lyca-activism - Tumblr blog

[lyca-activism]

Mood

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No WIP here but I do write fantasy and sci fi. More sci fi.

Hey writeblr community

If you write:

High fantasy

Epic fantasy

Alternate universe stuff

Badass princesses

Fate and other fuckery

Dragons

Mythical creatures

Or anything along those lines

Then like or reblog so I can follow you and check out your wip :D

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In all fairness I don’t see why we can’t have both.

Libraries are one of the few remaining public goods that haven’t been completely privatized and profitized. Libraries are virtually free to the public, regardless of race, class, gender, religion or sexual orientation. And it needs to stay that way. Capitalists need to keep their dirty, grubby little HANDS OFF libraries.

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The birds 😱

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Disturbing news about our beautiful Monarch butterflies. Latest count shows massive population drop from almost 200k I’m 2017 to 30k now. Save the butterflies!

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Snowy Monday morning here in Nevada.

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My buddy of 9 years now, Montana.

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A common and very heated debate. Are you “pro-cap” or “anti-cap.” The answer is, I’m both. #procap #anticap How? I believe the best place for animals as amazing and graceful as dolphins and orcas belong in the sea. But so many have been taken and brought to facilities to live that many generations have been born in captivity now. Rehab and release could happen but possibly not for the best of these animals. #captivity gives us the unique position to monitor health, behavior, and growth in a controlled environment. What we can learn in this environment can possibly tell us a lot about their wild cousins that could perhaps be used to help save them. Maybe we can use this to help save the #southernresidents that are currently starving to death. That being said, since we have taken it upon ourselves to be the caretakers for these magnificent creatures we have a duty and responsibility to ensure they receive the best care and facilities possible. Some places are adequate. And some are shameful. #freelolita I am also 100% against any further capture of dolphins or whales. We have robust breeding programs making wild caught unnecessary and cruel. #nocapture #swimfree #seashepherd #takegoodcare #ambassadorformypeople #speakforthevoiceless #stopwhaling #stopdolphinslaughter #stoptaiji (at Secret Garden & Dolphin Habitat At The Mirage) https://www.instagram.com/p/BsP4cGrn5ZA/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=xxqibykwortp

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Parenting teens.

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The War on Waste

Via Nat Geo

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Artist: Evan Huang Title: The Last Valkyrie Wonderful…

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Zero Waste people online confuse me

Frequent posters in /r/zerowaste, for example, often say “hey, I have some [things] that would get thrown away otherwise. What can I use them for, instead of throwing them out?” Because ultimately the victory is not putting things in your mason jar of rubbish, right?

Unless you already have a need to be met, and you’d know if you did, creating uses for things doesn’t make any difference to the environment, it just wastes your time and slightly delays the inevitable. If you’re hoarding something that you feel might be useful, the best thing you can do is look for someone else who already finds it useful.

Or the make-it-yourself crew! They want nut milk without having to buy cartons, so they go out and buy a bag of cashews, and a new blender that’s recommended/designed for making nut milk, and some muslin to strain it though, and some nice glass bottles to store it in. As long as you don’t have to put anything in your mason jar of rubbish, it’s a win.

An industrial process can make the same amount of nut milk in a fraction of the time, for a fraction of the power, using far less packaging for bulk-supplied nuts in enormous quantities, and using machinery that already exists and will last and be maintained for much longer than a made-to-be-replaced home blender. Yes, nut milk is probably more expensive to transport in both money and CO2 than nuts since it’s mostly water, and not everywhere recycles cartons, but everything else far outweighs that.

The only way you could justify making your own nut milk is if you are buying the nuts in 10+ kilogram quantities (or you grow them yourself and you have plenty of surplus), and you already own the blender and muslin and bottles, and your house runs on renewable electricity. And when that blender finally breaks for good, someone has to dismantle and recycle all the components. Buying any of these things new just to make nut milk doesn’t add up, environmentally speaking.

