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Earth Day Idea #10: Start a community garden or a guerrilla gardening group. 

[anticlimatechqnge]

Since a lot of folks on Tumblr like to write, a really slept on form of activism is writing letters to the editor of your local newspaper and pitching opinion pieces. I see posts from folks on here all the time that could totally be adapted into short LTEs or even full op-eds.

These can be written for any issue, but if you're interested in doing this for climate action, the Citizens' Climate Lobby has a great tool that will find all of your local (US) newspapers and allow you to easily send LTEs to as many as you'd like with only a couple of clicks. (The tool says to write about the Energy Innovation Act but really they're happy to have you write about anything). The tool doesn't work outside of the US unfortunately, but most newspapers will list an email address on their website which you can send LTEs to directly.

Here is a simple outline and example of how to write an LTE, which only needs to be about 200 words or fewer:

Reference something in the news or a specific part of a news story from your local paper.

Transition into how that news relates to climate change.

Identify a solution.

Present a call to action.

Optional tip: consider including the names of senators or members of congress. Politicians usually have staff who search media for references to them, and "tagging" them like this helps put your issues on their radar.

And that's it! You can talk about any problem or solution you're passionate about, whether it's carbon pricing, EV vehicles, reducing flights, plant-based food systems, or anything else, and they're supposed to be super short so you don't have to worry about knowing all the details or citing specifics or anything stressful. But feel free to spice it up beyond this basic outline as well. Watch CCL's video on writing effective LTEs here for more guidance.

Whether or not your LTE gets published, encouraging media coverage of climate action matters. Climate change is critically under-reported, and just showing your newspaper that their readers care about environmental issues is a meaningful form of activism.

[anticlimatechqnge]

1. Veganism combats world hunger

A lot of the food that’s grown in the world isn’t being eaten by humans. In fact, 70% of the grain grown in the US feeds livestock, and, globally, 83% of farmland is set aside to raise animals.

It’s estimated that 700 million tons of food that could be consumed by humans goes to livestock each year.

While meat is more calorically dense than plants, more aggregate calories (and more diverse nutrient profiles) could be produced if that land was dedicated to various plants.  

2. It conserves water

Hundreds of millions of people around the world don’t have access to clean water. Many more people struggle with periodic water scarcity, sometimes because of drought and sometimes because of mismanagement of water sources.

Livestock guzzle more fresh water than just about anything else. They’re also one of the biggest polluters of fresh water.

3. It cleans the soil

Similar to how livestock pollute water, they also erode and weaken soil. This is partly because raising livestock usually leads to deforestation, which clears huge swaths of land of the different elements (such as trees) that provide nutrients and resilience, to make room for the livestock to roam.

The world loses roughly the size of Panama each year to deforestation, which also accelerates climate change (trees store carbon)

Raising a diversity of plants, instead, nourishes soil and leads to long-term resilience. 

4. It reduces energy consumption

Raising livestock costs a lot of energy. This is due to a wide range of factors including: it takes a long time to raise animals; they consume a lot of food that was cultivated on land that could have been put to other use; meat products need to be shipped and refrigerated; and meat takes a long time to process from slaughterhouse to kitchen table.

5. It purifies the air

All the livestock in the world cause more air pollution than all the cars, buses, planes, ships and other modes of transportation in the world combined.  

Plants clean the air.

6. It will make you healthier

All the nutrients you need–and probably don’t get enough of–are provided by a vegan diet. Fresh vegetables, fruits and other vegan staples are teeming with nutrients that meat just doesn’t provide.

You can get all the protein you need from peanut butter, quinoa, lentils, beans, and much, much more.

The World Health Organization just released a report further outlining the increased risks of colorectal cancer from regular red meat and processed meat consumption. This is on top of existing concerns about heart disease, stroke, and other health complications.

A lot of people have diets that are extraordinarily high in processed food that contain added sugar, preservatives, chemicals, and other ingredients that can impede your health, make you feel sluggish on a daily basis. 

7. It is not as hard as you think

The most common critique I’ve heard leveled against veganism is that it forces you to retire your taste buds and your free time: because meat is superior in taste and is easier to make.

While taste is subjective and a lot of people “need” their chicken wings on Sunday, I’d argue that the aversion to veganism is based more on cultural education than on actual comparisons.

8. It will make you a better cook

I think everyone is guilty of some lazy cooking every now and then. And most people hit up take-out once or twice a week after a long day at work or school.

Vegetables can be a bit intimidating. There’s so many of them. A lot of them have to be prepared just right. And a lot of people (myself included) didn’t grow up in environments that appreciated this (my family relied on boiling frozen vegetables).

But learning about how to access the full flavor and nutrients of a vegetable is fun and rewarding.

