171–180 of 454 posts
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> I want to dedicate a slice of time to doing something to solve the problem Eat less meat (huge environmental impact!), bike more, don't consume as much non-local food, etc.
I wanted to tack on here that even our agriculture has a huge environmental impact — nothing worse for biodiversity than how we’ve replaced animal habitats with fields of a single crop! And then pesticides etc. I don’t know if it ever happen, but we really should support capture fisheries, fish farms, and captured game. Properly Managed Captured Fisheries (Mostly more prosperous nations have well managed fisheries, o…
I guess if you HAVE to eat meat that is a better option, but we don't need it anymore. Its such an inefficient way to get calories and its not as nutritious as plant substitutes.
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> I want to dedicate a slice of time to doing something to solve the problem Eat less meat (huge environmental impact!), bike more, don't consume as much non-local food, etc.
Factory-farmed meat is bad for humans and bad for the environment, true, but any industrial-scale monoculture crop has huge negative impacts, and that includes vegetables too. Better to avoid monocultures by buying organic/biodynamic, shopping at farmers' markets, CSA, growing your own food, etc. Eat less processed and make more from scratch. Better health, better for the environment, and you can still enjoy meat :)
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to me this implies you don't travel or go out much. so what do you do for fun then?
I don’t see where you get that implication. Perhaps they’re spending a month in France rather than taking three one-week trips. Perhaps they’re living closer to town so that they don’t drive as much to get to work and their local hacker club. There’s lots of ways you can reorganize your life to be less resource-intensive without meaningful sacrifice, especially if you’re starting from the immensely wasteful late-20th…
http://gscleanenergy.blogspot.com/2013/04/how-much-gas-does-...
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In other parts of the world like Canada things are becoming alive with the changes. The earth is a living ecosystem.
It's warming up, isn't it? I'm hearing about a loss of permafrost. Sounds like it's becoming more habitable up north.
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I was listening to an entomologist podcast on colony collapse and they were suggesting that as members of the colony became more and more impaired the interdependency of the various bee groups (workers, foragers, queen) was compromised and then "all of a sudden" the hive was unable to reliably function. And large social group (ants, termites, bees, etc) might be similarly affected.
Not unlike if one drives up the cost of rent in a city so high that the people who make it function, can't afford to live there and leave. Dogs don't get walked, burritos unmade and drinks unstiffened. Jane Jacobs outlined all of this decades ago.
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Just speculating wildly and looking at Sweden, for example meadows have more or less disappeared since 30-40 years. I mean flowering meadows, not pastures for grazing. The meadows have been turned into forests and to a lesser extent pastures. It's not a few percent, it's 30% of the land, probably more in Germany where there are much lest forests than in Sweden. The bio-diversity in a meadow strikes me as much higher…
My understanding is that there is a give and take between meadows and forests that occurs on multi-year cycle. Meadows grow when there is too much water, and trees grow when the water recedes. You can see this in the Yosemite Valley really clearly. Perhaps this is a sign that the freshwater in the ground is going away.
All these wild weeping willow which had been a signature of Masovian landscape and which I still remember from childhood visits to family farm died soon thereafter. So did the frogs. It is like coming to different country now.
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I think supporting permaculture is a big step we can all take. Have a look at Ben Falk's YouTube videos for a quick intro, or Sepp Holzer. We need to move towards a form of agriculture which does active good for the planet. It's possible to do. Edit: Also, a simple step: leave parts of your lawn unmowed for a full year. This gives insects and certain endangered birds much needed habitat in what is otherwise a wastela…
It frustrates me that even though I am not in a HOA area, I cannot do this without getting letters from the city and fines. They will come mow my lawn for me and then charge me if I don't keep them mowed. Even my back yard which is almost 100% enclosed. I rent, otherwise I would build a wall right against my neighbors property so they wouldn't call the city on me for being able to see through a 5 foot gap into the ba…
Being an earth dwelling human, this seems pretty bad. Aside from buying ammo or survival rations, what's something proactive that I can do? Is there an organization that is trying to rid the world of pesticides (assuming that's the cause)? If I opt to call my representatives, what am I calling in support of/against? Over the last year, reading the news had made me more passive and worried. I want to dedicate a slice…
Serious question: Did you only get serious with news reading in the last year or so?