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Example of a post promoting highly actionable change in landscaping practices. I posted this to my neighborhood group just now:

Excess Mowing on the Beachside is a serious problem! Not only environmentally but aesthetically as well.

Yes, Planting trees and other vegetation costs money, and for various reasons it can be hard to get it established.

But at the very least, we should be able to get local government entities (and FDOT if applicable) to stop excess mowing on the beachside. Including median strips, city owned lots, riverfront edges. And also get the City to start writing-up large commercial property owners for excess mowing of their large vacant lots and other empty properties.

Recommendations: Back off mowing on Beachside lots to once a month or less in winter; twice a month or less in summer. It’s actually possible to mow quite a bit less than that, but even that would be a good start in terms of flood control and heat mitigation.

We also need to start holding churches to the standard. They get the benefit of being tax-free; they need to adopt appropriate land management practices on the considerable amount of land they occupy.

You have probably seen my posts about what a lot of the Beachside used to look like, with scrub palmetto and oaks, and other naturally dense vegetation, growing everywhere.

At the very least, if vacant lots / vacant buildings are going to stay empty, they need to be carrying their freight in terms of natural green infrastructure.

We live on a barrier island, and that comes with extra responsibilities.

Besides, as more and more of us are noticing, our dune wildflowers and other dune vegetation are exquisitely beautiful! While being extremely resilient in terms of capacity to stand up to the salt air and intermittent drought and rain.

Even as I write this, excess mowing is taking place somewhere down the block, you can hear the mower. Excess mowing (as well as other intrusive practices such as scraping fallen leaves away instead of leaving them under the trees) is largely driven by social norms that have established extremely close-cut grass as the gold standard of a well-maintained lot. These social norms are now being revealed to be actively contributing to extreme weather, including the deadly drought-flooding extremes.

Also, I suspect a lot of the big property owners (and maybe even some homeowners) are excess-mowing proactively because of the outdated standard, of writing people up for “overgrown” vegetation. On the beachside, we have different conditions and need to adjust accordingly.

If we are mowing down to bare sand, that should be a red flag. I have even seen mowing services mowing actual sand! There’s no way anyone can possibly think this looks good aesthetically.

It looks like an old teddy bear that’s been worn down to the bare fabric. If I were Mother Nature right now, I would be screaming “OWWWW!!!! you are hurting me, Stop scraping my skin!!”

It’s not necessarily the grass-cutter companies’ fault. These people (largely, local young men) have to feed their families. SO — All the more reason we need to start paying them to do things in a way that helps the environment, Rather than causing harm. We homeowners can help by paying our yard guys to plant trees & shrubs, and learn how to care for them. and to do continuing education.

And, it should go without saying but people might not think of this: Even if we reduce the frequency of their mowing, we should not reduce their PAY. Maybe pay them by the month or the quarter or something but don’t let it be a reduction in their pay if they mow fewer times. That way, they are empowered to exercise their professional discretion and take care of the vegetation & soil, rather than doing excess mowing just because the only way they can get paid is for each time they mow.

The gold standard for a well-maintained vacant lot needs to be gently mowed Meadow, Savannah, Forest, or some combination of the above. Ideally we would have no vacant lots at all except on the oceanfront — But as long as these vacant lots (and empty buildings) are allowed to persist, these property owners at least need to be not actively destroying the stormwater sponge.

Some of the above may be applicable to the mainland as well, but Beachside is an extreme case because we are literally on a sand dune so we have to start here. Barrier island protects the mainland! We need to restore our SPONGE!

Go here to see the post on my Facebook DEEP GREEN page, including photos.

Hey! I like how this turned out. I was just trying to be able to leave the house without either freezing or looking like a giant 5’9″ pile of laundry [laugh], and to my pleasant surprise this turned out kinda cute! Leaving the house after being “home office zone” through a string of the cold days.

All of this you see me wearing today is from thrift, trash (“landfill diversion”), sewing needle & thread, crochet hook or all of the above!!!

#LayerUpButterCup

Pix here on my Deep Green page.

As more of us are pulling the plug on some social media, I had a thought. We can keep finding each other as long as there are ways to look each other up by our names.

Some of us are lucky enough to have unusual names that are easy to look up. (Lucky for connecting with other activists and the public, I mean. Maybe not necessarily lucky in terms of the less beneficial aspects of being highly findable.)

