Despair only limits future action – Simon Clark
Common Ground – from the same folks who produced the documentary Kiss the Ground – is out today on Prime. I screened it today. It’s dark and hopeful and realistic. I recommend it. I also recommend Kiss the Ground. Their YouTube page is here.
And as always, for a very deep look at the science of soil regeneration, I highly recommend Carbon Cowboys/Roots So Deep. There are at least 10 – 15 posts here with their videos.
Here is their YouTube page and their website. For a $10 rental, you will get a 4-episode deep dive into a revolution in farm practices for 3 months.
There are people out there making a difference. Don’t get so mired in those trying to destroy us for profit that you miss that.
Climate Scientist Michael E Mann & historian Timothy D Snyder:
Doomerism is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.
It is how authoritarians win. Let’s try to fight the doom
All of the positive climate news can be found at this link here: Climate Change Solutions
Okay, had to add this because, well it’s Elle:
This is a doom and gloom free Earth Day thread…
Protest Pics from Softail in San Francisco and Warren Senders in MA
sab
I think I was 15 first Earth Day.
Impossibly wonk thread here already.
Long day today. I am calling it a sunlit night.
Trollhattan
CAISO at I type this reports 84% of their electricity supply is renewable, of which 87% or 19.5GW is solar. They supply 80% of California, are presently exporting 3.4 GW with another 5.6 GW going into battery storage.
Take that, Texas.
sab
Yikes the site is wonky today.
If Springfield Ohio lets their Haitians be deported, they deserve to fade away like a dust bowl town. Sorry John Legend, but they do.
Baud
🌍🌎🌏
dnfree
Thank you, TaMara, for your continued focus on the welfare of the planet.
MattF
I have to repost this because it’s so good. Didn’t Umberto Eco write a short story about pre-Bang entities having conversations?
H.E.Wolf
I can still remember my excitement in middle school, when I got a spiral notebook with a cover made from recycled cardstock, with little colored flecks from the paper it had been made with.
This was waaaay back when the buzzwords were ecology and ecosystems.
We’ve made such progress! Plenty still to do, of course, but we’ve come a long way.
WaterGirl
At first I wondered who Elle was –
is that the alternate-reality VP’s daughter?That was sweet, whoever that was
edit: TaMara, thanks for this doom and gloom free Earth Day thread.
edit 2: Just finished your overnight post from last night, and i see that my first guess was wrong.
Kristine
Just wanted to say that today’s feature photo from JanieM is so lovely.
WaterGirl
@Kristine: Isn’t it, though? I clicked on it earlier to see the bigger version, and I noticed that I was taking my first deep breath of the day.
So lovely and so calming.
Harrison Wesley
I’m limited to my phone, but would greatly appreciate it if someone put up a link to Albert Aylor’s Music is the Healing Force of the Universe
rikyrah
Happy Earth Day :)
Harrison Wesley
Oops. That’s Ayler, not Aylor.
Jacel
@Harrison Wesley: Here you go, with Albert Ayler’s Music Is The Healing Force Of The Universe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvdbDMxKWZo
comrade scotts agenda of rage
I’m going on a road trip starting tomorrow morning, heading to the KC area.
Driving my Bolt and doing it thru chunks of rurl KS, off of soul-sucking I-70 which always make route planning challenging!
Earth Day, kinda sorta, in real life although a day late.
Old Dan and Little Ann
My wee one shares her bday with Earth Day! 10! I can’t believe it.
WaterGirl
@Old Dan and Little Ann: It goes so fast!
Harrison Wesley
@Jacel: Thank you!
Leto
@sab: that would be interesting if they did because Maddow showed protests from Springfield last night. People are there protesting what’s going on. Guess we’ll see.
karen gail
It was my senior year of high school that had the first earth day; a couple of teachers made a point to make us aware not only was it earth day but our former Governor and US Senator was the driving force behind the creation of Earth Day. Gaylord Nelson, believed and made an effort to change things. “Silent Spring” by Rachel Carson had been one of the required reading by English and History teachers.
TaMara
@WaterGirl: I’ve posted several of her videos on the overnight posts. She’s brilliant.
Fair Economist
@Trollhattan: I should point out that CA’s renewable production during the day today considerably exceeds the actual demand. The “demand” on that site includes power exports and battery storage.
The CA ISO site can be a good mood-lifter. Every year I notice renewable and battery storage is far up from the previous https://www.caiso.com/todays-outlook/supply
WaterGirl
@TaMara: I love the two I just saw her in. This one and the one from last night with the poem. So far I’d say she has a lovely voice and a great style.
Gloria DryGarden
@Baud: amen
blessings to our holy mother…
love your multi continent emojis
does that make it a DEI post?
prostratedragon
Rep. Lauren Underwood on Feb. 7, introducing the Taxpayer Data Protection Act:
Rep. U derwood today:
sab
Made soup for tomorrows dinner, so lost steam for today’s dinner (scheduled leftovers). Called to living room about putting tomorrow’s soup away,and husband positively shrieked that that was today’s meal not tomorrow’s leftovers. Whatever. Tomorrows leftovers will be even older leftovers. I don’t even have the energy for today’s firstovers.
Dog woke me up at 12. Cat woke me up at 2. Dog woke me up at 2:45. Train woke me up at 5. Alarm woke me up at 7:45. I am retired and exhausted.
Echo and Dobby are scrapping but actually playing. Except Dobby accidentally closed a door on Echo and she went into orbit with a snarl.Not much trust there yet.
TerryTime
Spouse and I got married on Earth Day in 1995, so Happy 30th to us!
