Green-notebooks - Untitled

Here’s how your climate-related choices are contagious (in a good way!)

What’s the key to inspiring positive action on climate change? Seeing and hearing about real solutions, says climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe PhD. Not only will you be more likely to act &#…

“One of the biggest reasons our personal lifestyle choices matter when it comes to the climate crisis is that what we do changes us. And the other big reason is that what we do and say changes others, too.” Behavioral contagion is a real psychological phenomenon and it spreads at a much faster rate than you would imagine. In fact, behavioral contagion can be a much more effective way of getting people to change their behavior than rationally explaining to them why a particular change is in their best interest. When people say that personal changes still matter, this is the kind of thing they are talking about. Yes, maybe one person recycling or adopting solar panels or building a pollinator garden in their backyard doesn’t do much in the scheme of the greater problem, but many of these small actions together can build into something that really, really does. Even small, personal changes matter, because taking action to fight climate change changes you and it changes your community.

its been p common knowledge for decades that light pollution can be massively reduced by just putting shades on streetlamps, and that doing that would save energy, help wildlife, and let us see the stars better, but are society says if u wanna change any minor little tiny thing u gotta dedicate ur whole life to campaigning for it and this is a good ways down the list of priorities for most ppl, so instead i gotta walk past newly-installed streetlamps that are just dumb glass globes that use half their electricity to blast half their light directly into the sky where it does only bad things for no reason and think "we should overthrow the government"

Taking down a tree in 30 seconds | source

Road diet bridges a barrier, boosts safety

A breakthrough design on La Jolla Boulevard in San Diego cuts crashes by 90 percent and gives local business a shot in the arm.

“The project was designed to transform a wide, automobile-oriented thoroughfare to a pedestrian-friendly, neighborhood center.

Travel lanes were reduced from five to two while adding five modern roundabouts, improved sidewalks, medians, landscaping, and increased angle parking. Traffic calming measures were installed on less busy side and parallel streets to avoid potential traffic diversion.“

Here’s the before and after:

“Pedestrians once had 70 feet of pavement to cross at intersections. With the roundabouts, they now cross 12–14 feet of pavement at a time with refuge islands in the middle”

“due to the 15 mph design speed of the roundabouts and traffic calming, many bicyclists feel comfortable riding with traffic on La Jolla Boulevard“

“The traffic count remained approximately the same (23,000 vehicles per day before, 22,000 after), but walking, bicycling, transit use, on-street parking and retail sales all climbed to much higher levels, the city reports. Retail sales rose 30 percent and noise levels dropped 77 percent. Because traffic moves slower, businesses report higher visibility.

As a result of the roundabouts and traffic calming, speeds were reduced from 40–45 mph to 19 mph, according to city transportation engineers. “The once busy boulevard has been transformed into a slow-paced street with roundabouts, landscaped street dividers and diagonal parking,” notes the LaJolla Light

Traffic crashes fell by 90 percent. The project has helped revitalize La Jolla Boulevard, acting as a catalyst to several new mixed-use developments, a 139-unit condominium development, and a major drugstore.

“Motorists,” Burden reported in The San Diego Union- Tribune in February 2017, “understandably dreaded this change before it was made. But they found that instead of waiting 24 seconds for a pedestrian to cross 70 feet of road, they now only wait 3–4 seconds, or don’t have to wait at all. Businesses that feared the loss of customers arriving in cars actually improved their trade. … Today motorists are getting to their destinations in less time, because they aren’t stopping.”“

(I’ve added bold for emphasis; the above sections are taken from different parts of the article, click through the link for the whole thing)

This goes to show that designing for a better pedestrian experience is not only safer, but also good for the local economy.

it's weird how people will be like "but we need Suburban Lawn so kids can play outside!" as if basically every kid isn't bored to tears by being confined to a yard that's nothing but flat grass.

like have you talked to a kid, have you spent time with kids, do you remember BEING a kid? "playing outside" isn't about Throwing Ball 1000 times it's about squishing mud, using sticks as swords and guns, making potions from plants, catching bugs, climbing trees, and building forts from brush and branches.

A highly manicured lawn has nothing to offer the senses and brain of a developing child. If there are no "weeds," what are they supposed to gather to make into potions?? I'm not even joking, what do you, a child, DO in a yard without wildflowers and mud and dead branches. I feel like my brain wouldn't have developed correctly if my outdoor space growing up wasn't full of chicory and asters and dandelions.

At least video games offer some dim imitation of a variety of stimuli

You know of any examples of wintry Solarpunk?

I’m not sure how all of the logistics would work (I’m more of a sociology guy than a STEM guy), but I don’t see why a colder climate wouldn’t be able to take advantage of renewable energy sources – geothermal and perfected solar technology and such.

Aesthetically, you’d probably end up with something very similar to the “Northern Lights glass igloos” in Finland:

Maybe connect all the igloos with a tunnel/tube system and have them all link up to a big hub at the center. Maybe the hub has advanced solar panels and sits on a geothermal hot spot, and the energy accumulated there could power the surrounding homes and buildings. 

People can and should add to this, because my winter solarpunk imagination is a tad limited. 

A brief and ugly summary of surviving cold climates

For visitors and writers alike.

