It was gut-wrenching when I realized that many people alive today have never seen a truly mature tree up close.

In the Eastern USA, only tiny remnants of old-growth forest remain; all the rest, over 99%, was clear-cut within the last 100-150 years.

Most tree species here have a lifespan of 300-500 years—likely longer, since extant examples of truly old trees are so rare, there is limited ability to study them. In a suburban environment, almost all of the trees you see around you are mere saplings. A 50 year old oak tree is a youth only beginning its life.

The forest where I work is 100 years old; it was clear cut around 1920. It is still so young.

When I dig into the ground there, there is a layer about an inch thick of rich, plush, moist, fragrant topsoil, packed with mycelium and light and soft as a foam mattress. Underneath that the ground becomes hard and chalky in color, with a mineral odor.

It takes 100 years to build an inch of topsoil.

That topsoil, that marvelous, rich, living substance, took 100 years to build.

I am sorry your textbooks lied to you. Do you remember pictures in diagrams of soil layers, with a six-inch topsoil layer and a few feet of subsoil above bedrock?

That's not true anymore. If you are not an "outdoorsy" person that hikes off trail in forests regularly, it is likely that you have never touched true topsoil. The soil underlying lawns is depleted, compacted garbage with hardly any life in it. It seems more similar to rocks than soil to me now.

You see, tilling the soil and repeatedly disturbing it for agriculture destroys the topsoil layer, and there is no healthy plant community to regenerate it.

The North American prairies used to hold layers of topsoil more than eight or nine feet deep. That was a huge carbon sink, taking carbon out of the atmosphere and storing it underground.

Then European colonists settled the prairie and tried to drive the bison to extinction as part of the plan to drive Native Americans to extinction, and plowed up that topsoil...and the results were devastating. You might recall being taught about the Dust Bowl. Disrupting that incredible topsoil layer held in place by 12-foot-tall prairie grasses and over 100 different wildflower species caused the nation to be engulfed in horrific dirt storms that turned the sky black and had people hundreds of miles away coughing up clods of mud and sweeping thick drifts of dirt out of their homes.

But plowing is fundamental to agricultural civilizations at their very origins! you might say.

Where did those early civilizations live? River valleys.

Why river valleys? They're fertile because of seasonal flooding that deposits rich silt that can then be planted in.

And where does that silt come from?

Well, a huge river is created by smaller rivers coming together, which is created by smaller creeks coming together, which have their origins in the mountains and uplands, which are no good for farming but often covered in rich, dense forests.

The forests create the rich soil that makes agriculture possible. An ancient forest is so powerful, it brings life to civilizations and communities hundreds of miles away.

You may have heard that cattle farming is a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions. A huge chunk of that is just the conversion of an existing forest or grassland to pasture land. Robust plant communities like forests, wetlands, and grasslands are carbon sinks, storing carbon and removing it from the atmosphere. The destruction of these environments is a direct source of carbon emissions.

All is not lost. Nature knows how to regenerate herself after devastating events; she's done so countless times before, and forests are not static places anyway. They are in a constant state of regrowth and change. Human caretakers have been able to manage ancient forests for thousands of years. It is colonialism and the ideology of profit and greed that is so destructive, not human presence.

Preserve the old growth forests of the present, yes, but it is even more vital to protect the old growth forests of the future.

@headspace-hotel thank you for your many posts about conservation. It’s because of following you that I’ve started to look at gardening, land management and resource preservation differently. When someone says “buy this and we’ll plant a tree!” I say “what kind of tree? Where are you planting it? Is it being supported after planting or are you just leaving it there?”

^usually the "we plant trees when you Buy Product" is just, like, a description of how the paper industry works.

Wood pulp used for paper is grown in huge monoculture tree farms that are harvested to be turned into pulp with the trees are like, 15-20 years old.

A company that claims to plant a new tree for every tree cut down isn't doing shit.

Someday, there will be old growth again. Old Growth, with creaking bones and wizened bark. Old, in the way so many of our myths begin long ago. I’m sure of it. We can have that world again.

We will never live to see it. Nor will our children. But this planet, these forests, are seeds worth planting.