A big part of zero waste is keeping things out of landfill. Preventing the creation of new items is half the battle. Making stuff from scratch yourself only works out if you already have the time and the materials and the equipment.

In order of priority:

Refuse things that you don’t need, like disposable plastic bags - bring a backpack with you.

Reduce the amount you need - pack your backpack as full as you can with careful backpack Tetris, to avoid needing more bags.

Reuse your backpack every time you go shopping for supplies. Repair it when it breaks. If it can’t be repaired, ask around - someone might need a broken backpack.

Recycle your backpack when it can no longer be repaired - old fabrics are shredded and turned into padding for furniture in some areas.

Rot it down at the end of its life, by composting it.

There’s nothing in there about creating uses for things or making things from scratch, because that’s not automatically better.

If you need something:

Try to keep something old out of landfill. Ask if someone has one that they no longer want. Check Freecycle, check charity/thrift shops, post on Facebook asking if anyone has something suitable that you could have/buy from them.

Try to prevent the creation of something new from raw materials. Close the loop and buy something made from recycled materials.

If you know for sure that you will be the last person to use the thing, and you know you will be able to deal with it in the right way, make sure it’s recyclable or compostable.

If you have something you don’t need, try to find someone who needs it before you do anything else. Offer it on Freecycle, if it’s in good condition take it to a charity/thrift shop, or post on Facebook asking if someone would like it.

There are some philosophies and practices that reduce waste and help the environment as part of what they are and what they do:

Anti-consumerism - promotes buying only when absolutely necessary, and second-hand where possible.

Growing your own food - every mouthful you eat of something you grew yourself means something didn’t have to be shipped to you or wrapped in packaging.

Composting - turns your rubbish into useful fertiliser in your own garden, instead of it having to be transported to a landfill to rot into methane.

And there are some things that are popular among the zero waste crowd but that only help the environment sometimes and incidentally:

Plastic-free - generally a good idea because it incidentally reduces the amount of single-use intentionally disposable plastic you use, but if you take it to the extreme you’ll buy new fragile glass jars instead of durable second-hand plastic tupperware.

Homemade - a good idea if you already have everything you need and are not otherwise using it. But if making it at home requires you to buy stuff, be aware that making things at home makes smaller batches than large companies and factories make. That means more power used per unit, more packaging required, and more human-hours used. You might have to acquire equipment for small-scale production that you wouldn’t otherwise need. It can also mean compromises in other ways: homemade deodorant isn’t as effective, and homemade toothpaste rarely contains fluoride, which could mean expensive, wasteful, painful medical treatments later in life.

Money-free - incidentally means less new stuff has to be made, because new stuff costs money and when you can’t spend money you grow your own food, make stuff to trade for food, trade your skills or surplus food for things people don’t want (which are usually second-hand), and repair the things you already have.

Minimalism - incidentally helps because you refrain from buying new things in order to keep your life simple. Worth noting that there’s nothing in minimalism that prevents you buying new things, or buying things and then immediately discarding them. You could get rid of your spork so that you can pack light, but end up using more disposable plastic cutlery on the go. See also KonMari, one-bagging, decluttering.

Unless you are totally self-sufficient it’s impossible to know everything about the entire life-cycle of a product. The five Rs (refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle, rot) are the healthy lifestyle, and the other stuff (minimalism, plastic-free) are like the fad diets that kind of help but accidentally and not for everyone in all cases.

If you find yourself asking “what can I do with this [stuff]?”, offer up the [stuff] on Freecycle and then look for ways you can stop acquiring [stuff] in the first place. If making [thing] yourself requires you to buy equipment or ingredients you don’t already have, just bulk-buy it ready-made and write to the manufacturer asking them to make their packaging more sustainable, and then CC your elected representative and ask how they are fighting for the environment.

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Incredible magic woods by Ferdinand Ladera.

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The amazing concept art of Daryl Mandryk for Darksiders III

Darksiders III: Official Collector’s Edition Guide

Darksiders III - PC Collector’s Edition

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I know a sky like this could never happen in real life but what a beautiful image.