9. It is more ethical

Come on. Animals deserve a dignified life. They’re intelligent, gentle creatures. They shouldn’t suffer from birth to death. But that’s the life a lot of them have when born into factory farms. Some meat producers are changing their models to adapt to public outrage over factory farms, but the vast majority of meat you encounter in restaurants and grocery stores are produced in grim conditions. If you even cut meat out of one or two of your meals per week, you’ll be making a dent in this grim reality.

[anticlimatechqnge]

Hey there hi there just a friendly reminder today that no matter who tells you it's pointless or how jaded you may feel about the process, if you have not already:

FUCKING.

VOTE.

'Both sides are just as bad!'

No they are not. They never have been. Neither side is perfect. Neither side is 100% pristine. But if you legitimately believe both sides are equally adamant in their routine evil for the sake of profit, bigotry, and generally wanting everything shittier for anyone who is not them, you've been purposefully living under a rock or else you're digging for an excuse not to bother with the tedium of standing in a line and pushing a button.

Do you want a Trump 2.0? Do you want a system stacked entirely with a red deck? Do you want more rights, protections, and sanctions against little things like Not Fucking the Environment Further and Bodily Autonomy and Letting People Who Are LGBT Exist Like Real People thrown into a woodchipper?

No?

THEN VOTE.

Vote like your life and the lives of your loved ones and the lives of total strangers depend on it. Because they do! They very much do!

I won't waste time compiling yet another megalist of all the reasons to vote, all the reasons that people not voting only ever benefits the worst candidates (DON'T FALL FOR THE, 'Oh, but everyone knows better! Plenty of people will vote right! I don't have to!' THOUGHT. THAT AND 'JOKE'-VOTING GOT US TRUMP.), all the huge things the Biden administration has accomplished, all the pure cartoon villainy bullshit the Republicans keep smearing on the country and all the even worse things they want for the future. A future that may or may not contain Trump or someone worse making a presidential bid.

Those posts already exist. So does Google. So does a heap of national and local news sites. Look them up or don't.

But please.

Please.

Please do not let yourself make excuses. Do not let other people try to convince you your vote is empty, that it doesn't make a difference. It does. It always has. This is the one tool we have that lets the pressure of the masses matter when it comes to who we put in charge of the states and the country as a whole. It's why these guys campaign in the first place.

Because the candidates know it matters.

No matter how good or bad or tepid the results are, do not let yourself be one of the people who sat back and threw up their hands just to say. "See? Told you it wouldn't matter!"

With enough of us it does. Whether that's enough of us making the effort to make sure things don't get worse or enough of us sitting back and plugging our ears while everything burns, it matters.

Please. Go. Vote.

[anticlimatechqnge]

I really hope people don’t get discouraged last minute and sit out the midterms. This is exactly what these anti-choice assholes want! Remember, if Kansas of all places voted to legalize abortion, there is hope anywhere! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!

[anticlimatechqnge]

Old people: Hmm my garden plants keep dying and I’m seeing less wildlife than usual. What’s the deal?

Middle aged people: Woweee it’s hotter than usual this summer!

Elder Millennials: Snow in April? How unusual!

Everyone else: CLIMATE CHANGE! Climate changeeeee you fucking fucks!!!

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💔💔💔

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Fuck Lawns!

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[anticlimatechqnge]

‘When fishing stops, the results are remarkable. On average, in 124 marine reserves studied around the world, some of which have been in existence only a few years, the total weight of animals and plants has quadrupled since they were established. The size of the animals inhabiting them has also increased, and so has their diversity.

In most cases the shift is visible within two to five years. As the slower-growing species also begin to recover, as sedentary life forms grow back and as reefs of coral and shellfish re-establish themselves - restoring the structural diversity of the seabed - the mass and wealth of the ecosystem is likely to keep rising for a long time.

Five years after Georges Bank, off the coast of New England, was closed for commercial fishing, the number of scallops had risen fourteenfold. Around Lundy Island, mature lobsters trebled in number within eighteen months of the creation of the reserve. After four years they were five times as abundant as those outside, after five years, six times.

Eighteen years after they were first protected, the combined weight of large predatory fish in the Alp Island reserve in the Philippines had risen by a factor of seventeen. Bigger fish produce more eggs, and the quality of eggs improves as the parents mature, so more of the offspring are likely to survive.

Like the Kraken in Tennyson’s poem, the suppressed life of the sea awaits only for its chance to re-emerge.’

George Monbiot, Feral: Rewilding The Land, Sea and Human Life

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The supreme court is also fucking the EPA. So while we can’t have bodily autonomy, we are going to be choking on our own air in 5 years.

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Mothersdaystrike.com

[anticlimatechqnge]

Fun facts about veganism!

A vegan diet saves about 1,000 gallons of water a day, 45lbs of grain, 1 animal, 30 square ft of forest and 20lbs of CO2.

This is a great reminder for those looking to become vegan in honor of Earth Day this year!