A solarpunk blog with a focus on the technology and practical logistics needed to build a better world. Expect lots of science, engineering, and home workshop stuff, with a smattering of relevant politics and economics.
I was rambling about my near constant panic attacks about *gestures at the everything* and about how my instincts are telling me to pack and run (it's not a viable option tbh) and then having to sit in the reality of what is the worst case? How to I build a version of myself to withstand that version, what does parenting in that situation look like? Etc...
And the people I'd vent to would go "I'd build a bomb and take the whole thing down before it got that bad" and "don't worry I'd get them first." But that's so not helpful here.
Imagining the violence you wanna toll out on the Enemies is easy. It's not what we need to actually move forward though. While tearing the system down is nessarry, if you do it without a system to replace it what is there?
How can we feed/house/help our neighbor and each other while still under the current system? What are we working towards after its demise?
How can we build systems of communication? Trust? Justice that is Just rather then just used as a threat to the average citizen?
How do you raise children? As fighters? As healers? As people focused on kindness and connection?
What do you focus your energy on? How do you not drive yourself crazy trying to put out all the fires?
I found solace and direction in a video game, of all places: The Talos Principle.
In-universe, the Talos Principle is a philosophical concept that hinges on the reliance of material reality and substance to support immaterial concepts. A fictional philosopher named Straton drew comparisons between human beings and the myth of the bronze giant Talos, who died from losing some vital substance that animated his body, just as "even the most faithful philosopher cannot live without his blood." In other words, if something can be damaged in such a way that it can't be repaired and made operational again, then it was technically alive, because breaking part of it "killed" what was there.
This helped me in a time of great personal crises because I realized that not only does the Talos Principle apply to society, in whole and in part, but it specifically applies to societal elements that are inherently cannibalistic, such as companies firing the competent load bearing employees and then going under when vital processes break and nobody on the payroll can fix them. See also the AI bubble, which was already on the downhill slide towards popping BEFORE the current economic gong show endangered the construction of data centers funded with borrowed money. While discussions about community and solidarity are both vital and necessary, they are still one level removed from the actual processes that keep individuals and groups alive.
To that end, I have devoted myself to the study and refinement of tools and infrastructure. Others already reached that conclusion before I did, including but not limited to folks like Marcin Jakubowski and the Open Source Ecology group he established.
My answer might not be your answer, but I wish you luck in finding it, wherever and whatever it may be.
The Division of Ecological Restoration has an ambitious pledge in the works when it comes to the state’s many cranberry bogs.
From the article:
Massachusetts is home to 13,000 acres of cranberry bogs, making it the second-largest cranberry-producing region in the U.S. and the third-largest in the world. The bright, red berries are the state’s moneymaker, contributing over $1.7 billion to the state's economy annually.
But a good chunk of that acreage is taken up by defunct cranberry bogs that have been rotated out of cultivation.
Fortunately, a new program by the state’s Division of Ecological Restoration is on a mission to convert them back into natural wetlands.
In November 2024, the DER funneled $6 million in grants to the restoration plan. According to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, more than 500 acres of retired cranberry bogs have already been converted into wetlands — with hopes of restoring 1,000 acres in the next decade.
“These projects will transform degraded former cranberry bogs into thriving wetlands that will provide habitat to important species, flood control in time of storms, and access for all to beautiful natural areas,” Governor Maura Healey said in a statement.
i hate that concerns about urban gardening/foraging safety is often met with "What are you, a cop?" scorn. I believe it's a suspicion of anything that hinders the punk/anti-system urgency to jump in immediately and do whatever feels right.
Safety, ethics, and sustainability are all a part of urban gardening and foraging. I'm sorry that means you need to do homework before you can do anything, I know that sounds lame. But life is complicated.
I know anti-intellectualism is viewed as activist these days, but like, surely you don't want to literally eat lead, right?
Also I am asking all of you, once again, to learn about ecosystem conservation and restoration instead of wallowing in "we are already past the point of no return" or that it will take "millennia" to restore ecosystems.
You have to understand that nature does not work in the same timeframe as ours. Protecting and restoring ecosystems is RIDICULOUSLY inexpensive and requires very little industrial technology; shovels and saplings are not exactly high-tech. But it takes time and long-term projects with people determined to do it. Maybe we are too focused in our "we want it now" thinking, but what you see today is not what you may see in 10, 20, 50, even 80 years if you live that long.
But it works. It's working right now, and when capitalism is replaced by socialism and we stop thinking on short-term gain, when our societies are focused into the common welfare instead of accumulation, it will even work better. Again I could point out to individual examples but instead, I encourage you to learn about ecology. We are well past from the catastrophic "Earth will die and there's nothing we can do" predictions from the 80s. We know what to do, we know it can work.
A new study published online today, April 25, in the scientific journal Science provides the strongest evidence to date that not only is nat
This article talks about this very much in the "see? ecology can help the economy too!" tone that unfortunately is sort of necessary to convince people in the current capitalist system. But I don't want you to focus on this right now.
I want you to KNOW how doable this is. How inexpensive this is, how POSSIBLE THIS IS. That people working and loving the land and nature they live in is possible. That these projects WORK, THEY DO restore and preserve ecosystems. That humanity is neither a plague that destroys everything or a passive bystander on its own destruction but that these are actual things that can be, are, and will be implemented, backed by actual science and results. This is not empty #hopecore #hopepunk feel good stuff, these are things you can learn about, even work towards, and you can most certainly demand they are part of our society.
