I'm confused: for the past ten years or so some of my good very #leftwing friends have been advocating #localproducts and #selfproduced goods to reduce our #ecologicalfootprint. And to get there, our global overheated economies would have to be transformed into smaller, more local parts. So far, this has shown not to be an easy thing to do. But guess what this #crazyamericanpresident is doing right now with #dictatorial #force to our global economy with his so-called brilliant #tarrifs ?

What #PeriodProducts Are Best for the #Environment?

"#MenstrualCups are a really clear winner,” said Pippa Notten, a sustainability consultant who analyzed the environmental impact of menstrual products for the United Nations Environmental Program.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/30/climate/period-products-menstruation-environment.html

#MenstrualHygieneManagement #Menstruation #EcologicalFootprint

Some environmentally conscious alternatives to Amazon:

https://blog.credo.com/2024/11/07/conscious-consuming-for-the-holidays-try-these-alternatives-to-amazon/?utm_source=cordial&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=335584&utm_content=121424_alternative&campaignid=335584&profileid=0d9349c4c813bbc65999f0617ab92381a7588ee5d0b706cce9351972c8203175

#OnlineShopping #environment #consumer #EcologicalFootprint #credo

@JProl
It looked good (I just dumped #DuckDuckGo for #Qwant) but then I saw the bit about "#AI" / #MachineLearning - so it won't be an alternative at all, certainly not for search quality and #EcologicalFootprint

Congrats to the winners of the Sustainability Award from the Nobel Sustainability Trust! 🎉They were recognised for their leadership in implementing sustainability measures: http://go.tum.de/530339

#agriculture #ecologicalfootprint

📷iStock/Black_Kira

#EarthOvershootDay

Personal footprint calculator: https://www.footprintcalculator.org

Contemporary art recommendations: https://www.artworksforchange.org/

Neat helpful videos and cartoons about sustainability: https://sustainabilityillustrated.com

#MoveTheDate #EcologicalFootprint #ArtWorksForChange #SustainabilityIllustrated

Dear academics in this thread:

This 'flying scientist worried about emissions' dilemma is to me a perfect case where we could move away from guilt-driven individual action aiming to reduce our carbon footprint to become aware of our handprint to achieve collective/administrative changes [1].

We organize the conferences, we have access to the administrations that pay our travel costs and we know the community.

There are definitely alternatives:

"A straightforward way of cutting emissions therefore could just be reducing the number of meetings, e.g. organizing recurring annual meetings only every other year. This could also have other benefits such as more available time for research, teaching, or mentoring. In addition, it would impose less pressure to be away from home for the sake of visibility for researchers with families, which is a phenomenon that female scientists encounter more often than their male colleagues.

As humans, we find it easiest to network in person, but by solely relying on in-person meetings, certain groups of people can be excluded from the global science community. In order to allow for both an in-person experience as well as accessibility, an approach could be a hybrid format in which the visibility and networking opportunities for online attendants are prioritized. For large meetings, a hub format including virtual participation could be considered." [2]

We can do this! The benefits regarding inclusion, decolonization and, of course, emission reduction would be impressive.
:anarchoheart3:

‐---------
Further info:

A comprehensive toolbox to achieve flight reduction in academic institutions:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s44168-023-00069-y

List of specific measures:
https://ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/associates/services/organisation/Schulleitung/mobilitaetsplattform/Measures%20for%20Academic%20Air%20Travel%20Reduction.pdf

[1] Here's the concept of the handprint:
https://kolektiva.social/@earthworm/112530668693156607

[2] i love this article: https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/3/5/pgae143/7659884?login=false

@jatkinson1000 @steve @Ruth_Mottram

#EcologicalHandprint #CarbonFootprint #EcologicalFootprint #AcademicChatter

Many people share your feelings.
Our societies are facing environmental collapse. We feel that we have to do something. But we don't know where to start.
...
My thoughts on this:
We need collective action. We can recycle and save tapwater until our fingers fall off. If the structures don't change, individual actions will mostly keep us busy while the world gets burned because of a mixture of rich people's greed, bureaucrats that "just do their job" and a society that has too little phantasy to see the many desirable alternatives to this apocalyptic late-stage capitalism.

There is this amazing concept of the handprint, making you ask yourself the question: "where can I promote societal change?". This is on contrast to the 'carbon footprint' that measures the impact of our individual lifestyle and shifts the guilt to the people. This concept was widely promoted by fossil fuel companies. [1]

At the bottom of the web is the link to the poster [2]. It is quite straightforward to use e.g. in a workshop with other people asking themselves the question "what can we do?".

1. What topic am I enthusiastic about?
(E.g. sustainable mobility, ecological agriculture, renewable energy, social justice...)

2. At which level am I familiar with decision-making processes ?
(At work, university, religious group, neighbourhood...)

