8 Vegetables That You Can Regrow Again And Again.

Why Walkable Streets are More Economically Productive

3 dollars and cents arguments that definitively prove the need for people-oriented, walk-friendly places.

What is the value of a street where people can walk safely? Why build streets that are constructed with the needs of people in mind, not just the needs of cars?

   “Again and again, when we look at streets oriented toward people we find that they are more economically productive than any other style of development.”  

Many people concerned with pedestrian safety and “walkability” care about these issues because they feel that walking is good exercise or that walkable places are more attractive or that walking is better for the environment than driving.

These are all valid arguments and may convince some of those reading this article that walkability is important. But what I want to talk about today isn’t an argument based on values or aesthetics. It’s an argument based on pure dollars and cents — one that should convince people with a myriad of values and political leanings that people-oriented places must be a priority if we want our communities to be economically prosperous.

Again and again, when we look at streets oriented toward people — that is, streets where walking is safe and enjoyable, that people are drawn to visit on foot, and where fast and extensive car traffic is not the #1 priority — we find that they are more economically productive than any other style of development. This is particularly true when we compare people-oriented places to car-oriented places—think of that stretch of your town that effectively does everything possible to discourage walking and biking, including a street with multiple wide lanes to ensure fast car movement, acres of parking, and minimal (if any) sidewalks, bike lanes and crosswalks.

Walkable streets, on the other hand, encourage business activity, generate greater tax revenue per acre and offer a higher return on investment than auto-oriented streets.

Earth is truly healing

Rising Seas Are Going to Drown Way More Cities Than We’d Thought: Study

In a low-warming scenario, we expected rising tides to cover areas currently occupied by 37 million people. The real number is closer to 150 million.

But none of the challenges posed by our warming climate has loomed larger in the popular imagination than sea-level rise. With global populations and wealth heavily concentrated in low-lying coastal cities, humanity has been preoccupied by the prospect of the oceans reclaiming the high points of our civilization. And for good reason: The best available models suggest that 37 million people currently live in places that will be below high tide by 2050 — in an optimistic low-carbon-emissions scenario.

Or rather, that’s what such models suggested before this week. On Tuesday, a new study revealed that those alarming statistics — which had gotten so many of us all worked up about our favorite cities’ impending doom — were wildly inaccurate.

The actual impacts of sea-level rise are going to be much, much worse.

Listen, folks, few understand the enormity of what is happening, nor how fast it’s occurring, and, look, I don’t count myself among those few. 

The rest of us do not realize the catastrophe that is happening right now. 

Maybe that’s not fair to say: the people of California probably understand all too well. Even if their home is not on fire, certainly they see the hellish red glow in the sky and cannot avoid the acrid smell of wildfire smoke.

For sure, the indigenous folk who subsist on whale meat understand the crisis, since the bowheads they hunt have not appeared. None of them. They are way out to sea, trying to avoid the warming oceans and underwater heat waves. 

The people of Key West, who have endured a “king tide” flooding their city streets for 60+ days straight, probably think there’s a big problem. Some of them, no doubt, are hanging on to the foolish belief that this tide is going to subside – it’s not – it’s rapid sea level rise. 

It’s not our fault though, that we do not know … did not know, because, everything we have been told, the stuff that has made it out of the media in the past decade or so, has all been based on these same “optimistic low-carbon-emissions scenarios.”

This is not the world we live in. We live in the high-emission catastrophic scenario. We were shown these, when we were shown anything at all, but we were told these catastrophic emission scenarios would never, ever – couldn’t possibly – ever be so. 

Yeah, well, we were wrong about.

But seriously, when we got our property, it was all just…grass. A sterile grass moonscape, like a billion other yards. With two big old maple trees. Just grass and maples, that was it. 

But then I got my grubby little paws on it, and I immediately stopped fertilizing, spraying, and bagging up grass clippings and leaves. I ripped up sod and put in flowers and vegetables. I put down nice thick blankets of mulch around the flowers and vegetables. 

When I first was sweating my way through stripping sod, I saw a grand total of 1 worm and 0 ladybugs. The ground was compacted into something that would bend shovel blades. 

Now, six years later, I can’t dig a planting hole without turning up fourteen earthworms, and there are so many ladybugs here. Not the invasive asian lady beetles; native ladybugs. They winter over in the mulch and in the brush pile. I see thousands of them. 