This is what I mean when I say conservation. To preserve, and to heal, what we have damaged. It is difficult. But we must. So that one day trees thicker than you are tall can tower over native plant life, gracefully watching over wetland, meadow, plain—anything and everything—

And be Old again.

AND THERE WAS A CRACK IN THE WALLS OF MY PRISON 👏 AND 👏THROUGH 👏 IT 👏 I 👏 SAW 👏 A 👏 TREE 👏

It’s solar and wind and tidal and geothermal and hydropower.

It’s plant-based diets and regenerative livestock farming and insect protein and lab-grown meat.

It’s electric cars and reliable public transit and decreasing how far and how often we travel.

It’s growing your own vegetables and community gardens and vertical farms and supporting local producers.

It’s rewilding the countryside and greening cities.

It’s getting people active and improving disabled access.

It’s making your own clothes and buying or swapping sustainable stuff with your neighbours.

It’s the right to repair and reducing consumption in the first place.

It’s greater land rights for the commons and indigenous peoples and creating protected areas.

It’s radical, drastic change and community consensus.

It’s labour rights and less work.

It’s science and arts.

It’s theoretical academic thought and concrete practical action.

It’s signing petitions and campaigning and protesting and civil disobedience.

It’s sailboats and zeppelins.

It’s the speculative and the possible.

It’s raising living standards and curbing consumerism.

It’s global and local.

It’s me and you.

Climate solutions look different for everyone, and we all have something to offer.

According to Know Your Meme, on August 18th, 2005, Erwin Beekveld brought forth this work into the world. HAPPY TEN YEAR ANNIVERSARY, THEY’RE TAKING THE HOBBITS TO ISENGARD.

sheds a single tear

every august 18th my notifications break and i go, fuck, tumblr has failed me once again, but it hasn’t. it hasn’t failed me. it’s just the taking the hobbits to isengard-iversary. happy 12 years

Lil Early, but fuck it! I’m not missing it this year.

happy 18th of August everyone

Ok, so I’m a 48 y/o cis white guy in a loving hetero partnership who has (uncomfortably) passed as straight for my entire life to this point. I am not straight, though I haven’t figured out a label for myself yet, mostly just going with queer or bi, though neither feel quite right. Maybe labels aren’t necessary, but I feel like I should pick something (important point: my partner is fully aware and supportive of me).

Anyway, this is all preamble to the point of this post. I no longer want to express myself as a generic middle aged white guy. I want to dress more, well, queer. Most men’s clothing is sooooo boring. The problem is I have no idea where to find clothes that will fit me properly that is more, uh, flamboyant I guess than what I currently wear.

I live in Deep South Texas (like, keep driving south another four hours from San Antonio). I feel very limited here and honestly a little fearful of shopping in the “wrong” section of stores (it’s Texas, after all).

I’m slim, just under 6 feet, so not a hard-to-find size for regular men’s clothes anyway. But I no longer want regular men’s clothes. To be clear, I am not feeling gender dysphoric and do identify as male. I just want to be less conformist and more fabulous. I like color!

So, to sum up this rambling post, where can I get fun clothes locally or online that scream out, “I am queer!”?

**EDIT** if this comes across your feed somehow, please reblog it. I have maybe two followers and I really want advice (and a community I can be a part of—struggling a bit here with that).

if you're staying "safe" but want colors you can't go wrong with hawaiian shirts, they're not really viewed as "queer/wrong" when it comes to Texas attitudes as far as I know. But if you want to go all out, you may have to brace yourself and go to the "women's" section, or to the local equivalent of a store like Spencer's or Hot Topic.

After so many years of disliking centaurs for being impractically designed, I thought of a design that actually makes them look like functional organisms! And now I love them!!!

Their hands have two thumbs, and can be used in walking and running just like the other limbs. The smaller centaurs have dexterous toes on all of their limbs, but in the higher weight classes, gripping ability on the back four legs is sacrificed in order to better support the body while standing. The central limbs are set wider than the fore and hind limbs to prevent collision when all six are being used in locomotion.

how to kiss your tall BF

hello im maya and im making a new pinned post to be your one stop shop introduction to me/my work!!

im a fat, queer artist and author best known for my size inclusive skirts with huge pockets

as well as my my queer polyamorous fantasy/romance novel, spitfire, which im currently in the process of reworking with my editor. the original/“legacy” version is still available as a self published book on amazon, but once edits are complete i’ll be shopping it around to publishers.

