Unforeseen side effects

In the global effort to combat climate change, large-scale, plant-based strategies such as planting forests and cultivating biofuels are an increasingly important part of countries' plans to reduce their overall carbon emissions, but a study in the journal Science finds that well-intended strategies could have unforeseen impacts on biodiversity and that, in general, restoring forests has the most beneficial effect on wildlife. The study is titled "Variable impacts of land-based climate mitigation on habitat area for vertebrate diversity." The authors, including New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) Assistant Curator Evelyn Beaury, Ph.D., argue that policy makers and conservation officials should consider impacts on biodiversity when evaluating the most effective tools to mitigate climate change.

Because Google is totally useless and won't help you with ANYTHING

iNaturalist: Take photos of living things you see, post them, and the community will identify them for you. Data from iNaturalist is used in scientific research.

Wildflower.org Plant Database: Enter search criteria and find some plants. Very useful if you're looking for plants with specific qualities or know what you have in mind.

Native Plant Finder: This website is still in beta and is a work in progress, but it will show you plants for your area ranked by the number of butterflies that use them for their caterpillars.

WildflowerSearch: AMAZING resource for identification and for learning about new plants. Shows you where plants are native/not native, TONS of search filters.

Native Plant Trust: A New England organization, but probably useful to anyone.

Northern Forest Atlas: Great images and identification resources for trees; has good pictures of bark, seeds, buds, leaves.

FloraFinder: Another plant database site that's being slowly built up by a passionate nerd.

MonarchWatch milkweed by USA ecoregion: Tells you what milkweed species you should plant for monarch butterflies.

Native Beeology: Not plants, but a closely related subject.

Learn how to fight or shoot a gun. Read about herbal and DIY medicine, and start growing some of those plants yourself. Get into graffiti, shoplifting, dumpster diving, or sabotaging security cameras so you can build up experience with getting things done in secret and getting away with them. Learn how to lockpick, repair holes in clothing, grow food, start and utilize a fire, build and fix things, etc. Get a couple friends together and start a little mutual aid distro, and let it grow organically over time. Get into ham or CB radio or long-range wifi meshnets. Get to know your local activist scene. Get to know your neighbors and your coworkers, and talk to them about the things that bother or worry you and how you could start fixing them together

This link allows you to send your personal library story directly to Congress: https://oneclickpolitics.global.ssl.fastly.net/messages/edit?promo_id=23577

And this is a straightforward petition you can sign in about a minute: https://action.everylibrary.org/eoimls2025

And if you want an easy way to contact your Congresscritters directly, text 50409 or search for ResistBot on Telegram to email, call or fax you Congresscritters. Libraries support democracy & are the last free reliably available 3rd Space in America. This is absolutely an emergency as serious as any of the other major institutional destructions so far this year.

as promised, the transplanting tutorial

most sources make transplanting sound incredibly difficult, but transplanting young seedlings from areas with sparse dirt, like a driveway or roadside, is actually incredibly easy and can get you some great stuff. Once I worked out the method, i've had a very high survival rate

it took me like a month of trial and error to figure this out so you don't have to.

It is a common belief that native plant gardening is hard and expensive but plants are free. They're everywhere. They just do their thing.

It is common for seedlings to grow in places they cannot survive longterm; the side of the road, pavement crack, gravel driveway.

How did they get here? Plants spread their seeds in a variety of ways. Some of the main ones are:

birds: when birds eat berries and fruits, the seeds are not digested and sprout in the ground when the bird poops.

wind: lots of seeds have fluffy parachutes of helicopter wings so they can be blown far away to find a place to grow

water: rain and streams can wash seeds away and leave them in a muddy area to sprout

mammals: acorns and nuts from trees are foods for families, who bury them later. sometimes they sprout into trees instead

A seed will do its best to sprout... whether it's a good place for a fully grown plant or not. Plants that sprout in harsh places are sometimes beautiful and vulnerable species, and they are easy to transplant.

