If you're feeling anxious or depressed about the climate and want to do something to help right now, from your bed, for free...
Start helping with citizen science projects
Public participation in science is increasing, and citizen science has a central part in this. It is a contribution by the public to researc
What's a citizen science project? Basically, it's crowdsourced science. In this case, crowdsourced climate science, that you can help with!
You don't need qualifications or any training besides the slideshow at the start of a project. There are a lot of things that humans can do way better than machines can, even with only minimal training, that are vital to science - especially digitizing records and building searchable databases
Like labeling trees in aerial photos so that scientists have better datasets to use for restoration.
Or counting cells in fossilized plants to track the impacts of climate change.
Or digitizing old atmospheric data to help scientists track the warming effects of El Niño.
Or counting penguins to help scientists better protect them.
Those are all on one of the most prominent citizen science platforms, called Zooniverse, but there are a ton of others, too.
Oh, and btw, you don't have to worry about messing up, because several people see each image. Studies show that if you pool the opinions of however many regular people (different by field), it matches the accuracy rate of a trained scientist in the field.
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I spent a lot of time doing this when I was really badly injured and housebound, and it was so good for me to be able to HELP and DO SOMETHING, even when I was in too much pain to leave my bed. So if you are chronically ill/disabled/for whatever reason can't participate or volunteer for things in person, I highly highly recommend.
Next time you wish you could do something - anything - to help
Remember that actually, you can. And help with some science.
Yup, these are actually *really* important. And a small bit of work helps, so it’s doable even if you’re snowed under with survival work or in too much pain to concentrate for longer periods.
It’s multiply-checked by more than one person, so don’t worry about fucking it up because your concentration is fucked. Your input is valuable but not the only input.
I find Zooniverse very good, and it does Citizen Historian work too - I spent time digitising concentration camp records because a) families still don’t know what happened to some of their loved ones b) this makes the records available for historians without travelling to archives in person, which I can testify is *invaluable* for disabled historians and helps cut the need for overseas travel to do vital historical work.
It unexpectedly helped me with learning how to decipher premodern handwriting too, which proved really useful in my academic stuff. You *will* pick up valuable skills doing this. Put it on your CV.
Other places you can go to do citizen science, from the notes
(Thanks to everyone who left these in the notes! If you know more, put them in the notes, and I might add them! And ty @enbycrip for the fantastic addition that covered a bunch of details I didn't get to)
MapSwipe (collaboration between several Red Cross organizations and Doctors Without Borders, update vital geospatial data)
Smithsonian archives (transcriptions, many subjects)
Cornell Bird Lab (birds)
FoldIt (folding proteins)
Fathomverse (sea animals)
Project Monarch (butterflies)
In person
Bioblitz (nature)
Species watch (species)
Audobon Society (birds)
Also:
Even if you don't have time to spend, but do have some processor cycles to spare, check out the projects available at BOINC's Compute for Science: https://boinc.berkeley.edu/
Hey guys, these projects make a HUGE difference for science. For example, I run bplant.org and iNaturalist is the #1 source of images in ID guides and articles and other educational materials I develop. The plant observations are also helpful for assessing plant ranges and how these ranges are changing with climate change. And it also helps me identify local seed sources for use in restoration plantings. Use of iNaturalist, even casual use like a random person uploading pics of plants they see growing in their yard, or a random parking lot they were in, or a random vacant lot, those observations are MAJORLY helping in (1) education (2) science (3) conservation.
This stuff makes a huge difference.
Also, if you want to make the biggest impact on these sites, release any material with the more permissive licenses, like CC-BY. If you add a NC or ND clause, for instance, your photos cannot be included on Wikipedia or bplant or a number of other educational sites, because those license restrictions are incompatible with combining with copyleft material.
I thought I'd go back and repost this because there are probably a lot of people out there who, like me, reallllyyyyyy need something to distract them right now
So, hey. You. Stop doomscrolling. Take a deep breathe. And if you want, try doing some citizen science or citizen history instead
I'm also going to especially promote MapSwipe, for those who want to do something tangible to help people now.
Volunteer from your phone. Make a difference worldwide.
From their website:
Data Everywhere
In today's technology-filled world, we have access to vast amounts of information at our fingertips. This includes geospatial data, which helps us understand places and the “where?” of things - a vitally important piece of successful humanitarian programs. It is important for getting from point A to point B as well as for coordination, understanding needs, tracking impact, identifying gaps, and a multitude of other concerns. For responsible use by humanitarians, this information must be assessed, refreshed, and validated as populations, infrastructure, and the surrounding environments experience the inevitable changes that occur as time, conflicts, and disasters unfold...
MapSwipe is a free open source mobile application available on iOS and Android that empowers anyone with a smartphone to make a meaningful impact contributing to global mapping efforts. MapSwipe crowdsources the review of satellite imagery to:
I’m really fucking scared. The court date for eviction is the 22nd. My power is about to be shut off. I have nowhere to go. I don’t know what to do with my service animal. I don’t even have a car to live out of. I’ll be on the streets. I don’t have and food or health insurance or ANYTHING.
I’m so so scared. I need help. Please please if you can, help
I’m an astrophysicist. I have reviewed hundreds upon hundreds of alleged UAP sightings. Most of the videos you see are infrared dots, tic tacs, maybe a triangle if you’re lucky. But this. THIS??? This was released today in the first batch of UAP files. This is from case DOW-UAP-PR38, taken over somewhere in the Middle East in 2013.
This is the only footage I’ve ever seen that sent chills down my spine. This isn’t anything I’ve ever seen before.
Video Description: This video depicts an area of contrast resembling an eight-pointed star with arms of alternating length.
00:10: The sensor field-of-view narrows to zoom in on the area of contrast.
00:11-00:29: The area of contrast moves within the sensor field-of-view, followed by a visible trail.
00:30: The area of contrast leaves the sensor field-of-view at the bottom right of the screen.
00:35-01:44: Following an apparent cut, the area of contrast generally remains within the sensor field-of-view before exiting the frame from the top left quarter of the screen.
begging people to start paying attention to prison organizing and listening directly to incarcerated activists who are talking about these things instead of just basing your knowledge of the US prison system off of true crime podcasts or brooklyn 99 or whatever.
Marshall Project, Prison Journalism Project, and Scalawag Magazine all have a lot of really good coverage of US prison news and share a lot of writing from incarcerated journalists. Prison Radio has a bunch of important commentaries from incarcerated journalists.
there are a ton of books to prisoners programs and inside/outside organizing collectives and just so much out there if you look for it.
Amidst the war, airstrikes and destruction, my family in Gaza is living a silent tragedy. Between the drone of warplanes and explosions, another sound echoes... the sound of empty stomachs. We all sit in the corner of our tent, waiting for a meal that may never come.
My family has not eaten vegetables or meat for more than three months. Day after day, something else is missing: yesterday it was fruit, today it is flour - a distant dream because of its scarcity and high price.
Will you let us suffer? Will you allow the sound of hunger to be louder than the voice of your conscience?
“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkne… Fatima Masoud needs your support for Let's bring back Elena's laug
Donate to my family and help keep them alive. What might be your next meal is an unattainable dream for them.
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