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The environmental situation is bad. Really bad. In Florida, and all over the world. And toxic positivity will not help.

Dear Friends and Fellow Activists:
Recently I made a post on Facebook that came across as promoting toxic positivity and dismissing the concerns of a fellow activist who has deep, detailed knowledge and first-hand experience about the environmental and political situation in Florida.

I did not mean to promote toxic positivity, and did not mean to dismiss the feelings of this fellow activist, and others who are very knowledgeable about the situation and have deep first-hand experience.

I have removed the post wherever I could access it, and I apologize for being careless and insensitive in my communication. (I will be apologizing to the person(s) directly as well.)

We are all in this together. And we all care about the environment, and are working hard to fix the problems. But the fact is, our efforts may not succeed, for a variety of reasons. It may be too late. And we always have to acknowledge that possibility.

The situation is extremely bad. And despair, hopelessness, anger, frustration, and any number of other “negative” feelings are not an inappropriate response to that reality. I myself feel all those things on a constant daily basis.

“ReTuna Återbruksgalleria is the world’s first recycling mall, revolutionizing shopping in a climate-smart way. Old items are given new life through repair and upcycling. Everything sold is recycled or reused or has been organically or sustainably produced.”

Love this!

I actually think things like this can be a key part of (re)development in our cities & counties, and that they will attract tourists as well as helping to address basic local waste issues.

As a bonus: The more cool interesting development like this we are able to make happen, the more effectively we inoculate ourselves against undesirable massive projects from outsiders who don’t really have a stake in the wellbeing of our community.

Especially as a coastal community, something like this would be a wonderful addition. I would like to see it in one of the empty endless store fronts on the A1A even! Or maybe Main Street.

It would spawn an array of crafts people and artisans I’m sure!

BTW there is a similarly oriented establishment in Austin Texas, known as Austin Creative Reuse.

They offer fun DIY workshops in addition to taking in “waste” materials and selling upcycled one-of-a-kind items.

No matter how was the rest of the week goes, this is already an amazing week.

1) A highly influential, solidly middle-class fellow Boomer of my acquaintance shared an environmental post when I asked her to please share it publicly on her own page instead of just sharing it w me by DM. This helps contribute to the normalization /de-marginalization of environmental stuff.

2) We now know for sure that Guantánamo Ron is not going to get into the White House in 2024. Yes, other challenges lie ahead most certainly, but that’s one big worry cleared out of the way.

3) I found a couple of really cool ethical micro-investments, helping tiny businesses and creative ventures. A comedy horror film about the service industry; and a café that has long served as a safe space for LGBTQIA people and the kink community.

4) I am hand-sewing a really cool bag out of upcycled junk fabric scraps right now!

5) Probably there’s some other stuff too. It just feels like a happy happy Monday. Hope things are going well in your world too!!

A fellow author commented that they cannot do audiobooks because they can’t concentrate on the audio. Same here.

Yes, people take in information differently. I can’t do audiobooks. (Video news/documentaries either. I find it much easier to read print than wade through a video, even a short video.)

Myself, I am a lifelong, ride-or-die fan of the printed word. Whether the “printed” word is on actual paper or on a screen.

Of course I have a special place in my heart for a physical printed book. However, the availability of ebooks and digitized periodicals on the screen has been extremely life-changing for me as far as enabling me to access much more reading material. So I can deal with the screens as well as the paper!

But, even though I prefer to read visually, I am learning that huge numbers of people greatly prefer audiobooks. And some people would not read a book if it were not available via audio. So I have become a supporter of audiobooks too.

I’m really glad that both print books and audio books are available! For the sake of everyone who loves words and reading.

Just now I did think of another angle to consider. A lot of people are using audiobooks on their long commutes. I am in favor of anything that maximizes time for learning and enjoyment.

(I’m still against long commutes, however. We need to fix our public transportation system, and also retrofit more neighborhoods with the stores, local jobs, and other basics that would enable people to navigate their daily life without having to sit in traffic for hours and hours every day.)

One factor I’m not sure of is eco footprint. The eco footprint of making/shipping a print book versus making and electronically delivering an audiobook. But I wouldn’t want people to not be able to access words just because audio might have a higher footprint. Besides, printing and mailing physical books surely has an enormous footprint. I have a feeling it’s about the same. I will look into this and if I find out something else I will let you know.

Speaking of eco footprint: One thing I will say about reading e-books on my phone, it doesn’t require a light to be turned on in the room, because the book and the flashlight are combined in one unit!

First, let me start off by saying that I find the term “side hustle” extremely obnoxious. For one thing, it’s such an artifact of hamster-wheel capitalism.

For another thing, often people’s “side hustles” are far more joyful and meaningful to them, more enriching to their neighborhoods/communities, and better for the planet than the main “J-O-B” they feel forced to keep just to scrape by and pay the bills. My goal is for more people to be able to turn their beloved “side hustles” into their main occupation, instead of having to toil most of the week at some much less fulfilling “main job.”

(If you love your “main job” too, this does not apply to you. Unless you are starting to feel like your main job is bad for the planet and you want to pursue a more regenerative livelihood.)

So I’m not keen on the phrase “side hustle.” But, there is the advantage that when I use this phrase, most of you probably know what I mean.

Also, there is a chance that my use of this term in the title of a blog post might capture some algorithm or other and catapult my microblog into mass popularity. (Not that I necessarily need or want this little niche blog to be catapulted into mass popularity — that has its own hazards. But this cozy little moss-grown pond of a word-tank going viral might serve the greater good, and at the end of the day I am out to serve the greater good.)

To be continued … (I am writing on the fly from one of my ad hoc micro offices. Talk with you again very soon!)

“A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, “This is not just.” It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, ‘This is not just.’ The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.”
— Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Dr. King’s speech “Beyond Vietnam — A Time to Break Silence” (delivered 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City) is as relevant today as ever. Maybe more than ever.

https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm

Speaking out against #classism #colonialism #militarism is very much relevant to #degrowth and #environmentaljustice. We can’t only do some of this work; we need to do it all.

PS. And, some more essential reading: 6 Speeches and Works that Honor the Full Legacy of MLK (Nicole Cardoza; Antiracism Daily).

What a coincidence! Was just talking with a client about drawers full of old cell phones etc. Turns out they are needed STAT!! We can all be eco heroes. 😉

“Rare Earth Metals May Be Lurking in Your Junk Drawer

“And that’s a good thing. They’re critical for renewable energy, and a new study says recovering them from old cellphones and other waste could help meet the demand. …

” … reusing or recycling rare earth metals from old cellphones, hard drives, electric motors and turbines could meet as much as 40 percent of the demand for the metals in the United States, China and Europe by 2050. …

“The idea of reusing or recycling rare earths isn’t new. In the 1980s, Japanese researchers coined the term urban mining to describe collecting rare metals from discarded appliances and electronic devices, rather than from the earth.”

Read the New York Times article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/20/climate/rare-earth-recycling.html

PS. I would further go on to suggest that we can rather easily reduce demand for these materials by 60%. I say this based on my observation of how much excess stuff we buy and keep around, often unused. Therefore, if it’s true that the stuff in our drawers can meet 40% of current demand, maybe it could meet 100% of future demand in a society that has made downward adjustments appropriate to the carrying capacity of ecosystems, and the well-being of people and other living beings all around the planet.