You were never meant to be here. Never forget this. You are an ape of the equator, built to run the savannah and swim in tropical waters. Whatever terms and conditions your body has, they are void here. Mother nature never certified to function in a Death World.

Enduring the cold is never a matter of “how much” as much at it is “how long”. Think of it as the water levels of the vieogames you have played. No matter what equipment enables you to remain longer, you can’t stay there indefinitely. The coat that keeps you warm and toasty for three hours in -15 is enough to keep you functional for an hour of -40.

Whatever the locals say, listen to them. Err to the side of caution if you must. You may not endure what they can endure, but you SURE AS FUCKING NOT cannot survive what they say cannot be endured.

That being said, alcohol is a filthy fucking liar and so is anyone who offers it to you. The warmth it gives is an illusion, and a sign of damage. You are worse off feeling comfortable with a mouthful of whiskey as you are freezing your gonads off stone cold sober.

Winter tires. Studded winter tiers are a MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH when you drive on a frozen road. That being said, whatever the locals tell you that your car will need to run as theirs do, take it. Taking the risk of being pranked is worth survival, and you can always stab their tires in the spring if they were shitting you.

Eat. For the love of god, make sure that you eat. Heavier meals might be unpalatable at first for someone used to lighter nutrition, but maintaining bodily warmth in a cold climate takes up a lot of energy, and you will feel tired and drowsy for a long while shile your metabolism adjusts to producing more heat than Mother Nature ever intended. The skinny people in your party are especially vulnerable, ensure their well-being on a regular basis.

If you have a smartphone/other essential technology on your body, keep them close to your body to keep them warm. They were not designed to be frozen any more than you were.

Sleep is death. SLEEP IS DEATH. Never, ever stop to rest in the cold, if you do not have the means to make a fire/otherwise produce heat. The cold tires you out because keeping warm takes energy, but taking a rest will not return your energy. If you feel the need to sit down and rest because you are tired because of the cold, call for help. This is not a hyperbole, if you feel like you are too tired to go on in a cold climate, CALL A FUCKING AMBULANCE. If you fall asleep in the snow, you will not wake up. Hypothermia can and will literally kill you.

Avoid skin-to-snow-contact if you can. It hurts because you were not supposed to do it. Consider ice to be like acid. Touching is bad for you.

Feel free to add to the list if you feel like I missed something.

I see a lot of climate change misinformation circulating on this site. I wish I had the mental capacity to write up something eloquent right now, but in short:

Yes, the situation is pretty dire. But the whole “twelve year deadline” thing is a massive oversimplification.

We’re already experiencing climate change and it will get worse the longer we don’t act. It’s not a binary “it happens or it doesn’t” situation. Twelve years an estimate for how soon we need to drastically alter our infrastructure in order to land at or under two degrees of warming, which is an essentially arbitrary marker that we’re trying to avoid. Two degrees will still be Bad, capital B. But it’s better than three, four, five, or more degrees of warming.

Even if we stopped emitting carbon today, we’d continue to see warming for several more years because that kind of lag is built into our climate system. We can’t just stop at any time and have things go “back to normal.”

A lot of these fearmongering articles are based on the IPCC reports, which are excellent sources based on the best research done worldwide. You can read them for yourself here.

Please remember to fact-check for yourself and don’t give in to despair, on this as with all other issues.

i think some of the phrasing we use when discussing human environmental impact wrt energy production and agriculture and human habitation can influence the way we think about these things

when we discuss certain energy production methods or agricultural methods or architectural methods or any other elements of human habitation of a given area as “disruptive” to the environment, without sufficient context for what that means, it sets up this dichotomy where our habitation is either disruptive to the environment OR has no effect on the environment, and i think for many reasons thats obviously not a healthy or realistic way to frame it

as human beings, we are organisms, we are part of nature, we are PART of our environment, we are not separate from it, we are not above it. human habitation of an environment will have effects on our environment, in much the same way that ANY organism inhabiting an environment will necessarily affect its environment

so framing it as “are we going to be disruptive to the environment in the way we inhabit this space, or are we going to leave the environment be” is, in a way, setting us up for failure from the start. as long as humans live and exist in an environment, we WILL have an impact, so we need to question what kind of impact we want to have, what kind of an impact were willing to have

this isnt to say that things we do that are normally called disruptive to the environment are suddenly all okay, or that everyone calling them bad is engaging in this kind of dichotomy. hydroelectric power is often called disruptive and it IS, it has massive detrimental effects on local ecosystems, monoculture farming is called disruptive and it IS, this is not apologia for these systems

but i think when discussing possible solutions and alternatives, it often gets framed as “well, will this have an environmental impact, cause we dont wanna have an environmental impact” and im sorry but the answer is that any large scale energy production, any large scale food production, any large scale human habitation IS going to have an environmental impact, its not a question of impact or not, its a question of what kind of impact, how will this impact local species, how will this impact climate, how will this impact local weather systems, how will this impact soil, how will this impact erosion, its COMPLICATED

and the impact isnt always negative, we as humans can provide for ourselves and help shape the world we live in in ways that are BENEFICIAL to the world around us

we can live in harmony with nature, but living in harmony with the world doesnt mean isolating ourselves from cause and effect

hey if you’re in the U.S. and use food stamps or know somebody who does i found this online cookbook that has recipes for eating well on approximately $4/day :o)