Lamp Plants By Mar De Fe On Etsy

Solarpunk conflict Sugestions

Naturalist Vs Bioengineers:

Trouble could be brewing between two ideologies in your solarpunk setting. Those who believe in keeping nature ‘pure’ and those who believe in integrating nature and technology closer together.

New world Vs old remnants

A lot of mistakes were made before the world reached its current setting. What if one of those mistakes has survived? A malfunctioning weaponised drone/robot is accidentally reactivated and now prowls the streets and it’s a race against time to stop it.

Solarpunk Vs Lunarpunk

Conflicting cultures. City dwells vs nomadic tribes. Eco tech vs. Eco occultism. Two different branches of humanity struggling to understand one another and clashing cultural values. 

Man vs the dark side of nature

Mankind may have stopped being a threat to the planet, but the natural world is full of threats. new diseases and plant blights are always evolving, not to mention eruptions, floods, droughts, and meteors all still happen.

New tech murder mystery

Society as a whole may be better, but crime still happens. What is it like being a detective in such a world? how many new ways does the world’s new biotech provide for murderers looking to get away with it? 

Yes, climate change can be beaten by 2050. Here's how.

A carbon-free world can be a reality. What would that mean for our jobs, homes and lives?

“Is it possible to turn things around by 2050? The answer is absolutely yes,” says Kai Chan, a professor at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability at the University of British Columbia.

Many scientists have been telling us how the world will look like, if we don’t act now. However, others, like Chan, are tracking what success might look like.

They are not simply day-dreamers either. They aren’t being too optimistic. They are putting together road maps for how to safely get to the planet envisioned in the 2015 Paris Agreement, where temperatures hold at 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than before we started burning fossil fuels, this article from July states.

“Three decades is enough to do a lot of important things. In the next few years—if we get started on them—they will pay dividends in the coming decades,” says Chan, the lead author of the chapter on achieving a sustainable future in a recent UN report that predicted the possible extinction of a million species.

Making these changes won’t mean years of being poor, cold and hungry before things get comfortable again, the scientists insist. They say that if we start acting seriously NOW, we stand a decent chance of transforming society without huge disruption. 

No doubt, it will take a massive switch in society’s energy use. But without us noticing, that’s already happening. Not fast enough, maybe, but it is. Solar panels and offshore wind power plummet in price.  Iceland and Paraguay have stripped the carbon from their grids, according to a new energy outlook report from Bloomberg. Europe is on track to be 90 per cent carbon-free by 2040. And Ottawa says that Canada is already at 81 per cent, thanks to hydro, nuclear, wind and solar. 

Decarbonizing the whole economy is within grasp. We can do this.

“If we have five years of really sustained efforts, making sure we reorient our businesses and our governments toward sustainability, then from that point on, this transition will seem quite seamless. Because it will just be this gradual reshaping of options,” Chan says, adding: “All these things seem very natural when the system is changing around you.”

Neglected pastures thrive under solar panels

Solar panels could increase productivity on pastures that are not irrigated and even water-stressed, a new study finds. The new study published in PLOS One by researchers at Oregon State College finds that grasses and plants flourish in the shade underneath solar panels because of a significant change in moisture. The results bolster the argument for agrovoltaics, the concept of using the same area of land for solar arrays and farming. The idea is to grow food and produce clean energy at the same time.

Grow Your Own Avocado and Oak Trees at Home with These Minimalist Glass Vases

In the next 3 weeks, Canada will make a decision that could save the bees for good

We won't see another opportunity like this again. Let's seize it.

um guys?

canada is currently considering banning imidacloprid, which is apparently “one of the most widely used bee-killing pesticides in the world”. this seems pretty huge, so if you’ve got two seconds, add your name to the list! as of posting this link, they need just over 8,000 more signatures by february 21!

california anti-drought measures are always like “take shorter showers! consider brushing your teeth with the sink turned off” and never mention the fact that nestle is bottling all of our fucking water and selling it to people who live in areas with plenty of water

The World Spent $14.4 Billion on Conservation, and It Actually Worked

Between 1992-2003, that investment led to a 29 percent decrease in the rate of biodiversity decline.