"I'm just losing hope." Then get some fucking conviction. Millions of people around the globe are working their asses off and seeing results. What they are doing IS WORKING.
This orange peel story was huge years ago: https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/a-fruitful-experiment-in-land-conservation/
Beavers reintroduced to historic wetlands improve them at such a level that we can see the improvements from space: https://news.mongabay.com/2023/09/nasa-satellites-reveal-restoration-power-of-beavers/
Africa is successfully slowing desertification and restoring historic farming soil with their Green Wall project: https://welcomeafrica.org/en/africa-combats-desertification-with-a-belt-of-life/
There has even been success at regrowing coral reefs--something which I am old enough to be told was impossible. But people have been hard at work for decades since then, and this is one of the results: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/03/240308123248.htm
REPAIRING THE DAMAGE IS ENTIRELY WITHIN THE REALM OF POSSIBILITY.
THERE IS ALWAYS HOPE IF YOU HAVE THE CONVICTION TO BACK IT UP.
The enshittification of solar (and how to stop it)
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
I'm only a few chapters into Bill McKibben's stupendous new book Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization and I already know it's going to change my outlook forever:
McKibben is one of our preeminent climate writers and activists, noteworthy for his informed and brilliant explanations of the technical limits – and possibilities – of various climate interventions, and for his lifelong organizing work.
Here Comes the Sun is a capstone on several years' worth of surprising, infuriating and inspiring newsletter articles, particularly about the unheralded, unanticipated, and unbelievable growth of solar. Everything else might be utterly fucked, but solar is going great.
In McKibben's telling, everything about solar is going better than anticipated. Solar efficiency is increasing exponentially with prices falling through the floor. The material bill for solar is also in freefall. Everything surrounding solar is going amazing, too. Battery capacity is improving even faster than solar generation, and the best new batteries use the incredibly abundant element sodium (not lithium) to store those useful electrons. Long-haul transmission lines are crisscrossing the world.
Hyper-reliable electric cars keep getting cheaper, and the batteries are lasting much longer than we used to think they would. Some of these vehicles are nigh-miraculous, from the ebikes that get 5 miles to the penny, to the world's heaviest EV, a dump truck that shuttles to a quarry atop a hill where it is loaded with rocks, then regeneratively brakes its way back down the hill, accumulating enough charge to get back up to the top again (a perpetual motion machine!). Heat pumps and induction tops are actually more efficient than burning natural gas – in other words, it's cheaper to convert sunshine into electrons and electrons into heat than it is to just burn gas:
Then there's the capacity. China's solar capacity growth is insane – the solar equivalent of a new coal plant is coming online every eight hours. But it's even more intense in poor regions of the global south, like in Pakistan, where a legion of installers have learned their craft from Tiktok videos set to songs from popular musical films, leading to one of the most rapid electrification rollouts in human history. The closer a country is to the equator, the more sense solar makes, of course, so solar is sweeping some of the poorest countries in the world, liberating them from the need to attract foreign currency they can use to buy dollar-denominated barrels of oil.
Everything we thought would be a solar bottleneck turns out to be a feature, not a bug. Perhaps you've heard that solar is unsustainable because it competes for agricultural land, making starvation the price of clean energy. Wrong: solar provides shade for many crops that have been withering in the soaring heat of a climate-wracked world, and limits evaporation, reducing the amount of water needed to produce food crops. What's more, the cooling effect of that soil-retained moisture helps keep the shade-providing solar panels within their optimal operating temperature, increasing the efficiency of their power generation. And of course, every time someone switches from hydrocarbon fuels to solar, they reduce the demand for ethanol, and a third of America's corn goes into making this stupid, wasteful fuel additive (and corn is America's most prolific crop). That's land that can be given over to growing useful food crops. Solar is increasing our agricultural yields, not competing for farmland.
Then there's the material bill for solar: a recurring (and legitimate, and worthwhile) concern about electrification is that it comes with a vast material bill that will necessitate massive extraction projects. There's good reason to worry that the copper, lithium and conflict minerals needed for planetary solarization will come at the expense of the despoilation of habitat, the poisoning of indigenous people, and the ruination of miners.
Happily, this, too is turning out to be a tractable problem. First off, because the material bill for solarization just isn't that big when compared to the amount of fossil fuels we consume every year. To create the batteries we need to keep the whole world's lights on when the sun goes down and the wind stops blowing, we will need to extract one seventeenth of the amount of minerals we burn every year in the fossil fuel system:
And while some of those materials will have to be replaced – necessitating more extraction – most of them can be recycled. The biggest bottleneck in recycling complex manufactured products like batteries is that it's energy intensive, but solar makes energy cheap. We're starting to see solar-powered solar-panel recycling operations that recover 99% of the materials used up and superannuated solar panels, and use those materials to make new, modern, super-efficient solar panels:
And holy smokes is solar going to provide us with lot of cheap energy. Materials scientist Deb Chachra's book How Infrastructure Works estimates that we could give every person in the world the energy budget of a Canadian (like an American, only colder) by harvesting 0.4% of the solar rays that strike the Earth's surface:
The last time I spoke with Deb, she waxed lyrical about how all that too-cheap-to-meter energy will make it possible to recover materials from old energy systems that weren't designed to be broken down and re-integrated into the material stream at their end-of-life, and how it will also allow us to economically make new devices that are designed to be broken down and re-used when their duty-cycles end.
