The Human Race Must Abolish Billionaires

Solarpunk Activities for the Socially Anxious

 - Read up on the philosophical background(s) of solarpunk. I’ve got a bibliography page if you are looking for more. - Figure out which plants that are indigenous or endangered in your area. Read about their history (and if you can make seed bombs.) - Enjoy Alan Watts lecture on nature - Make a herb drying rack by using string and push pins. You can eat, burn or drink tea from the herbs. - Consider growing food from your scraps - Watch a Ted Talk on Conservation - Draw nature, real or imaginary. Take time to map out fantasy lands. (Think about it as an environmental vision board) - Consider if composting might be right for you - If you have houseplants, learn how to propagate them (or even just take the time to learn more about them…their history, and how best to care for them). If you do want to learn how to propagate, I suggest starting with succulents. They are hardy, fun, and fairly cheap. -Learn how to Talk to Trees with Charis Melina Brown - A National Geographic explainer on how trees talk to each other. - Listen to this amazing, free, nature meditation with Jessica Snow

ive said this before but as climate change ramps up faster and faster and we feel the effects more and more in our everyday lives our infrastructure and architecture is going to need radical changes, and i love building science, but its not just going to be stuff like cranking up the r-values on our houses and other passivhaus things, we have to look at resilient infrastructure like earth berming and building underground like in coober pedy to avoid heat, have to look at flood mitigation tunnels like the tokyo flood control system, have to look at stuff like staten islands seawall

no one solution is going to protect us from climate change, and no small ones either

shits gonna have to change, and not every solution is going to pan out perfectly, but we need to be able to try some pretty over the top seeming stuff

even just where i live, the seasons have dramatically changed over the last decade, old ellicott city has been wiped out by floods twice, summers are hot and humid as hell, this cant last

“Social Ecology: The notion that man must dominate nature emerges directly from the domination of man by man… But it was not until organic community relations… dissolved into market relationships that the planet itself was reduced to a resource for exploitation. This centuries-long tendency finds its most exacerbating development in modern capitalism. Owing to its inherently competitive nature, bourgeois society not only pits humans against each other, it also pits the mass of humanity against the natural world. Just as men are converted into commodities, so every aspect of nature is converted into a commodity, a resource to be manufactured and merchandised wantonly … The plundering of the human spirit by the market place is paralleled by the plundering of the earth by capital.”

— Murray Bookchin, Post-Scarcity Anarchism (via milkboydotnet)

This Week @ NASA--April 14, 2017

Cassini and the Hubble Space Telescope, two of our long-running missions, are providing new details about the ocean-bearing moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Hubble’s monitoring of plume activity on Europa and Cassini’s long-term investigation of Enceladus are laying the groundwork for our Europa Clipper mission, slated for launch in the 2020s. Also, Shane Kimbrough returns home after 171 days aboard the Space Station, celebrating the first Space Shuttle mission and more!

Ocean Worlds

Our two long-running missions, Cassini and the Hubble Space Telescope,  are providing new details about “ocean worlds,” specifically the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. 

The details – discussed during our April 13 science briefing – included the announcement by the Cassini mission team that a key ingredient for life has been found in the ocean on Saturn’s moon Enceladus. 

Meanwhile, in 2016 Hubble spotted a likely plume erupting from Jupiter’s moon Europa at the same location as one in 2014, reenforcing the notion of liquid water erupting from the moon.

These observations are laying the groundwork for our Europa Clipper mission, planned for launch in the 2020s.

Welcome Home, Shane!

Shane Kimbrough and his Russian colleagues returned home safely after spending 173 days in space during his mission to the International Space Station.

Meet the Next Crew to Launch to the Station

Meanwhile, astronaut Peggy Whitson assumed command of the orbital platform and she and her crew await the next occupants of the station, which is slated to launch April 20.

Student Launch Initiative

We’ve announced the preliminary winner of the 2017 Student Launch Initiative that took place near our Marshall Space Fight Center, The final selection will be announced in May. The students showcased advanced aerospace and engineering skills by launching their respective model rockets to an altitude of one mile, deploying an automated parachute and safely landing them for re-use.

Langley’s New Lab

On April 11, a ground-breaking ceremony took place at our Langley Research Center for the new Systems Measurement Laboratory. The 175,000 square-foot facility will be a world class lab for the research and development of new measurement concepts, technologies and systems that will enable the to meet its missions in space explorations, science and aeronautics.

Yuri’s Night

Space fans celebrated Yuri’s Night on April 12 at the Air and Space Museum and around the world. On April 12, 1961, cosmonaut Yuri Gagrin became the first person to orbit the Earth.

Celebrating the First Space Shuttle Launch

On April 12, 1981, John Young and Bob Crippin launched aboard Space Shuttle Columbia on STS-1 a two-day mission, the first of the Shuttle Program’s 30-year history.

Watch the full episode:

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

USA TODAY

Scientists created the world's whitest paint. It could eliminate the need for air conditioning.

The world's whitest paint has been created in a lab at Purdue, a paint so white that it could eventually reduce the need for air conditionin

Wake up kids, new extreme paint dropped

I… I spend a lot of time talking to my husband about climate change. 

Politics being what it is, I feel like societal change is where I can find hope.  And hey, if we all start making choices based on preparing for an oil-free world, we can actually make oil obsolete!

[On AO3]

it's weird how people will be like "but we need Suburban Lawn so kids can play outside!" as if basically every kid isn't bored to tears by being confined to a yard that's nothing but flat grass.

like have you talked to a kid, have you spent time with kids, do you remember BEING a kid? "playing outside" isn't about Throwing Ball 1000 times it's about squishing mud, using sticks as swords and guns, making potions from plants, catching bugs, climbing trees, and building forts from brush and branches.

A highly manicured lawn has nothing to offer the senses and brain of a developing child. If there are no "weeds," what are they supposed to gather to make into potions?? I'm not even joking, what do you, a child, DO in a yard without wildflowers and mud and dead branches. I feel like my brain wouldn't have developed correctly if my outdoor space growing up wasn't full of chicory and asters and dandelions.

At least video games offer some dim imitation of a variety of stimuli

Hi, I’m a homeless inventor. After I get a home I will be working on this!!!

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what if we did large-scale mutual aid. like what if everyone in a community contributed, idk, like, a percentage of their annual income into some kind of a mutual aid fund. they could appoint community leaders to allocate funding for community needs like health and other social services, rental aid, transportation to get to work and other places, maybe even for building community spaces that would be free to use. has anyone thought of this