#Sustainability

[vegspoblr]

My biggest pet peeve about sustainability discourse is that, yeah, a handful of companies are fucking us all over, and yeah, we need fundamental change coming from the government. But also you need to understand that you can't have both things:

You can't have zero single use plastic and only sustainable materials and expect to be able to afford brand new clothes every month.

You can't have an increase in workers rights protections and expect to still get things you order online delivered to your house in a couple of days.

You can't have meat production reduced to the point where it's not environmental destructive and expect to be eating meat more than a couple times a week at most.

We NEED big scale change but that WILL significantly affect your lifestyle. You need to stop living in a fantasy world where fast fashion prices or eating animal products daily can ever coexist with sustainability.

[reasonsforhope]

"As temperatures across New England soared above 100 degrees Fahrenheit in recent weeks, solar panels and batteries helped keep air conditioners running while reducing fossil-fuel generation and likely saving consumers more than $20 million.

“Local solar, energy efficiency, and other clean energy resources helped make the power grid more reliable and more affordable for consumers,” said Jamie Dickerson, senior director of clean energy and climate programs at the Acadia Center, a regional nonprofit that analyzed clean energy’s financial benefits during the recent heat wave.

On June 24, [2025,] as temperatures in the Northeast hit their highest levels so far this year, demand on the New England grid approached maximum capacity, climbing even higher than forecast. Then, unexpected outages at power plants reduced available generation by more than 1 gigawatt. As pressure increased, grid operator ISO New England made sure the power kept flowing by reducing exports to other regions, arranging for imports from neighboring areas, and tapping into reserve resources.

At the same time, rooftop and other ​“behind-the-meter” solar panels throughout the region, plus Vermont’s network of thousands of batteries, supplied several gigawatts of needed power, reducing demand on an already-strained system and saving customers millions of dollars. It was a demonstration, supporters say, of the way clean energy and battery storage can make the grid less carbon-intensive and more resilient, adaptable, and affordable as climate change drives increased extreme weather events.

“As we see more extremes, the region still will need to pursue an even more robust and diverse fleet of clean energy resources,” Dickerson said. ​“The power grid was not built for climate change.”

On June 24, behind-the-meter solar made up as much as 22% of the power being used in New England at any given time, according to the Acadia Center. At 3:40 p.m., total demand peaked at 28.5 GW, of which 4.4 GW was met by solar installed by homeowners, businesses, and other institutions.

As wholesale power prices surpassed $1,000 per megawatt-hour, this avoided consumption from the grid saved consumers at least $8.2 million, according to the Acadia Center.

This estimate, however, is conservative, Dickerson said. He and his colleagues also did a more rigorous analysis accounting for the fact that solar suppresses wholesale energy prices by reducing overall demand on the system. By these calculations, the true savings for consumers actually topped $19 million, and even that seems low, Dickerson said.”

-via Canary Media, July 8, 2025

[clotheshorsepodcast]

Tomorrow is the first day of REDUCE REFUSE RESIST. We are getting started with tomorrow's economic blackout.  Let's do this!  If you're like "WTF is REDUCE REFUSE RESIST," go check out the pinned post on my profile.  

And while we're talking about totally changing our relationship with shopping and consumerism (and using it as a political force), let's talk about clothes.

On average, Americans buy about 70 new articles of clothing each year.

If you’re shocked by that or you haven’t bought new clothes in years...remember that this is an average. That means if you bought no new clothes this year, someone else bought 140 garments. Over the past 15 years, the amount of clothing produced each year has doubled, while the amount of time we actually wear a new item has dropped by 40%. Most garments are only worn about 7 times!!! 😖

And the thing is....it's a lot easier to buy 70 new items of clothing in a year than you might think, thanks to online shopping, free shipping thresholds ("free shipping over $50," etc), and super duper cheap ultra fast fashion like SHEIN and Temu.

There is already too much clothing on this planet. And no, we aren't running out of secondhand clothing (so please stop telling people that they shouldn't thrift). All of us must make a shift into a more ethical and sustainable wardrobe.