Some fellow ecosocial activist / educators have created pen names, so to speak. I follow a lot of people on the social media whose given-at-birth names I don’t have any idea of. They might be hard to look up if certain platforms go down. But creating a name/handle might be in one’s interest.

Regarding social media platforms, I’m staying pretty much where I am for now, but many have departed for other channels, or simply left entirely. I can’t recommend leaving entirely, unless you have 100% off-line activism. Nothing wrong with that either.

Another route is to just keep email, phone, text, and maybe a blog. All of those things are fairly low bandwidth. Although they don’t have the same reach as social media, they have their advantages.

For now, I am who I am, and I’m always findable by those who need me. My phone number has been out there for a while, I’ve had the same number since I believe 1999. But even without the phone, you can find me. There are others with my name but not many. Maybe only one other on the planet, and that one might be a bot!

Think about it! Your name — whether it’s your given name, or one you chose for yourself — can be your address. (You could also have an alternative handle; many of us in the pagan community do. My pagan handle is dragonfly.)

“Name as portable address.” Could come in handy in these times of unintended necessary mobility. Keep in touch, sweet friends!

(The following is something I posted on my personal page as a public service announcement for residents of my city, Daytona Beach Florida USA. We have relatively mild winters here but have experienced a bit of a cold spell for the past couple weeks.)

So sad to hear we still have kids who have no coat. There’s no reason for anyone to be without a coat!

So many clothing giveaways happening all the time. Also, layering is key! Don’t need a big fancy coat just need layers. All I have is nylon jacket as an over layer. It’s more than fine. Think of it as a shell.

Multiple thin layers trap air and keep us warmer than just one big thick layer.

With sweatshirts and shirts underneath. And a scarf around the neck.

A nice stretchy wool hat or other stretchy hat does a lot, as 25% of our body heat escapes through our head. Also socks. Lots of blood vessels in our feet. Take care of your head and your feet and your neck, you’ll be surprised how much warmer you feel.

I’m originally from the north, and also this is probably my 15th or 16th winter doing without heat (it started as an experiment to reduce my electric bill, and just grew from there), so I know all about layers. I walk around all winter like a giant lasagna.😉😂

Hope this helps someone! Layer up, dear people 💚🌏🦋🙏🙏🙏🧤

PS. Anyone got any spare nylon jackets, coats etc sitting around, please post & share with your neighbors group etc — adults and children both! Also hats, scarves, socks. Umbrellas too. Share share share!

PPS. Updated Thursday morning: I forgot to mention how much of a difference a wool sweater makes. Wool (which comes in various forms, such as merino wool, cashmere, etc.) makes a very perceptible difference in how warm the body feels. I was reminded this morning as we are in now in multiple days of 40s weather. I put on a wool sweater and feel much warmer instantly, than I felt yesterday when I was just wearing layers of sweatshirts.

My house is an experimental low-footprint living laboratory, where we test various things out. How to live under various conditions with minimal expense and minimal electricity etc. Today I don’t think the high is getting out of the 40s but I will be relatively comfortable thanks to layers.

Living without heat is feasible if one knows how to layer properly. No, I’m not suggesting that you should have to live without heat! But the fact of the matter is that the power does go out, and we need to know how to dress for such times. As well as be protected when we go outside.

Good-quality wool sweaters can often be found at local thrift shops for somewhat reasonable prices. The prices at thrift shops have been creeping up, but bargains do still exist.

I would like to see at the very minimum, every single child and adult in our city have at least one wool sweater and a nylon shell jacket. Plus wool socks and wool hat. (My socks and hat are synthetic and they are OK, so if you can’t find wool you can get by with synthetic.)

I got my one wool sweater a few years back, at the Derbyshire Place thrift store. It’s made of cashmere, so it’s very soft, and it’s a pretty red. My one nylon jacket was inherited from my father after he passed in 2010, and it’s old-school L.L. Bean so it should last many more years I hope. I also have one black vest made of boiled wool, got that also from the Derbyshire Place shop. I hope that shop is still around; a lot of thrift shops have been closing.

If you can find Capilene or other “performance fabric” long underwear at the thrift shops, grab it! Both tops and bottoms. Silk long underwear is good too.

I used to depend on long underwear back in the days when I was skinny and lived in places where we have colder winters than here in Daytona Beach. But really nowadays here I can get by with my wool sweater and nylon jacket plus regular old sweatshirts as layers.