3. What is the best way to implement my idea?
(Make the sustainable option the default, pressure politicians, make sustainable more known or affordable...)

4. Which allies do I need? (Initiatives, colleagues, experts, politicians, media)

And here you go. At the end you have a plan for an attainable objective that will make a difference and bring change on a higher level. All that while showing yourself that you can be part of the change, creating community and mobilizing others. We have a lot to do, so this is something to start with. :anarchoheart3:

Interestingy, the handprint was originally launched by the Indian organisation CEE ( https://www.ceeindia.org ) as an open concept of positive action!

1: https://medium.com/greener-together/who-invented-the-carbon-footprint-the-shocking-origins-13d940d05f59

2: https://www.handprint-hub.de/handprint-concept

3: further reading:

"The solutions are already here" by the fantastic @PeterGelderloos
https://archive.org/details/tfsr20220417-PeterGelderloos

@ratika @germanwatch

#Degrowth #SolarPunk #CarbonFootprint #EcologicalFootprint #Activism #ClimateChange #Organizing #Community #Neighbourhood #Germanwatch

@justafrog

Exactly! We import 40% of our food. This is not sustainable in any way. We need to be producing sufficient #food to feed our own population instead of imposing our oversized #EcologicalFootprint on other countries.

The only way to do this is massively to reduce the amount of meat that we eat. If everyone went #Vegan it would require just 25% of the land currently used for #agriculture to feed everyone. This would massively reduce the #BiodiversityLoss in the country, the most nature depleted in Europe, and make us self-sufficient in food.

#Climate #ClimateChange #ExtremeWeather #Flooding #FoodSecurity #LandUse #Vegan #GoVegan

@MaQuest

Thanks, now I do too. We have work to do.

I was thinking if it makes sense to try to set up one of these brandnew newsmast channels about #degrowth.

(https://mastodon.online/@mastodonmigration/111820742277239229)

And I am currently working on the preparation of a workshop about the concept of the #EcologicalHandprint: in opposition to the depressing concept of individualistic, guilt-loaded #EcologicalFootprint, the handprint is a concept to make people aware which topics they want to work on and where they have access to groups to spread the ideas and build community. I'll keep you updated how it went and maybe we can elaborate further.

We can do this!

thanks, @pvonhellermannn :ecoanarchism_heart:

"""
The most technologically advanced nations are the most energy- and material-intensive and have the largest per-capita ecological footprints. Hence, the consumer lifestyles of their average citizens (and of the wealthy residents of the developing world) are the least ecologically sustainable on Earth, and cannot be safely extended to humans everywhere.
"""
-- William E. Rees

https://www.nature.com/articles/420267b

#EcologicalFootprint #sustainability

"The opportunity cost of animal based diets exceeds all food losses" (2018)

Lots of nice charts!

=====
Although our analysis concentrated on opportunity costs in terms of food gains or losses, the ramifications of consuming animals vs. plants include other considerations worth noting. For example, replacing milk and beef in the United States with plant-based alternatives liberates almost 700 million pastureland acres for wilderness preservation and reverses overgrazing induced ecosystem degradation (3, 23).
=====

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1713820115

#planet #sustainability #grazing #ranching #animalBased #diet #plantbased #biodiversity #conservation #ecologicalFootprint #meat

Well-written article on #degrowth touches important points of human excess and #planetaryimbalance https://theconversation.com/critics-of-degrowth-economics-say-its-unworkable-but-from-an-ecologists-perspective-its-inevitable-211496 @MikeJoy

#ecologicalfootprint
#EarthOvershootDay

The above point is not to glorify South Asia and Africa as some paragons of good sustainable societies. It's to show how lopsided a world we have created and continue to perpetuate. It's to show that it is these "poorer" people that subsidize our wonderful and enlightened lives, and not the other way around. “We” (the death cult) are not yet dead because they suffer and have kept all of humanity alive. Yet, “we” treat them with utter contempt as undeveloped, uncivilized “third-worlders” who offer nothing to the world.

Significant improvements in their lives by increasing their biocapacity (which will happen irrespective of whether we aid or thwart them), while the richer nations re-negotiate a much more appropriate living with far less consumption and within "human" means (which given my realism-termed-as-pessimism is highly unlikely to happen), will go a long long way. It increasingly looks like the only way to live on this planet.

If we (richer nations) want to live in a just world, a world that will continue to feed us into the future as well, i.e., the rest of the world, which also happens to be the caretaker and custodian of our immense biodiversity; then changing our so called time and tested "free" ways of living is the least we can do.

They have done a lot, are we ready to do the bare minimum?

5/5

#ClimateOvershootDays #GlobalWarming #Inequality #EcologicalFootprint #EcologicalCatastrophes #PoliticalEconomy #GlobalNorth #GlobalSouth #Europe #US #SouthAsia #Africa #Justice

What’s interesting is, if August 2nd in 2023 is the global overshoot day, then by definition, the world should collapse tomorrow? So why is it not collapsing tomorrow?

