rubygeeksout
Ruby Geeks Out
905 posts
Tumblr hag. She/her. Star Wars, Mass Effect, space, books, tea.
Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.
rubygeeksout · 9 hours ago
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media
119K notes · View notes
rubygeeksout · 12 hours ago
Text
Hi I work at a native plant nursery in the Pacific Northwest!
The Portland Plant List is the rubric used by the Backyard Habitat Program to certify residential planting projects in the Portland area, including Southwest Washington. If you're within the Backyard Habitat service area, their team will come to your property and perform a site assessment, then provide a comprehensive list of plants that will work on your property, along with coupons to local native nurseries and lots of great resources. Plus you get a snazzy sign!
Some blogs/websites with directories of native plant nurseries (cannot vouch for how complete these are, please check with the business first):
Grow It Build It
The Plant Native
PlantNative
Other resources:
Real Gardens Grow Natives, a PNW-focused book and website
Native Plants PNW, an incredible resource I use CONSTANTLY. Covers plant distribution, habitat, growth conditions, ID advice, propagation tips and even ethnobotanical uses.
Washington Native Plant Society, with regional chapters and lots of info for conservation, volunteering, gardening and more.
Also, lots of language around planting natives is aimed at homeowners and/or those able-bodied enough to take care of huge swathes of land. Renters can and should get in on native planting!! Small yards are essential ecosystem participants!! A patio garden in a noisy urban zone is still a garden!!! Look at the High Line conversion in Manhattan - it's in the middle of goddamn MANHATTAN and it's not even fully planted with natives but monarch butterflies and native bees still find it and use it! Even if all you can contribute is a trio of keystone species in a container, that's one more piece of habitat that wasn't there before and so many bugs and birds will thank you!
Planet's Fucked: What Can You Do To Help? (Long Post)
Since nobody is talking about the existential threat to the climate and the environment a second Trump term/Republican government control will cause, which to me supersedes literally every other issue, I wanted to just say my two cents, and some things you can do to help. I am a conservation biologist, whose field was hit substantially by the first Trump presidency. I study wild bees, birds, and plants.
In case anyone forgot what he did last time, he gagged scientists' ability to talk about climate change, he tried zeroing budgets for agencies like the NOAA, he attempted to gut protections in the Endangered Species Act (mainly by redefining 'take' in a way that would allow corporations to destroy habitat of imperiled species with no ramifications), he tried to do the same for the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (the law that offers official protection for native non-game birds), he sought to expand oil and coal extraction from federal protected lands, he shrunk the size of multiple national preserves, HE PULLED US OUT OF THE PARIS CLIMATE AGREEMENT, and more.
We are at a crucial tipping point in being able to slow the pace of climate change, where we decide what emissions scenario we will operate at, with existential consequences for both the environment and people. We are also in the middle of the Sixth Mass Extinction, with the rate of species extinctions far surpassing background rates due completely to human actions. What we do now will determine the fate of the environment for hundreds or thousands of years - from our ability to grow key food crops (goodbye corn belt! I hated you anyway but), to the pressure on coastal communities that will face the brunt of sea level rise and intensifying extreme weather events, to desertification, ocean acidification, wildfires, melting permafrost (yay, outbreaks of deadly frozen viruses!), and a breaking down of ecosystems and ecosystem services due to continued habitat loss and species declines, especially insect declines. The fact that the environment is clearly a low priority issue despite the very real existential threat to so many people, is beyond my ability to understand. I do partly blame the public education system for offering no mandatory environmental science curriculum or any at all in most places. What it means is that it will take the support of everyone who does care to make any amount of difference in this steeply uphill battle.
There are not enough environmental scientists to solve these issues, not if public support is not on our side and the majority of the general public is either uninformed or actively hostile towards climate science (or any conservation science).
So what can you, my fellow Americans, do to help mitigate and minimize the inevitable damage that lay ahead?
I'm not going to tell you to recycle more or take shorter showers. I'll be honest, that stuff is a drop in the bucket. What does matter on the individual level is restoring and protecting habitat, reducing threats to at-risk species, reducing pesticide use, improving agricultural practices, and pushing for policy changes. Restoring CONNECTIVITY to our landscape - corridors of contiguous habitat - will make all the difference for wildlife to be able to survive a changing climate and continued human population expansion.
