Chat

We have a small mixed veg farm and see a lot of changes. Especially recently. The past four years have been wild.

Our winters have gone from snow and cold October through April when I was a kid. To a few weeks of snow and cold in February mostly. We live on a very large salt water lake that used to freeze solid in winter. It doesn't freeze enough to go ice fishing on now.

Our autumn has extended into December each year. We keep outdoor gardens from April to November now and in the 80's when I was a kid I covered up every Halloween costume with a snow suit and fought my way to people's doors.

Our springs have little to no rain when compared historically. We are by the Atlantic ocean and fog and rain are part of life but not so much any more.

Summers are hot now. Very hot with very high humidity. We've started having forest fires which were rare before due to the wet environment. Rurally there are water shortages from wells in many areas.

We've always had hurricanes but now they are much much more frequent and much more devastating. We are also having flash floods now regularly and power outages from heat which was previously unheard of.

We are seeing more large predator sharks and bluebottle jellyfish from across the Atlantic and our fishing grounds are moving further north as the ocean warms.

The forests are very dry and we are losing species to invasives, temperature extremes and bugs at unprecedented rates. Migratory birds are fewer than ever and we tend to have a lot of summering and breeding grounds here. The bugs don't coat the car like they used to when we drive to town for groceries and we see this in our gardens and greenhouses as well.

It's scary stuff. We live in an area where we can watch the changes happen in real time and yet deniers are everywhere.