my saving-the-world bullshit

use overdrive, libby, hoopla, cloudlibrary, and kanopy instead of amazon and audible.

use firefox instead of chrome or opera (both are made with chromium, which blocks functionality for ad-blockers. firefox isn't based on chromium).

use mega or proton drive instead of google drive.

get rid of bloatware

use libreoffice instead of microsoft office suite

use vetted sites on r/FREEMEDIAHECKYEAH for free movies, books, games, etc.

use trakt or letterboxd instead of imdb.

use storygraph instead of goodreads.

use darkpatterns to find mobile game with no ads or microtransactions

use ground news to read unbiased news and find blind spots in news stories.

use mediahuman or cobalt to download music, or support your favorite artists directly through bandcamp

make youtube bearable by using mtube, newpipe, or the unhook extension on chrome, firefox, or microsoft edge

use search for a cause or ecosia to support the environment instead of google

use thriftbooks to buy new or used books (they also have manga, textbooks, home goods, CDs, DVDs, and blurays)

use flashpoint to play archived online flash games

find books, movies, games, etc. on the internet archive! for starters, here's a bunch of David Attenborough documentaries and all of the Animorphs books

burn your music onto cds

use pdf24 (available online or as a desktop app) instead of adobe

use unroll.me to clean your email inboxes

use thunderbird, mailfence, countermail, edison mail, tuta, or proton mail instead of gmail

remove bloatware on windows PC, macOS, and iOS X

remove bloatware on samsung X

use pixelfed instead of instagram or meta

use NCH suite for free software like a file converter, image editor, video editors, pdf editor, etc.

feel free to add more alternatives, resources or advice in the reblogs or replies, and i'll add them to the main post <3

Hello SolarPunks, for a university project I'm working together with a government agency to build a new forest next to, and integrated into, a new city that's being built (I legally can't say where, but somewhere in the Netherlands). The site was previously farm land and production forest.

The goal is to have this new city live in synergy with nature. I'm planning on making this place as biodiverse as possible with relief and natural ponds using indigenous plants to promote insects and amphibians. There's plenty of trees for birds and bats. Wood piles for other critters and fungi to find shelter and food.

To integrate humans into this environment I was thinking about making a food forest where all the plant layers have some edible or medicinal indigenous plants with fruit/nut trees. Decking boards and stepping stones in ponds and marshy areas. As a community space I like the idea of a willow gazebo and a natural playground.

I'd like to keep some pieces of land restricted from humans by placing "fencing" made up of dead trees and branches and blackberry bushes so birds and other critters have some undisturbed nesting places.

Drawing on the conservation status system used by the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List and the Rare Breeds Survival Trust Watchlist, Heritage Crafts uses a system of four categories of risk to assess the viability of heritage crafts. A heritage craft is considered to be viable if there are sufficient craftspeople to transmit the craft skills to the next generation.

Extinct in the UK

Crafts classified as ‘extirpated’ or ‘locally extinct’ are those which are no longer practised in the UK. For the purposes of this research, this category only includes crafts which have become extinct in the past generation.

Cricket ball making (hand stitched)

Gold beating

Lacrosse stick making

Mould and deckle making

Mouth blown sheet glass making

Critically Endangered

Crafts classified as ‘critically endangered’ are those at serious risk of no longer being practised in the UK. They may include crafts with a shrinking base of craftspeople, crafts with limited training opportunities, crafts with low financial viability, or crafts where there is no mechanism to pass on the skills and knowledge.

