The Future Is In Our Hands

climate change represents world-altering tragedy if unchecked, but not even in the worst-case scenario does it mean “literally everyone dies”

this, this, this, this, this, this, and like, 700 other sources will tell you that most of the effects of climate change will be reversible even if we pass the ‘threshold’ of a 1.5 degrees Celsius increase in global temperature

BUT. Even if the worst happens, it will be important to be doing things other than wallowing in misery???

I’m not trying to be callous but for people living today it’s wildly unlikely for the results to be “literally immediate death.”

People will get displaced from their homes by rising sea levels. We have like, years, probably decades, before that happens. It seems so fucked up to decide that we should do nothing, because we’ve already decided they’re going to die anyway????

If a bunch of us are going to die, why not die trying to help each other? Why not try to make sure fewer people die? Why not do something that might reduce someone’s suffering or give them food or clean water or a place to sleep?

And there’s still hope! Did you know the hole in the ozone layer is closing? It was actually caused by one specific chemical that’s been banned. A lot of endangered wildlife populations are growing because of so many efforts to protect them. Many mining companies are being prevented from mining in our remaining clean waters and forests. We have all the technology we need to reverse this crisis, it’s just a matter of implementing it.

In the 1980’s, the area was absolutely devastated by copper mining, to the point that the land had a “Martian” appearance. It was utterly devoid of vegetation and wildlife. No trees, no grass, no frogs, nothing.

I own a historical fiction book, A Bird on Water Street, about how the area was restored. The astonishing thing about this place is that people were able to fix the damage.

In a lot of ways in the 80’s and 90’s, many species and environments were successfully saved from the brink of disaster.

Does anyone remember DDT? As the above poster said above, CFC’s contributing to the ozone hole? Do y'all remember how saturated the 1970’s were with lead and asbestos and all sorts of toxic shit? Getting specific chemicals banned or working to save specific species DOES HELP.

I’m begging everyone to research conservation projects going on near them, like, in or near their hometown. The state of Kentucky very successfully reintroduced elk to the mountains after they went extinct there. There are examples like this everywhere.

Things look bad and they’re scary but they would be a lot worse if the people before us hadn’t worked their asses off trying to preserve the world for us. People are out there working hard to save the world right now.

The land the plants and the animals do not belong to you. They do not exist solely for you. When indigenous people say 'take care of the earth, and she will take care of you too' they mean take care of the whole ecosystem, not just the plants and animals you use. This means encouraging and maintaining biodiversity. It means some animals are going to come in and eat a bit of the food you're growing- and if your ecosystem is maintained well, it wont be an infestation bc predators exist, and it wont completely demolish your crops because it's not a monocrop buffet.

It means sharing food with others (including animals!) because plants don't just grow for you.

We’re proud to share an historic announcement - the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) have assumed full management of the Bison Range!

Formerly known as the National Bison Range, the land was restored to the Tribes by the Montana Water Rights Protection Act when signed into law on December 27, 2020.

After a two-year period of transition and continued partnerships with USFWS, the Bison Range is now under full management of CSKT as of January 2, 2022.

“Returning the Bison Range to its people is a momentous occasion, honoring lands, relationships, and conservation successes of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes,” said USFWS Director Martha Williams. “We’ve worked collaboratively with CSKT for many years and look forward to continuing to work together to conserve wildlife. I can’t wait to visit the CSKT’s Bison Range in the future.”

Learn more: http://ow.ly/tbfs50IqFuZ

Very much in agreement with this post that says that people who don't have time/spoons/resources to turn their lawns into a food garden shouldn't feel obliged to do so, and I didn't want to derail it by making this comment under the post, so I'm here making a new one of my own.

Sometimes you don't want to dig up your lawn and start market gardening because it's a fuckton of work and honestly a second job all in itself.

But what if you don't have time to do all that, but you do still want to grow at least some food?

Perennials are the way to go.

Perennials are plants that you plant once and then they just carry on growing and getting bigger without you having to do much, if anything to them.

Say you've got a small garden with a lawn and a few flower beds. What can you do to grow food without changing the format of the garden at all?

Plant a couple of fruit/nut trees. Your plum/cherry/pear/peach/whatever trees will be covered in pink blossom in the spring. Your neighbours and your local pollinators will love you.

Don't worry about the tree getting too big - plant a dwarf variety and when it reaches a height you like, prune it back to that height every year.

In your flower beds, plant

globe artichokes (very decorative, have lovely flowers and sculptural foliage.)

rhubarb (colourful edible stems.)

wild garlic (edible cloves and leaves, beautiful white star shaped flowers)

walking onions

perennial kale

chard

perennial salad plants such as Salad Burnet, Miner's lettuce etc

Jerusalem artichoke

Mashua (a perennial relative of the nasturtium - you can eat the tubers like potatoes and the leaves in salad. Has lovely red nasturtium like flowers.)

Yakon (small sunflower-like flowers, big tubers that taste faintly of pear.)

Potatoes (honestly, they have lovely white flowers and as long as you don't dig all of them up this year, more will grow next year.)

Fennel (lovely lacy edible foliage and the root is also edible.)

any other perennial plant that might grow well in your area.

Remember that all of these plants will come back every year bigger than they were the year before. You should only need to plant them once and then leave them to get on with it.