While plenty of brands and retailers are happy to offer us brand new "sustainable" collections, the reality is the most sustainable and ethical clothing is...clothing that already exists! Some experts believe that we need to buy 75% less brand new clothing. And it's a lot easier than you think!

A sustainable wardrobe isn't JUST shopping secondhand (although that's a part of it), it's also rewearing the things you already own, extending the life of your clothing via repair and care, and sharing/swapping/rehoming things you no longer wear.

As we REDUCE REFUSE RESIST, it's a great time to reevaluate the clothes we already have and get comfortable with buying a lot less new clothes long after March is ever. It's a great time to learn new habits! So let's do this!!!

[sockdreams]

Celebrate 25 years of great socks!

Greetings, Dreamers,

Sock Dreams is turning 25 tomorrow, and we wanted to take this opportunity to look back at our humble beginnings, as well as how far we've come!

More Sock Dreams lore behind the cut

We started out in 2000 with nothing but a dream and a website, built by our Dreamer in Chief, Monique, AKA Niqkita, AKA Niq. From the very beginning, when Niq was the person answering emails, customer feedback has been essential to our business. Initially she ran the business out of her own home, until the operation grew big enough that it required its own building, and even a handful of employees.  

In the beginning we retailed items produced by other manufacturers (and still do!), and in 2004 Niq started working with an American sock mill to design our debut brand: DreaM Stockings! The small, family-run mill knits socks on antique machines, and Niq collaborated with them to develop longer, wilder socks than they’d ever knit before. Some of those first creations are styles we still carry today: Ribbed M Stockings and M Stripes. It turned out that there was an enthusiastic audience for these unique designs, and thus began Sock Dreams’ journey as a manufacturer. 

As the company grew, both in the number of employees and the number of styles we stocked, it moved from location to location. Our DreaM Stockings line expanded and evolved over the years, and in 2008, Dara, who manages our U.S product development, partnered us with another American mill to create our Dreamer Socks line. These socks were made on modern machines, with a high needle count, and she was able to work with the mill to customize them, to make socks with improved stretch. 

For many people our Extraordinary Thigh Highs (the flagship style of our Dreamer Socks line) were the first thigh highs they’d found that comfortably fit their legs! The feedback we received from that first run of Extraordinaries proved that there was still room for improvement, though. With that feedback in mind, Dara, now a part-owner, continued to work with the mill over the years to improve their design and stretch. We’d still like to create even stretchier thigh highs, but have yet to find the technology in the US that can make that hope a reality.  

We’d never heard of “slow fashion” when we launched our DreaM Stockings and Dreamer Socks lines, but we naturally fell into this niche clothing market. From the start we’ve been dedicated to domestic manufacturing, and have a strong preference for styles that will endure – both structurally and stylistically – over the years.   You may have noticed from our minimalist packaging that we don’t like waste, and it’s the same ethos that inspired us to blog about mending techniques, like darning and needle felting, to help keep beloved socks in circulation. This might not be the best move business-wise, but we’ve always had priorities that go beyond the bottom line.  

25 years is a long time for a small business to be around these days, and we couldn’t have done it without all of you! Not only have you literally kept the lights on through your patronage, but so much of what we do and love about our work has been made possible by our community of customers.

With that in mind, on the eve of our 25th birthday, we’d really like to celebrate all of you!

[unbfacts]

Thanks to its durability and high recyclability, approximately 75% of all aluminum ever produced is still in use today.

[bumblebeeappletree]

Because I absolutely love joan_de_art’s sustainable city series I’mma share it in one post since I see the art scattered about.

[kurtsvonneslut]

anyone wanna do me a favor and give this tik tok some engagement? i’d love to share the skill of plarn-making with lots of people and getting eyes on this tutorial is the key to that!!! bonus: you’ll get to hear my sick voice and get a glimpse of willow :)

[aikya-kat-44]

Yes, of course it is a good thing to cut down on plastic use, walk to school and turn the lights off.

But we will never get anywhere with protecting the environment if big companies and governments don't take responsibility for their actions.