Arrowsmithing

Basketwork furniture making

Bell founding

Bow making (musical)

Bowed felt hat making

Chain making

Clay pipe making

Clog making

Coiled straw basket making

Copper wheel glass engraving

Coppersmithing (objects)

Currach making

Damask weaving (linen)

Devon stave basket making

Diamond cutting

Encaustic tile making

Engine turned engraving

Fabric pleating

Fair Isle straw back chair making

Fan making

Flute making (concert)

Fore edge painting

Frame knitting

Glass eye making

Hat block making

Hat plaiting

Hazel basket making

Highlands and Islands thatching

Horse collar making

Horsehair weaving

Industrial pottery

Maille making

Metal thread making

Millwrighting

Northern Isles basket making

Orrery making

Paper making (commercial handmade)

Parchment and vellum making

Piano making

Plane making

Plume making

Pointe shoe making

Saw making

Scientific & optical instrument making

Scissor making

Sieve and riddle making

Silk ribbon making

Silver spinning

Spade making (forged heads)

Spinning wheel making

Sporran making

Straw hat making

Sussex trug making

Swill basket making

Tanning (oak bark)

Tinsmithing

Wainwrighting

Watch dial enamelling

Watch making

Whip making (horse)

Withy pot making

Hopefully this is helpful to someone out there 🌸

You can find the Prompts podcast here, I drew some of the covers :D Also check out this digital library full of Creative Commons Solarpunk art (neither of these are sponsored).

🦗Somewhat shameful plug🦗

Wösten is part of a team of researchers from Belgium, Denmark, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway and the UK who are exploring a radical idea: what if the materials we build with could grow, repair themselves, and even sense their environment?

This EU-funded research initiative, called Fungateria, is developing engineered living materials (ELMs) by fusing fungal mycelia with bacteria — creating adaptable, self-healing materials that do what conventional products cannot.

Unlike traditional materials like concrete or plastic, ELMs can grow, repair themselves, sense changes in their environment, and sometimes even adapt over time.

The researchers aim to design these materials so that they combine the strength of natural growth with the functionality of engineering. For example, walls that fix their own cracks, building blocks that absorb CO2, or surfaces that can clean the air.

The goal is to create sustainable, low-waste materials that work with nature instead of against it, opening the door to smarter, greener architecture and products.

This is not a feel-good post. This is also a long post. Scroll on if you need to for your mental health.

I'm pretty fucked up by this migraine but I gotta interrupt the queue by talking about something awful. I try to keep this blog as a gentle, thoughtful, inspirational little island with plants and gardens and kitties and art and interesting little bits.

But there is horrifying shit going on in America right now, and it is primarily impacting anyone who is not white.

I am terrified for all of them, from friends to to strangers. It's never been easy (or fully safe) to be a racial minority in America, but the current administration is actively, violently, targeting them.

"About 70% of the city’s renewable energy comes from a new solar farm in central Illinois, which was built in large part because Chicago committed to buying electricity from the project.

With more than 1 million panels, it’s the largest solar installation east of the Mississippi River.

Policicchio: “So it’s truly immense.”

Right now, Chicago is meeting most of its remaining energy needs by buying energy credits from other renewable electricity providers.

North American bird declines are driven by reductions in common species

Gates Dupont & Andy Dobson

Abstract

Biodiversity loss continues to occur globally. However, the long-term dynamics of the redistribution of abundance within declining communities remain poorly resolved. We quantitatively dissected the major decline of North American bird abundance by rigorously analyzing 38,854 surveys that quantify over half a century of annual dynamics for 648 populations of 244 bird species from six regions, each encompassing 140,000 to 370,000 km2. Despite regional variation in geography, habitat, and species composition, a consistent pattern emerges: Biodiversity loss predominantly stems from declines in the most abundant bird species, whereas less abundant species show increases. We demonstrate that species once abundant and near their carrying capacity have declined, while less abundant species farther from their carrying capacity have increased. A path analysis identifies the key role played by anthropogenic land-use changes in causing the observed declines. Conservation efforts should place stronger emphasis on the abundance of common species as a central ecological indicator.

Read the paper here:

just like any other big, bad problem, what we can do is split it into smaller, actionable parts:

- Carbon emissions from livestock? Make little diet changes, even if it’s just removing beef (it’s healthier too!)

- If you’re able, walk or bike to your classes/work/errands once a week instead of driving (also healthier)

- Corporations being shitty? Making slight changes in what products we buy (even if it’s just a slightly different brand) can make an impact