The soil is soft and rich. There are birds that come to eat, and bees of many sorts.

Like this is something that you, yourself, can absolutely change. This is something that you, personally, can make a difference in.

Learning about edible plants (and eating them) has given me a lot of insight into the problems with the USAmerican food system

It's incredible how a supermarket gives you the sense of being surrounded by immense variety, but it's just the visual noise of advertising. In reality almost everything around you is just corn, wheat, soy, and milk, repackaged and recombined and concealed and re-flavored using additives, over and over and over again.

if you’re interested in mutual aid and aren’t sure where to start, i can’t recommend enough joining a local Buy Nothing group. in a nutshell, it’s a totally free gift economy— people give from their own abundance and ask for what they need. it’s indispensable as a recent grad household— we got the majority of our basic furniture, as well as an AC unit through the group— but what i find particularly wonderful are the ways other forms of community aid popup through the group.

i’ve seen people organize meal trains for strangers. people fleeing from domestic violence have gone from a suitcase of possessions to a fully stocked house in 48 hours. home hospices being set up with goods from six different households. cookbook lending. distribution of windfall apples and tomato harvest overabundance. grocery pickup for ill folks. people looking out for listings for others. everything from bread to baby carseats to house paint to pet food.

and much of it is done between strangers, often between people who would not recognize or identify with the term “mutual aid”. it lowers waste, goods go directly to people who need them, and it avoids the sometimes dubious morality of the thrift shop circuit. i’d really recommend it.

A brief and ugly summary of surviving cold climates

For visitors and writers alike.

You were never meant to be here. Never forget this. You are an ape of the equator, built to run the savannah and swim in tropical waters. Whatever terms and conditions your body has, they are void here. Mother nature never certified to function in a Death World.

Enduring the cold is never a matter of “how much” as much at it is “how long”. Think of it as the water levels of the vieogames you have played. No matter what equipment enables you to remain longer, you can’t stay there indefinitely. The coat that keeps you warm and toasty for three hours in -15 is enough to keep you functional for an hour of -40.

Whatever the locals say, listen to them. Err to the side of caution if you must. You may not endure what they can endure, but you SURE AS FUCKING NOT cannot survive what they say cannot be endured.

That being said, alcohol is a filthy fucking liar and so is anyone who offers it to you. The warmth it gives is an illusion, and a sign of damage. You are worse off feeling comfortable with a mouthful of whiskey as you are freezing your gonads off stone cold sober.

Winter tires. Studded winter tiers are a MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH when you drive on a frozen road. That being said, whatever the locals tell you that your car will need to run as theirs do, take it. Taking the risk of being pranked is worth survival, and you can always stab their tires in the spring if they were shitting you.

Eat. For the love of god, make sure that you eat. Heavier meals might be unpalatable at first for someone used to lighter nutrition, but maintaining bodily warmth in a cold climate takes up a lot of energy, and you will feel tired and drowsy for a long while shile your metabolism adjusts to producing more heat than Mother Nature ever intended. The skinny people in your party are especially vulnerable, ensure their well-being on a regular basis.

If you have a smartphone/other essential technology on your body, keep them close to your body to keep them warm. They were not designed to be frozen any more than you were.

Sleep is death. SLEEP IS DEATH. Never, ever stop to rest in the cold, if you do not have the means to make a fire/otherwise produce heat. The cold tires you out because keeping warm takes energy, but taking a rest will not return your energy. If you feel the need to sit down and rest because you are tired because of the cold, call for help. This is not a hyperbole, if you feel like you are too tired to go on in a cold climate, CALL A FUCKING AMBULANCE. If you fall asleep in the snow, you will not wake up. Hypothermia can and will literally kill you.

Avoid skin-to-snow-contact if you can. It hurts because you were not supposed to do it. Consider ice to be like acid. Touching is bad for you.

Feel free to add to the list if you feel like I missed something.

‘Skylines,’ New York, United States,

Lissoni Casal Ribeiro for Skyhive 2020 skycraper Challenge

Inspired by nature, the concept proposes a complete, self-sufficient ecosystem. the multi-use tower collects rainwater and gathers energy from the sun and the wind, transforming it from its tensioned cables into electricity to be used by inhabitants.