The War On Drugs Main Consequence Was To Incarcerate Huge Numbers Of People. There Are 2,400,000 People

It’s never too late to learn the right way to do things: button sewing technique via imgur → more…

The #1400challenge - How to turn stimulus checks into collective power | Inhabit

The last year has demonstrated just how razor thin our margin of survival is—from the brutality of the police to the viciousness of the virus, from the absurd ups-and-downs of the economy to the glaring incompetence of the government.

Now that they’ve been forced to send some cash our way, we’d like to propose a little something they maybe didn’t expect. The idea is simple: what if we took our stimulus checks and put them towards collective use?

In recent weeks Inhabit has been collaborating with groups around the country to put together a series of kits called the #1400challenge. The result is a handful of introductory guides for a variety of collective projects—from soundsystems and meshnets to pop-up dwellings and community gyms.

Each project is based on a proven and replicable idea, a working model that has already seen action in the streets and in neighborhoods. And each could be a jumping off point for new designs, new skillsets, new encounters, and newly expanded frontlines in the battle for the future.

No doubt many of us will have to spend our checks on necessities like groceries, rent, medical bills—all the bullshit it takes to stay alive in this bullshit world. But for those who can, and especially for those who want to pool resources, the opportunity is clear: invest in collective infrastructure that increases our shared capabilities, that augments our ability to live and to fight.

Here’s our wager. We have to translate isolated, temporary solutions to individual problems into the material and ethical basis for building collective power. We need autonomous solutions that scale at the level of neighborhoods, cities, and regions. Our power together unlocks more potential than we have alone.

It’ll take more than a stuck container ship to break the hold of the economy over our lives. Design and build new ways of living together, that lessen our dependence on their system at the same time that we cultivate trust in one another. Leverage all the means at our disposal—including their cold hard cash—to bring out the beauty, dignity, and creativity of our shared existence.

Read more…

If you want even more ideas, check out my #practical tag

Homesteading survival knowledge

Growing Food:

The basics of Growing Food

Crops to grow for Maximum Production

Seed Starting Plan

Grow transplants for free

How to get Seeds for Free

How to find good soil for Free

Amending the Soil

How to Collect Seeds

Re-potting and care for tomato transplants

Growing dry beans

Growing Garlic

How to grow a lot of Leek

Plants going to Seed Explained

Food you can grow and eat in the Winter

Climate change and Food Security

Plant Lemon Trees from Seed

Why is rain much more effective than watering?

Stashing Food

Storing the Food from your Garden

Living in nature and food conservation

Making a Meal from foraged and Garden Food in Winter

Sun-drying Strawberries

Sun-drying Cherry Tomatoes

Citrus Tips

Canning

Blackberry Jam

Strawberry Jam

Salsa (tomatoes, peppers, onion, garlic)

Đuveđ (mixed vegetables preserve)

Ajvar (preserved peppers)

Preserved sugar Cherries

Foraging: 

Edible Mushrooms that grow on trees

Edible Wild Plants to Forage for in Spring

Make Honey out of Dandelions

How to cook with Nettle

Incredible value of Pine Needles

Herbalism

Rose Water

On herbal infusions and poison tea

Herbs to Collect for Tea

How to safely make Elderberry Syrup

Yarrow and Lemon Balm

Basic Medicinal Herbal Tea Uses

Tree Care:

How to grow trees

Where are the Tree Roots?

What is Root Flare

Tree Pruning Mistakes

Types of Pruning cuts

How to Prune Correctly

Other:

Building a Cob House

How to make Earthen Floors

Cooking with minimal use of heat

Processing Forest Clay

How to hand-work clay

How to make laundry detergent out of conkers

Creating baskets out of Newspapers

How to keep your space cool during heat waves

How trees create a living atmosphere

How to get rid of ants

Survival Recipes

What garden plants can be used as poison

Commissioned by Writinginmargins for her fic Brought Out Their Burrs and Mosses. Thank you!

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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.  

Please take action and sign the following petitions:

Petition 🇺🇸 Secretary of State to #SaveSheikhJarrah

Lobby 🇬🇧 UK Foreign Office to #SaveSheikhJarrah

Petition 🇺🇸 Congress to #SaveSheikhJarrah

Source:  LET’S TALK PALESTINE

damn, your comment about where did the carbon come from has got me wondering why the earth's crust is so... ordered, if you see what I mean. like, you don't have just tiny particles of elements that happened to react with each other, in a random mostly-homogeneous mix--you have large areas of the same type of rock, large veins of iron or whatnot, and so on. like going with like, to an extent.

too lumpy and solid to combine and homogenise? or it combined and then separated due to different densities and varying levels of heat? I have no idea where planets came from, I only live on one.

DoorDash workers are going on strike tomorrow (July 31st, 2021). They’re demanding tip transparency and a base pay of at least $4.25 per hour. Don’t cross the picket line.