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by aivisol 1772 days ago
Eastern European here as well. This year is definitely not your average warmer-than-usually year. Both the winter was extremely cold here where I live (down to -30C) and also there was prolonged heatwave spanning from mid June to end of July with temperatures well in +30s and no rain for more than a month. It will have negative impact on agriculture for sure, especially crops. On the other hand, watching on the news the recent floods in Germany and Belgium I recall seeing similar events in those countries in the pre-global warming times (when most of us knew nothing about it). Then they told us that the reason for the floods is excessive drainage and elimination of swamps and wetlands. They are supposed to act as sponges taking and absorbing excess precipitation and then releasing it when the rains are over. That made a good point because where I live we have plenty of swamps around us and never see such floods apart from seasonal spring thaw induced ones (which are more or less predictable and controllable). So maybe we should not put all our bets into getting all carbon out of atmosphere (which is no simple task) but also see if local ecosystems can be fixed to achieve some quicker wins.