The Universe Is At Our Fingertips

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.

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.

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.

Like you can dislike the ending, that's fine.

From the article:

Their metrics showed that — in addition to providing over 1.7 billion meals to 40 million people in need globally — food banks also diverted an estimated 1.8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. By intercepting unspoiled food destined for the landfill, and redistributing food from local farms and wholesale produce markets, the 2023 report offered evidence that community-led solutions to addressing global hunger can also help protect the globe itself.  “Nearly a third of the world’s food is lost or wasted at the post-harvest, retail, and consumer levels, never reaching the people who need it,” the GFN team wrote in the report. “Food loss and waste proves costly for producers, takes up space in landfills, and emits harmful greenhouse gases, intensifying climate change.”

Reading this was one of those "oh duh!" moments for me. Despite being aware that food systems and food waste are major sources of emissions, I had mentally placed food banks in a "addressing non environmental problems" category. But of course, food banks make our food system more efficient and less wasteful by making the most out of the food we have already produced.

Decentering men? That’s expected. That’s often a good thing. However, coming from the default assumption that all men are a danger cuts you off from allies and narrows your scope of focus away from ways that the patriarchy harms people of all genders.

Feminism can’t be torn down and started from scratch. Our knowledge of the world and feminist theory exists because of the people who came before us. We can’t find some pure ideology completely divorced from the ideas that came before us.

Radical feminism also often completely ignores how race and economic status plays into oppression.

Why should a poor black woman feel more solidarity with a white billionaire woman than a poor black man? Why should an indigenous woman side with a woman who claims ownership over her ancestral lands over the men in her community fighting to regain access to those lands? Why should a cis intersex woman with XY chromosomes side with women who claim that a Y chromosome makes people violent?

There’s a lot of conversations that can and should be had about how socialization in early childhood shapes us, but socialization differs from culture to culture and family to family and how each individual person reacts to the exact same situation can be radically different.

Modern intersectional feminism is about nuance. Radical feminism is about ignoring all of that nuance for a simpler narrative that tries to smooth over all of the opinions of people whose life experience doesn’t align with theirs.

If person socialized as man=bad and woman=oppressed then the world feels simple. The enemy is well defined and all personal questions of morality and self doubt can be brought back to that one supposed truth. It’s the same comfort that people find in any other oversimplified ideology. If nuance is glossed over, the mind is free. All doubts can be crushed by going back to the one supposedly unchangeable truth that the ideology is based on.

The world though, unfortunately, is never that simple. Nonviolent men willing to unlearn their biases exist. Parents who raise their sons well exist. Intersex people exist. Trans people exist. Women who abuse their power over men and boys exist. Race, class, nationality, disability, politics, and sexuality exist. And all of those things make the simplicity of radfem ideology just, so stupid. I’m sorry, but it’s overly simplistic and stupid.

you CANNOT leave this in the tags that's so perfect and accurate

I follow this lady on instagram who rescues cats, and i have been thinking about this video for literal months. behold the transformation of this wretched little beast