They contribute to climate change as much as many individual people trying to make a difference do, so it is only reasonable that they take their share of the responsibility of combatting climate change.

Especially as these companies and governments have the money and resources to make a big difference.

Yes, we as individuals can change things in the world by changing things in our lives, but we won't get very far without pressuring the big players to change.

And hey, I'm talking to you climate conscious person who calls people out on a regular basis over there, next time you are about to hassle a disabled person over their plastic usage, stop, consider your actions and go make a complaint to a big company instead. There are actually helpful ways to channel your concern for the environment.

[thrivingisthegoal]

STARTING TOMORROW

Scientists in weather and climate are live streaming for 100 hours to make their case to the American public.

They are live streaming, but engagement is necessary for it to work. SHARE THIS WITH PEOPLE, RECORD THE STREAM, POST CLIPS OF IT THAT ARE FUNNY, if you can tune in, PLEASE DO!

This is something that has to be heard by as many people as possible. Put it on in the background! See if you can get other people to watch it! Do whatever you can do support those who are trying to be supported! Anything and everything helps!

TUNE IN HERE

article I posted screenshots of here

[not-available-for-comment]

So. Storytime for guerilla gardeners and solarpunk enthusiasts. This story comes to me 3rd hand but I believe the basic shape of it is true, even if details may be off.

So there’s this guy who lives in my parents’ town. Wanted to have a pocket farm but lives on an urban lot in a small city instead because y’know jobs and stuff. He could definitely get a few raised beds in the backyard but nothing all that impressive and the front yard is on a very busy road with the expectation that it’ll look reasonably traditional (plus planting food by busy roads isn’t always a good idea).

However

After he’s lived there for a while, he realizes his neighbors are all older people who maybe have more challenges taking care of their yards than they used to. So he goes to his next door neighbor and offers a deal: I’ll mow and maintain your front yard for free if you let me knock down the fences between our backyards and plant them both with food. And you’ll get a cut of the produce.

Presumably the neighbor already knew and trusted this guy because he said yes. So he starts mowing and maintaining his and his neighbor’s front yards and planting food in their now-shared backyards. After a season or two this goes well enough that the next neighbor down the street asks if he can be in on this too.

So now there’s 3 front yards to mow and three backyards full of produce. And it keeps going from there. Dude gets a rider lawnmower and does everyone’s front yards, and meanwhile he’s maintaining an entire block’s worth of produce in the back. His yields got so high that he was able to start offering boxes of produce outside of the block’s residents too. This is how I heard of him: my parents’ next door neighbors were picking up a regular box of produce from him.

I love a couple of things about this story:

Offering to maintain people’s front yards for them allows baby boomers to feed their thirst for keeping up appearances while still getting food production into the neighborhood

As homeowners age offering services like this is legitimately good community building

BLOCK-LONG POCKET FARM

These exact circumstances might not be replicable everywhere, but I love thinking about how these principles could be applied.

[headspace-hotel]

How to begin a sustainable way of life

This is a draft of something I've been writing for a couple months. It is mainly focused on the culture of the USA. Feel free to repost or otherwise share, with or without credit.

Do not tell people what to do—help them do it! 

Give the gift of relief from being forced to engage in society’s unsustainable ways of life. 

“People need to eat more plant-based foods.” ->Talk about your favorite recipes, give others recipes, cook for them, and grow vegetables and plants in your garden and give them away as gifts. 

“People need to repair their clothes.” -> Offer to repair others’ clothes, and teach people how to repair their clothes. 

“People need to buy less clothes.” -> Give them old clothes that you don’t want, help them repair their clothes

“People need to buy less plastic stuff.” -> Learn to make things that can serve the same purpose, such as baskets, and give them as gifts. Let people borrow things you own so they don’t have to buy their own. 

“People need to stop using leafblowers and other gas-guzzling machinery.” -> Offer to rake the leaves. You can use them as compost in your own garden. 

