If you're feeling anxious or depressed about the climate and want to do something to help right now, from your bed, for free...
Start helping with citizen science projects
What's a citizen science project? Basically, it's crowdsourced science. In this case, crowdsourced climate science, that you can help with!
You don't need qualifications or any training besides the slideshow at the start of a project. There are a lot of things that humans can do way better than machines can, even with only minimal training, that are vital to science - especially digitizing records and building searchable databases
Like labeling trees in aerial photos so that scientists have better datasets to use for restoration.
Or counting cells in fossilized plants to track the impacts of climate change.
Or digitizing old atmospheric data to help scientists track the warming effects of El Niño.
Or counting penguins to help scientists better protect them.
Those are all on one of the most prominent citizen science platforms, called Zooniverse, but there are a ton of others, too.
Oh, and btw, you don't have to worry about messing up, because several people see each image. Studies show that if you pool the opinions of however many regular people (different by field), it matches the accuracy rate of a trained scientist in the field.
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I spent a lot of time doing this when I was really badly injured and housebound, and it was so good for me to be able to HELP and DO SOMETHING, even when I was in too much pain to leave my bed. So if you are chronically ill/disabled/for whatever reason can't participate or volunteer for things in person, I highly highly recommend.
Next time you wish you could do something - anything - to help
Remember that actually, you can. And help with some science.
---via @reasonsforhope
Yup, these are actually *really* important. And a small bit of work helps, so it’s doable even if you’re snowed under with survival work or in too much pain to concentrate for longer periods.
It’s multiply-checked by more than one person, so don’t worry about fucking it up because your concentration is fucked. Your input is valuable but not the only input.
I find Zooniverse very good, and it does Citizen Historian work too - I spent time digitising concentration camp records because a) families still don’t know what happened to some of their loved ones b) this makes the records available for historians without travelling to archives in person, which I can testify is *invaluable* for disabled historians and helps cut the need for overseas travel to do vital historical work.
It unexpectedly helped me with learning how to decipher premodern handwriting too, which proved really useful in my academic stuff. You *will* pick up valuable skills doing this. Put it on your CV.
---via @enbycrip
Other places you can go to do citizen science, from the notes
(Thanks to everyone who left these in the notes! If you know more, put them in the notes, and I might add them! And ty @enbycrip for the fantastic addition that covered a bunch of details I didn't get to)
Apps/Websites
- eBird (birds)
- Merlin (birds)
- citizenscience.gov (big project database, US-based)
- iNaturalist (nature)
- MapSwipe (collaboration between several Red Cross organizations and Doctors Without Borders, update vital geospatial data)
- Smithsonian archives (transcriptions, many subjects)
- Cornell Bird Lab (birds)
- FoldIt (folding proteins)
- Fathomverse (sea animals)
- Project Monarch (butterflies)
In person
- Bioblitz (nature)
- Species watch (species)
- Audobon Society (birds)
Also:
Even if you don't have time to spend, but do have some processor cycles to spare, check out the projects available at BOINC's Compute for Science: https://boinc.berkeley.edu/
Bringing this back for the inauguration.
Don't spiral or doomscroll. Take a breath.
Then do something to help - both the world and yourself.
---via @reasonsforhope
Hi! conservation scientist here! These are extremely helpful, especially the projects where you help ID species in camera traps! This can greatly help field sites work with local authorities to try to protect the land. By providing evidence of how diverse and active of an ecosystem there is living in a space (ESPECIALLY if one or more endangered species congregates), field scientists, local community environmentalists, and conservation minded politicians are able to better work together to try to protect natural spaces on a GLOBAL scale!
And you can do this with no background in conservation! We are all dying to get the public more involved in conservation (it takes all of us!) and these programs almost all have trainings on how to use them!
