Our local rivers & spreading basins are finally dry & filled with green grass. Hopefully lots of water got into the local aquifer from the wet winter. #ClimateDiary
Is everyone on the same page that old-growth forests sequester much more carbon than younger forests?
So it makes more sense to focus on not cutting down trees rather than planting new trees since it takes two to three decades for trees to reach full maturity, if they survive.
@davidho It makes more sense to focus on the entire old growth forest ecosystem rather than particular trees. Replacing a system with 100+ species per acre with >10 is a huge mistake. We should be trying to increase biodiversity rather than tree counts for improved carbon sequestration.
And finally, biochar is not the magic solution to forest fires. Biochar production still releases CO2. Increasing biodiversity increases resilience. #PolyCrisis
@futurebird@GeePawHill@patrickworld It was also classiest to some extent. I was raised with the ideal being separate bedrooms (1 per person). If you couldn't afford separate bedrooms, at least separate beds. Poverty was two or more people per bed (regardless of martial status).
It was not uncommon for 2-4 kids to share a bed, but people used to snicker and make religious slurs about the families.
"Turning school libraries into 'discipline centers'"
-Houston Texas
I'm very very angry that I need to learn what a 'discipline center' even is. I don't think I'll like it. I can't imagine it's more useful than a library. 😡
@futurebird When my son went to public school in Houston ISD, they started the day with a 30 minute walk through the on-campus garden. I think they also had regular movement breaks throughout the day.
Much more effective than a discipline center.
@taylorlorenz Wow. HISD used to have free public Montessori elementary school as well as a variety of other "theme" schools (like robotics, performance arts, sports, etc.). Almost an overwhelming variety of public school choice that was significant better quality than the private schools.
I’ve now been enjoying #Mastodon for 10 months & am delighted by the thoughtful engagement here. I’m also increasingly interested to learn more about who I’m connecting with in the fediverse.
@petergleick Did they go through with the rebranding? Because it is still Twitter with blue bird logo for me. I don't see any changes yet. Maybe they will get around to updating it in a few months?🤷
The #sky today. Relatively cool so far (under 90F/32C) so far. Surreal listening to people on the radio going on about #ClimateChange finally. #ClimateDiary
@pvonhellermannn I feel it is maybe something known as "previewing," so that people aren't frightened by #ClimateChange as it occurs & go on pretending it is the new normal, not a #ClimateCrisis. Which leads me to suspect those in charge realize things are about to get significantly worse but don't actually want to change anything.
Many people are surprised to learn that ants sleep. Even more surprising is the evidence that suggests they may dream (RAE is a sleep state found in ants and bees characterized by Rapid Antennae Movements and possibly similar to the REM sleep in mammals)
Ants sleep frequently and in funny locations. Generally they will rest their thorax and gaster on the ground, fold their antennae and be very still. They nap for 10min up to an hour. Queen ants will sleep for up to 4 hours at a time.
@futurebird@toxtethogrady Have you read The Whispering Rabbit (by Margaret Wise Brown)? My kids loved it. The bee falls asleep in the rabbit's throat & it has to make the perfect noise to wake it up. (Not going to spoil the ending by posting what that is).
That's how many parking spaces there are in the USA. For every car? About 4 empty spaces... just sitting there, not absorbing the rain, making flooding worse, making cities hotter as they bake in the summer sun.
Our built environment and laws bend over backwards to make driving the only viable transportation option in nearly every imaginable context.
You need to pay for healthcare, but almost never parking.
(Pointing this out makes libertarian heads explode.)
@futurebird That is an undercount as many drivers will park on sidewalks, parkways, front lawns, back yards, and pretty much any flat (or somewhat flat) spot they can access.
We have even had people drive across my neighbor's unpaved front yard, up a small unpaved hill to park on the unpaved hillside behind us in a neighbor's backyard.🤷 (Of course they also park in our driveway without permission as well, because they needed a spot & we weren't using it).
I absolutely love the Holm Oaks in my neighbourhood here in #Eastbourne. It took me a while to notice them when we first moved, only slowly realising that these magnificent, beautiful trees were all the same species. I learned through asking on a local Facebook group that they were holm oaks, which were first brought to the UK in the late 1500s, and became a popular seaside tree from the 1800s. 1/x
Fireworks party night. In the middle of extremely hot temperatures. (Fireworks are actually illegal here, so people set them off randomly, sometimes on other people's property, to avoid being caught). #PettyCrime#FireHazard#Heatwave
#ClimateDiary Saturday morning I was wondering whether people I know in real life even see these kinds of graphs. I decided to find out by sharing it in WhatsApp groups I am in (not all but was quite brave - included colleagues, family, etc) posting it with this message.
Entirely unscientific, badly worded etc, but I am so glad I did! I learned a number of interesting things:
In every group, 70-90 % of people had never seen this graph and do not normally see these graphs. 1/x
It was kinda hard to find information about the Climate Strike on Sep 15, 2023, but this looks to be the organization page. (Search gave me the wrong date & historical pages on previous years as top results).Not many actions in the US yet, but this is what is needed for real reform. (Hashtags for this follow) #EndFossilFuels#FastFairForever
It might seem like a great thing to link accounts between services and suddenly you have a vast userbase... but this was the problem of G+
Everyone had a G+ ... nobody used it. Also people will need multiple accounts. For their companies, for their cats, and for troublemaking
twitter understood and facilitated this. It's not so bad on the fediverse (but could be better) meta? meta is obsessed with linking accounts with individual people. No good.
@futurebird Yikes! I had to leave Linked In because my family found me by my very common real name on there. Since then, I never post online with my real name. They think I don't know how to use social media, which is great. There is a reason there are over 700 corn plants (Zea mays) with Facebook accounts.
To everyone who has multiple social media accounts (everyone?), make it a practice to post on one OTHER than Twitter first (or post on Twitter last). Soon, Twitter won't be important to you. Break the habit.
@petergleick Twitter isn't letting some accounts (like mine) post anymore, so that is an easy ask. Plus they are throttling huge accounts (think 60k followers & tweets get like 100 views), including POTUS apparently. But everyone gets some guy posting about men's clothing in their feed.🤷
@ct_bergstrom It's fixed (view limits gone for now). Apparently they tried to stiff Google, but paid earlier today when the site went down. Super professional place these days. #sarcasm
It may look messy, but it is full of food for both humans & wildlife.
We could be living in abundance, but instead our leadership is doing the equivalent of handing out power drills & encouraging people to drill holes in the hull of our lifeboat for "the economy" while promising to remove all the water by some uncertain future date. #ClimateDiary#ClimateCrisis
