, BUGS. We were overwhelmed with stink bugs and ladybugs. I don't think we saw any butterflies, but lots of moths I've never seen before. Odd, tiny, green triangular flies were always in the air, along with other strange, small, green flying bugs with vertically oriented bodies.

Has nature flipped the script? It feels like we're in the opening scenes of a doomsday movie.

Additional follow up includes more observations:

We've not seen any daddy long legs since the beginning of summer.

We've not seen any wolly bears this year, by now we should have seen dozens, if not hundreds.

Today, I have a mosquito bite.

Our lilac bushes have buds.

Canadian Geese have not migrated, they're still here.

Chipmunks have emerged from hibernation.

Bees are foraging in our duck and chicken feed.


I thought it prudent to post here. Check out the 600+ responses of people all over the world seeing the micro changes that are downright alarming.

a reply to: TheSkepticGuy23

I concur with your observations, SO. By September our old house is crawling with spiders wanting to winter over with us, and it lasts until late spring-6-8 a day is not unusual. This year we've had maybe a dozen spiders come in, and none since late November.

Garter snake have always been a huge problem, since we live on the banks of a creek. We had a total of three this summer, when normal is well over two dozen.

We're seeing lots of birds that once were rare-or never seen-in our area.

Things are changing, for sure.

a reply to: nugget1

The change is alarmingly rapid. Perhaps amplified by an El Nino weather pattern change, but we've been seeing sh!t that concerns us since before that pattern change.

One of the small micro items -- beet seeds are among the most reliable for root vegetables. I love Mrs. Overlord's pickled beets. Less than 30% of our beet seeds germinated this year. That's a big, super big, red flag. None of our turnip seeds germinated -- that's really bad.

After June 23'rd, it rained way more than normal here all the way to the end of September, We say it was the earth crying after my granddaughter committed suicide. It slowed right down after we had her celebration of life in mid September. Rain almost every day, mildew all over everything during that time.

I didn't plant my usual potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, and onions this year. Too much damage to clean up from broken trees on our property this spring. First time in over thirty years I did not have a garden or two plus lots of tomatoes in planters.

With all that rain, the garden would have been too wet, we would not have got much. Friends of ours who did plant had a lousy harvest. Their chickens this year are molting bad, we can't get our usual eggs so are forced to buy store bought eggs now which are not nearly as good, even the organic and local eggs are not as tasty. The people locally have had to cut corners to keep their egg prices down, so they buy more corn and cheaper feed. Our friends will not go cheaper, they still buy good food and the chickens are out most days yet. Their eggs are still great tasting, but they are not even getting enough for themselves let alone to supply me with the six to eight dozen every two weeks I usually get. I buy them and give them to the kids and grandkids. But I still pay five bucks a dozen....I do not mind paying a good price for excellent tasting eggs.

I am glad you got to enjoy your hobby farm. It can be frustrating sometimes, but it is still worth it. I hope things start getting better again.

Next year I will again plant the gardens if I am still able to, I like watching things grow and even though it is not very profitable, it is nice being secure in the knowledge that I can put healthy food on the table.

I do not use any pesticides or weed killers, I can hoe up our gardens and feel good that it is healthy food. It isn't the bugs that are a problem here, those little fawns in the yard keep eating things....at least the deer are around if things go haywire, I might have to collect on that debt they owe me someday to feed us. I gave up on the fences, I think they view them as a challenge, they seem to think they are some high jumping competition with a buffet as a prize when I put them up.

Too many chemicals are being used in our food production, they are poisoning the earth.

a reply to: TheSkepticGuy23

I have noticed for a few years now that seed germination has been steadily dropping; I'm lucky to get 1/3 of the sprouting I have in past seasons.

We had planty of heat this year but our hot peppers and tomatoes took forever to bloom. It's like everything is stunted, when it should have been a good year.

This has happened before, back in the 14th century. The weather in Europe (yes I have to use Europe since we don't know about North America at the time) had a period of wetter than normal summer and it led to crop failures throughout the period.

A couple links and quotes from sources about the famine.
Phys.org

Europe's Great Famine of 1315–1317 is considered one of the worst population collapses in the continent's history. Historical records tell of unrelenting rain accompanied by mass crop failure, skyrocketing food prices, and even instances of cannibalism. These written records strongly suggest Europe's Great Famine was caused by several years of devastating floods that began in 1314, but they can't tell us how this flooding compares to historic averages, or its full geographical extent.

