my favorite Millennial Thing™ is when a group of us are standing around and talking and someone asks a question that no one knows the answer to and suddenly it’s a race to get out your phone and google it and be the first to know, and then someone starts reading the Wikipedia article about the thing aloud to everyone else, and what started as a casual conversation is now A Learning Opportunity and we all walk away a little more knowledgeable about a random topic
Like, Boomers hate when we do that, but I think it’s one of the best things about us.
So long as we have internet or a cell signal, all of the world’s collective knowledge is at our fingertips, and damned if we aren’t going to use it.
me: *puts effort into my appearance before i go out anywhere* *checks myself out in any reflective surface i encounter* *observes myself in the mirror from the perspective of a stranger*
the unavoidable presence of margaret atwood that resides permanently in my consciousness:
when simone de beauvoir said “i’m reliving it, neutralizing it, and transforming it into an inoffensive past that i can keep in my heart without either disowning it or suffering from it. that’s not easy. it’s at once painful and poetic.”
Heres the thing you gotta understand about statistics.
If your chances were previously 10%, your chances are now 18%, not 90%.
if your chances were roughly 1%, they’re now just slightly less than 2%.
thats how that works.
I really love my family, but it was supposed to be a quiet weekend and now it’s not and I am stressing out.
The thing is, my family organized a very small lunch tomorrow with my grandmothers but now everyone is showing up and tomorrow I have an eight-hour long lunch with fourteen people. So I’ve spend all morning shopping and now I got a bunch of work that I need to finish plus I have to bake two cakes and pack as I am spending all next week on a conference. Ok, there are all good things, I know. But I don’t know how to chill out, so now I’m an anxiety ball and my headaches are acting out again. Fun life!
This s the obituary of Zura Karuhimbi, who may have been over 100 years old when she died and protected hundreds of people during the Rwandan genocide.
She did it by pretending to have magic powers.
Picture with me for a moment the sheer gall necessary to do this. An old woman, living alone, stuffs her tiny house with people running from militias. And when the militias show up at her door covers herself with irritating plants, so that when the militia try to manhandle her it ‘burns’ and proves her powers.
We’ve lost a legend.
y’all deserve to hear the good news too, and yes i fact checked these.
7 miles of habitat for bees will be planted in london
the biggest coal plant in north america has been converted to solar panels
roads in edinburgh will close once a month to help pollution
maine has banned styrofoam
new york city and los angeles have both made “green new deals”
The london marathon replaced 200,000 single use water bottles with seaweed water pods
the bees in notre dame survived the fire, and the roof could possibly built in a more eco-friendly way.
the population of flightless kakapos (a cool bird) is rising
the carbon emissions in the uk are the lowest they’ve been since 1998
Another large bee habitat (.5 mil acres) has been created
there is a robot that delivers young coral to help repopulate the great barrier reef
portugal plans to stop using plastic on fruit, vegetables, and bread by 2020
106 new species of bees have been discovered in australia since 2010
a group of Sikhs plan to plant 1,000,000 trees as a gift to the earth
disney has made a mickey-shaped solar farm
Morgan freeman turned a 124 acre ranch in mississippi to a bee habitat
China plans on making a “forest city” to help clean up their air
An increasing amount of countries and states are beginning to ban single use plastics.
A couple replanted a whole forest in brazil (2.7 mil trees) in 20 years, and the animals have come back to live there
The hole in the ozone layer is repairing itself more each year
China plans on spending 360 billion dollars to improve renewable energy and has scrapped plans for coal powered plants that were going to be built.
A national park has been built in the amazon (3.3 mil acres in peru) to preserve the rainforest
Ireland and the uk have declared a climate emergency
The guy who played aquaman (jason momoa) has spent 31,000 dollars to help clean up plastic
South korea is now recycling 95% of food waste
There is a cleanup campaign being planned for mt. everest
Puerto rico wants to use all renewable energy by 2050 and is setting official goals for that
Some schools have special water bottle fill-up stations that encourage you to use refill and reuse plastic bottles rather than throwing them out after one use, these are becoming more common.
9 endangered species are thought to make a comeback this year
20 countries in africa are planning to make a “green wall” of trees and plants that will span the width of africa to stop desertification
recently, a lot of volunteers and organizations are planting a ton of trees.
Awareness about the environment and climate change is growing super fast right now among people and countries, which will only help us
Most pollution is caused by like 100 companies, but a few of those (like pepsi) are trying to cut down on that.
if this stuff keeps happening things will get even better, and the only thing stopping us really are those big companies who don’t want to pay the money to switch to more eco-friendly energy sources. i know the media tends to cause fear and stress about this stuff for a lot of people, but there really is hope.
easy things we can do:
Recycle
Plant gardens in your yard for bees if you can
Participate in community volunteer things that plant trees and gardens
Theres this search engine called ecosia that plants a tree for every 45 searches you make, it has almost 2 mil users.
Pick up trash if you see it when you’re at the beach or in nature
If you have a fair amount of money, consider donating some to trustworthy environmental organizations
Start using a reusable water bottle (like those ones at target) rather than relying on single use plastic ones.
Cut the plastic rings on plastic milk bottles. You know, the little spiky plastic ring near the cap. Birds get those things stuck around their neck and die, so cut them so that they can’t get stuck on a neck.
If you can afford it, get some of those reusable grocery bags and sue those. most grocery stores have them, and it saves a lot of waste.
Small and angry.PhD student. Mathematics. Slow person. Side blog, follow with @talrg.
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