Planet's Fucked: What Can You Do To Help? (Long Post)
Since nobody is talking about the existential threat to the climate and the environment a second Trump term/Republican government control will cause, which to me supersedes literally every other issue, I wanted to just say my two cents, and some things you can do to help. I am a conservation biologist, whose field was hit substantially by the first Trump presidency. I study wild bees, birds, and plants.
In case anyone forgot what he did last time, he gagged scientists' ability to talk about climate change, he tried zeroing budgets for agencies like the NOAA, he attempted to gut protections in the Endangered Species Act (mainly by redefining 'take' in a way that would allow corporations to destroy habitat of imperiled species with no ramifications), he tried to do the same for the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (the law that offers official protection for native non-game birds), he sought to expand oil and coal extraction from federal protected lands, he shrunk the size of multiple national preserves, HE PULLED US OUT OF THE PARIS CLIMATE AGREEMENT, and more.
We are at a crucial tipping point in being able to slow the pace of climate change, where we decide what emissions scenario we will operate at, with existential consequences for both the environment and people. We are also in the middle of the Sixth Mass Extinction, with the rate of species extinctions far surpassing background rates due completely to human actions. What we do now will determine the fate of the environment for hundreds or thousands of years - from our ability to grow key food crops (goodbye corn belt! I hated you anyway but), to the pressure on coastal communities that will face the brunt of sea level rise and intensifying extreme weather events, to desertification, ocean acidification, wildfires, melting permafrost (yay, outbreaks of deadly frozen viruses!), and a breaking down of ecosystems and ecosystem services due to continued habitat loss and species declines, especially insect declines. The fact that the environment is clearly a low priority issue despite the very real existential threat to so many people, is beyond my ability to understand. I do partly blame the public education system for offering no mandatory environmental science curriculum or any at all in most places. What it means is that it will take the support of everyone who does care to make any amount of difference in this steeply uphill battle.
There are not enough environmental scientists to solve these issues, not if public support is not on our side and the majority of the general public is either uninformed or actively hostile towards climate science (or any conservation science).
So what can you, my fellow Americans, do to help mitigate and minimize the inevitable damage that lay ahead?
I'm not going to tell you to recycle more or take shorter showers. I'll be honest, that stuff is a drop in the bucket. What does matter on the individual level is restoring and protecting habitat, reducing threats to at-risk species, reducing pesticide use, improving agricultural practices, and pushing for policy changes. Restoring CONNECTIVITY to our landscape - corridors of contiguous habitat - will make all the difference for wildlife to be able to survive a changing climate and continued human population expansion.
**Caveat that I work in the northeast with pollinators and birds so I cannot provide specific organizations for some topics, including climate change focused NGOs. Scientists on tumblr who specialize in other fields, please add your own recommended resources. **
We need two things: FUNDING and MANPOWER.
You may surprised to find that an insane amount of conservation work is carried out by volunteers. We don't ever have the funds to pay most of the people who want to help. If you really really care, consider going into a conservation-related field as a career. It's rewarding, passionate work.
At the national level, please support:
The Nature Conservancy
Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation
Cornell Lab of Ornithology (including eBird)
National Audubon Society
Federal Duck Stamps (you don't need to be a hunter to buy one!)
These first four work to acquire and restore critical habitat, change environmental policy, and educate the public. There is almost certainly a Nature Conservancy-owned property within driving distance of you. Xerces plays a very large role in pollinator conservation, including sustainable agriculture, native bee monitoring programs, and the Bee City/Bee Campus USA programs. The Lab of O is one of the world's leaders in bird research and conservation. Audubon focuses on bird conservation. You can get annual memberships to these organizations and receive cool swag and/or a subscription to their publications which are well worth it. You can also volunteer your time; we need thousands of volunteers to do everything from conducting wildlife surveys, invasive species removal, providing outreach programming, managing habitat/clearing trails, planting trees, you name it. Federal Duck Stamps are the major revenue for wetland conservation; hunters need to buy them to hunt waterfowl but anyone can get them to collect!