“People need to be more educated about nature.”-> Learn about nature yourself. Tell people about nature. Be open about your love of creatures such as snakes, spiders, and frogs. Do not show awareness that this could be strange. You are not obligated to quiet down your enthusiasm for creepy crawlies to demonstrate awareness that it is weird. Point out at every opportunity how these animals are beneficial. 

“People need to use cars less.” -> Offer rides to others whenever you must go somewhere. Whenever you are about to go to the store, ask your neighbor or your friend who lives along the way, “Is there anything you need from the store?” 

You cannot control others’ behaviors, but you can free them from being controlled. 

If you think to yourself, “But this would be so difficult to do!” ask yourself WHY? Why does your society coerce you into less sustainable ways of living, forcing you to consume excessively? After thinking about this, consider that it is less simple and easy than you thought to make more sustainable choices, so why would you judge others for not doing it? 

Do not act alone—act with others! 

Environmentally friendly behaviors that can be done alone, without collaborating with or consulting another person, are the least powerful of all. Whenever an “environmentally friendly” behavior is suggested, figure out “How can I give this as a gift?” or “How can I make this possible on the level of a whole community?” 

“Personal choices” do not work because every single person has to make them individually. If you are focused on making your own personal choice, you are not focused on others. If you are not focused on others, you are not helping them. If nobody is helping each other, most people won’t be able to make the “personal choice.”

You inherently share an ecosystem with your neighbors  

            Start with your neighbors, the people physically close to you. You live on the same patch of land, containing roots from the same plants and trees. You can speak to them face to face without traveling, which means you can easily bring them physical things without using resources to travel. 

            Always talk to your neighbors and be friendly with them. Offer them favors unprompted and tell them about how your garden is doing. Do not be afraid to be annoying—a slightly annoying neighbor who is helpful, kind, and can be relied upon for a variety of favors or in times of need is a necessary and inevitable part of a good community. If you make the effort to be present in somebody’s life, they will have to put up with you on some occasions, but that is just life. We cannot rely on each other if we do not put up with each other. 

Simply spending time with someone influences them for good 

Every hour you spend outside with your neighbor is an hour your neighbor doesn’t spend watching Fox News. Every hour you spend talking with someone and interacting with them in the real world, eating real food and enjoying your real surroundings, is an hour you don’t spend only hearing a curated picture of what reality is like from social media. 

            Isolation makes it easy for people to become indoctrinated into extremist beliefs. When someone spends more time alone, watching TV, Youtube, or scrolling social media, than they do with others, their concept of what other people are like and what the world is like comes more from social media than real life. TV and online media are meant to influence you in a specific way. Simply restricting the access these influences have to yourself and others is helpful. 

A garden is the source of many gifts 

If you grow a garden, you can give your neighbors and friends the gift of food, plants, and crafted objects. This is one of the foundational ways to form community. When you give food, you provide support to others. When you give plants, you are encouraging and teaching about gardening. It is even better when you give recipes cooked from things you grew, or items crafted from things you grew. You can also give the gift of knowledge of how to grow these plants, cook these recipes, or craft these objects. 

More on gift-giving

            Some people are uncomfortable with receiving items or services as gifts. They want to feel like they are giving something back, instead of having obligation to return the favor hanging over them. 

            It can help to ask a simple favor that can be easily fulfilled. People generally like the feeling of helping someone else. 

When you give someone a gift, it can help to say something like “Oh, I have too many of this thing to take care of/store/eat myself! Do you think you could take some?” This makes your neighbor feel like they are helping you. 

When allowing others to borrow items, you might not get them back. Don’t worry about that. It just means the item found a place where it was needed the most. You can ask about the item if you think it might have been forgotten, and this can create an opportunity for a second meeting. But don’t press. 

If the person you give to insists upon some form of payment, this is a good opportunity to negotiate a trade. 

Ask to be given compostable or recyclable things 

Ask your neighbor to save compostable scraps, biodegradable cardboard and paper products, and any other items that might be put to use. Use them in your own compost pile. Or, start a compost pile at the edge of the yard where you both can add to it. Remember that “wet” compost like vegetable and fruit bits needs to be mixed with twice as much of “dry” and “woody” compost like cardboard, leaves, small twigs, paper and wood bits. 

