Finding replacements for plastic

Plastic is in our bodies now.  It's in the Arctic.  It's everywhere.  And it hardly breaks down.  We need an alternative.

 

Making products from recycled tires

 

This seems entirely possible in any country.

more tiny homes going up

 https://www.newscenter1.tv/news/black-hills-tiny-homes/article_e643a0f6-0700-11ef-9e19-87718a560000.html

 

"When she originally got her tiny house, it was decorated farmhouse/ranch style. Being an interior decorator by degree, Kira revamped her tiny house to fit her style – modern and colorful with a yellow ceiling. She says tiny homes can range from $50,000 to $100,000 with hers being on the ‘tinier’ end of the spectrum.

As far as winter preparation, Kira says her tiny house came insulated, but she had to get creative with snow solutions. One technique she used was spray foam to seal the cervices on the exterior metal sheeting. She’s still working on making it more aesthetically pleasing, she says. Her tiny home is also snow-load appropriate as it was inspected by a private contractor for her own peace of mind and local compliance. It is the landowner, her mother, who took care of the local ordinance compliance with Pennington County for the WeeCasa resort and tiny houses."

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The history of homes in the US was a gradual growth in size, but now it appears to be going the other direction.  Home prices are surging, so one way to counter that is to reduce the size of homes.

 

 

Be careful of Fascism

“If one can convince a population that they are rightfully exceptional, that they are destined by nature or by religious fate to rule other populations, one has already convinced them of a monstrous lie.” [How Fascism Works, by Jason Stanley, p. 13]

  “Allowing every opinion into the public sphere and giving it serious time for considerations, far from resulting in a process that is conducive to knowledge formation via deliberation, destroys its very possibility. Responsible media in a liberal democracy must, in the face of this threat, try to report the truth, and resist the temptation to report on every possible theory, no matter how fantastical, as long as someone advances it. What happens when conspiracy theories become the coin of politics, and mainstream media and educational institutions are discredited, is that citizens no longer have a common reality that can serve as background for democratic deliberation.” [How Fascism Works, by Jason Stanley, pp. 70-71]

 

This is a good book!

Another chemical in the air to be concerned about

 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/19/california-toxic-gas-sulfuryl-fluoride

 

"About 85% of US emissions of sulfuryl fluoride were traced by a recent peer-reviewed study to southern California, where the state’s $4.2bn pest-control industry uses it for drywood termite control. Sulfuryl fluoride is estimated to be up to 7,500 times more potent than carbon dioxide in terms of its greenhouse-gas potential."

 

Oh boy, yet another climate-warming chemical to worry about.

No farmers means no food; what to do?

 https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/20/pennsylvania-young-farmers-00147753

 

"With millions of acres of American farmland set to change hands in the next 20 years, state legislators and agricultural policymakers are warning of a crisis for domestic food production and fading vibrancy in rural communities. The U.S. has lost over half a million farms since the 1980s and the average age of the American farmer has ticked up to 58. Without reliable domestic food production, they say, America’s ability to feed itself and address global food security could be in jeopardy."

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I spent summers on my grandfather's farm.  I think if he would have taught me how to be a farmer instead of just using me as temporary help, I would have taken over his farm when he retired.  It's not an easy life and requires skill in lots of different areas, from mechanics to crop rotation.  Hopefully we can make it appealing to the upcoming generations.

Turning dry ground to fertile fields

 https://youtu.be/79VUAFq2rbg?si=V-Uy6jK89nug5QT_

 

A community in India spent many years building a water-catchment system that keeps the monsoon waters in their area.  Wouldn't turning desert and dry land into fertile fields help cool the planet?