Solar is a technology, not a fuel. Every generation of it is cheaper and better. There's so much low-hanging fruit for solar conversion. In Saul Griffith's Electrify, he offers lists of simple, tried and tested tweaks to safety codes that dramatically reduce the cost of installing and maintaining solar:
That's the good news. You probably know about the bad news: Donald Trump explicitly promised the fossil fuel industry legislation that he would kill renewables if they donated $1b to his campaign, which they did:
Money talks and bullshit walks. When Texas Republicans introduced state legislation requiring power companies to install a new fossil fuel plant every time they added new solar capacity, the bill died in a roar of opposition from rural, Trump-voting Texans who didn't want "DEI for natural gas":
There's nothing about renewables that cuts against the aesthetics or values of the conservative movement. Generating your own power on the roof of your own homestead (or with a clip-on panel attached to your apartment balcony) is fully compatible with the ideal of a sovereign individual, not beholden to a government-regulated power monopoly.
Solar also fits neatly within the idea of Christian Dominionism, that "God gave man all the things of the Earth." An existence dependent on setting fire to a dwindling supply of critters that died millions of years ago leaves a lot of value on the table. If God wants us to breed chickens to have vast drumsticks and breasts, why wouldn't He want us to capture the hyperabundant sunshine He sends our way every morning at dawn? Why would we limit ourselves to this inefficient, inconvenient and expensive ancient garbage?
What's more, solar is cheap – over the past year, we've crossed a threshold, and solar is now substantially cheaper than coal, natural gas or oil. It's getting cheaper still, with no bottom in sight. No wonder solar deployment is growing exponentially. Exponential growth is notoriously difficult to really get your head around, hence the ancient parable of the chessboard and the grains of rice:
Some of McKibben's critics have fallen into the same trap as King Shihram, failing to appreciate how fast the small absolute magnitude of an exponentially growing number can grow to engulf the world:
But the fossil fuel industry understands exponentials, and they're freaking the fuck out. Unluckily for them, their champion Donald Trump is singularly bad at making the case against renewables. Trump's big line for getting people to hate offshore wind is this bullshit story he tells about turbines confusing whales:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66928305
Earth to fascist: your people seriously don't give a shit about whales dying. If you're going to make up a story about wind turbines killing some kind of charismatic macrofauna, at least pick something deranged Maga freaks pretend to care about, like eagles or some shit.
Same goes for Trump's story about the environmental hazards of solar panels, that "rabbits get caught in solar panels":
But unfortunately, Donald Trump isn't in charge of ratfucking the solar transition. That role will fall to much smarter people from the fossil fuel industry, the same people who masterminded decades of climate denial. They're scarily good at their jobs.
From the fossil fuel industry's perspective, the problem with solar isn't that it's different from oil and coal. Big Carbon isn't shy about capex – they're always blowing millions on cool, eye-wateringly expensive new gadgets for sucking old dead things out of the land and sea.
The problem is that the sun shines everywhere. The fossil fuel industry is many things – ardent génocidaires bent on the extinction of the human race for profit – but what they are above everything else is rent-seekers.
The whole point of an extraction economy is to control a key factor of production so that other people need to come to you in order to do everything else. The ideal oil economy consists of a series of holes in the ground surrounded by people with guns, owned by a cartel that chokes off supply to maximize profits while leaving a highly visible share of the world's population shivering in the dark as a warning to anyone complaining about their prices.
Fossil fuels are valuable because they are a chokepoint on the entire productive economy. Anyone who's seen the Mad Max documentaries knows how this goes: even the most mid, paunchy, straw-haired boomer with volcanic bacne and shitty dress-sense can seize power over the whole population if he controls the supply of one of life's essentials.
The fossil fuel industry is a magnet for people who love a chokepoint. These people are born tollboth operators and they never stop hunting for turnpikes. They are landlords for ancient corpses, charging the whole world rent to keep the lights on. They are chokepoint-trophic. You can't be a warlord amid plenty – why would anyone get down on all fours and volunteer to be your footstool if they can get everything they need over the next hill?
I think there's a collision looming between these rent-seeking missiles and the ever-cheaper, ever-better solar world. Eventually, these garbage people will stop trying to halt renewables, and they'll start looking to own them.
You can already see the first stirrings of this: the more daring carbon barons are starting to flirt with geothermal and nuclear, and they're awfully fond of hydroelectric. Whatever the merits or demerits of these technologies, they have the (dubious) advantage that they are amenable to rent-extraction. To put up a dam, you need to own the land around the river. To run a nuke, you need to own a uranium mine.
Even geothermal is ineluctably place-based: there are lots of places where a borehole will hit something hot and bubbly, but it's an expensive proposition with a big, fat capital moat that limits competition. Anyone can slap a solar panel on their roof – but you can't dig a geothermal borehole in your back yard with a garden spade.