Now, new research using tree ring records confirms the historical data, showing the years of the Great Famine were some of Europe's wettest. A team of researchers from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Columbia University quantified the extent of Great Famine flooding and found the years 1314, 1315, and 1316 were the fifth-wettest sequence of summers on record over a 700-year period.

Historic UK.com

During the winter and spring of 2013/2014, Britain suffered a prolonged period of destructive winter storms, resulting in widespread flooding and damage. However this was not the first time that the country had been devastated by heavy periods of rain and bad weather.

It rained almost constantly throughout the summer and autumn of 1314 and then through most of 1315 and 1316. Crops rotted in the ground, harvests failed and livestock drowned or starved. Food stocks depleted and the price of food soared. The result was the Great Famine, which over the next few years is thought to have claimed over 5% of the British population. It was the same or even worse in mainland Europe.

Luckly today more people are educated and/or have access to information as to how to recover or even adjust their plantings to offset this type of weather event.

So this type of weather isn't new, it's rare enough in human lifetime to forget how to deal with it. Noticing these changes allows for us to see the changes and so does keeping track of the weather.

Here in the PNW we had a mild summer, and looking to be a wetter than usual winter. We might get some snow but cold and wet are what's being predicted.

Something else to keep in mind, it's only been a little less then two years since we had Tonga-Hunga exploded. The effects of that are still in play when it comes to global weather.

a reply to: TheSkepticGuy23

I'm 51 years old. Born in 1972. I've seen Halloweens so cold I needed a winter coat over my plastic costumes and I've seen some so warm I had to rip off my costume and only wear my clothes and the costume's mask...

I've seen Thanksgivings when we played outside in shorts and tee shirts and Thanksgivings when we had to wear coats, gloves, and scarves....

I've delivered pizzas in a frozen January and I've delivered pizzas in shorts and a short-sleeved shirt in a mild January....

For the last goddamned time... THE CLIMATE CHANGES.... Do you people seriously not remember past yesterday? Is that the problem? Is Monty Python right, are you goldfishes in an aquarium?

It's hard for me to tell if you Weather Doomers and Flat Earthers are actually serious or if you're merely great at trolling. Either way, maybe it's time to take a break from the shenanigans since 2024 is days away and it's an election year. The only threat we have to worry about is Trump not getting elected.

No star. No flag. Because the bullspit isn't funny anymore.

a reply to: TheMindOfMax2

That's the funniest response I've seen all year! Thanks for sharing your wisdom and superior knowledge with those of us having a good conversation and educating us all to our stupidity.

Yes, we know the weather is rapidly changing. We are discussing those changes as it relates to our gardens, bugs and animals.
What changes have you noticed in your area?

I dont understand how you dont see the past as your present....unless you are "one of them" ...your post is mostly governmental rhetoric

Central Florida. This time of year we are usually happy because we do not have to mow the lawn. It dies. Not really from cold but less sun. Usually less rain in Winter.

My wife came in and said she saw some tomatoes and sunflowers starting to sprout in an area where she grows certain things. More thank likely from bird droppings or some dropped seeds but.....she started to look more around the yard and where we had our vines they were starting again. Where we had beans...they started again.

Odd....

I didn't get bit by a single mosquito this year. And I didn't see swarms of gnats like I usually do. And it was one of the few Christmases without snow.

But these things have happened before.

And the opposite of an Ice Age is a Warm Age. But nobody wants to call it that.

There have been 5 Ice Ages in the last 400,000 years. At what point would be the midpoint between two Ice Ages? Because that's the point in time where the Earth would Warm up to. And after that, start cooling down again.

Do you know how many Ice Ages happened before the 400,000 year mark?

As far as I can tell, nobody knows. Which could mean that the Earth melted far enough back that it melted the record in the ice.

But there's a lot of people pretending that they know.

These environmental people still don't know what happened with the Clovis Extinction Event. It could have changed our climate immensely. And made the ending of the most recent Ice Age different than the ending of all the other Ice Ages.

originally posted by: TheSkepticGuy23
a reply to: nugget1

The change is alarmingly rapid. Perhaps amplified by an El Nino weather pattern change, but we've been seeing sh!t that concerns us since before that pattern change.

