Pinkfluffyunicorn1234 - A Unicorn's Ramblings

Cat understood the assignment

toastedbyeli

If you're feeling anxious or depressed about the climate and want to do something to help right now, from your bed, for free...

Start helping with citizen science projects

The Conversation

Explainer: what is citizen science?

Public participation in science is increasing, and citizen science has a central part in this. It is a contribution by the public to researc

What's a citizen science project? Basically, it's crowdsourced science. In this case, crowdsourced climate science, that you can help with!

You don't need qualifications or any training besides the slideshow at the start of a project. There are a lot of things that humans can do way better than machines can, even with only minimal training, that are vital to science - especially digitizing records and building searchable databases

Like labeling trees in aerial photos so that scientists have better datasets to use for restoration.

Or counting cells in fossilized plants to track the impacts of climate change.

Or digitizing old atmospheric data to help scientists track the warming effects of El Niño.

Or counting penguins to help scientists better protect them.

Those are all on one of the most prominent citizen science platforms, called Zooniverse, but there are a ton of others, too.

Oh, and btw, you don't have to worry about messing up, because several people see each image. Studies show that if you pool the opinions of however many regular people (different by field), it matches the accuracy rate of a trained scientist in the field.

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I spent a lot of time doing this when I was really badly injured and housebound, and it was so good for me to be able to HELP and DO SOMETHING, even when I was in too much pain to leave my bed. So if you are chronically ill/disabled/for whatever reason can't participate or volunteer for things in person, I highly highly recommend.

Next time you wish you could do something - anything - to help

Remember that actually, you can. And help with some science.

Hi. Things are bleak, I know that. I know that we paid for Trump's last term with blood and it is likely the price will be blood again.

But listen to me. LISTEN.

You do not have to force yourself to witness horrors as an act of activism. It is not a form of activism. You can put your phone down, you can block that horrific video. We cannot win if you cannot fight and you will not be able to fight if you are hopeless.

Do not let them guilt you into this. People who are exhausted are easier to walk over. Take care of yourself, find community where you find joy.

mutuals. c'mere. this is a checkpoint. i am checking in. i am wrapping you in a blanket and giving you a nice warm drink. also some pretty flowers. it will be ok.

one of the most boring lessons I’ve learned is that when a task feels overwhelming, you just have to start doing it. Even if you’re not sure how to do 90% of it, look for one small component that seems close and start there. Sometimes it’s reading one article on the topic, or searching one related term, or literally just googling how to do the task. Do anything other than thinking about it. The process of working on a thing inherently makes it less scary.

Target has helped so many save money since they want to kiss the ass of Trump. Costco is better anyway.

Here’s a real boycott list

P.S: obviously everyone can’t boycott everything but one also doesn’t need that Tito’s Vodka or Wendy’s 😉