Byrd

Tolls have been suspended. Real-time traffic information and evacuation routes is available at www.FL511.com

Miami-Dade has buses set up to help evacuate those with special needs, and Broward County has buses on standby.

A list of all open shelters will be available at www.floridadisaster.org/shelters.

Google is free.

Why The Red Cross Faces Backlash on Harvey Relief Efforts [Washington Post]

Red Cross Built Exactly 6 Homes For Haiti With Nearly Half A Billion Dollars In Donations [Huffington Post]

Red Cross Exec Doesn’t Know What Portion Of Donations Go To Harvey Relief [NPR]

Report: Red Cross Spent 25 Percent Of Haiti Donations On Internal Expenses [NPR]

Seriously, guess where I found all of those in two solid minutes of searching? Google. Even better, they didn’t charge me a penny for it. 

MercyCorps [89% rating on Charity Navigator]

Heart To Heart International [97% rating on Charity Navigator]

Direct Relief [100% rating on Charity Navigator]

Habitat For Humanity [83% rating on Charity Navigator // Because with islands like Barbuda 90% destroyed and French St. Martin said to be 95% destroyed then people are going to need homes built]

Catholic Relief Services [90% rating on Charity Navigator // For those who would want to donate to a religious organization]

If there is a note or comments section on their donation page please do let them know that you would want your money to go to their Caribbean relief efforts. Houston and Florida have the US government backing them in whatever they will need but these islands will have very little except for these charities to fall back if they have any hope of rebuilding what seems to be entire countries in some cases. For the people who lost everything even a few bucks will go a long way. 

climate change has been affecting countries around the equator for over a decade, causing heavy floods and unbearable heatwaves - of course, those countries are mostly underdeveloped & inhabited by poor people of color

maybe now that it’s really starting to affect the northern hemisphere, y’all will start caring

so what can you do to help halt climate change?

recycling and using less fossil fuels are both great ways to lessen your carbon footprint, but the most effective way to help halt climate change is by consuming less animal products

livestock + its byproducts emit at least 32,000 million tons of co2 per year, 51% of all worldwide greenhouse gas emissions (x)

nitrous oxide is a greenhouse gas with 296 times the global warming potential of co2 and it stays in the atmosphere for 150 years aaand livestock is responsible for 65% of human-related nitrous oxide emissions (x)

energy-related emissions are estimated to increase 20% by 2014, emissions caused by animal agriculture are estimated to increase 80% by 2050 (x, x)

also no one ever talks about methane but let me tell y’all, methane is one wild son of a gun that knows how to fuck shit uppp (x)

cows produce 150 billion gallons of methane EVERY DAY (x)

and those are only the main emission-related problems caused by animal agriculture, there’s also ocean pollution, deforestation, and animal agriculture is also simply not sustainable, you can read more about all of this in my #veganism tag - so, decreasing your intake of animal products, especially meat and dairy, is a great way to help

and i also urge y’all to educate yourselves on these issues and speak up because climate change is happening right now and has been happening for years, we need to fight the capitalistic governments that pretend this isn’t real

we already knew hurting others is wrong, we already loved animals, we already wanted to alleviate poverty and we already wanted our planet to survive