#truly useful

[aaandbackstabbed]

Louie: damn it

Donald: Louie! We don’t use bad words in the house!

Della, somewhere in the distance: fucking, fuck!

[jotasuis]

How I found out about trump getting shot

[reasonsforhope]

No paywall version here.

"Two and a half years ago, when I was asked to help write the most authoritative report on climate change in the United States, I hesitated...

In the end, I said yes, but reluctantly. Frankly, I was sick of admonishing people about how bad things could get. Scientists have raised the alarm over and over again, and still the temperature rises. Extreme events like heat waves, floods and droughts are becoming more severe and frequent, exactly as we predicted they would. We were proved right. It didn’t seem to matter.

Our report, which was released on Tuesday, contains more dire warnings. There are plenty of new reasons for despair. Thanks to recent scientific advances, we can now link climate change to specific extreme weather disasters, and we have a better understanding of how the feedback loops in the climate system can make warming even worse. We can also now more confidently forecast catastrophic outcomes if global emissions continue on their current trajectory.

But to me, the most surprising new finding in the Fifth National Climate Assessment is this: There has been genuine progress, too.

I’m used to mind-boggling numbers, and there are many of them in this report. Human beings have put about 1.6 trillion tons of carbon in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution — more than the weight of every living thing on Earth combined. But as we wrote the report, I learned other, even more mind-boggling numbers. In the last decade, the cost of wind energy has declined by 70 percent and solar has declined 90 percent. Renewables now make up 80 percent of new electricity generation capacity. Our country’s greenhouse gas emissions are falling, even as our G.D.P. and population grow.

In the report, we were tasked with projecting future climate change. We showed what the United States would look like if the world warms by 2 degrees Celsius. It wasn’t a pretty picture: more heat waves, more uncomfortably hot nights, more downpours, more droughts. If greenhouse emissions continue to rise, we could reach that point in the next couple of decades. If they fall a little, maybe we can stave it off until the middle of the century. But our findings also offered a glimmer of hope: If emissions fall dramatically, as the report suggested they could, we may never reach 2 degrees Celsius at all.

For the first time in my career, I felt something strange: optimism.

And that simple realization was enough to convince me that releasing yet another climate report was worthwhile.

Something has changed in the United States, and not just the climate. State, local and tribal governments all around the country have begun to take action. Some politicians now actually campaign on climate change, instead of ignoring or lying about it. Congress passed federal climate legislation — something I’d long regarded as impossible — in 2022 as we turned in the first draft.

[Note: She's talking about the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Act, which despite the names were the two biggest climate packages passed in US history. And their passage in mid 2022 was a big turning point: that's when, for the first time in decades, a lot of scientists started looking at the numbers - esp the ones that would come from the IRA's funding - and said "Wait, holy shit, we have an actual chance."]

And while the report stresses the urgency of limiting warming to prevent terrible risks, it has a new message, too: We can do this. We now know how to make the dramatic emissions cuts we’d need to limit warming, and it’s very possible to do this in a way that’s sustainable, healthy and fair.

The conversation has moved on, and the role of scientists has changed. We’re not just warning of danger anymore. We’re showing the way to safety.

I was wrong about those previous reports: They did matter, after all. While climate scientists were warning the world of disaster, a small army of scientists, engineers, policymakers and others were getting to work. These first responders have helped move us toward our climate goals. Our warnings did their job.

To limit global warming, we need many more people to get on board... We need to reach those who haven’t yet been moved by our warnings. I’m not talking about the fossil fuel industry here; nor do I particularly care about winning over the small but noisy group of committed climate deniers. But I believe we can reach the many people whose eyes glaze over when they hear yet another dire warning or see another report like the one we just published.

The reason is that now, we have a better story to tell. The evidence is clear: Responding to climate change will not only create a better world for our children and grandchildren, but it will also make the world better for us right now.

Eliminating the sources of greenhouse gas emissions will make our air and water cleaner, our economy stronger and our quality of life better. It could save hundreds of thousands or even millions of lives across the country through air quality benefits alone. Using land more wisely can both limit climate change and protect biodiversity. Climate change most strongly affects communities that get a raw deal in our society: people with low incomes, people of color, children and the elderly. And climate action can be an opportunity to redress legacies of racism, neglect and injustice.

I could still tell you scary stories about a future ravaged by climate change, and they’d be true, at least on the trajectory we’re currently on. But it’s also true that we have a once-in-human-history chance not only to prevent the worst effects but also to make the world better right now. It would be a shame to squander this opportunity. So I don’t just want to talk about the problems anymore. I want to talk about the solutions. Consider this your last warning from me."

