Quote
However, I could believe that the Little Ice Age caused more rodents to move inside houses and thus had closer contact between rodent fleas and humans.
Global warming is rearranging things a bit too. And I'm right on the borderline. I've been fighting a rat infestation for weeks. 40 years here and I've never seen a rat. Exterminator has taken out two dozen or more from my garage and back porch. Walking the dog a couple weeks ago I felt a familiar sting and itch...no-see-ums. Never had those here before. The ex just called and asked what to do with a Cuban tree frog. Put it in a bag and freeze it. Same with Cuban cane toads.
It's just a matter of a few years until the first python shows up around here, Another friend has flocks of Whistling Ducks. They don't winter this far north. I see landscapers planting Royal palms around town. Mango and avocado trees are thriving here, couldn't plant them 20 years ago, they'd freeze before they got old enough to bear fruit. Old peach trees no longer bear fruit because there's not enough chill time.

Things are changing. That ^permafrost^ thing is real too. While I remain optimistic about the future of our species I estimate that we'll lose at least a billion lives in the next century. The world will witness devastation such as it has never witnessed before.

There will be plagues, there will be wars, and there will be starvation. There will be fires, there will be floods. Hurricanes and blizzards such as we've never seen before.

I hate to find myself in this position but the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are upon us.

As I said...I'm optimistic about the future. It could be far worse, another Trump term would probably guarantee a death toll in the next century of four billion or more lives.


Good coffee, good weed, and time on my hands...