It's hard to find a chokepoint for the sun, but you know what has a lot of chokepoints? Technology. Remember, solar isn't a fuel, it's a technology. When big companies use technological chokepoints to screw their customers and competitors, we call that enshittification:
There's already tons of enshittification that's oozed into the cleantech sector. EV manufacturers like to boast that their cars are "software-based." Practically speaking, that means that when the manufacturer goes bust, all the cars sitting in inventory are permanently bricked:
Tesla is the greatest enshittifier the automotive world has ever seen, with scams that make Dieselgate look like amateur-hour. Imagine selling an EV and charging a monthly subscription fee to drivers who want to access more than half the charge in their batteries:
Residential solar inverter companies like Solaredge require an internet connection and shut themselves off after a protracted period of no-contact with the company's servers:
As with the solar revolution, the solar enshittification revolution is just getting started. There are so many ways that a "smart" device can be remotely downgraded. There's a "smart" sous-vide wand that got a mandatory software update that deleted its most popular features and turned them into monthly subscription "upgrades":
There's no (legal) reason that Samsung or LG couldn't do the same thing to the new induction top you spent thousands of dollars to buy and install (or built a custom kitchen around).
If I was a Big Oil company, I'd be investing heavily in the control systems for EVs, solar inverters, induction tops, heat pumps, smart thermostats, and anything else that depends on an internet-connected computer to operate. I'd flood every sales channel, offering zero-money-down installations with teaser zero rate loans and I'd do exclusivity deals with landlords and property developers. I'd get states and city councils to pass "safety" laws requiring grid coordination using a proprietary protocol and/or authentication token. I'd ship products that were compatible with open protocols, and later push mandatory updates to them that flip them to using proprietary controllers, like Chamberlain did with virtually every garage door opener in America:
I'd also be pushing the narrative that all this cleantech stuff is already enshittified – by China. I'd be out there shrieking about the possibility of China shutting off everyone's heat pumps in the dead of winter, or bricking every solar inverter if America doesn't back away from supporting Taiwanese independence.
It wouldn't even be (entirely) wrong. There are a hell of a lot of creepy things that a nation-state can do if they export critical, internet-connected infrastructure to the whole planet. Just ask any farmer who owns a John Deere tractor – every one of which is killswitched, meaning Donald Trump could order Deere to shut down a nation's entire agricultural sector:
The Tiktok ban provides a template for how this could be rolled out: gin up a moral panic about sinister foreign control over a key aspect of daily American life, then force a sale to one of Trump's billionaire cronies:
Trump could easily flip the whole cleantech sector to a consortium of US oil companies fronted by, say, Rex Tillerson. If you can't beat 'em, expropriate 'em.
I raise all this not to alarm people who are as excited by McKibben's news as I am, but rather, to game out the likely response of our sworn enemies so that we can get ready to fight them. These rent-seeking chokepoint obsessives have one move: corner a market and squeeze. They've been ratfucking renewables for decades because it competed with their existing racket.
But they aren't emotionally committed to setting fire to old dead things – they're just nature's most compulsive toll-booth operators, and they're sure as shit going to be looking for ways to stick toll-booths in our renewables future. Big Tech has shown them how to do it. So this is just another reason to defeat enshittification, which we must do anyway.
Even given the ghoulish paths available to Big Carbon to create unhealthy friction around all of this - this is probably the most hopeful thing I've read about the real world in 2025.
We have already averted truly apocalyptic levels of global warming.
Yes, read that again. Let it sink in. This is what the science now says. We have already averted truly apocalyptic global warming.
To quote David Wallace-Wells, author of The Uninhabitable Earth, from his huge feature in the New York Times:
"Thanks to astonishing declines in the price of renewables, a truly global political mobilization, a clearer picture of the energy future and serious policy focus from world leaders, we have cut expected warming almost in half in just five years...
The window of possible climate futures is narrowing, and as a result, we are getting a clearer sense of what’s to come: a new world, full of disruption but also billions of people, well past climate normal and yet mercifully short of true climate apocalypse."
(New York Times, October 22, 2022. Unpaywalled here. Emphasis mine. And yes, this vision of the future is backed up by the current science on the issue, as he explains at length in the article.)
So we've already averted truly apocalyptic warming, and we've already cut expected warming IN HALF in just the past five years.
The pace of technology, of innovation, of prices, of feasibility, of discovery, of organizing, of grassroots movements, of movements in other countries around the world, have all picked up the pace so fast in the last five years.
Renewable technology and capacity are both increasing at an exponential rate. It's all S-curves, ones that look like this:
-via The Economist, June 20, 2024.
How much more will we manage in another five years? Another ten? Another twenty?
I know the US is about to fucking suck about the environment for the next four years. But the momentum of renewable energy is far too much to stop - both in the US (x) and around the world.
(Huge shoutouts to India, China, and Brazil for massive gains for the environment in renewables, and Brazil for massive progress against Amazon deforestation.)
What is a book related to solarpunk that has made you feel like a different person after reading it? That changed the way you looked at an issue, that made you reevaluate everything you knew about a topic, that made you walk around in a daze as thoughts swirled around your head too fast to make sense of? (That last one might just be me)
Let's talk about them! I'll go first. Walkable Cities: How downtown can save America, one step at a time, by Jeff Speck.