and my various illustrations/drawings

important tags/links:

links to my other socials as well as some other important places can be found here

other places you might know me from include:

that one webcomic, monster pop!

the cute underwear comic

the squiddle song and haunted, which were feature on homestuck colours & mayhem and welcome to nightvale respectively

NO NO NO TUMBLR I DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES WANT TO SEE WHAT MY MUTUALS LIKED. I WANT TO SEE WHAT THEY'VE REBLOGGED. IF IT WAS WORTH SEEING THEY'LL PUT IT ON MY DASH 37 TIMES

For years I would look at posts and questionnaires about neurodivergence that takes about being so focused on something that you forgot to eat and be like, "Couldn't be me. Being hungry is so uncomfortable! Your stomach is growling and cramping? How do you ignore that?"

Then someone informed me that neurotypical people have a whole bunch of "hungry" sensations before they get to that point.....

favorite tags from the notes so far:

#throwback to that one time a platonic friend invited me to a swinger club#and his earnest reasoning was#'the buffet there is the best I have ever been to and it's so cheap we need to eat our way through the buffet together'#I didn't go but I have reliable sources that the buffet really is that good (via @notgreengardens)

#this has been the case at every single kink event i've been to#went to a fireplay demo once and it took like 45 minutes to get started because everyone was distracted by the host's pet lizard (via @glorious-spoon)

The best sex party I ever went to nearly stopped because someone taped a sheet to the back of sliding glass windows and were using dry erase markers to make diagrams. A bunch of math and physics PhD’s were helping a chemistry phd with a thorny problem and they cheered when they solved it. A board game night broke out and it was really hard to pry people away from the games, science and snacks for sex so someone put up a pole in the living room and four women started pole dancing while shouting instructions to the scientists and board game nerds.

Epic party, I think I shagged 8 women that night and I won a card game.

again.

they are trying

new shark species just discovered

@official-lucifers-child

if i told you what rhis sounded ljke i dont think youd believe me so just listen

if i told you what rhis sounded ljke i dont think youd believe me so just listen

The name of this creature is YOTAcat or POTOOcat.

This creature is a combination of Yotaka (potoo) and cat.

His true identity is one of an alien reconnaissance unit that plans to invade the earth.

His body can change its shape at will by copying other creatures and objects.

When he came to Earth, he first tried to copy the appearance of the planet's main life form.

However, the first thing he saw there was a cat. He decided that the creature was the main life form and tried to copy the cat's form.

However, by some accident, he also copied the information of Potoo, and his body became a chimera of cat and Potoo.

What was even more unexpected for these aliens was that once they copied the earth creatures, the original spirit invaded their psyche.

His spirit was about to be taken over by cats and POTOO!

The human who found the strange creature brought it home out of curiosity. Not knowing it was a vicious alien.......

I need ten yesterday

I think one of the worst things a story can be is unproblematic.

Nothing makes a story more unreadable than being able to see the author squirm apologetically for the story they actually want to write—wringing their hands and imploring the reader please, please don’t be mad, I know it’s ideologically questionable but I need you to not be mad at me!

For example: a Good King™️. It’s one thing for a story to present a fictional monarchy and ask me to root for it. It’s another thing for a story to say, hey, I know what you’re thinking—but don’t worry! I can justify this premise! I have introduced a lot of convoluted self-aware political justifications for why my king is good and likable without actually asking any risky ideological questions! These characters aren’t actually problematic! Don’t be mad at me!

Commit to the bit. Apologetic, defensive writing designed to bypass obvious criticisms often winds up offending me far more than stories that are just kind of surface-level problematic. If I’m gonna be a hater you cannot stop me; the more you insist that a character is actually a good oil tycoon because of all these exceptional situations and beyond my reproach, the more I resent you and hate your stupid book.

Second pic!

This is my favorite of the three :3. Two dangerous and beautiful sea creatures all up in each others faces. I’m both awestruck and terrified as hell of sharks… I mean, they don’t blink.

That’s weird.

This is Azure and his jellyfish bebes. He’s got a soft spot for them and has adopted like 1000 of them all over the pacific.

time for monster gays ana & velas (ocs)

Ominous..