Captain Planet and the Planeteers [ecology]

[rjbman]

[sknss]

For Lent I am giving up single use plastic, or doing my best to anyway. I am fed up with buying vegetables wrapped in plastic from the supermarket. Even today a lot of plastic used by shops is not recyclable! The packaging labelling system used in the UK is very clear and tells you what can or can't be recycled. It makes me sad to throw away unnecessary plastic (does a head of lettuce really need to be wrapped in plastic?). All the greens in Sainsbury's are prepacked so I will probably have to go to a local fruit and veg shop. I need my greens! We'll see how expensive this gets. I'd also like to visit a bulk shop for pasta, porridge, lentils etc.

[sknss]

Weekly shopping update:

Loose potatoes cost £3. Potatoes in a bag are £1.75.
Oil can be bought in glass bottles I guess? Didn't even look tbh.
Garlic was £1.10 for 4 in a bag or 30p loose. Grabbed it without thinking. Next time we'll buy loose.

Loose carrots are 10p/kg more expensive so we made this terrible sacrifice.
Cauliflower was actually wrapped but we found one that lost its wrapper (lol).
Wanted to buy leeks but they were all wrapped. :[

Seems crazy that you have to pay more to get loose stuf??

Last week (before the challenge) we ordered some staples online.

Not very happy with this tbh. Could probably buy loose cashews/lentils/oats somewhere. The last rice bag we bought came in a paper packaging.This one was plastic which is lame but no way to know by ordering online.
I don't think it's possible to buy frozen stuff and avoid plastic. Same thing with tofu/butter spread.

The facebook group I'm in recommends building up your involvement gradually. This week's theme is REFUSE:
Plastic straws
Coffee lids & plastic stirrers
Plastic bags
Polystyrene Takeaway Packaging
Plastic cutlery

Carrying a tote and a water bottle (all the hip people own a klean kanteen anyway) + the occasional tupperware/tiffin should make that easy peasy!

If you have any advice or comments I'd love to hear them!

[vgtbls]

[sknss]

It's the last week of the no plastic challenge, in which I conclude that it's impossible to be environmentally responsible if you have no money.

[bels]

[sknss]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/28/world ... .html?_r=0
a great story about Sea Shepherd ships chasing "the world's most notorious poacher"

[rjbman]

[rjbman]

[rjbman]

[MxmHrpr]

My current favourite energy proposal I'm keeping tabs on. Gotta flatten the duck every way possible, this seems like pumped storage but much more widely applicable geographically and adaptable to future energy demands/production evolution.



(Whilst I'm here, quick solar rant. V frustrated at overly optimistic PV panel enthusiasts not realising that returns to feed-in diminish with more panels. Extrapolating from their current panel economics (as they're generally early adopters) being like, "why can't everyone just go solar like me?" -- I'm a big solar bull, but this almost holier-than-thou attitude is really lazy and damaging for progressing the cause)

[ptozzi]

[jrisk]

[ptozzi]

[sknss]

this was pretty good

feat. guy mcpherson who believes the human species is going to disappear by 2030 and now lives off the grid in new mexico

[rjbman]

[rjbman]

>Join with others.
>Advocate for federal action.
>Support state and local action.
>Take action at work.
>Talk to your friends, family and peers.

[rjbman]

- this is Very Scary, especially combined with the

[dakaf_fal]

I made it down to DC yesterday to attend the March for Science. Despite the poor weather, there was a strong turnout and good vibes all around. I was pleasantly surprised at the scarcity of counter-protestors, since I've heard from friends who attended the Women's March that things got a little dicey. I also saw the most people walking around in lab coats since the last time I wandered through Otakon. By the end of the day I was quite jealous of the brain hats though- they looked very warm and comfortable. Small album of cellphone pics below:



Thanks for the heads up. For some reason the I can't the album to work, so I posted a few images individually.

[rjbman]

Y'all I been reading a lot of articles lately and I'm fucking scared - there's dozens of different hypotheses about what rising temperatures will bring and they're all apocalyptic disasters

- rising sea levels are going to release some of Antarctica's 70% share of Earth's freshwater into the ocean, causing Hurricane Sandy-like ocean swelling without the retreat.

- Long-dormant bacteria and viruses, preserved in the permafrosts of Siberia, are being uncovered; some are resistant to antibiotics, even the last-resort antibiotics.

- Many climate-change deniers point to a lack of certainty about how the climate change will affect humanity (do you need to know what exactly happens to your body when you get hit by a car to know it's bad news?). What if, instead of overestimating the effects of climate change, they're underestimating?

[rjbman]

[fun_yunchables]

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03595-0

who else in doomer mode

also hearing from several academics pointing fingers to nordhaus as one of the neoclassical economists responsible for instigating the lackluster response to climate change back in the 1970s, particularly with this critique:

https://academic.oup.com/ej/article-abs ... 56/5233282

fuck neoclassical economists all my homies hate neoclassical economists