Green-notebooks - Untitled

But seriously, when we got our property, it was all just…grass. A sterile grass moonscape, like a billion other yards. With two big old maple trees. Just grass and maples, that was it. 

But then I got my grubby little paws on it, and I immediately stopped fertilizing, spraying, and bagging up grass clippings and leaves. I ripped up sod and put in flowers and vegetables. I put down nice thick blankets of mulch around the flowers and vegetables. 

When I first was sweating my way through stripping sod, I saw a grand total of 1 worm and 0 ladybugs. The ground was compacted into something that would bend shovel blades. 

Now, six years later, I can’t dig a planting hole without turning up fourteen earthworms, and there are so many ladybugs here. Not the invasive asian lady beetles; native ladybugs. They winter over in the mulch and in the brush pile. I see thousands of them. 

The soil is soft and rich. There are birds that come to eat, and bees of many sorts.

Like this is something that you, yourself, can absolutely change. This is something that you, personally, can make a difference in.

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.

How to make your own low-tech vertical farm

The Belgian professor Willem Van Cotthem seems to have designed a do-it-yourself vertical kitchen garden system that truly deserves the low-tech label. On his blog, “Container gardening”, he explains how to transform normal plastic bottles into efficient containers (and a container rack) for growing all kinds of plants, even young trees (to be transplanted when reaching sufficient height). The beauty is that the water supply can be automated without the use of electricity

Read more…

More on solarpunk education:

So I made a big post about cooperative, age-appropriate games as a solarpunk education method, but in my ideal solarpunk world that would only be one aspect of education. Here are some other education ideas bouncing around in my head. Like cooperative games, they all require a lot of time, knowledgeable teachers, and community investment, but I think they would lead to healthier, enthusiastic people, fully prepared to live well and be lifelong learners.

Food Science Education: Starting at a young age with simple gardening and cooking, stuff that young kids can get really excited about. As kids age, folding in the complete science of where food comes from, its relationship with the ecosystem, how to preserve it, and how to prepare it.The idea being that by the time you’re an adult you should have the tools to competently feed yourself even if you end up focusing on other things.  

Relationship Education: An improvement on sex ed. Much of the same content, but expanded with more information for all genders and sexualities, and good, non-scare tactic science on the human body, reproduction, contraceptives, stds, and common communicable illnesses. Also, workshops on healthy relationship communication, self-care, meditation/introspection/self-knowledge, basic first aid, how to help friends in the midst of crisis or mental illness, how to recognize predatory/manipulative/abusive behaviors (in sexual situations and otherwise oh my god it’s so important, why aren’t we taught this early and often?), some basic childhood development stuff. 

Artistic Expression & Upcycling: Art classes which would cover art theory and allow for a lot of self-expression, but would also teach young adults to make and repair their own clothing, use basic woodworking tools, work with ceramics, safely fiddle with metals and basic electronics, and other practical “specialty” skills necessary for a world with less waste. 

Rotating Apprenticeships: Starting out as small group field trips for younger kids, and evolving into longer choice-based apprenticeships in areas of interest, maybe taking up one day per week for high school aged kids. The community members involved in this experience wouldn’t necessarily give lessons on their livelihood – for example a farmer with a deep knowledge of medieval history and geology could focus on one of those subjects if they chose. This would give adults in the community a chance to delve deeper into subjects they loved, and kids a chance to learn a subject from someone truly enthusiastic.

Questing/Journeyman years/other travel: I know there are plenty of posts on solarpunk travel, but in an educational context I imagine it as a continuation of rotating apprenticeships. This would be a time for young adults to visit people and places related to their areas of interest. It could be very specific (like meeting and working with 5 scientists on 5 continents while studying food sustainability) or a more general exploration (visiting some great museums, WOOFing, contributing to public art, and journaling about the experience while trying to decide what to do next). 

Independent Project Salons: This would be a way to tie together celebration, community, and education. Informal salon settings would be a great place for young adults doing independent study or in the midst of travel to meet and talk about their experiences and ideas, and maybe show off their work. Possibly hosted by retired folks who could organize food and drink, introduce topics and guests, and add the benefit of their own experiences.

What other kinds of solarpunk educational programs do you love the idea of?

I’m having to help with some kind of campaign with a Big Hort company this year for some of our nursery stock and I do not enjoy being able to see this deep into corporate Hort. It is all ad revenue and pdfs and interfaces and sales reps down here. hellish

no, listen, when I say I want to integrate more specific solarpunk stuff in my life, i don’t mean to ask for yet again new “aesthetic” clothes that now you have to buy or make to show your support of the movement (screw that i’m consuming enough as it is), or more posts about impossible house goals, or whatever, I’m asking you what my options to build a portable and eco friendly phone charger are, im asking you viable tiny-appartment edible plants growing tricks on a budget,  im asking tips to slow down when my mind and society tell me im not fast enough, i don’t need more rich art nouveau amateurs aesthetics or pristine but cold venus project, okay, i know i should joins associations where I am tho i’m constantly on the move, thanks for that, just, you know, can we get a bit more practical ??? how do I hack my temporary flat into going off the grid for the time i’m here

Full color version :)

unhappy reminder that amphibians are going through a pandemic right now and anything you can do to support conservation efforts would be greatly appreciated by literally everyone in the world

Not to be a decolonialist marxist but the concept of emotionality and compassion being incompatible, the opposite, and unmixable with intelligence is very fucking white. :/