Use the front yard for gardening

Overcome the cultural norm that the front yard is only decorative. Use the front yard for gardening so you can be seen by others enjoying your garden, and others can witness the demonstration of the possibilities of land. In the front yard, anything you do intentionally with your land can be witnessed. It also makes you a visible presence in your community. 

Grow staple foods 

Don’t just grow vegetables that cannot be the core component of a meal themselves. Grow potatoes, dry beans, black eyed peas and other nourishing, calorie-dense foods. Grow the ingredients of meals. You could even build a garden around a recipe.

Invite neighbors and friends over to eat food made from things you grew 

Be sure to send them home with leftovers.  

Grow plants for baskets 

Containers are one of the fundamental human needs. If we had more containers, we wouldn’t need plastic so much. You can learn to make baskets, and to grow plants that provide the raw materials for baskets. 

If someone rakes their leaves, ask to have the leaves  

If you see someone putting leaves in bags, don’t be afraid to ask if you can have the leaves. More likely than not they will be happy to agree. 

Collaborate with neighbors to plant things in the no-man’s-land of the property line 

In the border land between your neighbor’s yard and your yard, it is almost always just mowed grass because no one can plant anything without it affecting their neighbor. But these border lands add up to a lot of space. It would be much better if you talked to your neighbor about what would be nice to plant there, and together created a plan for that space. 

Give others the freedom to wander 

Make it clear that you will not get mad if the neighbor’s kids play in your yard or run across it. Invite the neighbors onto your land as much as possible. Tell them they are allowed to spend time in a favored spot whenever they would like.  

The power of the hand-made sign 

If there is a yard sale, you always know about it because of the hand-drawn signs placed around. Therefore, a cookout or unwanted item exchange can be announced the same way. In rural areas I have seen hand-made signs that say: FIREWOOD or WE BUY GOATS or EGGS. This is one of the few technologies of community that remain in the USA. If someone who looks to buy and sell can put up a hand-made sign, why shouldn’t you?  

Religious people or people with strong political opinions like to put signs everywhere. If they have the confidence and courage to do so, why shouldn’t you? 

So if there is a message you would like everyone to see, use the simple power of the hand-made sign. Proclaim “BEE FRIENDLY ZONE!” above your pollinator garden with all the confidence of a religious fundamentalist billboard. Announce to the world, “VEGETABLES FREE TO ALL—JUST ASK!” “WE TAKE LEAVES—NO PESTICIDES.” Instead of YARD SALE, or perhaps in conjunction with YARD SALE, you can write, PLANT EXCHANGE or SEED SWAP or CLOTHING SWAP. Who can stop you? 

Someone has to do it for society to change  

Some of these ideas might be eccentric, strange, or even socially unacceptable, but there is no way to change what is normal except to move against it. Someone has to be weird. It might as well be you. 

[clothedinblack]

Even the thrift shops are filled with fast fashion now

[reasonsforhope]

"A Scottish field once home to mono-crop barley has become a pollinator’s paradise after intervention from a local trust saw bumblebee numbers increase 100-fold.

Entitled Rewilding Denmarkfield, and run by the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, the project has also seen a sharp increase in the number of species passing through the rolling meadows after they were reclaimed by dozens of wildflower species.

The area north of Perth is about 90 acres in size, and surveys of bumblebees before the project began rarely recorded more than 50. But by 2023, just two years of letting “nature take the lead” that number has topped 4,000, with the number of different bee species doubling.

“This superb variety of plants attracts thousands of pollinators. Many of these plants, such as spear thistle and smooth hawk’s beard, are sometimes branded as ‘weeds’. But they are all native species that are benefiting native wildlife in different ways,” Ecologist Ellie Corsie, who has been managing the project since it began in 2021, said.

“Due to intensive arable farming, with decades of plowing, herbicide, and pesticide use, biodiversity was incredibly low when we started. Wildlife had largely been sanitized from the fields. Rewilding the site has had a remarkable benefit.”