The reason I keep mentioning thrift shops is
1) prices are still usually good even though they have been creeping up; &
2) the quality of new clothing nowadays (even name brands we associate with quality) is often distinctly inferior to the older garments that can be found at thrift shops.

By the way, sweatshirts and t-shirts can provide warmth but they are often made of cotton, and we have to be careful with cotton in cold weather. If it gets wet (from sweat, rain, humidity, etc.) it actually sucks heat away from the skin, making you feel colder and increasing the danger of hypothermia.

As a bonus, layers can look surprisingly stylish, even when it’s thrift clothes. The combinations of colors and textures can be very cute! Have fun creating your own warm winter look. Stay cozy!

Someone in my Facebook circles who I have a high opinion of, who has been a schoolteacher and a community activist and a lot more, was talking about how certain politicians and journalists have failed in their role to reach the public.

” … Well, as a teacher, I could have told him, and DID, that people hear this big word and their brains shut off. Sorry but it’s true. When your students are not reacting appropriately, then you step back and see where the learning stopped. It stopped at big unknown vocabulary. …”

And her observation reminded me that the same is true of how I view my own performance as a community educator/activist.

Since giving up is not an option, I will instead of giving up (“firing myself”) list some causes for educator failure (based on my own assessment of my own failure), and then adjust accordingly.

Wrong words “Repair the hydrological cycle” didn’t work, “restore the natural water cycle” didn’t work (even with all those beautiful experts’ drawings and YouTube links I shared); “puffy landscaping” somewhat got a few people’s attention

Wrong audience Talking w city commission hasn’t worked; talking w Public Works hasn’t worked; ditto talking w code enforcement. Trying to encourage private individuals to get interested in ecological landscaping has started to work somewhat.

Wrong channel City Commission meetings haven’t worked; board meetings haven’t worked; Lecture series hasn’t worked; radio hasn’t worked; neighborhood meetings so-so. My physical live demo landscaping yard has gotten some people interested; and maybe my upcoming fiction work will get some people more interested.

Also, another channel, comedy club, didn’t work so great. But that particular club is a notoriously tough audience, being mostly comics themselves. Might be worth trying other clubs; or just making humorous videos etc. Also have humorous books in the works. Including one about how to save the planet by slacking off.

Wrong tone Being too friendly and chummy hasn’t worked; being too salty hasn’t worked; being despondent might work but I’m not really willing to go there; some comedy might work – we’ll see how the book goes

Wrong domain State level no, county level no, city level no, neighborhood level so-so. General grassroots non-locational level, somewhat successful.

Wrong person In many cases, I just might not be the right person for a given message or venue. I am noticing that a number of fellow environmental activists in my region are being much more effective. And our goals are the same, so there’s no need for me to stress out if other people are accomplishing the stuff.

Wrong attitude Having a give-up attitude totally doesn’t work. Allowing myself to get frustrated with people totally doesn’t work. Plus I end up feeling bad for being mean to people. Then again, having a super upbeat attitude hasn’t necessarily been effective either. Or proposing really cool creative ideas.

Wrong leverage point(s) One might think the more effective leverage point for encouraging cities to adopt “sponge” landscaping instead of practices that turn the ground into a water-“shedder” or “sieve” would be money savings and stormwater control. After all those are life-and-death. But perhaps the most effective leverage point is just beauty and what looks good. Or more accurately, what is perceived as looking good. Actually, the hierarchy of leverage points proposed by Donella Meadows is in line with this idea. We collectively decide what’s desirable. And even if what’s widely considered beautiful and desirable is toxic and costly and ends up putting people out of their homes, it can be hard to override.

Note: none of the above tones and attitudes are fake or put on; they’re just different moods and modes that I go through and express. But then I will notice that certain things really don’t work, and some things work even less.

Onward! Giving up is not an option.

Interestingly, it seems to be the more comfortably-off demographics who give up easily and talk about wanting to leave the country etc.

And acting very theatrically distraught, talking like they are going to be in mourning for four years or whatever.

Even though they (we) are a lot more insulated from classist/racist policies and therefore would be much less likely to come to harm than so many other groups of people.

I think what it is, is that they are used to being able to buy their way out of any adversity, so they have not really developed resilience (including community-building skills).

