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 can’t decide what my fav Russell quote has been throughout this whole thing because it’s. Been. Genuinely of the most pure cases of complete headloss I’ve witnessed from him but we gotta recap because it’s just too good.
Also can’t get over how still in Qatar he made a joke out of it in the presser that Max did made a lil snide remark about him not even making the corner leaving the stewards but it didn’t matter anyway because his start ((and Lewis’ ‼️ he can’t help himself it’s crazy)) was terrible so whtvr . Emblematic but I won’t say tm. He says this shit wid a smile on his face. A week later hes on a mission against bullying the literal verge of tears because Max traumatized the merc juniors ((???😭😭😭😭))) and his nephew ((😭😭)) who’s on TikTok but has exclusive access to what was said in the stewards room and was very distressed ((PLEASE HELLO)). Max is traumatizing these young drivers and setting a bad example and it’s time somebody puts an end to this EVIL dangerous … umm wait lemme check the tape .. 4 time world champion most penalized driver since the system got introduced who came back from 20 seconds on his head in Mexico to flip the title in his favor from p17 in one of the finest wet races in Interlagos and then won the title in an off pace machine that wud have been dragged to a wdc without its first dominant run before Miami regardless thru pure expertise alone . No we gotta stop this fool this is an awful embassador of the sport.
Hey btw y’all remember when the gpda director along wid the drivers as a collective posted an statement on ig asking for grown men to be treated as such and for consistency in stewarding thru better officiating. So this ‘union leader’ unprompted said a ((fired)) race director wud have ‘feared for his life in 2021’ if Max hadn’t won, explicitly accused Max of getting away wid murder because he isn’t ‘penalized enough’, brought up situations like Hungary and Mexico which directly led to the statement that HE put out as the gpda director. Guess that shit don’t apply if 1 the bitches u represent perhaps wid respect, maybe, just a tad, hurt ur feelings.
Russell left the stewards room wid no problem wid Max ((his own words)) then as soon as he learned Max in fact had a problem wid HIM bro waited a week to let us know , and I’ll remind u that this is about a decision Max felt George fucked him over and expressed himself accordingly, that 25% of Red Bull employees sent out their resumes to other teams after Budapest. Thank u drama alert . I’m crying
ALSO . Can’t get over this 1 in particular. He now has Torger .. TORGER. who spent 2024 courting Verstappen in frankly increasingly unhinged ways putting out statements that his children are also traumatized by Max’s language and overall person and siding wid Ben Sulayem on the swearing thing. This an union leader who got his feelings hurt and immediately abandoned most of the ideals expressed in the first union statement his association put out in YEARS going as far as to allow his camp to side wid the President of the federation that’s actively working to undermine him politically and strip away his workers rights. And what truly gets me man. He never denied Max’s claims. He goes straight into the whole ‘max said he wud put my head in a wall’ and into anti bullying 2021 masi my tiktoker nephew has ptsd yadda yadda nonsense but he doesn’t touch Qatar. He knows he cant acknowledge Max’s actual complaints regarding his behavior in Qatar because he went into that stewards room wanting Max’s pole stripped away from pole his own gain and had no issue contributing to an egregious stewarding decision because it benefited him.
It’s crazy because ik from the moment Max went on his post race tirade and got personal that George wud be spooked into reverting to the narrative all these lil drivers run back to when faced wid direct criticism from Verstappen which is that hes a bully and actually do u remember that time he was so evil etc. Like unfortunately for George this too shall pass and just like Qatar it didn’t fucking matter what Max told him or didn’t because he fucked his start and Max didn’t and went on to win the race. because Max says his piece and he locks that judgement in the back of his mind, he gets into the car and he’ll have the last word written on rubber because hes a racing driver. U can’t do that. U don’t have the facilities to do that. Ur moving like a politician because that’s all u can resort to. Let’s c how that works for u wid the lil Italian Senna blowing up the joint next year. Ive heard hes a real wheeler too. Kisses
gax being the title fight that no one wants but everyone needs. merc and red bull who genuinely hate each other. george who feels the parasocial need to defend lewis who has been trying to dig a tunnel to italy for half the season. george who lacks the class that lewis has and seems to live by the mantra /you go low, i go lower/. george who basically said that maxbull is a scam because he saw them all change their linkedin status to /open to work/ after budapest. and ofc max who keeps doubling down on the fact that george is a lying two-faced loser who should maybe spend more of his time shopping for tissues. i’ve never been more here.
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