THERE ARE DEFINITELY MORE, but these are a start.
Additionally, any federal or local organizations that seek to provide support and relief to those affected by hurricanes, sea level rise, any form of coastal climate change...
At the regional level:
These are a list of topics that affect major regions of the United States. Since I do not work in most of these areas I don't feel confident recommending specific organizations, but please seek resources relating to these as they are likely major conservation issues near you.
PRAIRIE CONSERVATION & PRAIRIE POTHOLE WETLANDS
DRYING OF THE COLORADO RIVER (good overview video linked)
PROTECTION OF ESTUARIES AND SALTMARSH, ESPECIALLY IN THE DELAWARE BAY AND LONG ISLAND (and mangroves further south, everglades etc; this includes restoring LIVING SHORELINES instead of concrete storm walls; also check out the likely-soon extinction of saltmarsh sparrows)
UNDAMMING MAJOR RIVERS (not just the Colorado; restoring salmon runs, restoring historic floodplains)
NATIVE POLLINATOR DECLINES (NOT honeybees. for fuck's sake. honeybees are non-native domesticated animals. don't you DARE get honeybee hives to 'save the bees')
WILDLIFE ALONG THE SOUTHERN BORDER (support the Mission Butterfly Center!)
INVASIVE PLANT AND ANIMAL SPECIES (this is everywhere but the specifics will differ regionally, dear lord please help Hawaii)
LOSS OF WETLANDS NATIONWIDE (some states have lost over 90% of their wetlands, I'm looking at you California, Ohio, Illinois)
INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE, esp in the CORN BELT and CALIFORNIA - this is an issue much bigger than each of us, but we can work incrementally to promote sustainable practices and create habitat in farmland-dominated areas. Support small, local farms, especially those that use soil regenerative practices, no-till agriculture, no pesticides/Integrated Pest Management/no neonicotinoids/at least non-persistent pesticides. We need more farmers enrolling in NRCS programs to put farmland in temporary or permanent wetland easements, or to rent the land for a 30-year solar farm cycle. We've lost over 99% of our prairies to corn and soybeans. Let's not make it 100%.
INDIGENOUS LAND-BACK EFFORTS/INDIGENOUS LAND MANAGEMENT/TEK (adding this because there have been increasing efforts not just for reparations but to also allow indigenous communities to steward and manage lands either fully independently or alongside western science, and it would have great benefits for both people and the land; I know others on here could speak much more on this. Please platform indigenous voices)
HARMFUL ALGAL BLOOMS (get your neighbors to stop dumping fertilizers on their lawn next to lakes, reduce agricultural runoff)
OCEAN PLASTIC (it's not straws, it's mostly commercial fishing line/trawling equipment and microplastics)
A lot of these are interconnected. And of course not a complete list.
At the state and local level:
You probably have the most power to make change at the local level!
Support or volunteer at your local nature centers, local/state land conservancy non-profits (find out who owns&manages the preserves you like to hike at!), state fish & game dept/non-game program, local Audubon chapters (they do a LOT). Participate in a Christmas Bird Count!
Join local garden clubs, which install and maintain town plantings - encourage them to use NATIVE plants. Join a community garden!
Get your college campus or city/town certified in the Bee Campus USA/Bee City USA programs from the Xerces Society
Check out your state's official plant nursery, forest society, natural heritage program, anything that you could become a member of, get plants from, or volunteer at.
Volunteer to be part of your town's conservation commission, which makes decisions about land management and funding
Attend classes or volunteer with your land grant university's cooperative extension (including master gardener programs)
Literally any volunteer effort aimed at improving the local environment, whether that's picking up litter, pulling invasive plants, installing a local garden, planting trees in a city park, ANYTHING. make a positive change in your own sphere. learn the local issues affecting your nearby ecosystems. I guarantee some lake or river nearby is polluted
MAKE HABITAT IN YOUR COMMUNITY. Biggest thing you can do. Use plants native to your area in your yard or garden. Ditch your lawn. Don't use pesticides (including mosquito spraying, tick spraying, Roundup, etc). Don't use fertilizers that will run off into drinking water. Leave the leaves in your yard. Get your school/college to plant native gardens. Plant native trees (most trees planted in yards are not native). Remove invasive plants in your yard.