“Between 1992–2003, $14.4 billion was spent in total in the 109 countries studied…That investment resulted in a 29 percent-per-country average decrease in the rate of biodiversity decline…”

This is one of the first large-scale studies to show that investment in conservation really does work. The study also examined how conservation dollars could be spent most effectively in different locations to slow biodiversity loss. 

Gloves that can translate sign language into speech/text

Yes, climate change can be beaten by 2050. Here's how.

A carbon-free world can be a reality. What would that mean for our jobs, homes and lives?

“Is it possible to turn things around by 2050? The answer is absolutely yes,” says Kai Chan, a professor at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability at the University of British Columbia.

Many scientists have been telling us how the world will look like, if we don’t act now. However, others, like Chan, are tracking what success might look like.

They are not simply day-dreamers either. They aren’t being too optimistic. They are putting together road maps for how to safely get to the planet envisioned in the 2015 Paris Agreement, where temperatures hold at 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than before we started burning fossil fuels, this article from July states.

“Three decades is enough to do a lot of important things. In the next few years—if we get started on them—they will pay dividends in the coming decades,” says Chan, the lead author of the chapter on achieving a sustainable future in a recent UN report that predicted the possible extinction of a million species.

Making these changes won’t mean years of being poor, cold and hungry before things get comfortable again, the scientists insist. They say that if we start acting seriously NOW, we stand a decent chance of transforming society without huge disruption. 

No doubt, it will take a massive switch in society’s energy use. But without us noticing, that’s already happening. Not fast enough, maybe, but it is. Solar panels and offshore wind power plummet in price.  Iceland and Paraguay have stripped the carbon from their grids, according to a new energy outlook report from Bloomberg. Europe is on track to be 90 per cent carbon-free by 2040. And Ottawa says that Canada is already at 81 per cent, thanks to hydro, nuclear, wind and solar. 

Decarbonizing the whole economy is within grasp. We can do this.

“If we have five years of really sustained efforts, making sure we reorient our businesses and our governments toward sustainability, then from that point on, this transition will seem quite seamless. Because it will just be this gradual reshaping of options,” Chan says, adding: “All these things seem very natural when the system is changing around you.”

The Human Race Must Abolish Billionaires

Hello, let’s have a talk. A talky talk. A talky talk about how and why Billionaires should not be allowed to exist, why we can, must, and should seize all of their combined wealth, and what we can do with it when we have it.

And maybe some cheeky ideas about what to do with that sorry lot once we’ve plundered all their shinies and wealth, mhm! Oh yes.

Let’s start here:

Oh my oh my oh my! What is this!

It seems that 2,754 human beings on this planet we share have over $1,000,000,000 in wealth! This simply will not do, that’s far too many. But what I’d really like to do is draw your attention to the eye-gouging sum of their total wealth.

$9,200,000,000,000.

Truly a staggering sum. In fact, it’s so staggering, it’s achieved what really big numbers can do where they no longer really contain any conceivable value. It is truly difficult for the human mind to conceive of this kind of largeness, and it can even trick you into thinking, hey, this isn’t that much bigger than 9.2 million! Which isn’t all that much, really.

I’m so sorry but that’s wrong.

So how much is 9.2 Trillion?

A useful way to look at numbers is to use a scale we encounter every day: the second. I refer to this excerpt from a helpful letter to the New York Times written in 1986: 

“I found that 1,000 seconds ago was equal to almost 17 minutes. It would take almost 12 days for a million seconds to elapse and 31.7 years for a billion seconds. Therefore, a trillion seconds would amount to no less than 31,709.8 years.

A trillion seconds ago, there was no written history. The pyramids had not yet been built. It would be 10,000 years before the cave paintings in France were begun, and saber-toothed tigers were still prowling the planet.”

That’s just 1 Trillion seconds. 9.2 Trillion seconds is 291,730.16 years ago! Recorded history doesn’t even go back that far. The lost island in the North Sea Doggerland was still around back then. The land bridge between Russia and Alaska was still around. Starting to get how much money $9.2 Trillion is?

