#Environmental Systems

[linecrosser]

Whumpril 2025 - Day 16 - Waterlogged

[bastardcatthings]

Me, anytime I open an f1 related post's comments section:

[reasonsforhope]

"A global shift to a mostly plant-based “flexitarian” diet could reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help restrict global heating to 1.5C, a new study shows.

Previous research has warned how emissions from food alone at current rates will propel the world past this key international target.

But the new research, published in the Science Advances journal, shows how that could be prevented by widespread adoption of a flexitarian diet based around reducing meat consumption and adding more plant-based food.

“A shift toward healthy diets would not only benefit the people, the land and food systems,” said Florian Humpenöder, a study author and senior scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, “but also would have an impact on the total economy in terms of how fast emissions need to be reduced.” ...

The researchers found that adopting a flexitarian diet could lower methane and nitrous oxide emissions from agriculture and lower the impacts of food production on water, nitrogen and biodiversity. This in turn could reduce the economic costs related to human health and ecosystem degradation and cut GHG emissions pricing, or what it costs to mitigate carbon, by 43% in 2050.

The dietary shift models also show limiting peak warming to about 1.5C can be achieved by 2045 with less carbon dioxide removal, compared with if we maintain our current diets.

“It’s important to stress that flexitarian is not vegetarian and not vegan,” Humpenöder says. “It’s less livestock products, especially in high-income regions, and the diet is based on what would be the best diet for human health.”

In the US, agriculture accounts for more than 10% of total GHG emissions. Most of it comes from livestock. Reducing meat consumption can free up agricultural land used for livestock production, which in turn can lower methane emissions. A potent greenhouse gas, methane is mainly expelled from cows and other animals raised for livestock. Animal production is the primary contributor to air quality-related health impacts from US food systems.

“This paper further confirms what other studies have shown, which is that if we change our diets to a more flexitarian type, we can greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” said Jason Hill, a professor in the University of Minnesota’s department of bioproducts and biosystems engineering.

According to the study authors, one way to achieve a shift toward healthier diets is through price-based incentives, such as putting taxes on the highest-emitting animal products, including beef and lamb. Another option is informing consumers about environmental consequences of high meat consumption."

-via The Guardian, March 27, 2024

[queer-crip-grows]

It is incredibly difficult to hear so many people in the environmental movement continually lionise trains as the answer to all transport needs.

Being a full time mobility aid user with chronic fatigue and sensory overload makes use of public transport nightmarish.

If *real* efforts were made to make every train and every station fully wheelchair-accessible, *without* having to rely on unreliable or downright abusive station staff to put ramps up and, down, it would be a fantastic *start*. On good days, I *might* be able to use it for certain kinds of journeys.

However, it still wouldn’t solve the issues with sensory overload, or the problems getting to train stations from my home due to severe chronic pain and chronic fatigue.

If overdo it when I’m out, I *crash*. I cannot expend all my resources getting places. I then cannot do anything when I am there, and am unable to get home safely.

This is not that uncommon a problem. My issues are due to hEDS, POTS and autism, but they are incredibly common symptoms of Long COVID and ME/CFS resulting from Long COVID. So, unsurprisingly, folk with these needs are becoming increasingly common as Covid continues to rampage through the population. *Some of us need transportation we have control over*, and we need environmentally sustainable options to do this.

While expanding the public rail network, making it completely affordable (or, realistically, free) and making it fully accessible for wheelchair and other mobility aid users, children travelling alone from about age 8, elderly people with limited eyesight and hearing and parents travelling with infants would be an *incredible* start and massively increase usage of public transport, there are those of us who will always need at least part-time access to vehicles which can come to our homes and that *we* have control over, that are just as affordable as public transport, and the environmental movement needs to acknowledge this, plan for it, and stop treating it as selfishness, laziness and all the other “fun” terms disabled folk face constantly just for trying to live, especially outside our homes.

This is going to be even more the case if you want us to be able to work outside our homes and if you continue to be resistant to providing fully remote jobs that pay a living wage.

[bckalleycat]

petition to implement solar powered public transportation

[scificrows]

The Roombabot Diaries

"Even without full scan function, I still had my dark vision filters and my own mapping data, so with the fixed point of the corridor hatch, I could retrace my steps to the ramp. It just looked awkward and stupid because for the first part I had to navigate like a floor-cleaning bot." - Martha Wells, System Collapse (Video and audio description below the cut)

VIDEO ID:

An animated video of Murderbot, in a full environmental suit (featuring a little 'Perihelion' logo on its chest and an opaque helmet).