On this last point, HERE ARE EASY ONLINE RESOURCES TO FIND NATIVE PLANTS and LEARN ABOUT NATIVE GARDENING:
Xerces Society Pollinator Conservation Resource Center
Pollinator Pathway
Audubon Native Plant Finder
Homegrown National Park (and Doug Tallamy's other books)
National Wildlife Federation Native Plant Finder (clunky but somewhat helpful)
Heather Holm (for prairie/midwest/northeast)
MonarchGard w/ Benjamin Vogt (for prairie/midwest)
Native Plant Trust (northeast & mid-atlantic)
Grow Native Massachusetts (northeast)
Habitat Gardening in Central New York (northeast)
There are many more - I'm not familiar with resources for western states. Print books are your biggest friend. Happy to provide a list of those.
Lastly, you can help scientists monitor species using citizen science. Contribute to iNaturalist, eBird, Bumblebee Watch, or any number of more geographically or taxonomically targeted programs (for instance, our state has a butterfly census carried out by citizen volunteers).
In short? Get curious, get educated, get involved. Notice your local nature, find out how it's threatened, and find out who's working to protect it that you can help with. The health of the planet, including our resilience to climate change, is determined by small local efforts to maintain and restore habitat. That is how we survive this. When government funding won't come, when we're beat back at every turn trying to get policy changed, it comes down to each individual person creating a safe refuge for nature.
Thanks for reading this far. Please feel free to add your own credible resources and organizations.
A 2nd trump presidency will basically be one of the last nails in our coffins, as the US, one of the biggest polluters, is going to be no longer have no qualms over fucking over the entire planet.
I get people's immediate priority isn't this, so they aren't talking about it, it's their rights and livelyhoods, it is totally understandable.
But talking to one of my professors today really showed me that the scientific community really is panicking and the planet is on its knees.
HOWEVER,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, we cannot lose hope, bc climate doomrism is as bad as climate denial
Take this time, while these issues are fresh on our minds, to educate yourself. Get involved. Share news with others. Call out misinformation. Do everything you can, while we still can.
To add to this, because it is very likely federal epa funding will be cut to nothing, conservationists are going to have to rely on our state governments more and more. Reaching out to state representatives about funding for restoration, education, preservation, etc. projects is possible, and probably more feasible than federal for the next few years.
All that to say, we can still be active and vigilant about communicating threats to the environment in our cities, counties, and states, using social media, petitions, or volunteering. This stupid outcome doesn’t have to be an end-all be-all, where hopefully we can be the kids telling our parents to use their seatbelts, as it were.
whenever i see a post about someone wondering how an asexual and a sexual can be in a healthy relationship there’s always someone being applauded for saying well asexuals can have sex too or just because someone’s asexual doesn’t mean they won’t have sex but i have never, not once, EVER seen someone say well hey, some sexuals don’t have sex. you can have a full relationship without sex. just throwing it out there
Yooo I'm Nathan's friend, I'm telling you now. could I commission you sometime in the next two weeks?? i'm not sure what I want atm, but I'll be sure to hit up again when it time.
Heyo, nice to meet you! And absolutely! Thanks for the heads-up, I've got a comms price sheet floating somewhere on this blog to let you know my terms and stuff. I can hunt for it in case you haven't found it yet, it'll just take me a bit cause I'm about to head out
We can roll back time
Before we were broken inside
Leave it all behind
Forget the world for awhile
Or maybe we'd be strangers
And we never needed fixing
We'd be okay
Because we nеver met at all
Hey so incoming spoilers for Kain’s storyline under the cut, if you don’t want any of that now’s the time to scroll away.