-via New York Times. Opinion essay by leading climate scientist Kate Marvel. November 18, 2023.

[chiptrillino-art]

Just boys things! its a continuation of this illustration!

[colourmeastonished]

Body swap movie where one of them has invisible disabilities and when the other one lands in their body they immediately collapse catatonic on the floor from the pain and fatigue and the first one is like 'oh damn guess I don't have to worry that I'm faking it anymore'

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

HOT, SINGLE, UNSTUDIED SPONGES. 3000 NAUTICAL MILES AWAY. Come sail the distance and read Tiger Tiger!

[kokoinupi]

also add in the tags if you want how your tolerance has changed over time!

[honibunii]

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨♡୧⋆ ˚｡⋆

[deeneedsaname]

Can we have a moment of silence for Sylvia, who now has an Alien living in her backyard, and a moment of triumph for Wilf, who now has an Alien living in his backyard

[bloodwards]

might have taken like 4 years but oh boy he sure made good on that promise lol

[egophiliac]

bring your son to work day

[shalom-iamcominghome]

Spiritual seekers need one another as mirrors. A member of the Hopi nation once asked me about our holy days. I was telling him about Passover, our celebration of freedom, and Sukkot, our Feast of Tabernacles, and how they fit in with the cycles of the year. "I think I get it," he said finally. "You people don't want to be in slavery. And you want to pass this on to your children. But when you tell your kids on Passover, 'We have to go away from here; we can't stay here because it will cost us our freedom,' your kids will say, 'Yeah, but what are we going to eat?' So you teach them how to bake bread on stones, how to roast a lamb if you are hungry, how to find dandelion greens, and so on. When the kids ask, 'But where will we stay?' you show them how to build a lean-to, so they will have somewhere to live." An Indian perspective on the mitzvot to eat the Passover lamb with matzot and bitter herbs and to build a sukkah on Sukkot gave me a completely different insight into my own traditions.

-Jewish with Feeling, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi. 2005, p. 198-199

[stuckinapril]

don't stress about that opportunity that fell through or that friend you lost or that thing you really want to happen but isn't. as long as you keep your chin up and try try try again, better things will replace your losses. i'm looking at my life rn and actually marveling at how every single thing i stressed about, whether it be an opportunity or a person, got supplanted w another thing that is so much better. it really is true that loss makes space for better things. these days i don't get sad when something doesn't work out. i get excited that i'm now open to so many other possibilities out there, so long as i actively seek them. you never lack. you just transition.

[sualne]

mithrun sketch to celebrate

[owlbelly]

so. i understand where the sentiment "listening to an audiobook is the same thing as reading the book" is coming from - i mean, yes, the bottom line is you are taking in the same words in what is possibly a more accessible (or maybe just more enjoyable) format for you! and i'm 100% in agreement that "book snobs" who say "no you didn't really read it" if you listened to the audiobook are full of shit. ofc you should engage with stories in whatever way works for you, there is no moral or intellectual superiority to reading words off a page vs. listening to them

but it also is different? an audiobook is a performance. choices a narrator makes about line readings can drastically influence the meaning of the lines. even just different voices, accents, etc. - there are creative choices being made by the person delivering the words to you, and that affects your experience of the story in a different way than if you were making those choices in your own head. it might even change the way you visualize what's going on!

this isn't a bad thing it's just An Actual Thing & i think it's worth talking about. it rubs me the wrong way when people act like accommodations (and for many people audiobooks are an accommodation) always result in a completely identical experience, or even that they should, & if you suggest that people accessing media in different ways are having different experiences it's somehow ableist

anyway on rare occasions i really enjoy audiobooks but mostly they are much less accessible to me than words on a page (i need to be able to reread, flip back and forth, go at my own pace) & i also just really strongly prefer to encounter a text on my own before hearing someone else's performance of it, if possible! again i don't think it's "better" to read a physical book i just think it is a Distinct form of experiencing a story & acting like the two things are entirely the same is sort of doing a disservice to both

[nocturnalnewsiestrash]

Nothing changes my brain chemistry like these two head nuzzles

Like what do you mean they BOTH exist?? what do you mean I just get to have my brain teetered off kilter like a fucking teeter totter every time I look at them?? They make me insane

Credit to @sasakisniko for these BEAUTIFUL gifs