I Am Travelling For A Long Time And I Want To Download Some Ffs On My Kindle, Can You Rec Me Something

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Solarpunk Action Week 2021

It’s that time again, space cadets!

Solarpunk Action Week has been ongoing twice a year since 2019, with every week looking bigger and better than the last. People all over the world are planting gardens, learning new skills, building things, reducing waste, spreading information, taking direct action, and getting their neighborhoods and workplaces organized. We, your humble hosts, have consulted the auguries and scheduled Solarpunk Action Week 2021 for:

April 25th to May 1st!

Mark your calendars, kids

What is Solarpunk?

Solarpunk is  a movement in speculative fiction, art, fashion and  activism that  seeks to answer and embody the question “what does a  sustainable  civilization look like, and how can we get there?” The  aesthetics of  solarpunk merge the practical with the beautiful, the  well-designed  with the green and wild, the bright and colorful with the  earthy and  solid. Solarpunk can be utopian, just optimistic, or  concerned with the  struggles en route to a better world — but never  dystopian. As our  world roils with calamity, we need solutions, not  warnings. Solutions  to live comfortably without fossil fuels, to  equitably manage scarcity  and share abundance, to be kinder to each  other and to the planet we  share. At once a vision of the future, a  thoughtful provocation, and an  achievable lifestyle.”

And what is Solarpunk Action Week?

Solarpunk  Action Week is a week dedicated to taking radical environmentalist and anticapitalist action to make the world a better place.  Previous Action Weeks have seen people starting gardens, learning new skills, making and repairing things, reducing waste, spreading information, getting involved in community organizing

All you have to do participate is begin or continue with an environmentalist, anticapitalist project and talk about it in the #SolarpunkActionWeek tag; it’ll get a lot of signal boosts to connect with other people around the world doing the same. &and follow along on Mastodon at @SolarpunkActionWeek@ecosteader.com

- - -

The previous Solarpunk Action Weeks saw a lot of individual actions, and those were incredible to witness, but we’re at our most powerful when we come together, so your homework for the next 6 months between now and the end of April is: Get organized! If we were able to do so much as individuals back in March, just imagine what you could get done rolling into Solarpunk Action Week with a crew ready to go

If you’re new to organizing, here are some great places to get started:

The Industrial Workers of the World (which has that good good Environmental Unionist Caucus and Southern Coordinating Committee)

Food Not Bombs

Mutual Aid Disaster Relief

Transition Initiative

Buy Nothing Project

Food Not Lawns

Can’t find anything in your area? Start something yourself!

Got 1 or 2 friends? You can start an affinity group

Guide to small-town organizing  

7 steps to starting a Food Not Bombs group

Wet’suwet’en supporter toolkit  

And I’m sure people will link to all sorts of other great projects and resources in the rebagels, so keep an eye on the notes!

If you’re already part of a union or a tenants’ association or what have you, even better! Get them in on it.

What can I do?

So many things! You can check out the #SolarpunkActionWeek tag to see what others have done in the past for inspiration. The two dinguses organizing these events have got resource tags full of just so many things you might could do and how to get started on them, here and here respectively. And here are some other fun ideas:

Everything you need to know about solarpunk

Everything you need to know about gardening

Everything you need to know about agitprop

Everything you need to know about antifascist action

Everything you need to know about making and repairing things

Everything you need to know about organizing in your workplace and your community

Learn how to become a street medic

Learn how to repair clothes

Regrow food plants from kitchen scraps

Recycle scrap fabric into yarn

20 plants to grow indoors

Make your apartment more energy efficient

Build a beautiful and functional vertical garden out of your literal garbage

Get out there and invent the future, space cadets, because we have a world to win. I know y’all are gonna make me proud; y’all always do.

If you want to keep up with/support the mods between Action Weeks, here’s our info:

Pops: Mastodon, tumblr (resources tag), Patreon, ko-fi

Natalie: Mastodon, tumblr (resources tag), Patreon, cashapp $NatalieIronside, buy Natalie’s book

—

“We have always lived in slums and holes in the wall. We will know how to accommodate ourselves for a time. For, you must not forget, we can also build. It is we the workers who built these palaces and cities here in Spain and in America and everywhere. We, the workers, can build others to take their place. And better ones! We are not in the least afraid of ruins. We are going to inherit the earth; there is not the slightest doubt about that. The bourgeoisie might blast and ruin its own world before it leaves the stage of history. We carry a new world here, in our hearts. That world is growing this minute.“ 

–Buenaventura Durruti

Vox

This animal is on the edge of extinction. Trump just fired the people trying to save it.