There are loads of obscure perennial vegetables and fruits you can discover with a bit of research.

I recommend How to grow Perennial Vegetables by Martin Crawford as a great book to start with. It's a huge list of edible perennials, with details of where they like to grow, what you harvest from them, potential problems, and how to cook them

Also in your flower beds, plant

fruit bushes and fruit vines on pergolas (raspberry, blueberry, goji-berry, kiwi etc)

Now you've got some vegetables, salads, nuts and fruits growing in your flowerbeds, you can think about what to do to improve your lawn.

The lawn

The great thing about getting an eco-friendly lawn is that it all involves inaction - doing less work

Stop weedkilling

Stop watering the lawn. If it survives, great! If it doesn't survive, replace with native grasses that can.

Get some native wildflower plug plants and plant them into the lawn, or

Get some native wildflower seeds and oversow the lawn with them.

This will give you a lawn full of native plants that will support your local pollinators.

Take part in No Mow May to allow your wildflowers to flower, or if you can get away with it, stop mowing altogether except for a single hay cut once a year at the peak of the flowering season.

Result

[photo id: several square-ish pots made out of folded newspaper sitting on a wooden table.]

But I think I’m probably going to stick with my method, because I am NOT good at origami or neat folding in general:

I’ve used a wide range of can sizes for making my pots, from those small tomato paste cans to the big diced tomato cans (which I use for squash).

The great thing about these pots is that they really minimize transplant shock/stress, because you can just plant the whole thing. So they’re great for anything in the cucurbit family. 

I think both methods have their upsides and down sides. The rolling is faster, but the folding seems like it’d be much neater. 

Of course, there’s also the toilet paper roll pots, which also work quite well:

I’m pretty fast at making them now, but they do still take 2-3 minutes each, so planning ahead is a good idea if you’re going to need more than a couple dozen.

If you’re making them ahead of time, once you’re done folding them, don’t pop them into shape, leave them flat for storing, they take up so much less space.

I have an idea for a co-op/community network type thing but I’m not sure if it exists already. Sort of like a buy nothing group.

So the idea is that everyone in the group would share what they can provide to others, like driving people to appointments, homemade soap, or backyard chicken eggs. People could browse these offerings and see what they need, and then those individuals could work out whether it’s free or for trade/service. You could also post if there’s something you need, like a cast iron skillet or someone to mow your lawn, and people can offer what they can. There’s more to the idea but that’s the gist.

Spring is coming, I can feel it in my bones, which means it's a good time to prepare my raised beds! Hence my impulse driven project of chopping up my Christmas tree and building a hügelkultur as dusk started to fall.

For those who don't know, a hügelkultur is a German permaculture-esque practice of burying logs and branches with compost to create a raised bed. As the wood decomposes, it releases water and nutrients that the plants can easily access, meaning you don't have to fertilize or water as often. Sustainability rocks!

Step 1: Dig a big hole. I'm doing this in raised bed boxes, but you can do it anywhere.

Step 2: Lay a bed of logs and branches, logs on the bottom, branches on top. Make sure you have a decent layer, branches like to spring but the woody material is what holds all the good stuff. I'm only using the branches, since the trunk of the tree is going to be firewood, but this has been done with full trees. Like, full maples. Big ass trees.

Step 3: Organic material! Kitchen scraps, partially decomposed compost, garden cuttings. I have a camellia that drops it's flowers all over my pathway, so I was able to use those and do a bit of witchcraft while building this thing.

Step 4: Brown material! All those dried leaves, the soggy mess from your gutters, all of it. Plop on top.

Step 5: Cover it all up with a layer of fully composted material and the soil you dug out when you made that big hole.

This raised bed will be decomposing for several years, and as it decomposes, the soil will get richer and richer. As it is, it's a really soft and springy bed, great for root systems.

The increasing amount of plastic being added to our environments has created intense selection pressure for microbes that can break down plastic for energy.

Looking at environmental DNA samples, researchers have found 30,000 different enzymes capable of digesting different types of plastic. Almost 60% did not fit into any known enzyme types.

While previous plastic-eating microbes had primarily been found in garbage dumps or recycling plants (locations with very high levels of plastic), the enzymes in this study were collected from soil and ocean water throughout the world, meaning this phenomenon is even more widespread than we thought.

The goal is to utilize these enzymes for more efficient recycling–essentially breaking plastic down into its basic building blocks to reduce or even eliminate the need for new virgin plastic. An enzyme created in 2020 is already being used to recycle plastic bottles in only a couple of hours.

Always wipe clean with a wet rag or sponge after cooking, minimize scrubbing, simmer water in the pan to soften really stuck bits. Then dry fully and put just a smidge of your oil/fat of choice on it before putting the pan away. And liberally re-season (the coating with oil/fat and baking at 400 part) as needed if you notice things sticking more!

Learn how to preserve your own herbs and spices using a dehydrator with this video from Epic Gardening!

If you don’t have a dehydrator, there are plenty of there are plenty of other ways to preserve your herbs. Some, like basil, oregano, and sage, can simply be harvested, tied into small bundles, and hung somewhere out of direct sunlight with good ventilation.

Another option is an oven on a very low setting, or even just with the light on to warm it.

Of course, you can always build your own solar dehydrator!