I'm actually not even all the way through it yet, but it's making me want to pack up and move to a city, when I have always been rather adamant that I never want to live in that populated of an area, after having lived rural for so much of my life. The idea of not having to own a car or drive one is incredibly appealing, but the evidence provided about the impacts of so many of us having personal vehicles is damning. The fact that so many cities are intentionally designed for cars, at the literal monetary expense of pedestrians, is absurd. The amount of pollution that is produced, the dependence on gas, the fact that most of the money spent on cars and fuel goes straight out of the community and to line the pockets of the rich is infuriating. Electric and hybrid cars don't solve these problems.
So this book is changing my life. What book should I read next that will change it more?
@plainsborn: becky chambers! a psalm for the wild build a prayer for the crown-shy
Yes!! This blog, as well as many of the posts I see, are dedicated solarpunk in the here in now. It's so important to dream though, of what the world could be like, and A Psalm for the Wildbuilt really changed how I did that. Our lives could be so good, couldn't they?
@spoiledmilk2012: braiding sweet grass
Another good one! I borrowed the audiobook from the library a few years ago, finished it, and promptly bought a copy for me and another for my mom. What stuck with me is how hopeful it is. So many books about the environment and Indigenous people in the US are -rightfully and understandably - bleak, to say the least. Wall-Kimmerer didn't shy away from the facts of the matter, but where other books can feel defeated and immobilizing, I walked away from that book ready to fix things.
@profiterole-reads
Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052–2072 by M.E. O'Brien and Eman Abdelhadi
I haven't heard of this one before, I'm adding it to my to-read list right now. Thanks for the recc!
I've got a few recommendations that kinda fit? They give me hope for the future and show me what might be possible.
Dark Emu - Bruce Pascoe
Dark Emu looks a lot more to the past than the future, but a lot of what it talks about is highly relevant to the future of farming, food production, and life in an Australian future. It's a really good overview of a lot of things, and I think that it's interesting information no matter where you are in the world.
The Care We Dream Of: Liberatory and Transformative Approaches to LGBTQ+ Health - edited by Zena Sharman
This is my number one recommendation for anyone who works in healthcare. It presents a beautiful view of what healthcare could look like for LGBTQ+ people, but so many of the ideas are just solid, patient-centred care.
Falling Back in Love with Being Human: Letters to Lost Souls - Kai Cheng Thom
Sometimes changing how we approach the future and implementing change means we need to look after ourselves, and remembering why we fight. This is a book that helped give me a lot of hope when I needed it.
Mend!: A Refashioning Manual and Manifesto - Kate Sekules
There are parts of this book I don't agree with (we can't all just buy vintage garments and refuse to engage with modern clothes), but some of the ideas about mending, and clothing repair are really solid. It's also a practical book with a lot of tips and teaching people how to mend. If anyone has better books on the topic I'd love to hear about them!
The Last Girl Scout - Natalie Ironside
I joke that this book is political debate wrapped in a compelling story, but I've put it on this list for the world-building. The ways Ironside thinks about food production, building community and caring for each other are fantastic. There is a lot in this book that I think can serve people when it comes to thinking about community, and working together for shared goals, despite our differences. Trigger warnings for like absolutely everything though.
And one more that isn't a book (yet) but is an amazing webcomic - Runaway to the Stars. If you like Becky Chambers I reckon you'll love it!
The only one of these I've heard of is The Last Girl Scout, which is already on my to-read list, but I'm adding the rest! The Care We Dream Of sounds really interesting, I already put in a request for my library to acquire it.
@aspiringwarriorlibrarian: Locklands. It’s an odd one but it’s world of radical empathy sure made an impact
Added to the list!
@tam--lin Rutger Bregman's Humankind, and Solnit's A Hope In The Dark. Also Sheldrakes Entangled Life, in a way.
I've had my eye on Humankind for a while, I'll bump it up my list! Haven't heard of Hope in the Dark, but it sounds really good.
I've read Entangled Life, it's a fascinating read. If fungi are of interest to you, I read the intro to In Search of Mycotopia: Citizen Science, Fungi Fanatics, and the Untapped Potential of Mushrooms this morning and it sounds amazing - criticizing capitalism and the patriarchy before we've even made it to chapter one!
"More than 420 million hectares of forest have been lost to other uses since 1990, according to the UN’s 2020 State of the World’s Forests Report.
With more than 85 per cent of the global population living in urban areas, micro-forests in cities offer an essential opportunity to combat deforestation.
The Miyawaki Forest Technique, invented by Japanese botanist and plant ecology expert Professor Akira Miyawaki in the 1970s, is the inspiration for micro-forests worldwide.
These diverse, organic small forests can be created on sites as small as nine square metres, and only use native species that would otherwise grow naturally in the planting area. They grow up to 10 times faster than monoculture forests, in just two to three decades.
Since Miyawaki’s work began, more than 280 micro-forests have been planted."
...
"In polluted urban areas, micro-forests can help to restore soil, water and air quality, according to the Woodland Trust.
Their small size allows plantation in relatively limited urban space, often taking advantage of unused spaces such as school playgrounds, cemeteries, and near metro stations. They can also help to reduce the impact of heavy rainfall, and to keep towns and cities cooler.