Now, do y’all mind if i scream into the void for a bit
Illin’s death at the end of the storyline really :) upset me :))) KAIN JUST ISN’T ALLOWED TO HAVE EVEN ONE (1) FRIEND FROM HIS DAYS IN THE DRAKAS HUH. AND IT’S DOUBLY UPSETTING BC ILLIN’S WHOLE THING WAS ABOUT HER WANTING TO LIVE AND HAVING SURVIVED FOR AS LONG AS SHE HAD IT ANGERS ME SHE JUST GETS MURDERED (and Kain barely even REACTS, SIR YOUR SISTER JUST KILLED YOUR FRIEND) AND HER DEATH ISN’T EVEN LIKE, FOR PLOT. LUSKA KILLS HER AND THEN THEY JUST MOVE ON,,, THE WAY I CLEARLY CAN’T. AND THIS ISN’T LIMITED TO JUST ILLIN, OH NO, TIRAG AND VIAS GET THAT TREATMENT TOO. Which I find especially weird for Tirag since like, he at least got the honor of actually having a drawn headshot with multiple expressions, tbh I seriously thought he’d at least do more but, I guess not.
And I know character death is like, a staple of Maple, this ain’t my first rodeo folks, I know that getting attached to side characters is just asking for pain but like, it’s frustrating because of the attempts at a build up for story. Kain’s storyline is kind of all over the place and really confusing until you take a second look at it and realize “oh THAT’S what they were trying to do, badly” (they,, really didn’t handle the memory manipulation all that well, it’s really difficult to figure out to what extent it’s being done on the Drakas, bc they clearly aren’t all getting hard resets (a la Zero), but more like their perception of how long they’ve been there is being fucked with? plot did not explain this well) which is doubly frustrating bc the potential is tHERE. I LOVE THIS EDGY IDIOT WITH A HEART OF GOLD AND I WISH HIS STORY WERE BETTER.
I’m particularly upset about Illin because (besides just liking her and being biased) she’s the only one who lives after the other’s get offed and like, you get these tiny hints and fragments of background and possible growth as a result of her survival that you think are gonna pay off in some way since everyone else is dead (like, seriously, WHY did past!Kain trust past!Illin with the coordinates to his home and WHY IS THIS FACT SO DOWNPLAYED, WE COULD HAVE GOTTEN BACKGROUND ON THEIR LIVES IN THE DRAKAS AND THE PEOPLE THEY WERE BEFORE THE MEMORY FUCKERY BEGAN. BACKSTORY ON KAIN’S RELATIONSHIPS WITH THE OTHERS IN HIS GROUP. Not to mention, Kain and Illin start off pretty distrustful of each other, despite (or because of?) their shared history as members of Drakas, but slowly Kain goes from ‘I’m not sure, maybe she would be the type to stab me in the back’ to ‘Hey Shadowdealers, look out for this woman, she’s a good person’. Like it’s such an interesting dynamic that could’ve been explored more, where they both could’ve worked through their shared trauma of what they went through and maybe heal and grow as people and learn to trust each other and others,and Kain would actually help her get that fucking collar off, bUT NO. NONE OF IT GOES ANYWHERE AND I AM ANGY.
To quote myself rambling at Ivy: GIVE ME THAT 'Distant and Unwilling (bc of Drakas) Co-workers' to 'Uncertain Allies' to 'Awkward Friends' to 'ACUTALLY FUCKING TRUSTING ONE ANOTHER' TO LOVERS THAT I CRAVE, NEXON
Idk, it just feels like his storyline Really Could Have Been That Deep. The potential for a lot of stuff felt like it was there and just, wasn’t explored or elaborated on (bc everyone interesting just, gets killed). I know that’s not exactly odd for maple (seriously stop cramming plot into the first 30 levels and then completely cutting us off until farther off, few levels), but coupled with the pacing it just, left me wanting. I’m just a tad disappointed, nexon :’)
SF turned 14 a couple of days ago and so I decided to draw something for it. This series will always hold a special place in my heart <3 The source of many a fond memory, it deserved better treatment back in the day, but I’m glad it’s garnered more support in recent times. I really do hope we see more of it someday!
this was just thrown together for a friend who wasn’t 100% when i mentioned i was ace. this is mostly based on how i personally feel so i hope i didn’t offend any of you =)
Posts like these made me realise I was definitely more on the ace spectrum than the pan than I thought so thanks Tumblr for giving me a sexuality identity crisis.
