If you have a chunk of time and care about climate change, the video linked below is the best 16 minutes you can spend on the internet today.
Some background: Hank Green is a climate scientist who happens to also be a very popular YouTube content creator alongside his brother, author John Green. Together, these men run a wonderful channel called "vlogbrothers" where they talk a LOT about the human experience, science, culture, etc.
Last month, Hank created a video that did such a wonderful job condensing the ways we can mitigate climate change by being informed, supporting policy, and making meaningful decisions that have potential to go a lot farther toward decarbonizing and stabilizing the climate than just riding your bike to work.
I found this video not only enlightening, but also exceedingly hopeful. I hope you will too.
Here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcMLFMsIVis
The video description:
"How We Fix the Climate"
We should act as if this is an emergency, because it is. But part of that is understanding the tools and strategies countries are using to decarbonize and stabilize the climate. This is work that's already being done. We have already decoupled economic growth from the emission of greenhouse gasses which, frankly, was unthinkable just a couple decades ago. We need to be thinking and talking about this stuff, and one really important piece of that is understanding this stuff so we can talk about it and advocate for it. And, good news, it's all actually pretty fascinating!!
@vida I've seen several items recently that might be useful. One was a water producing machine that manages to extract water from the air in arid climates, enough to produce a decent amount of drinking and irrigation water. It was solar powered and might help keep more plants and animals from perishing. It made me wonder if the snow blowing machines they used in Tahoe recently to fight the wildfire could also be used to humidify the air in other forested regions during wildfire season.
This is potentially exciting news from MIT this week. Natural cat litter can absorb methane and convert it to CO2 which is much less damaging to the atmosphere. Scientists are going to start looking at ways to use this cat litter in farms and coal mines, which are the biggest producers of methane gas.
https://gizmodo.com/zeolite-convert-methane-carbon-dioxide-mit-1848931401
Housing crisis - needs,costs,sustainability.There are folks thinking about it out there: https://www.freethink.com/series/challengers/energy-efficient-homes?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=BigThinkdotcom
@journeywithme2 Great post and video. Also a hit for me, since I predicted back at least six years ago (main Prediction page, Decade Ahead predictions) an explosion in the Tiny Homes industry which is what this company's homes will be. I am heartened to think that this industry is finally going to take off.
I also have a prediction that the ADU (Accessory Dwelling Unit) industry will take off - people adding tiny homes to their properties, which again, the company you sited is going to be doing.
For those who haven't seen it, the video you posted is about a company making small affordable 100 percent sustainable IKEA-like homes that you can assemble yourself in just two weeks.
Again, the link: https://www.freethink.com/series/challengers/energy-efficient-homes?
@jeanne-mayell I love the idea of it as well as ADU . Currently my county bars tiny homes and ADU's. My little cottage is grandfathered in and my son has been working on it when he can to redo it up to meet his needs. Or even mine if he and his partner want to take over the house and I take the cottage. We have choices ☺️
@journeywithme2 - Loved the video and concept. Thanks for sharing. There is a company in Salem Oregon that is working on a similar concept: www.ideabox.us. Unfortunately their cost for a two bedroom /two bathrooms is $500kh+.
@barbarmar22 You are welcome! Whaaatttt???? 500k+???? It's supposed to be affordable housing!!!
A plethora of Climate news has been coming out over the past few days. Expect more because things are really starting to be more apparent. I think the Climate section in Jeanne's forum is going to be quite active.
Caribbean Coral and Sea Urchin news
The sustained loss of a once-abundant species of sea urchin in the Caribbean could also result in the functional extinction of diverse coral species from the region's reefs, according to new research from a Florida State University tea
The urchin species Diadema antillarum has long been considered the most important grazer in the Caribbean, feeding on algae that would otherwise overrun the reef and make it difficult for coral to thrive. But two mortality events over the past 40 years have caused much of that urchin population to die off.
More can be found here:
https://phys.org/news/2023-02-sea-urchin-die-offs-threaten-caribbean.html
Native Americans are urging a halt to off shore wind farms
The National Congress of American Indians on Thursday called for a moratorium on offshore wind development along U.S. coasts, insisting the Biden administration do a better job protecting tribal interests.
This call by tribes follows a plea Tuesday by 30 New Jersey mayors to halt offshore wind activity so government officials can investigate recent whale deaths in addition to concern over economic challenges increasing the difficulty in building the wind farms.
Native Americans have expressed concern about being cut out of the planning, permitting and contracting process as developers seek to build more than a dozen wind projects along both the West and East coasts, despite vows by President Joe Biden and top administration officials to consider indigenous knowledge in government decision-making. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the nation's first Native American cabinet secretary, also has put a new focus on environmental justice and indigenous rights as head of the department that oversees offshore wind.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management emphasized it agreed with NCAI that "tribes must have a seat at the table" and said in an emailed statement the agency is "always working to improve the consultation process."
https://phys.org/news/2023-02-offshore-halt-urged-native-americans.html
Sea Ice Antarctic news.
