Bits of Hope

I've been watching the forest regrow on my property over the past 2 years and it fills me with so much hope.




During the pandemic I had an existential crisis about the planet and was like "wtf am I doing with my life" so I bought some relatively cheap land in the middle of a wildfire burn scar and have been working on building hiking trails, documenting all of the species, making camping sites, and doing habitat restoration by building terraces and beaver dam analogues

When I go down into the valley there are so many flowers you can hear the buzz of thousands of pollinators all around you. Some honey bees (meh), but also a lot of bumble bees and wild native bee species

If you stay there until dusk you hear the buzz turn into an eerie whisper as the bees go to sleep and the moths get to work

The dark silhouettes of bats flying above me against a dark blue and magenta sky

Nature is still out there, just find it and cherish it and take care of it

FIREFLY TIPPED 101 CORAL FOR THIS POST

I also have the spicy opinion that land use changes driven by industrialization have played a larger role in changing the climate than carbon dioxide emissions alone. And regenerative agriculture has the capacity to feed everyone while simultaneously giving back to native ecosystems, sequestering carbon, and directly cooling the planet by providing shade and humidity

Nearly 90% of all the water used in Colorado is used for agriculture, only 5% is used by cities and 5% is used by industry. It's fucking insane

Source: https://waterknowledge.colostate.edu/water-management-administration/water-uses/

They just spray a ton of water on some corn & whatever the fuck and then chop it down every year and let the ground completely dry out and leave it as a barren dry desert for 6 months



Imagine if that water was being used for like, I dunno, growing trees and creating ecosystems??? And also some corn still obviously. But wtf.

I also have the spicy opinion that land use changes driven by industrialization have played a larger role in changing the climate than carbon dioxide emissions alone. And regenerative agriculture has the capacity to feed everyone while simultaneously giving back to native ecosystems, sequestering carbon, and directly cooling the planet by providing shade and humidity

Nearly 90% of all the water used in Colorado is used for agriculture, only 5% is used by cities and 5% is used by industry. It's fucking insane

Source: https://waterknowledge.colostate.edu/water-management-administration/water-uses/

u prob aware of this, but they thing the desertification of the sahara followed human agriculture

allegedly the entire sahara was once jungle so thick that you could walk for a day without seeing the sun

im all for cutting canals across the sahara from the ocean just right across the desert, and dredging out salt as the water evaporates

i'm aware that it would cost billions of dollars, but if i were an elon musk that's what I'd do

https://justdiggit.org/

This organization has been digging holes in Africa for the past several years, working with local people & seed banks to dig holes and plant native grass species. The results have been impressive, turning completely degraded deserts back into lush grasslands.






https://justdiggit.org/what-we-do/landscape-restoration/water-bunds/