Micro-forests can create more habitats for wildlife in cities, such as blackbirds or hedgehogs. When planted in distinct layers, they can also develop plant communities of smaller shrubs and herbs, which allow the micro-forests to become self-sustaining after just three to five years of growth.
“Our pocket forests offer a myriad of benefits” says Elise Van Middelem, Founder and CEO of SUGi.
“Perhaps most importantly, they can support the positive well-being of communities. From a psychological perspective, interacting with nature reduces physical stress and can improve symptoms of mental ill health, including anxiety or depression.”
The link provided doesn't really go over the method, so I looked into it a bit more. The key is planting a bunch of native trees close together. Like, 2ft tall trees, 2 ft apart. The overall garden can be just 3ftx3ft, any is fine really. By planting the trees close together, they grow upwards faster (rather than out sideways). Additionally, they make sure to prepare/improve the soil in advance to hold lots of water, and to apply lots of mulch over the top. You water it tons and weed it in the first two years or so, then it goes on by itself without maintenance.
The more diversity in native trees you can plant, the better. I think this @jstor blog post on the jstor website has a nice overview and some info on how the technique is being utilized around the world: https://daily.jstor.org/the-miyawaki-method-a-better-way-to-build-forests/
Here’s an interesting idea for reducing weeds. I think it would be useful for areas with a significant density of out-of-control weeds, to give the area a restart. It’s an alternative to using chemical weed killers, but as the article states, the downside is that sheets of plastic are used. Heavier plastic sheets that can be reused for several years would help offset the use of the plastic.
A few years ago, I was recovering from an illness that left me very fatigued for a few months. The weeds in my raspberry patch were proliferating, and I didn’t have the energy to pull them. I cut the flowers off the weeds before they could produce seeds, and the next year there were almost none of that kind of weed in my raspberry patch. So, with an annual weed that relies on yearly reseeding, one way to control it is to prevent seed formation by mowing or clipping the flowers.
Have you tried soil solarization? Covering your garden soil with clear plastic can raise soil temperatures enough to kill dormant weed seeds
40 years of erratic rainfall, groundwater depletion, soil erosion, and crop failures have impoverished the local people of Latur.
"In a degraded and semi-arid farming area in India, simple science-driven changes to the landscape have colored the horizon, and a village’s fortunes, with green.
In the Latur district in the central western state of Maharashtra, 40 years of erratic rainfall, groundwater depletion, soil erosion, and crop failures have impoverished the local people.
In the village of Matephal, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) launched a project in 2023 that aimed at addressing these challenges through integrated landscape management and climate-smart farming practices. [Note: Meaning they've achieved this much in just two years!]
Multiple forms of data collection allowed ICRISAT to target precise strategies for each challenge facing the 2,000 or so people in Matephal.
Key interventions focused on three critical areas: water conservation, land enhancement with crop diversification, and soil health improvement. Rainwater harvesting structures recharged groundwater around 1,200 acres, raising water tables by 12 feet and securing reliable irrigation. Farm ponds provided supplemental irrigation, while embanking across 320 acres reduced soil erosion.
Farmers diversified their crops, converting 120 or so acres of previously fallow land into productive farmland with legumes, millets, and vegetables. Horticulture-linked markets for fruits and flowers improved income stability.
Weather monitoring equipment was also installed that actively informed sustainable irrigation practices.
“It is a prime example of how data-driven approaches can address complex agricultural challenges, ensuring interventions are precise and impactful. Matephal village is a model for other semi-arid regions in India and beyond,” said Dr. Stanford Blade, Director General-Interim at ICRISAT.
Farmers actively participated in planning and decision-making, fostering long-term commitment.
“This ICRISAT project improved yields, diversified crops, and boosted incomes. It also spared women from walking over a kilometer for drinking water, now available in the village for people and animals,” said Mr. Govind Hinge of Matephal village.
Looking ahead, ICRISAT writes it wants to use Matephal as a case study to scale these methods across India’s vast and drier average. As Matephal’s fields flourish, the village is a testament to the power of collaboration and science in transforming lives and landscapes."
-Article via Good News Network, March 3, 2025. Video via International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), February 26, 2025
Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado and his wife, Lélia Deluiz Wanick Salgado, have been instrumental in reforesting the Rio Doce Basin area in Brazil since 1998. Through their organization, Instituto Terra, they have planted over 2.7 million trees, successfully restoring more than 550 acres of forest and 2,000 natural springs. 
Their efforts have transformed a once barren landscape into a thriving forest ecosystem, demonstrating the profound impact that dedicated reforestation initiatives can have on environmental restoration.
Hey! I thought your talk on stream about your go-bag and what's in it was interesting, but I process text better than audio, so I was wondering if you had advice on putting one together? It's fine if you'd rather not! Thanks either way!
Okay! Note that some of these things are gearing up in prep for sudden homelessness or natural disaster (tornados, personally) but some are just generally good things on hand you might need to keep. Also, some tips involve a car, skip those if they dont apply.
You're going to want a backpack or duffle bag with comfortable enough straps that are thick and sturdy enough to hold the weight of everything you are carrying while also keeping you balanced. I got my blue one at a charity give away for students in poverty, those heavy duty school bags for textbooks, but you can thrift the same bags for around $5-$10, at least in my area.