One of the small micro items -- beet seeds are among the most reliable for root vegetables. I love Mrs. Overlord's pickled beets. Less than 30% of our beet seeds germinated this year. That's a big, super big, red flag. None of our turnip seeds germinated -- that's really bad.

With you on this even though I'm on the other side of the globe. Similar farm set up. I've had 2 hives (bees) placed near my vege garden. One has failed. No fruit on the trees. Leaf vege have failed for 3 years in a row. No bugs or butterflies/moths. No mosquitoes or midges. No fleas or spiders. Strange but this has been ongoing last couple of seasons. Lots of weeds.

I'm not alone locally with this. No more chickens.

Kind regards,

Bally

Makes one appreciate the challenges our forefathers faced for millenia.

originally posted by: TheSkepticGuy23
Some of you know me as the "SkepticOverlord" from a past life of running this amazing community. Currently, I'm a hobby-farmer working toward a permaculture homestead. The past two years have become difficult, and this year downright wrong. I've been active in the homesteading subreddit, and posted a topic about our observations last night. It exploded... not in a good way. Easily 80% of the conversation supports the notion of the collapse of nature that we're seeing, here's the reddit post

My wife and I have noticed some fundamental changes as we approach our seventh year on our small 3+ acre homestead in Western New York. Are others seeing the same or similar things?

Firstly, wet, really wet, all the time. If it wasn't raining, it was very humid. The ground never really dried. We often needed ice spikes strapped to our boots to avoid slipping as we tended to chores.

Next, fungus and mold is everywhere, even on our stainless steel grill and cattle panels. We had a strange blue mold on wood cuttings for our rabbits and red mold on pumpkins we stored for our chickens. In fact, mold destroyed our entire stash of pumpkins and squash that we had stored successfully in previous years. (We're hearing this from others as well.)

Then weeds, nasty, brutal, spikey, tall weeds (sorry, I don't have pictures now). We usually keep our semi-large garden well-weeded, but we had to focus on processing chickens and rabbits for four days. The garden was overwhelmed, and we could never keep up. Our pasture is typically yellow with dandelions in late spring, and the geese love them, but there are none this year- not just us but also our neighbors.

Our cornish cross meat chickens have a dedicated house, run, and pasture. Last year was ideal, as we processed 50 lovely big 6+/- pound birds. This year, from the same hatchery, most struggled to get above 4 pounds, even after giving them a little extra time. (A friend who works at Runnings had the same issue.)

Our garden harvest was disappointing. The tomatoes, summer potatoes, and carrots were okay. Cabbage, cauliflower, zucchini, and pickling cucumbers all suffered. Last year, we had a bumper crop. (Similar stories from folks we talked to at farm stores.)

Most of our egg chickens (very productive "barnyard mix") are now molting, not laying. Last winter, we'd get 12-15 eggs a day with our lighting timer and set up, now we're lucky to get five a day (same number of birds). Our friend who works at Runnings is having the same issue.

Lastly, BUGS. We were overwhelmed with stink bugs and ladybugs. I don't think we saw any butterflies, but lots of moths I've never seen before. Odd, tiny, green triangular flies were always in the air, along with other strange, small, green flying bugs with vertically oriented bodies.

Has nature flipped the script? It feels like we're in the opening scenes of a doomsday movie.

Additional follow up includes more observations:

We've not seen any daddy long legs since the beginning of summer.

We've not seen any wolly bears this year, by now we should have seen dozens, if not hundreds.

Today, I have a mosquito bite.

Our lilac bushes have buds.

Canadian Geese have not migrated, they're still here.

Chipmunks have emerged from hibernation.

Bees are foraging in our duck and chicken feed.


I thought it prudent to post here. Check out the 600+ responses of people all over the world seeing the micro changes that are downright alarming.

I don't agree with the statement 'collapse of nature'. What does this mean anyway?

The changes you see are not signs of any collapse or upcoming disaster.

originally posted by: TheMindOfMax2
a reply to: TheSkepticGuy23

I'm 51 years old. Born in 1972. I've seen Halloweens so cold I needed a winter coat over my plastic costumes and I've seen some so warm I had to rip off my costume and only wear my clothes and the costume's mask...

I've seen Thanksgivings when we played outside in shorts and tee shirts and Thanksgivings when we had to wear coats, gloves, and scarves....