Yep, it is shrinking.
Below is a summary about recent sea ice news.
Antarctic sea ice likely shrunk to a record low last week, US researchers said Monday, its lowest extent in the 45 years of satellite record-keeping.
The Antarctic cycle undergoes significant annual variations during its summers of thawing and winters of freezing, and the continent has not experienced the rapid melting of the past four decades that plague the ice sheets of Greenland and the Arctic due to global warming.
But the high melt rate since 2016 raises concerns that a significant downward trend may be taking hold.
Melting of the sea ice is problematic because it helps accelerate global warming.
When white sea ice—which bounces up to 90 percent of the Sun's energy back into space—is replaced by dark, unfrozen sea, the water absorbs a similar percentage of the Sun's heat instead.
Due to rising sea levels and increasing precipitation from climate change, research says that in some areas, like the Gulf Coast, back to back hurricanes could occur as frequently as once every 3 years. Researchers led by Ning Lin, an associate professor civil and environmental engineering at Princeton University feel "Today's extremely rare events will become far more frequent." Storms that might have passed with little notice in the past will become threats, particularly when they hit one after another due to soil saturation. A major takeaway from this research is the need to plan for the ramifications of back to back storms.
*Hopefully the U.S. government and local officials are reading this study too.
https://phys.org/news/2023-02-bad-climate-threat-back-to-back-hurricanes.html
Someone recently made a post that I haven’t located yet, it was about the destruction of trees and landscape, maybe it was in Florida, and the terrible sense of loss. I thought about it for a few days and made a little (not quite semantically correct) collage about it. Then I began researching the rights of nature, something I was dimly aware of, and found that while it’s complicated the rights of nature movement is thought to have the potential to mitigate climate change.
An example: the citizens of Toledo, fed up with trying to get the state and federal governments to clean up Lake Erie, voted for the Lake Erie Bill of Rights granting legal rights to a waterbody and allowing citizens to file lawsuits on behalf of the lake. This was about 2013 or so, and in 2020 it was found to be unconstitutional. But the movement continues to grow. Here’sa summary article: https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2021/04/22/rights-of-nature-lawsuits/
Anyone see this as a real possibility for change? It may be that big climate changes are coming so swiftly and dramatically that it may be too little/too late for this strategy?
A Thank You to who posted about the tree loss, your words really resonated with me to the point of having to do something even so small as a postcard-size collage.
@marigold that may have been a post of mine - where I shared my distress at the Hyundai Electric Battery plant going up just 4 miles down the road from me. There are already 3 new subdivisions going up in what was forest and fields along the river. The loss of habitat and ensuing human/animal interactions and ignorance have just devastated me. People complaining of black bear, foxes, bob cats etc being in their yards and scrounging for food - the easily adaptable ones like coyotes, raccoon ...urban opportunists and brazen with it... getting shot at and killed while killing pets etc etc. If it was my post? I thank you that it moved you to take action.
We are facing the loss of another pristine area - full of history, endangered flora and fauna and irreplaceable trees and rare wildflowers and plants as well as animals. I have been signing petitions, writing Senators, fund raising as the state has an opportunity to purchase said area - which has been a Wildlife Management Area for years.... that the owners graciously let the state use. They are offering first dibs to the state to buy...we are working hard to save it. Say a prayer that we may.... places like these? would take hundred of years to recover from development and environmental losses.
Your collage is beautiful! Y'all look up "Don't it make you want to go home" by Joe South... it says it all.
@journeywithme2 Yes, it was your post and thank you again! I put the postcard up on Instagram to spread the word. "Don't It Make You Want to Go Home" - for real. The woods, with wild pink azaleas, I used to play in as a child are now office condos. Sending very best wishes for success in preserving the pristine natural area you are working so hard to save at present.
Hi
I think it was mentioned before about problems possibly forming with the Gulf Stream affecting the Northern Hemisphere, it looks like something similar in the Southern hemisphere is happening as well. Those underwater conveyer belts moving the nutrients around the oceans slowing down or stopping could cause the breakdown of a lot of ecosystems, fish stocks, affect the weather.
We really don’t know know what we are doing to this world, what else might be happening in the background that we are ignorant of.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-30/dramatic-south-ocean-circulation-changes-study/102154690
Regards to all (But silently screaming)
“We’ve already had to abandon some of the index glaciers that we used to monitor, because their snowlines and meaningful ice volume have completely disappeared.”
Not good, less melt for farming and hydro electricity etc.
Regards to all
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65192825
“These pulses translate into sea level rise and could be really important for sea defences,” she said. The rate of loss was critical if, for example, a rise expected over 200 years could actually occur in 20 years, Batchelor said. The research could also be used to enable computer models to make better predictions about future ice loss.
Me no like this
Regards to all