Green-notebooks - Untitled

Attention all farmers, gardeners, garden dreamers & wanna-be’s:

Johnny Select Seeds has a Growers Library on their website that is filled with tons of free information about growing herbs, fruit, veggies, flowers, you name it!

Need to know your hardiness zone? They have maps!

Want to know how many seeds you need to buy to fill your growing space? They got a calculator for that!

Want to find out what it takes to build a (not kidding) gothic cathedral 14 ft growing tunnel? They have a list of parts needed and where to buy ‘em!

Ever wondered what the 5 factors affecting cut flowers vase-life are? Well dadgum it if you can’t find out there!

For free!

actually you know what im gonna infodump about permaculture and sustainable farming for a minute bc it’s been my main hyperfixation for a while and y’all really Ought to Know This because it can, in fact, give you a green thumb as well as extra food to eat, is very cheap, and it’s extremely time management friendly. i only need to work on my garden twice a month, maybe more during drier seasons/if i get more plants.

(also correct grammar and spelling below bc i don’t know about you but i can’t read otherwise.)

Keep reading

Here’s how your climate-related choices are contagious (in a good way!)

What’s the key to inspiring positive action on climate change? Seeing and hearing about real solutions, says climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe PhD. Not only will you be more likely to act &#…

“One of the biggest reasons our personal lifestyle choices matter when it comes to the climate crisis is that what we do changes us. And the other big reason is that what we do and say changes others, too.” Behavioral contagion is a real psychological phenomenon and it spreads at a much faster rate than you would imagine. In fact, behavioral contagion can be a much more effective way of getting people to change their behavior than rationally explaining to them why a particular change is in their best interest. When people say that personal changes still matter, this is the kind of thing they are talking about. Yes, maybe one person recycling or adopting solar panels or building a pollinator garden in their backyard doesn’t do much in the scheme of the greater problem, but many of these small actions together can build into something that really, really does. Even small, personal changes matter, because taking action to fight climate change changes you and it changes your community.

WE ARE ALL GONNA FUCKING DIE

Full color version :)

BBC: Millions attend global climate strike

“A global climate strike is under way, with millions of people protesting for “an end to the age of fossil fuels and climate justice for everyone”.”

This Week @ NASA--April 14, 2017

Cassini and the Hubble Space Telescope, two of our long-running missions, are providing new details about the ocean-bearing moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Hubble’s monitoring of plume activity on Europa and Cassini’s long-term investigation of Enceladus are laying the groundwork for our Europa Clipper mission, slated for launch in the 2020s. Also, Shane Kimbrough returns home after 171 days aboard the Space Station, celebrating the first Space Shuttle mission and more!

Ocean Worlds

Our two long-running missions, Cassini and the Hubble Space Telescope,  are providing new details about “ocean worlds,” specifically the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. 

The details – discussed during our April 13 science briefing – included the announcement by the Cassini mission team that a key ingredient for life has been found in the ocean on Saturn’s moon Enceladus. 

Meanwhile, in 2016 Hubble spotted a likely plume erupting from Jupiter’s moon Europa at the same location as one in 2014, reenforcing the notion of liquid water erupting from the moon.

These observations are laying the groundwork for our Europa Clipper mission, planned for launch in the 2020s.

Welcome Home, Shane!

Shane Kimbrough and his Russian colleagues returned home safely after spending 173 days in space during his mission to the International Space Station.

Meet the Next Crew to Launch to the Station

Meanwhile, astronaut Peggy Whitson assumed command of the orbital platform and she and her crew await the next occupants of the station, which is slated to launch April 20.

Student Launch Initiative

We’ve announced the preliminary winner of the 2017 Student Launch Initiative that took place near our Marshall Space Fight Center, The final selection will be announced in May. The students showcased advanced aerospace and engineering skills by launching their respective model rockets to an altitude of one mile, deploying an automated parachute and safely landing them for re-use.

Langley’s New Lab

On April 11, a ground-breaking ceremony took place at our Langley Research Center for the new Systems Measurement Laboratory. The 175,000 square-foot facility will be a world class lab for the research and development of new measurement concepts, technologies and systems that will enable the to meet its missions in space explorations, science and aeronautics.

Yuri’s Night

Space fans celebrated Yuri’s Night on April 12 at the Air and Space Museum and around the world. On April 12, 1961, cosmonaut Yuri Gagrin became the first person to orbit the Earth.

Celebrating the First Space Shuttle Launch

On April 12, 1981, John Young and Bob Crippin launched aboard Space Shuttle Columbia on STS-1 a two-day mission, the first of the Shuttle Program’s 30-year history.

Watch the full episode:

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Those “clean energy is ready to go whenever” memes annoy the hell out of me because they’re typically ignoring two-thirds of the issue.

In a nutshell, there are three legs of energy infrastructure:

Power generation: Getting the power in a useful form

Power transport: Getting the power in a useful form where you need it

Power storage: Getting the power in a useful form when you need it

In  some respects, clean power generation is, indeed, a solved problem; clean transport and storage, however, are not. For many applications, no good non-polluting alternatives exist, and when they do, the environmental costs of setting up and maintaining those alternatives are not, themselves, insignificant. (Look up what goes into your average rechargeable battery some time!)

No, that doesn’t mean it’s an impossible problem, nor does it in any way excuse the continued intransigence of the the petrochemical industry. It does mean that there’s still a great deal of important work to be done, and it’s galling that so many self-labelled environmentalists are just casually contemptuous of it all - often to the extent of accusing researchers in power transport and storage of being oil industry shills for having the temerity to discuss the remaining challenges - because “clean energy is ready to go whenever”.

Tiny Houses in Urban Context

I’ve seen a lot of really great tiny home designs, and I’ve seen a lot of love from other people for those designs as well. They combine a small space, perfect for one or two people, that usually only apartment buildings design for, with the benefits of having a detached home, with a yard, and windows on all sides for more natural light. 

What I don’t see is a whole lot of context, least of all in an urban neighborhood environment.  These houses are often pictured in an open grassy, or forested space, which is nice for some people I’m sure, but there are lots of people who would prefer to live in a city, in pedestrian and transit friendly areas, rather than in the middle of nowhere, where you’d have to use a car to get everywhere.

There already exists an urban context for tiny homes, but due to restrictive zoning, it’s not commonplace in most cities in the U.S.

They’re called Bungalow Courts, or sometimes Cottage Courts, and basically it’s where you take two adjacent lots, and rather than having one large single-family-house per lot, you have around 3 or so tiny houses per lot, all facing a shared space in the center. 

 All this takes up the same space as two city lots, which are usually zoned to only allow one house per lot. But not everyone wants, or can afford a large house, so Bungalow Courts would be a perfect fit in a lot of neighborhoods that currently lack a lot of housing diversity for a range of wants and needs.

Anyway, I just thought I’d share, because I think this a really neat concept that should be allowed more places. I’d think I’d like to live in a Bungalow Court; I like the idea of having a house to myself, but I don’t need much space, and I don’t want a huge yard to maintain.

In order to make this legal to build out, zoning would need to be changed to allow 3-4 units of housing to be built on lots currently restricted to only 1 unit of housing. A big contributing factor to rising housing costs has been the over-favoring of single-family houses on large lots since the end of WWII, so not enough units of housing are being built in many cities to keep up with demand. 

Legalizing more “missing middle housing” like Bungalow Courts in single-family-house-neighborhoods would help cities incrementally keep up with demand, in a way that fits nicely into existing neighborhoods.