Here's how:

you will need

a pot: A red solo cup is the right size for most transplantable seedlings- don't use anything much smaller. You can also use an orange juice carton or even a cardboard box. Make sure you cut holes or slits in the bottom so it won't be soggy forever when you water it.

potting mix: it's not the same as dirt- it's lighter, fluffier and drains easily.

a place to put it: put them outside where they get some sun, but not where they get direct sun all day long. If they're on a surface that gets hot, elevate them by putting them on a cardboard box or something.

The idea is to transplant seedlings that wouldn't survive where they are. Don't just uproot plants that aren't in any danger. Obviously don't do anything dangerous or illegal. AVOID roads with frequent traffic or main highways. Do NOT put yourself at risk of being hit by a car.

I collect from roadsides because I live in a neighbourhood with no outlet. If you grab an invasive species, it's in a pot where it can't hurt anything and you can just kill it.

NEVER plant anything in the ground without knowing what it is, though.

A seedling this size (about an inch) or smaller is most likely to survive. The two most important things are to keep as much of the root intact as you can and to make sure the roots stay damp. You can wrap the roots up in a wet paper towel.

How to transplant:

From gravel: seedlings growing in gravel or pebbles are easiest to transplant. Remove bits of gravel one by one and carefully pry up the pieces that are stuck, until the roots are exposed. Mulch can be removed the same way.

From a crack in the pavement: Very carefully pinch the stem as low to the ground as you can and shift and tug until you pull it free. Be patient! Breaking small roots is fine but if you hear the main root 'snap' RIP to the plant.

From dirt: Digging around the whole plant is hard to do quickly and seamlessly. Soaking the ground in water or searching after a rain can help you gently pull small plants up.

How to put them in a pot:

Carefully put potting mix around the roots. Don't crush them.

Don't touch any part above the lower stem with dirty hands... especially not new leaves. A speck of dirt on a delicate new leaf can make it start rotting which will spread to the whole plant. Water, immediately. Get only the potting mix wet, not the leaves (that can make them vulnerable to rotting).

Seedlings with broad, big leaves can dry up easily from direct sun exposure, but many aren't happy in the shade So you can cut one of these (cardboard toilet roll centre) in half and put the half around the seedling like a "collar".

How to take care of them:

After transplanting, plants are very weak. It's like recovering from an injury or illness.

Check on the plants at least a couple of times a day and water a little if the potting mix is dry. I like to adjust their location at different times of the day- newer seedlings might need to be moved to a shadier spot when it's sunniest, but later in the evening plants in the shade benefit from being put in the sun.

Don't be discouraged if they die, they had a very harsh early life and some of them won't make it.

As they get bigger you can identify the species you have and decide if you want to plant them. My policy is to plant only species that are native to my area. You WILL find invasive species and you want to get rid of those, trust me. Uprooting them and leaving them on a concrete surface kills just about everything. Don't throw an invasive plant in the grass and DO NOT try to compost them.

Ok so there are famously several real issues that work in our favour as well informed, modern-day, community-supporting transfems:

First, research on feminizing hormone therapy is generally speaking Shit. Aside from mental health indicators which have been extensively mapped, far beyond what's reasonable to continue investing effort in, very little work has been done on the physical side.

The studies that do exist generally share a few noted flaws:

Old school dosage regimens and medications

Very short study durations, often less than two years

Poor standardization and small groups

You see the problems here. A puberty should generally have enough hormones and time to, you know, work. It's a bit ridiculous to draw conclusions about the likely results a trans woman can expect based on the two-year timelines of some poor girls who were kept at levels where, if a cis girl had them, it would qualify as an endocrine disorder.

Now, as for guarding against this. Here's the thing: You can double check your dosages. You can demand that the results of your blood tests are shared with you, and compare them with, for example, Wikipedia's Reference Ranges For Blood Tests, under "Sex hormones".

Now, when underdosed, you can refer to the data and say you're not in the right range. By standards of care, you should be. If your doctor won't cooperate, make it a problem for them. You are a woman, demand to see the manager. Get a different doctor. Pursue alternative means.