Similar increases have been recorded in the populations of butterflies, with a tripling in the number of these insects seen on average during a ramble through the field.

The numbers of both insects are now so high that Rewilding Denmarkfield offers bee and butterfly safaris to visitors.

Local residents told the Scotsman that on spring and summer days, the field is awash with color, and hums with the sounds of bees and birds. Even as multiple housing developments expand around the Denmarkfield area, the field is a haven for wildlife."

-via Good News Network, December 2, 2024

[sockdreams]

Sock Dreams turns 25 today!

Welcome back to our birthday celebration! Today’s the big day – our 25th birthday! Yesterday we gave you the deep lore of our company’s journey over the years, and today we want to celebrate where we’re at today!

p.s. if you missed yesterday's sale announcement and lore post, we've got you: 20% off most items August 2nd through 4th, excludes gift cards, collaborations, donation specials, starter packs, stickers and regular sale collections.

Currently Sock Dreams consists of a team of fourteen Dreamers who manage all of our operations, as well as modeling all of our socks!

Also two dogs and a baby, who offer invaluable insight, HR consulting services, and moral support. This is probably the most harmonious group of colleagues we’ve ever had, which keeps employee turnover low and mischief high.

Continue reading for more Sock Dreams lore!

We see running this business as a collaborative effort, with everyone being given a voice in how we handle matters, rather than a typical top-down hierarchy. Most of us wear several hats, which keeps things from getting too monotonous, and makes the most of our varied skills and interests.  Like it or not, we now live in an era of megacorporations, outsourcing, and replacing jobs with AI wherever possible. We fall on the “not” side of “like it or not”, which is why we’re sticking to our principles when it comes to having our Sock Dreams brand manufactured domestically. We believe in the importance of employing genuine people to answer your calls and emails, so you don’t have to fight a chat bot or try to find your way through an endless series of phone menus to ask a question that only a human can answer. Heck, we still hand write “Thank you!” on every invoice!   

We’re really excited about all of the new styles and colorways that have joined our Sock Dreams brand this summer! From spooky circus-inspired stripes, to wool kilt socks, and bold new color combinations, it’s been one fun arrival after another. Several of these new colorways, such as the Pride Stripes Extraordinary Thigh Highs in AroAce colors, and XL Foot Longer Extraordinary Programming Socks in black and maroon, were specifically requested by our customers!  

We’d also like to draw your attention to our current line-up of non-profits that we’re donating to via our Donation Partnerships program! From larger organizations with the power to make big waves, to smaller, grassroots programs making a difference locally, we believe in the importance of what these groups are doing. We’re always interested in hearing about the causes you’d like to support! After all, this is a joint effort.  

As a group of people who probably wouldn’t thrive in a more corporate environment, we’re so grateful to have the continued opportunity to do what we do as a small company. It’s because of the ongoing support of our community of customers that we’re still here to celebrate this milestone, and so, as we say on your invoices,

THANK YOU! 

- the Sock Dreams crew

[bitstitchbitch]

my family is lucky enough to own a 26 acre mountain property, log cabin and all. Most people would go up there and think that it is fairly pristine nature. There’s the cabin, and a few dirt roads for 4-wheelers, but the surrounding woods look untouched.

But we actually carefully maintain that nature. We cut down the deadfall. We pull invasive plants. We trim the elderberry bushes. We get more animals than almost anywhere else on the mountain because we put up salt licks and water troughs.

some of these same things are true of national parks. A lot of places that you think of as “untouched wilderness” are influenced heavily by human care and maintenance. And this isn’t a bad thing. We are animals too. In many ways, our ecosystems depend on us to keep them healthy. Many “wild” plants that are useful for food or building materials are actually semi-domesticated because indigenous groups cared for them and encouraged their growth so they do better with human care.

we have a place in nature. We just need to be conscious of our actions.

EDIT: since this post took off, I thought I should add some sources

Also a disclaimer that I am not indigenous or an ecologist. I am putting time and effort into learning, but I am not an expert.