**Caveat that I work in the northeast with pollinators and birds so I cannot provide specific organizations for some topics, including climate change focused NGOs. Scientists on tumblr who specialize in other fields, please add your own recommended resources. **
We need two things: FUNDING and MANPOWER.
You may surprised to find that an insane amount of conservation work is carried out by volunteers. We don't ever have the funds to pay most of the people who want to help. If you really really care, consider going into a conservation-related field as a career. It's rewarding, passionate work.
At the national level, please support:
The Nature Conservancy
Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation
Cornell Lab of Ornithology (including eBird)
National Audubon Society
Federal Duck Stamps (you don't need to be a hunter to buy one!)
These first four work to acquire and restore critical habitat, change environmental policy, and educate the public. There is almost certainly a Nature Conservancy-owned property within driving distance of you. Xerces plays a very large role in pollinator conservation, including sustainable agriculture, native bee monitoring programs, and the Bee City/Bee Campus USA programs. The Lab of O is one of the world's leaders in bird research and conservation. Audubon focuses on bird conservation. You can get annual memberships to these organizations and receive cool swag and/or a subscription to their publications which are well worth it. You can also volunteer your time; we need thousands of volunteers to do everything from conducting wildlife surveys, invasive species removal, providing outreach programming, managing habitat/clearing trails, planting trees, you name it. Federal Duck Stamps are the major revenue for wetland conservation; hunters need to buy them to hunt waterfowl but anyone can get them to collect!
THERE ARE DEFINITELY MORE, but these are a start.
Additionally, any federal or local organizations that seek to provide support and relief to those affected by hurricanes, sea level rise, any form of coastal climate change...
At the regional level:
These are a list of topics that affect major regions of the United States. Since I do not work in most of these areas I don't feel confident recommending specific organizations, but please seek resources relating to these as they are likely major conservation issues near you.
PRAIRIE CONSERVATION & PRAIRIE POTHOLE WETLANDS
DRYING OF THE COLORADO RIVER (good overview video linked)
PROTECTION OF ESTUARIES AND SALTMARSH, ESPECIALLY IN THE DELAWARE BAY AND LONG ISLAND (and mangroves further south, everglades etc; this includes restoring LIVING SHORELINES instead of concrete storm walls; also check out the likely-soon extinction of saltmarsh sparrows)
UNDAMMING MAJOR RIVERS (not just the Colorado; restoring salmon runs, restoring historic floodplains)
NATIVE POLLINATOR DECLINES (NOT honeybees. for fuck's sake. honeybees are non-native domesticated animals. don't you DARE get honeybee hives to 'save the bees')
WILDLIFE ALONG THE SOUTHERN BORDER (support the Mission Butterfly Center!)
INVASIVE PLANT AND ANIMAL SPECIES (this is everywhere but the specifics will differ regionally, dear lord please help Hawaii)
LOSS OF WETLANDS NATIONWIDE (some states have lost over 90% of their wetlands, I'm looking at you California, Ohio, Illinois)
INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE, esp in the CORN BELT and CALIFORNIA - this is an issue much bigger than each of us, but we can work incrementally to promote sustainable practices and create habitat in farmland-dominated areas. Support small, local farms, especially those that use soil regenerative practices, no-till agriculture, no pesticides/Integrated Pest Management/no neonicotinoids/at least non-persistent pesticides. We need more farmers enrolling in NRCS programs to put farmland in temporary or permanent wetland easements, or to rent the land for a 30-year solar farm cycle. We've lost over 99% of our prairies to corn and soybeans. Let's not make it 100%.
INDIGENOUS LAND-BACK EFFORTS/INDIGENOUS LAND MANAGEMENT/TEK (adding this because there have been increasing efforts not just for reparations but to also allow indigenous communities to steward and manage lands either fully independently or alongside western science, and it would have great benefits for both people and the land; I know others on here could speak much more on this. Please platform indigenous voices)
HARMFUL ALGAL BLOOMS (get your neighbors to stop dumping fertilizers on their lawn next to lakes, reduce agricultural runoff)
OCEAN PLASTIC (it's not straws, it's mostly commercial fishing line/trawling equipment and microplastics)
A lot of these are interconnected. And of course not a complete list.