I've delivered pizzas in a frozen January and I've delivered pizzas in shorts and a short-sleeved shirt in a mild January....

For the last goddamned time... THE CLIMATE CHANGES.... Do you people seriously not remember past yesterday? Is that the problem? Is Monty Python right, are you goldfishes in an aquarium?

It's hard for me to tell if you Weather Doomers and Flat Earthers are actually serious or if you're merely great at trolling. Either way, maybe it's time to take a break from the shenanigans since 2024 is days away and it's an election year. The only threat we have to worry about is Trump not getting elected.

No star. No flag. Because the bullspit isn't funny anymore.

I agree with you. There are changes by I can't see the doomsday scenarios and the 'collapse of nature' suggested by the OP.

The thing I don't understand is how these events are always linked to human activity or are governed by human activity. First of all we are too small and insignificant to cause major events but most importantly there is nothing unusual about these changes or climate change which is a natural process however highly politicalized with predictions snf arguments that are devoid of science.

a reply to: TheSkepticGuy23

A lot of folks who pride themselves on being prepared for the "collapse of Society" because they can, and do, grow their own food and hunt their own meat, haven't taken into account how the change in climate will impact their "preparations".


When Mother Nature turns against you, you're quite possibly done.

a reply to: TheSkepticGuy23

I live in in the south part of Florida, seeing similar things with birds and insects here. What's really disturbing to me about you not seeing insects, is that the whole cacophony of nature is reliant on certain insects showing up at certain times of the year as food sources for other animals. If that gets much more out of whack, we are going to see a domino effect on migratory birds and small mammals at the least and it will probably echo up the food chain. As far as the climate change is concerned, I can assure you, that whether manmade or not, its real and its occurring. I have lived in Florida almost all my life. Over the past few decades there has been a dramatic change in the climate here, and over the past decade or so it gets worse every year. Here is an example. When i was a kid in the early 70s, during the summer, it might get into the upper 80s, and you might have a pretty strong thunderstorm every other day or so. Hurricanes happened, but rarely. Winters were mild, but it did occasionally get pretty cold as a few cold fronts crossed the state. In the 1990s, Summers were upper 80s to low 90s, and you got a strong thunderstorm pretty much every day in summer. Hurricanes were still pretty rare, but the ones we did have were noticeably stronger, think Andrew. Winters were much milder, rarely if ever getting cold for more than a couple days. Then the 2000s. Very hot and humid in summer, low to mid 90s, with TWO thunderstorms, sometimes three, daily. Hurricanes getting more frequent and stronger. Winters now extremely mild, with only the occasional sporadic cold front to lower temps at all. Now the past 5 years or so, summers in the upper 90s to 100-105, thunderstorms sometimes all day or sometimes just heat with no rain at all. Hurricanes at around the same frequency, but two or sometimes 3 cat 4 or 5 hurricanes bearing down on us. The last 2 years the summers were so hot you pretty much had to stay indoors between mid-morning and midafternoon or risk heat exhaustion. Winter was extremely mild last year. This year summer was again brutal, fall and winter are a bit cooler this year but still mostly unseasonably warm. Birds animals and insects are not in their usual patterns. I don't know what's happening, but something definitely is. What we are starting to wonder, is if it will eventually get so hot during summer, we won't be able to live here. The summer heat the past 2 years, was actually frightening.

originally posted by: Majestic08
First of all we are too small and insignificant to cause major events

This is completely false. I'll give you 4 easy examples:
1. Chlorofluorocarbons that destroy the ozone layer
2. Pesticides that destroy insect populations
3. Microplastics contamination which is in basically everything and everyone at this point
4. Catastrophic radiation incidents like Chernobyl or Fukushima

originally posted by: trollz

originally posted by: Majestic08
First of all we are too small and insignificant to cause major events

This is completely false. I'll give you 4 easy examples:
1. Chlorofluorocarbons that destroy the ozone layer
2. Pesticides that destroy insect populations
3. Microplastics contamination which is in basically everything and everyone at this point
4. Catastrophic radiation incidents like Chernobyl or Fukushima

Still we are too small and insignificant to make the alleged changes or to significantly influence the way nature operates. Sure, we can pollute the environment and even destroy ourselves and some other species but the planet faces no threat from us. Same for the Universe and the Cosmos.