What I have in the front pockets, in smaller ziplock bags:
Ziplock bag of first aid supplies (bandaids, gauze, sterile wipes, ect)
Small hand sanitizer, bottle or wipes.
Baby wipes, water based.
Matches
Small travel deoderant, small travel shampoo, travel hairbrush, and the bare minimal needed for a 'freshed up look' of make up like concealer, mascera, and face wash. Good for spucing up for job interviews if you end up in a situation where you're living out of your car, and can't acsess a full bathroom.
Menustration products. Pack SEVERAL if you are someone who bleeds, or a few if you just want some on hand just in case for someone else you are with.
Mouthwash, toothbrush and toothpaste. If you don't have enough room, opt for mouthwash/toothpaste combo, and just rub it on your teeth.
Self-protection, dependant on what you prefer. I keep pepper spray and a tazor in the car at all times, and in the bag if not out in the console.
Pocket knife and scissors. You never know when you might need to cut something.
If you can get some and they fit in the bag: Gloves meant for gardening. Thick enough to protect you if you go dumpster diving. I have a list of tips of safe and legal dumpster diving here.
What I keep in the main pocket of the bag:
A large gallon ziplock baggy with emergency clothes in it, consisting of: Pants, short sleeve T-shirt, and 3 pairs of underwear/socks. If you can fit it, slip a long-sleeve shirt in there as well. Keep a 'nice shirt' like a button up or something 'nice casual' in there for job interviews.
You're going to want a jacket in your go-bag, but since they can be bulky, it might be best to just leave one in your car. Also good for when you're out somewhere and just get cold suddenly.
RAIN! I have a small one-person umbrella in the side pocket of my bag, and a yellow poncho from walmart in main pocket. I recommend having both, but its fine if you just can fit one.
A bag of COMFY clothes, aside from the intial emergency clothes. For me, I call it the pajamma bag, which just has a pair of sweatpants, T-shirt and fuzzy socks.
FOOD AND WATER. I keep ziplock baggies of non-perishable food in the bag like: granola bars, slim jims, fruit gummies, cans of preserved fruit, ect. You need to pack at least 2 bottles of water. I think I freaked out Twitch stream a little bit when I pulled out 6 bottles of water out of the bag, but I'm telling you: the more water you can carry, the better.
The 'entertainment satchel', which is basically anything that you can do that doesn't require electricity like your phone does that can keep you busy. For me, it's a ziplock bag of a journal/sketchbook with some colored pens. This can be a small book or something.
A sewing kit. One of those travel ones, the tiny tin ones. Comes in handy plenty of times.
A water-tight folder/baggie that will protect legal documents for you. You probably wont keep them in the car, but if you can grab them on your way out, keep them safe in something they can't get damaged in.
A portable battery, a cord for charging your phone and extra wall thingie to plug it into. You can get a decent battery for around 20 bucks on amazon, and your car and public spaces like a library can let you charge your phone.
PETS! If you have a pet with you, PLEASE pack the things needed for them ahead of time in your go-bag. Doggy bags and treats and food and the like. I'm a cat person, so I keep three ziplock baggies: one with treats, a large one with food, and one with cat litter in it. You can usually grab a cardboard box by a dumpster for a make-shift litterbox if need be.
Depending on who you talk to, money may or may not be a smart thing to keep in your bag, but I say keep at least $50 of cash in there for absolute emergencies, if you can afford to store it.
An extra pair of shoes. If they don't fit in the bag, you can store them in the car, or tie them to hang off the bag if you really need them.
Also, not really go-bag related, but I suggest keeping a blanket in your car. If you don't have a car, they make blankets with straps that you can attatch to your backpack, or you can take a long sock or piece of fabric, wrap it around a rolled up blanket, and tie it to your bag. It might not look aesthetic, but it'll be worth it to have it.
Change out the items in your bag every couple months, usually as it starts to get colder or hotter. Currently I'm changing out my stuff from summer items to winter items, like warmer clothes and what not, so I had the bag already near me to show twitch chat. Thanks for everyone that came by Twitch chat and talked by the way, it was fun!
Reblogging this since it's time for me to switch out winter items with summer items, and we're going to be hit with storms, possibly tornadic all this next week. Stay safe folks!
I'd like to add to this - I've been in situations without transport and where I've had to leave without a bag packed and sometimes packing as light as possible is the best thing you can do, so if you live in a city and you're gonna have to lug this stuff around on public transit and by foot, here's a much shorter list of absolute necessities you absolutely gotta take if you don't have a bag packed, don't have a good bag to pack it in, or just can't walk with too much.
Phone + charger + adapter - if you can literally pick one thing, make it this. Even if your service gets cut you can use public wifi to contact friends for help and find resources to help you including the police.
Wallet - if truly no one you could contact would help you, this would be your alternative, but then you'd have to rely on strangers to get places and contact people. If you have to pack light, though, money will be how you get the rest of what you need.
At least one change of clothes - clothes are expensive and you don't want to have to buy new ones, especially with a suddenly rocky situation. If you're wearing/tend to wear clothes you can sleep in, grab clothes you can interview in, and vice versa. Try to make sure you have some comfy clothes regardless.
A hoodie - for warmth, even outside at night, and for comfort. You want to limit how many items you have to grab, but it might be worth it to keep your favorite comfort hoodie near your bag so you can grab them both at once
Tissue, preferably the pocket kind - for cleaning injuries, wiping in places without toilet paper, and wiping tears. No one is using a go bag in a good situation. I keep a box in my car.