Did anyone notice, for example, the conspicuous absence of all of South Asia with 25% (~2 billion people) of the world population in calculating the overshoot chart or data?. These include India (which gets blamed as the 3rd largest emitter blah blah), Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka.

Why? We couldn't collect data? Those countries and their institutions are unwilling and manipulating their footprint? NO.

It's because they live way below the global biocapacity. The overshoot calculation is of countries only exceeding global biocapacity.

Only if you include the very tiny nation of Bhutan (population ~0.78million), does the average (1.51) come anywhere near 1.6 for South Asia.

The same applies if you add another billion people from Africa who are absent in that chart as well. Only a small smattering of African nations like Libya (which pumps out oil for “us”) even go above 1.6.

4/5

#ClimateOvershootDays #GlobalWarming #Inequality #EcologicalFootprint #EcologicalCatastrophes #PoliticalEconomy #GlobalNorth #GlobalSouth #Europe #US #SouthAsia #Africa #Justice

We can't even seem to live well on the only inhabitable planet we have known, yet our masters, their sycophants, idiot savants, and nerds think we will techno-fix our way out of this (human ingenuity you know).

Better solution, settle on other planets.

Even better, suggest population controls elsewhere (starting from Malthus to Ehrlich to their neo-acolytes) so that we can continue our lives-as-usual. If only the world had a billion or so people, all Europeans and North Americans, imagine how wonderful it would be? Those damned fools in those damned hot and humid places spoiling it for all of us.

3/5

#ClimateOvershootDays #GlobalWarming #Inequality #EcologicalFootprint #EcologicalCatastrophes #PoliticalEconomy #GlobalNorth #GlobalSouth #Europe #US #SouthAsia #Africa #Justice

If everyone on the planet lives like Americans, Canadians, and Australians (~ 5.5% of world population), we would require at least 5 earths. If life on earth were a year, by March 23rd we would have overshot and destroyed the earth.

Europeans (and a few oil rich middle eastern nations) are not far behind, the earth would be destroyed by the end of May. You know, they are a far more sophisticated and cultured peoples unlike these Americans, we would only require 3 earths to sustain the “most ecologically conscious” European lifestyle.

All we see in these societies is whining, that everything has to be done by the big guys, policy paralysis, fossil fuel companies, corporate greed etc., etc., (all true), but without any level of reflection as to how a vast majority of everyday Americans (Canadians, Australians, and Europeans) perpetrate a gross and unjust world with their seemingly innocent everyday lives. There is a long laundry list of all those “seemingly innocent things” that make up our everyday lives. It’s not always top-down, we can try to change our patterns of living to change the patterns at the top too. But who wants to try, let’s point our fingers elsewhere.

2/5

#ClimateOvershootDays #GlobalWarming #Inequality #EcologicalFootprint #EcologicalCatastrophes #PoliticalEconomy #GlobalNorth #GlobalSouth #Europe #US #SouthAsia #Africa #Justice

There are many posts today about Climate Overshoot Days. August 2nd, today, is the global day for 2023 when the earth's ecosystem's ability to renew/recover itself has been overshot by "our'' consumption and destruction of it.

Think of it like the Doomsday Clock that the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists used to show how close we are to destroying the world with nuclear weapons. The double whammy of nuclear annihilation and global warming (ech boiling) looms.

How is this climate overshoot day calculated?
Climate overshoot days is estimated by multiplying the number of days in a year (365) with the ecological footprint of a nation (measured per capita as global hectares) divided by the “global biocapacity” of 1.6 global hectares (Gha) per person. This global biocapacity limit, defined as of 2018, ensures we are living "sustainably", i.e., like decent human beings ought to. If the ecological footprint is greater than the global capacity, the number we get is the number of overshoot days in a year.

Find below a summary chart of climate overshoot days.

It is a fun way to show how significant a threat “we” pose (so that the more educated and enlightened societies will ponder about it?). It’s noble, and concerned, but I don't see what actions it prompts. Maybe, I should try to cultivate optimism.

In the meanwhile, here are some facts/observations/omissions evident from that chart.

1/5

#ClimateOvershootDays #GlobalWarming #Inequality #EcologicalFootprint #EcologicalCatastrophes #PoliticalEconomy #GlobalNorth #GlobalSouth #Europe #US #SouthAsia #Africa #Justice

Sustainable living. Cartoon for Trouw: https://www.trouw.nl/opinie/spotprent~bbc70587/

#sustainability #ecologicalfootprint #lifestyle

Researchers have developed a method for the synthetic manufacture of nutritional #protein using a type of #artificialphotosynthesis. These findings can pave the way for a smaller #ecologicalfootprint in #agriculture: http://go.tum.de/848004

#foodproduction
📷O.Zellmer