For the sake of argument, let’s say that these 2,754 people are one person (and for the sake of humanity’s scale, they might as well be), and decide to spend their cash. What can they do with $9.2 Trillion dollars?

What about a castle? Castles are cool! I’d like a castle. They gotta be expensive right?

The Devizes Castle, built in the 12th century, was sold for $3.2 million. On our time scale, that’s just about 39 days out of 291,730.16 years. But that’s not even close to the most expensive castle. That’s probably the Asheford Castle, in Ireland, also from the 12th century, valued around $68m. That’s a bit bigger of a chunk, coming around to about 3.2 years out of our budget of 291,730.

Okay, we have a swanky place to live. How about a plane to fly there? Or a boat? Let’s buy the best ones of each.

Luxury jets are easy: you want a Gulfstream IV - clocking in at $38m. There are other, much more expensive planes, but they are more straight up commercial airliners or tactical bombers. For a single person, a Gulfstream is really where it’s at.

Yachts? The choices here are way more varied. Technically, the world’s most expensive yacht is the History Supremee at $4.5 Billion, but this is just a mere 100-foot vessel coated in pure gold and platinum. Let’s go bigger, but slightly cheaper, and get the Eclipse, a 536 foot long, $1.5 Billion dollar vessel that is sure to make all the less rich people envious.

Why not a car? The most expensive car is the Koenigsegg CCXR Trevita, coming in at a mere $4.8 Million.

If we add this all up, it’s $1,042,500,000. This is 33 years.

You can buy the world’s most luxurious castle, jet, yacht, and car, and only use 35 years out of the budget of 291,730.

In FACT: if every single one of the 2,754 billionaires could buy one of the most luxurious castle, jet, yacht, and car each, there would still be $6.3 TRILLION left over between them.

Starting to get the picture?

There is no logical, moral, ethical, or even comedic argument to be made for even 10,000 people to have access to $9.2 Trillion in wealth, much less 2,754. They simply cannot spend this wealth on a meaningful, individual level. It can only be hoarded, and used to create more wealth.

Now, let’s say we forcefully take their money, and liquidate all their assets, and we, the people, now have $9.2Trillion in fungible cash. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that the $200 billion that we need to drop to make this an even 9 gets lost in depreciation. That’s almost 2%, so, I feel that’s not a difficult or even unfair argument to make.

So, let’s say after seizing these bastard’s wealth and liquidating it we have $9Trillion left over. What can we do with all of that?

It would only cost about $55 Million to fix Flint. Let’s do that.

The most bloated estimates say it would cost $265 Billion to end world hunger and malnutrition. Let’s do that.

What about education? What if we forgave all the American student loans? That’s a hefty $1.4 Trillion, but, we have it to spare.

Reducing Greenhouse Gasses is a tricky one. Planting trees to offset carbon emissions is a good idea, so, let’s fund some projects to do that.

“The cost to plant a tree varies depending on the location of the project and the type of tree being planted, and ranges between approximately one dollar to three dollars per tree.” - Plant a Billion Trees

So, $3Billion for a billion trees. Nice. That’ll regreen the landscape quite a bit, and this is just one example of a single effort to reforest multiple lost jungles. Let’s fund five such projects, bringing the total to 5 billion trees and $15 Billion dollars.

What about Solar? What if we made a Solar Farm in the Sahara to cover the energy use of the entire planet? The cost of the project will be about five trillion dollars assuming we could figure out the infrastructure to support it.

What’s that got us, totaled up? We’ve spent $6.68 Trillion. We’ve got about $2.3 Trillion left over. We’ve ended world hunger, forgiven all American student loan debt, replanted billions of trees, and the world, in theory, is on 100% solar power now. Seems like a pretty rosy state of existence. And we still have 72,932 years of our time/money left over. That’s almost enough left over to buy every billionaire the most luxurious castle, jet, yacht, and car.

FUCK. THAT.

So, clearly, it is an illogical, immoral act for a billionaire to hoard all this wealth, when we’ve seen what we can do with it. What should we do with them?