Greysexual, btw, is what was determined after a long ass discussion with my best friend.
Saw one of those neat art challenges that have made themselves popular as of late and decided to take a stab at it with my girl, Blue. Surprisingly relaxing to do~
~Foxgloves have both positive and negative connotations. They are said to both heal and hurt, and in the language of flowers, they are often associated with insincerity.~
It’s a couple of hours early for me, but it’s technically the 14th on the app so here we go. Happy birthday you beautiful, teasing menace.
Wanted to give this contest a good old try, even if I probably won’t win because of a lack of people. But also I will take any excuse to draw toto/mc fluff. Damn it I loved dumb fox man’s dumb route. Pls keep these stories going Voltage, don’t leave me with these interesting plot cliffhangers, or this rabid need for more fluff.
Perhaps some Futaba/Toichiro fluff hcs? I'm riding the high after reading his route, but my doodling can only fill the void so much. ;w; Thank you!
Fluff hc’s for the fluffy boi. (Admittedly I still need to finish reading the route, but bonus is no route spoilers for those who haven’t gottena chance yet!)
-Toichiro is perfect for wintertime cuddling. He runs warm, and has floofy tails.
-If they’d cuddling while his tails are out, Futaba always finds herself absentmindedly petting them.
-Toichiro was hesitant to let Futaba into the darker aspect of his life, until she out-stubborned the fox. Her out-stubborning him only made him fall in love with her more.
-Toichiro is always kind and playful to the kits at Kitsune village. He’s played with them, taught them how to properly prank, and even helped some of them do their hair.
-He of course, was certain Futaba would laugh at this apparent change in personality. After all, he’s supposed to be the suave noble. Of course Futaba adores that side of him.
-The kits of Kitsune Village weren’t sure what to make of this human…Until she started playing with them too. So of course when the elders had qualms with the relationship, they were outnumbered by kits led by Kogare and their amused parents.
-Toichiro will absent mindedly braid Futaba’s hair. Or purposefully braid it. She has woken up from naps with expertly braided hair. Toichiro of course denies everything.
-Futaba joins Shizuki in being exasperated with some of Toichiro’s more…elaborate pranks.
-Shizuki is just glad that there’s someone who can help him wrangle his master.
-So of course there are days when Futaba’s tea and pastries are perfect, while Toichiro’s have been subtly messed with.
-Koga teases Toichiro about “Finally finding a woman to settle with.” Toichiro sends him a crate of peaches.
And the ‘Day After’ dialogue, or ‘Aftermath’ in GMS’ case, continues its streak in succeeding to make me emotional. So here’s this semi-recent piece to celebrate its release. Damn it, I just want this group of idiots to hug, is that so much to ask.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Hello everyone! Here is the first chapter of my next fic, not-canon fluff for Toichiro Yuri/Futaba Saotome (MC) of Ayakashi: Romance Reborn, written for Fluffvember day 9 prompt “losing a bet.” Hope you enjoy! <3
(Please pardon my repost of this, the fic was not showing up in the tags and I was advised to delete it and post it again to try to fix that. Thank you for your patience~)
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Hello everyone! I went and did the thing! Here is a link to my brand-new AO3 page, where I hope to finally post my fics for the first time~ There’s only one posted for now, but I plan to add many more in the near future. I’ll be posting them here on my Tumblr as well. I hope you enjoy my work, and thank you so much if you decide to check it out! <3