At the state and local level:
You probably have the most power to make change at the local level!
Support or volunteer at your local nature centers, local/state land conservancy non-profits (find out who owns&manages the preserves you like to hike at!), state fish & game dept/non-game program, local Audubon chapters (they do a LOT). Participate in a Christmas Bird Count!
Join local garden clubs, which install and maintain town plantings - encourage them to use NATIVE plants. Join a community garden!
Get your college campus or city/town certified in the Bee Campus USA/Bee City USA programs from the Xerces Society
Check out your state's official plant nursery, forest society, natural heritage program, anything that you could become a member of, get plants from, or volunteer at.
Volunteer to be part of your town's conservation commission, which makes decisions about land management and funding
Attend classes or volunteer with your land grant university's cooperative extension (including master gardener programs)
Literally any volunteer effort aimed at improving the local environment, whether that's picking up litter, pulling invasive plants, installing a local garden, planting trees in a city park, ANYTHING. make a positive change in your own sphere. learn the local issues affecting your nearby ecosystems. I guarantee some lake or river nearby is polluted
MAKE HABITAT IN YOUR COMMUNITY. Biggest thing you can do. Use plants native to your area in your yard or garden. Ditch your lawn. Don't use pesticides (including mosquito spraying, tick spraying, Roundup, etc). Don't use fertilizers that will run off into drinking water. Leave the leaves in your yard. Get your school/college to plant native gardens. Plant native trees (most trees planted in yards are not native). Remove invasive plants in your yard.
On this last point, HERE ARE EASY ONLINE RESOURCES TO FIND NATIVE PLANTS and LEARN ABOUT NATIVE GARDENING:
Xerces Society Pollinator Conservation Resource Center
Pollinator Pathway
Audubon Native Plant Finder
Homegrown National Park (and Doug Tallamy's other books)
National Wildlife Federation Native Plant Finder (clunky but somewhat helpful)
Heather Holm (for prairie/midwest/northeast)
MonarchGard w/ Benjamin Vogt (for prairie/midwest)
Native Plant Trust (northeast & mid-atlantic)
Grow Native Massachusetts (northeast)
Habitat Gardening in Central New York (northeast)
There are many more - I'm not familiar with resources for western states. Print books are your biggest friend. Happy to provide a list of those.
Lastly, you can help scientists monitor species using citizen science. Contribute to iNaturalist, eBird, Bumblebee Watch, or any number of more geographically or taxonomically targeted programs (for instance, our state has a butterfly census carried out by citizen volunteers).
In short? Get curious, get educated, get involved. Notice your local nature, find out how it's threatened, and find out who's working to protect it that you can help with. The health of the planet, including our resilience to climate change, is determined by small local efforts to maintain and restore habitat. That is how we survive this. When government funding won't come, when we're beat back at every turn trying to get policy changed, it comes down to each individual person creating a safe refuge for nature.
Thanks for reading this far. Please feel free to add your own credible resources and organizations.
12K notes · View notes
rubygeeksout · 16 hours ago
Note
I put all my important shit in the tags but forgot the most important of all
THE HORRORS PERSIST BUT SO DO YOU
also, an example local to me: native-led dam removal projects have restored salmon habitat that in some cases has been blocked for decades!!! and the salmon came back IMMEDIATELY!!
Has anything actually gotten better, for all the work you talk about doing? Or is it just treading water in misery forever?
Anon, ten years ago gay people couldn't get married in large parts of the US. AIDS was an almost certain death sentence when I was in high school. I was looking at job boards the other day and found a part time gas station job that had health insurance as a benefit, which NEVER would have happened 15 years ago. When I was a kid, hitting your child was extremely normalized in the US and my parents were the weird ones for not doing it. There is a vaccine for chicken pox. I didn't meet anyone who had transitioned until my 20s because it was so uncommon to transition in the aughts, and now there are some states that protect your right to have gender affirming care provided by your health insurance. It's not all states, but it's better than the number of states that had it in 2010, which was zero. THERE ARE TENANTS UNIONS NOW. WE HAVE A VACCINE AGAINST CERVICAL CANCER.
And all of that has been the work of a lot of individuals and organizations and research teams and activists.
19K notes · View notes
rubygeeksout · 16 hours ago
Note
Has anything actually gotten better, for all the work you talk about doing? Or is it just treading water in misery forever?