Murderbot is wandering around a dark space, the sound of its footsteps on the stone floor are audible. It walks in a straight line to the right until it hits a pillar with an audible 'thunk' noise and stops. A grumpy smiley face appears next to it.

It recalibrates, making little chirping calibrating sounds, then turns and moves towards the viewer until it seems to hit the camera (again with a 'thunk' noise and a little frowny smiley face next to it) and recalibrates again.

It turns its back to the viewer and starts walking again, this time seemingly hitting the wall in the back. It recalibrates again, then turns to the right and starts walking again. After a few seconds it stops briefly, two exclamation marks appear next to it along with a beeping noise, then it quickly walks out of frame.

[chocolattefeverdreams]

In my opinion, in a solarpunk future, education about the environment should be mandatory in a good school system. This is why we do this , this is why we started doing this, etc. Today I heard my Theory of Knowledge teacher say that he doesn't believe that human beings directly affect climate change. Because I study environmental science I know that's simply not true.

Studying environmental science would teach so many people that all the systems of the earth are so interconnected. For me, that made me more aware that my choices had so many widespread impacts on many areas. I wasn't so passionate about the environment before I took this subject and it has made me think differently.

Other than this, I think indigenous or cultural knowledge should also be taught along with this. I think a lot of people in the solarpunk community know that if we do want to make an impact working with indigenous people is a good method. I was reading Braiding Sweetgrass and it's so noticeable that the way we see everything is influenced by a cultural perspective.

Either way, greater education about the environment is so, so important.

[linecrosser]

Whumpril 2025 - Day 9 - Stranded

Did he take the wrong turn? Was he forgotten? Was he left there?

[nando161mando]

🚨NATIONAL MASS DIRECT ACTION: December 14 in Cambridge, MA. We will make it the first Elbit Systems of America location to permanently shut down.

Come from near and far. Info about transport, affinity groups sign-up, & international calls to action coming soon.

@antifainternational @anarchistmemecollective @kropotkindersurprise @radicalgraff

[hylianengineer]

Today I went to the farmer's market and met a guy who sold me spinach from his garden. He told me it had been picked at 10:30 this morning, which is awesome in the sense that it is very fresh and tasty, but also in the sense that it's just nice to KNOW exactly how my food got to me.

There's this concept called "food from somewhere," which my spinach is, but to explain it I first need to tell you about "food from nowhere." It's not literal - food doesn't just appear out of thin air. But in industrial food systems, you're supposed to act like it does - to never consider who grew or raised your food, if they get paid and treated well, if they're being kind to the environment, if livestock animals were treated well, etc. That's food from nowhere - it doesn't just appear in the grocery store, but it might as well for how much most consumers know about its origins. And this works out really well for companies that want to do unethical things like treat their workers badly, exploit the environment, be cruel to livestock, etc.

It's not just customer apathy that makes the origin of most of our food a mystery - in many cases that information is just not available. In my sociology of food class last year, we had a project where you had to write down everything you ate for three days and as much information as you could find about where it came from. I was lucky if I could narrow a given item down to the country one ingredient was grown in. The information is very hard to find, and for many foods I was just taking guesses, like "well, these are the countries that export most of the world's coconuts."

Food from somewhere as a movement is both a reaction to food from nowhere and a return to older and more traditional foodways - it means food you do know the origins of. Like my spinach: I met the man who grew it, he told me about his garden. I know where it came from, and if I wanted to ask that man all about his gardening methods, I could, and he'd probably tell me all about that, too. Heck, a lot of small and local farms have visitor days! The information isn't hidden behind ten layers of supply chain chaos, it's readily available and frequently handed to you before you even need to ask. Because people who grow food well are generally pretty damn proud of it.

[female-eren]

I haaaate the show's explanation for Ellie's immunity being "her mom was bitten while giving birth". That's not how the immune system works. That's not how mother-baby exchange of cells works. That's not how bodies work!!!! An infection with an incubation period of a few hours would either also infect the baby OR not affect the baby at all (baby is born and umbilical cord cut immediately, like show Ellie). There would be no time in which immune cells could develop, neither in the mom or the baby. That's not how any of it works

[canisvesperus]

Commission from a few years ago.

[assmaster-8000]

this is my oc's legacy

[corvidaedream]

less than a week until i get my top surgery/mastectomy and im both very excited and very afraid

like i keep looking at myself in the mirror like "oh man, its going to be such a relief to have a flat chest"

but then also im kinda scared about how ill look with all the extra tissue from my underarms and shoulder area removed and also scared they'll find something that didn't show up on the imaging

and im scared of the recovery going badly and unforeseen insurance issues and not being able to work at the pizzeria for a month or more