Job cuts and frozen funding could inch one of the world’s rarest species even closer to extinction.

DOGE just froze funding to vital Federal and Indigenous conservation programs devoted to supporting the very delicate and tenuous existence of the black-footed ferret.

I fell in love with these animals as a kid traveling to our National Parks. Their rarity and ferocity made me sharply aware, even as a child, of just how much of a responsibility we have toward our environment. I can't bear the thought of them being a fucking casualty of Trump and Musk.

Look at them! They do war dances.

Welcome to Tuebl

Tuebl.ca is my new most favoritest site. 

for people who don’t know, Tuebl.ca is essentially a FREE AND AUTHORIZED ONLINE LIBRARY WHERE YOU CAN DOWNLOAD FREE .EPUB VERSIONS OF POPULAR BOOKS.

When I say authorized, I mean popular authors PUT THEIR BOOKS UP THERE FOR FREE BECAUSE THEY KNOW EBOOKS WILL GET THEM NEW FANS WHO WILL THEN GO ON TO BUY THEIR  BOOKS.

I’m talking like John Grisham. Jacqueline Carey. Stephanie Meyers. Jeffrey Eugenides. FUCKING ANNA QUINDLEN. A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE.

that’s just the start. seriously. try it out.

By the numbers: Why this ancient rainforest is an important climate solution

Key facts and figures show why Tongass National Forest in Alaska is an important ally in confronting climate change. The Tongass’ large old-growth trees are great at trapping carbon, underscoring the importance of protecting the wildest areas from logging and development.

Excerpt from this story from The Wilderness Society:

Trees absorb carbon dioxide and give off oxygen. This makes them some of our greatest allies in the fight against the climate crisis.  

Big, dense, old-growth forests are especially good at absorbing and trapping (or “sequestering”) carbon, the leading greenhouse gas causing climate change. The Tongass National Forest in Alaska is often referred to as “America’s Climate Forest,” the nation’s “climate insurance policy” and “a national champion” of carbon sequestration.

But that only works if they’re left standing. Once cut down, these trees release their stored carbon and can exacerbate the climate crisis. That’s why we need to protect old-growth trees in places like the Tongass.  

The Trump administration got rid of protections for the wildest parts of the Tongass. The White House said it plans to review that decision. We encourage President Biden to follow through on that promise and ultimately restore protections to this ancient rainforest.

Tongass National Forest has been called a “key weapon“ for fighting climate change. The reason: big, old-growth trees are highly effective at trapping climate-warming greenhouse gas like carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing (or “sequestering”) it. Scientists have estimated that the Tongass accounts for about 8% of the carbon sequestered by all national forests.

Bottom line: if left standing, these trees are crucial to combating the climate crisis. But when old-growth trees are logged, they release carbon back into the atmosphere, exacerbating the climate crisis rather than helping it. Research has found that carbon density in unmanaged forests is 60% higher than in managed forests. In other words, forests like the Tongass are most effective in helping the climate crisis when left alone.

Scientists have known for quite some time that plants—especially trees—are big-time absorbers of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. A 2011 study tried to quantify the worldwide effect and reported a net global forest sink of as much as 1.1 petagrams—1.1 billion metric tons—of carbon per year. According to the EPA’s calculator, that means the world’s forests annually remove carbon from the atmosphere equivalent to that contained in nearly 54 million tanker trucks’ worth of gasoline.  

People who don’t want to read The Martian in case the science is too complicated should be informed that it contains the lines “The best way to store the ingredients of water is to make them be water”, “It is of course dangerous to set off an explosive device on a spacecraft”, and “If I cut a hole in the wall of the hab, the air won’t stay inside any more”.

I’ve been thinking about starting a vertical farm as a way to provide free food to anyone in need. I’m still trying to figure out how much it would cost but I’ll probably need to crowdfund. I don’t know how to approach this. Should I form a 501c3? Maybe just do a GoFundMe campaign? I don’t have experience with mutual aid networks or nonprofits so any advice from people with experience would be very helpful.

I already have a few people who are interested in helping but they also lack experience with this sort of thing.

not enough fireworks and champagne on the whole fuckin continent to celebrate this the way you're supposed to celebrate it