#hope posting

[miskiart]

⛈️🌈 Brainstorm☔️

[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.

[thesmegalodon]

i get the appeal of nihilism, but there’s so much more joy to be found in violently and rebelliously choosing to LIVE in the face of meaninglessness

[directactionforhope]

Less technology used for evil, more of this shit

[flyin-shark]

[dirtmossart]

Hope posting

Song: The Orb of Dreamers by The Daniel Pemberton TV Orchestra

[i-fucked-your-milkshake]

Hope is as powerful a weapon, as power a gift, as anger. They strip you of hope to make you feel powerless, to make them look inevitable. Without hope you’re more likely to acquiesce. More like to just take it. More likely to stop making noise. Wield your hope. Hold it against the horizon and scream “no, I don’t accept this, things can be better and I will fight to ensure that.” Hope keeps you in the game. Hope reminds you what you fight for and why you’re angry. A hopeless mind is easier to contain. Don’t let them put you in that cage. Don’t let them rob you of what you have to fight for.

[aropodcastfuck]

when youre an adult you sometimes need to sit down and remind yourself that despite how hard life is youre living the life 12 year old you wanted

like i live in a house with my closest friends, i have a cat who i love, i have dyed hair and tattoos, i get to go to punk shows and bars with my friends, 12 year old me wouldve thought i was so cool and would be so happy to know we made it here.

its maybe different then you imagined or maybe youre not as happy as you hoped youd be but you are doing it. and you are happy

[honeydewcorporation]

My body worked great for like 3 days!!!!!! I've started falling again, but I know I'll be able to experience that joy another day! I will break through the despair again! I will get to dance again! There remains hope in this darkness!

[reasonsforhope]

"A century of gradual reforestation across the American East and Southeast has kept the region cooler than it otherwise would have become, a new study shows.

The pioneering study of progress shows how the last 25 years of accelerated reforestation around the world might significantly pay off in the second half of the 21st century.

Using a variety of calculative methods and estimations based on satellite and temperature data from weather stations, the authors determined that forests in the eastern United States cool the land surface by 1.8 – 3.6°F annually compared to nearby grasslands and croplands, with the strongest effect seen in summer, when cooling amounts to 3.6 – 9°F.

The younger the forest, the more this cooling effect was detected, with forest trees between 20 and 40 years old offering the coolest temperatures underneath.

“The reforestation has been remarkable and we have shown this has translated into the surrounding air temperature,” Mallory Barnes, an environmental scientist at Indiana University who led the research, told The Guardian.

“Moving forward, we need to think about tree planting not just as a way to absorb carbon dioxide but also the cooling effects in adapting for climate change, to help cities be resilient against these very hot temperatures.”

The cooling of the land surface affected the air near ground level as well, with a stepwise reduction in heat linked to reductions in near-surface air temps.

“Analyses of historical land cover and air temperature trends showed that the cooling benefits of reforestation extend across the landscape,” the authors write. “Locations surrounded by reforestation were up to 1.8°F cooler than neighboring locations that did not undergo land cover change, and areas dominated by regrowing forests were associated with cooling temperature trends in much of the Eastern United States.”

By the 1930s, forest cover loss in the eastern states like the Carolinas and Mississippi had stopped, as the descendants of European settlers moved in greater and greater numbers into cities and marginal agricultural land was abandoned.

The Civilian Conservation Corps undertook large replanting efforts of forests that had been cleared, and this is believed to be what is causing the lower average temperatures observed in the study data.

However, the authors note that other causes, like more sophisticated crop irrigation and increases in airborne pollutants that block incoming sunlight, may have also contributed to the lowering of temperatures over time. They also note that tree planting might not always produce this effect, such as in the boreal zone where increases in trees are linked with increases in humidity that way raise average temperatures."

-via Good News Network, February 20, 2024

[thesmegalodon]

[duaghterofstories]

Imagine a future where...

You walk into a bookstore.

Bookshelves that go far above your head are decorated with hand made art, made by kids about their favorite book, or an employee. The girl who reccomends you a book you know you'll cherish forever is bouncing on the balls of her feet as she tells you about how she loves the main character, and insists you come back to tell her what you think. The cashier opens the book you read to slide in bookmarks clearly designed by a book loving kid. She is smiling along to the music, and her coworker teases her for having a crush on the artist.

You leave the bookstore and hop onto your bike. It's a sunny day, so you'll probably go eat a sandwhich in the park while reading a book, then go home and drink some not chocolate on the couch.

It is supposed to rain tonight. And no better time to read a new book then with a cup of coco and the rain.

[bloomingera]

one of things i learned from recovery - bad days or fails is okay!

it's actually even big good sign, if you can tell difference in feeling bad and good! and having range of it! i will explain!

my psychologist told me once, that it's okay then brain start giving you things to process in the therapy process. it can feels like "god, my problems never ending!" at first, but the thing is -

then you are healing and getting more recourses (like, energy) - brain start to give you things to process, which it hided in survive mod. same with physical organism!

then i started feeling better, one of my first new feeling was feeling tired. i thought about it and i realized it feels different actually.

i really felt tired, but it was good, because i just experienced feeling not-tired (relaxed, joyful, happy) and now i know the difference. before that my life was just one gray mash and i felt mostly just sad. now i feel not only polar things (tired-relaxed, angry-kind) but range of it - i can feel a little bit tired, very tired, i can feel normal or very happy or just fine, etc

my smell sense came back, so i can smell unpleasant smells but i finally have motivation to go to shower now! or, i got kind of allergy on face - but i know it's because i started eating good tasty food with spices too suddenly, and i just will slow my food spicing boost a little. today my food burned for first time - well, i learned a lesson that adding a lot of oil in previous times was good strategy!

so yeah, it's okay to have little sad things. sad things happen in healthy life, happy life is not happy-happy all the time, the happiness is about range!

[missidentifiedlemon]

Love to scroll through tumblr when I'm feeling low because I'll reblog a bunch of stuff then I'll hear the sound of my mutuals reacting to it and I remember that we are an interconnected web of people who all love and care for each other

[i-fucked-your-milkshake]

Yes, yes, the horrors, we all know about them.

But think of the joys, the raptures, the moments of sublime that appear only to you, the secret bliss, and the elations.

Balance your diet; you are what you consume.

[goobtacular]

What a thrill! I never thought I'd get the chance to give a shit