Toothbrush + toothpaste - if you get displaced at night and can't get to the store, you'll still need and want to brush your teeth.
Hat - keep the sun off your head and face while you walk and your hair from being visible if you haven't had a chance to wash it or brush it; if you have curly hair you might bring a small amount of whatever you use to keep it down
Lastly, slightly-less-vitals but I have these or space for them in my light-weight go bag:
Laptop + charger - if you have one, it's my highest not-perfectly-necessary recommendation for anything important you have to do, including class work, while displaced.
Plastic grocery bag or trash bag - plastic grocery bags can still be gotten at most stores with a purchase so they're not a vital grab-n-go item but I don't pack a go bag or even a travel bag without one; they're good for a variety of important uses and I tend to use mine to store my laundry until I can wash it to keep the rest of my bag and items clean.
Entertainment - for me, this is a stress ball and a Pusheen cross-stitch set (very very small), but if I have time I pack my sketch book and colored pencils
Something to write with - You can get these at the store, so they're not vital, but when you need to write you really need to so if you've got a bag and you're just packing light, it's really important
Waterproof important document folder - trust me when I say the second you need this you cannot be without it and they're a pain to get, so if you can you should really just have one in easy access in case of emergencies.
Food + water - this depends on your situation; if you don't think you'd need food before you can secure more, pack a water bottle and a protein bar, but if you think it could be a few days, pack a few days' worth of both.
Hair tie - basically a rubber band you can use on hair so if you can I recommend putting one in your bag
Comb/hair brush - Buying new combs is possible, but a pain, and you're likely to need one before you can get one.
Nail file/emery board - if your nails break and catch on things and scratch you constantly like mine do this'll be a lightweight QOL improvement that'll help you not shred your clothes and your skin
Charging brick - heavy and hard to deal with but if you don't live in the city and might have trouble finding an outlet, this'll be deadly important.
Due to the state of Everything™ right now, even if you do not live in an area that gets severe weather or not at risk of immediate or soon displacement, please consider packing an emergency bag just in case
The evacuation prep poster is done! This poster is designed primarily with wildfires in mind, but the tips can apply to preparing for any much any disaster.
If you share this image outside of tumblr, please link back to my website: www.Katy-L-Wood.com
[[Image ID: A poster including a layered graphic showing what items to have ready to prepare for evacuating your home based on how much warning you have that you need to evacuate. The inner, red, level is labeled “No Warning.” The next, orange, level is labeled “Less Than an Hour.” The next, yellow, level is labeled “More Than an Hour.” The final, green, level is labeled “General Preparedness.” The items associated with each level and the text are included below. /end ID.]]
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Evacuation Prep:
As the world changes, it is important to be prepared to safely and efficiently evacuate your home, potentially with little or no warning. Preparing ahead of time can help to reduce stress and anxiety, and help you evacuate safely if the time comes.
Red Level (No Warning): People | Pets | Keys. Human life matters most. If you can’t rescue your pets, let them out to give them their best chance. If evacuating by car, don’t forget your keys.
Orange Level (Less Than an Hour): Crucial Meds | Important Papers | Money | Paper Map | Pet Vaccination Records. Crucial meds and medical equipment. Papers including passports, birth certificates, medical records, etc.. Multiple forms of payment. Paper map with marked evac routes in case of signal loss. Phone. Most evac centers require vaccine records for pets to be allowed in.
Yellow Level (More Than an Hour): Photos | Hard Drives | Computers | Chargers | Irreplaceable Items | OTC Meds | Pet Supplies | Pet Food | Clothes | Weather Gear. Family photos. Hard drives and computers. Make digital backups ahead of time. Charging cords. Irreplaceable items such as collectibles and mementos. Over the counter medical supplies such as Aspirin and tampons. Pet supplies such as bowls, crates, toys, and litter. Pet food and treats. Clothes. If you are running out of time grab your laundry basket. Weather gear if needed.
Green Level (General Preparedness): Food | Water | Radio | N95 Masks | Multitool | Power Pack | Gas | Stove + Fuel | Flashlight | Toiletries | Emergency Contact Info | Bedding | First Aid | Can Opener. Easy prep, shelf-stable food. Water. Battery powered/rechargeable NOAA weather radio. N95 masks for smoke. A multitool. Rechargeable power pack for phones. Keep your car at least partially fueled at all times. Portable stove and fuel for cooking food without power. Flashlight and spare batteries. Toiletries including hair products, toothbrush and paste, etc.. Emergency contact info for friends and loved ones. Spare pillows and blankets. Dedicated first aid kit. Can opener.
Save yourself time and stress by preparing an evacuation bag ahead of time and keep it in an easy to access place. At the end of every season rotate out the perishable items within such as food, water, and medications. The more you can keep in the bag, the more time you’ll have to grab everything else. Remember, it is okay if you can’t do everything. Some preparation is better than no preparation.
If you are in the U.S.A. and experiencing disaster related anxiety call the Disaster Distress Hotline at 1-800-985-5990 for support and resources.
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If you share this image outside of tumblr, please link back to my website: www.Katy-L-Wood.comf