Leto
@TaMara: I think I’m similar to you, in that I discovered her during the Covid lockdown, and I’ve been a fan as well. The early stuff she, Toni, and Josh were doing (those covers) were all really good.
Sure Lurkalot
I remember buying the Whole Earth Catalog around my junior year in high school, back when the subject matter was called “ecology” (h/t HE Wolf, above).
I started recycling not long thereafter in college. It wasn’t made easy in the 70’s—no bins, no curbside pickup, sometimes not even free.
So, it’s been an ingrained habit for me for about 50 years and I am incredulous that I have two neighbors, ages 65-75, who do not recycle AT ALL. My spouse chatted up one of them about the ease of composting (we have city service for that too) and he claimed he didn’t think he had any food waste!
Our HOA community committee chair is very good about including information about the city services and recycling and composting tips but still, some people can’t be bothered.
Colorado is known for its love of the outdoor recreation but it is one of the worst states for recycling and composting. It’s a real disconnect.
Nukular Biskits
@Baud:
Why are you deliberately baiting our semi-benevolent blogfather? LOL.
OT: If I may, I notice you’re not as active on Bluesky as you had been (either that or I just happen to not see your posts).
Gloria DryGarden
@Sure Lurkalot: my neighborhood organization was encouraging us at a meeting to get neighbors to recycle. She said we were at 30% recycling, and her goal was to raise that.
East colfax neighborhood, formerly East Montclair, is very much middle to lower income folks.
that was a few years back- i wonder what the numbers are now. I don’t see compost bins yet in my alley, so I don’t think we’ve been added to that program yet. Looking forward to it. Meanwhile, we do have many full recycle bins being put out, so I guess we’re doing better on my block.
Gloria DryGarden
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Pollyanna has driven on the back highways of Kansas over and over during his move to Georgia, and all the round trips since then.
you’ll be avoiding a lot of bumpy roads and disrepair by skipping I-70, based on what he’s said.
Gloria DryGarden
@TaMara: i like her a lot.
Baud
@Nukular Biskits:
I’ve been too busy to peruse Bluesky. It’s back to BJ and Reddit for me for the time being.
sab
@Leto: A couple of hundred protestors in a town of 20,000 ain’t much. I seriously hope they rise to the occasion.
I seriously hope we also rise to the occasion if we need to defend our several thousand Nepalese and Congolese. They have done a lot for our city. I hope we can repay them with support.
Nukular Biskits
@Baud:
Understood and empathize.
Lotsa days, I barely have time to skim over the posts here, a really quick look at BS and read mistermix’s emails.
Long reads are usually the weekends.
Baud
Speaking of Reddit, they’re watching the leopards feast tonight.
persistentillusion
@Sure Lurkalot: Fellow Coloradan here. My ex’s partner is famous for describing our medium sized town. “Good-sized place to have this many assholes”.
RevRick
I’m the co-chapter leader of our Climate Hope Affiliate in the PA-7 Congressional District, the first fully-trained such group, an initiative of the United Church of Christ Environmental Justice Ministry. Our initial goals are to get delegations from our chapter to meet with Rep. Ryan MacKenzie, Sen. Dave McCormick, and Sen. John Fetterman to talk about defending “energy tax credits” in future federal budgets and to get letters to the editor in The Morning Call supporting climate change legislation.
Getting through to the legislators will take repeated efforts since they are currently overwhelmed by phone calls and emails. We have designated liaisons for each legislator and have been provided a script of talking points. Our long-term goal is to develop ongoing relationships with the legislators, especially those with whom we vehemently disagree, to move those who oppose climate change legislation to neutrality, those who are neutral to supporting, those who are supporting into advocacy.
We are concentrating our efforts on Rep. MacKenzie since he was one of 21 Republican Representatives to sign a letter to the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee urging the protection of the “energy tax credits.” No Republican would dare speak favorably about the Inflation Reduction Act, so we who are “wise as serpents and innocent as doves” will maintain the charade of speaking only of “energy tax credits” if it accomplishes the task.
sab
// My seven cats in the basement have organized a cat homeowner’s association. The board (four cats) have voted three of them out. So the three have moved upstairs.
From my perspective nothing has changed. No cat owns its condo. They all are mine
I like them all so I do not care who lives up or down.
ETA Joking aside, the cats do care a lot who lives upstairs or downstairs. I suspect their is a fourth and possibly a fifth upstairs. And Solly solidly downstairs didn’ t vote for the expulsions.
Gloria DryGarden
@Nukular Biskits: sometimes I just hit YouTube or someone’s news feed on blue sky, for a quick awareness of news.
Inspired by baud, I made myself a list of news sources. But I like bauds news list better.
It’s a quick scroll, some headlines. Otherwise, it’s too much time and mental emotional bandwidth, some days.
Nukular Biskits
@Gloria DryGarden:
I also hit a couple of state news outlets to keep up with what’s going on here.
Problem is, there’s so much shit going down and only so many hours a day.
Timill
@sab: Sounds like life here… Mostly they can choose, but come feeding time the door gets closed, so I get to yell at cats who are getting it wrong: “Arabella, you are an Upstairs cat. What are you thinking?”
sab
@Timill: That sounds so much like here. Shadow, go upstairs. Sadie, you cannot feed at every trough. Yes, Echo, you have food upstairs. Mouf you have food upstairs. Just clear it with the pitbull.
Bill Arnold
@Nukular Biskits:
lite.cnn.com is nice. Text-only, one headline link per line, and links open to a text-only web page, with a link to the article with images etc.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud:
And you can put money on her voting for the orange shitstain three times.
sab
Deep down all cats are weird little guys. All dogs are team players.