As far as I’m concerned, it’s just another day, and we will always have work to do. Before inauguration, carry water chop wood. After inauguration, carry water chop wood.
<emoticon of lady shrugging shoulders like “meh, let’s get on with it”> #RideOrDie

Also I am copy-pasting from a FB post I made the other day. In which I expressed strong agreement with somebody who said — with regard to the escalating disasters, and the eroding insurance and government protections from same — that they actually decided to start leaning in to the dangers and hazards (not in a wild and reckless way but in a very methodical and carefully thought out way):

THIS. Same. On so many levels.

I go where I am called. Which is a big part of why I am trying to tell my fellow white boomers to stop this escape stuff. “Escaping” to other states or other countries where we will be just a bunch of entitled Karen’s. Be here now!

We are not helping anyone by trying to find the best place to escape to. And besides, there really is no place to escape to. Which you know already, if you have been paying attention to the news or even just the weather channel for the past few years or months.

Be with the people you love! Or the land you have developed an affinity for. And if you have neither, just be where you’re at, and really start cultivating community on the ground right now right here.

Please, fellow white boomers, let’s use our resources to help where we are. Sell that second house, cash out your 401k, whatever you need to do. And let’s put some muscle into this. We are all in this together.

Further exploration:

• How perfect. Desireé B Stephens newsletter in my inbox this morning, she is inviting us to 100 days of community. Here’s the link to the live if you’re not able to access them on sub stack. https://open.substack.com/pub/desireebstephens/p/day-1-of-100-days-of-community?r=2v5h8f&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true .

Here is an excerpt from Desireé’s newsletter where she introduces the “100 days of community” program:

“I recognize that many people, particularly white folks, are scared, confused, and waking up to a world that has just become starkly real. Suddenly, you find yourselves the hunted, the marginalized, and are realizing that you cannot save us—Black, Indigenous, and other people of color—because, truthfully, you haven’t yet saved yourselves.

“But that’s okay. Rest assured, you will make it through this. And the answer, as it has always been, lies in community.

“When you see the joy and resilience of Black people or the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island, what you’re witnessing is the wisdom that we not only survive but thrive. That is the energy I want to guide you toward.”

— Desireé B Stephens

I have been following Desireé for a while, for anti-racism and decolonization work. Here is the link to her “100 days of community” invitation. https://desireebstephens.substack.com/subscribe?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&coupon=6a0af51e

This has been in the news a lot lately, people leaving Facebook and Twitter in droves, for the supposedly better, fairer new platforms. The intention seems to be to stop supporting corrupt oligarchs. As well as to escape from the increasing enshittification of the existing platforms.

As for my feelings on this subject, I say we’re in an imperfect world and we have to work with what we have. As long as most of the people we want to reach, and learn from, and support economically, and build community with, are still on the “incumbent” platforms, many of us are finding we want to stay where we are. I am in this camp.

And here’s somebody who summed it up really well:

“Have any of you considered that the changes to Twitter, Meta, etc. are intentional to get you to abandon the communities you have cultivated? Communities that have shown themselves to be powerful and they intentionally make these changes to destroy our communities. They don’t care about losing money — they have enough $$. They don’t care. But WE care and WE need these spaces to stay connected. NONE of them are actually “good”. We been doing the best we can.
Block. Mute. Go”
(Transcribed from a screenshot of what appears to be a Twitter post, by feministajones. I would put a link but I can’t seem to find her account.)

And this, from Black Table Talk on Facebook:

“This app [referring to TikTok] was letting too many Black people find alternate income away from slave wages.”

Yes, it has been quite evident that TikTok has been serving that function for Black people (as well as indigenous people and other people of color), and I 1000% want to stick around for that until it is completely demolished.

This is very important to me because TikTok, for a lot of us, was a huge learning portal (and still is? for the moment, to a degree). I learned how to curate my feed to prioritize content from Black people, indigenous people, and other people of color. Learned more about USA history and society in 2 years of being on there, than in my years of history and social-studies class in school. And later on I started finding fellow like-minded white people – lefty anarchists, decolonizing permaculture ppl, etc. I use TikTok as a booster channel, for dismantling colonizer / supremacy culture.

Update: Ugh. OK, it’s official, it’s real. The TikTok ban is actually a full ban. I had heard that it was just banning app updates. Very sad and angry, and horrified. Not really surprised deep down though, the way things have been trending.

Why is TikTok banned? What’s behind the law that shuttered the app? (CBS News) (And, I really don’t buy that China is a threat in the way they are saying. Our government has always tried to get us to look at China as bad guys. Is it to deflect attention from something else closer to home, one might be tempted to wonder.)