Anon, ten years ago gay people couldn't get married in large parts of the US. AIDS was an almost certain death sentence when I was in high school. I was looking at job boards the other day and found a part time gas station job that had health insurance as a benefit, which NEVER would have happened 15 years ago. When I was a kid, hitting your child was extremely normalized in the US and my parents were the weird ones for not doing it. There is a vaccine for chicken pox. I didn't meet anyone who had transitioned until my 20s because it was so uncommon to transition in the aughts, and now there are some states that protect your right to have gender affirming care provided by your health insurance. It's not all states, but it's better than the number of states that had it in 2010, which was zero. THERE ARE TENANTS UNIONS NOW. WE HAVE A VACCINE AGAINST CERVICAL CANCER.
And all of that has been the work of a lot of individuals and organizations and research teams and activists.
19K notes · View notes
rubygeeksout · 22 hours ago
Text
Tumblr media
happy N7 day! after the genuine shock that was the popularity of this post earlier in the year, I thought I'd throw together another Shepard + Kirk combo post for our fandom national holiday :)
281 notes · View notes
rubygeeksout · 22 hours ago
Text
hope is a skill
282K notes · View notes
rubygeeksout · 2 days ago
Text
*gritting my teeth* the only way out is through and by god im taking all of you with me
18K notes · View notes
rubygeeksout · 3 days ago
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
🌿🌻🌸🪻🌾🌱
698 notes · View notes
rubygeeksout · 3 days ago
Text
My dream for the election is that it’s definitive. I want a 2012-style Election Day where everyone built it up beforehand to possibly be close but then the results start rolling in and it was like “Oh, nevermind. It’s obviously Obama. Everyone go to bed.”
I just want voters to put a stake right through the heart of Trumpism so that it crumbles to ash before our eyes. That’s the dream.
65K notes · View notes
rubygeeksout · 3 days ago
Text
the problem with having a book out the same day as the US elections is that it's like..... hey, so, i see you're struggling through the unending horrors. can i offer you some nice sword lesbians in these trying times? 😬
5K notes · View notes
rubygeeksout · 4 days ago
Text
At one point my Rook squinched her nose up like she was going to sneeze and then just looked kind of exhausted for a few moments. It was adorable.
Tumblr media
I'm bloody loving the idle animations. I don't know if they're specific to the type of Rook you have but this is just fucking hilarious to me. Yes, Sema has a knife? What are you gonna do about it?
5 notes · View notes
rubygeeksout · 4 days ago
Text
using emdashes and a semi colon in the same line. this sentence will end when i do
26K notes · View notes
rubygeeksout · 4 days ago
Text
Here's to all the burnouts.
I'm not sure what to name this one but it is working well! Another oil lamp. It's a figure about twice the size of the mythology series figures.
3K notes · View notes
rubygeeksout · 4 days ago
Text
Tumblr media
71K notes · View notes
rubygeeksout · 9 days ago
Photo
Tumblr media
This was on my whiteboard when I came out of the shower today
23K notes · View notes
rubygeeksout · 11 days ago
Text
“average person eats 3 spiders a year” factoid actualy just statistical error. average person eats 0 spiders per year. Spiders Georg, who lives in cave & eats over 10,000 each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted
882K notes · View notes
rubygeeksout · 18 days ago
Text
One last talent show to save the rec center
Ok everybody here's the deal.
My science education nonprofit, Skype a Scientist (you might know her, creator of the squid facts hotline and matcher of classrooms + scientists) has secured absolutely no grants to support general operations for 2025. But! We're selling advent calendars to fund our program! They absolutely rule. They can save our nonprofit asses. If we sell 5000, which I realize, is so many, we can fund our program for 2025. Then I can offer a bunch of programming for free. Running a nonprofit is a weird job.
Tumblr media
Every day, counting down to frankly whatever you want (it's usually Christmas, but man, maybe you want to count down to Halloween, that's fine by me) scratch off the sparkly sparkly iridescence and reveal a fact about frogs! We have 24 top-notch frog facts here.
You should get one for every kid in your life, then get one for all the adults who still let themselves access joy in critters.
Get 'em here: https://squidfacts.bigcartel.com/
18K notes · View notes