---via @notyonatto
give yourself a sense of place and time. rotate your wardrobe when the weather changes. update your playlists every month. write down three things you did today. do it everyday. message your friends good morning. buy yourself different flavours of tea based on your mood, the packaging, the weather, your heart. save the little paper labels; stick them in your notebook until the inside cover is full of little colored tags. have it hot in the winter. have it cold in the summer. learn to make apple cider, raspberry cordial. spend the summer knitting a scarf for the colder months. spend the winter sewing loose flowy blouses for the summer. open the windows, five minutes a day if it's cold, all day if it's warm. give yourself a sense of place and time and weather.
---via @serviceberries
the cruel choice between pdf (free) vs physical copy (annotatable)
---via @mityenka
and pdf (searchable) vs physical copy (read on couch away from screens)
---via @ghostingrose
A major pattern I've noticed in my depression is that the less I do, the less I do. It's a downward cyclical thing. I feel better when I make myself be productive (not Productive(tm) just like, taking a walk, tidying things around my house, going out). I feel worse when I sit and do nothing but scroll on my phone. But the more I sit and do nothing, the harder it gets to do anything. I've been trying to break the habit with a more structured routine where I take a walk every morning (even when I don't feel like it) just to get myself moving for the day, and it really helps.
---via @eldritchbauble
Try and get up and brush your teeth! Get your day started! Or even if you go back to bed, at least your mouth won't feel like something died in it. And you can feel good about doing one thing to take care of yourself.
---via @brosser-les-dents
something has gone deeply wrong when "focusing pragmatically on issues you can influence and working to make life better for yourself and your community" is considered an unserious distraction while "endlessly exposing yourself to media about distressing situations you can't control" is considered political engagement
---via @comedownstairsandsayhello
#i have been having MANY conversations about this with both clinicians and clients in therapy recently #vicarious trauma is a real thing and exposing yourself to atrocities because of the idea of 'bearing witness' does nothing #but create burnout and secondary PTSD and reduce the body of people actually able to engage in effective activism #identify one thing you want tp help with. start there #the brain does not understand 'i signed 50 petitions online' as progress #It does understand 'i picked up trash out of the river and now the river is clean'
---via @noswordinourlake
like did you know you can just do paper mache whenever with flour water and scrap paper. you can decorate fabric by painting it with a bleach + water solution and it can be of whatever you want. you can make yarn out of old t shirts. the world is full of wonders
---via @canonkiller
as someone who has been involved in union organizing through my dad's union since i was literally in second grade, the way that people on tumblr think unions work drives me literally insane
unions do so much more than just strike. unions bargain. unions sit in at meetings with upper management. unions help people navigate benefits. unions coordinate aid drives for disabled members. my union ran a donations campaign for me for the interim between the end of my allotted paid leave and my disability claim
"unionize your workplace" means so much more than "talk to your coworkers about striking." you gotta actively know what a union is and what a union isn't before you can form one. calls to unionize should lead to more people learning their rights and learning how unions work, and coordinating with orgs like seiu and the teamsters and the aft (and if you don't know what those are, look them up).
---via @sadhoc
My union found me a legal expert to help me check over my last redundancy settlement for free, provided private medical cover whilst I was unemployed, and negotiated a good deal on cheap insurance for their members. It is so much more than strikes.
---via @electricpentacle
Forming a Union at a Non-Union Workplace - worker.gov
Form a Union - AFL-CIO
self care checkpoint!
hi friend! here's a little reminder to:
- drink water ♡
- eat a snack or your next meal!
- lay down if you need to
- get up and stretch if you need to
- take a break or go to sleep if you're tired!
- be kind to yourself if you can't do anything these things right now. it's not your fault. you're not failing.
you matter, and i'm glad that you're here. i believe in you, no matter what. ♡
---via @neuroticboyfriend
The 40 hour work week isn't good for anyone. We know this, both on a gut level and from empirical research.
However
There are people, the majority of people in fact, who go through their 40 hour jobs and then come home, make dinner, and do something with their evening that is enjoyable and not just a dead-eyed zone out. They spend time with family or friends, play with pets or kids, engage in hobbies, or even just sit and enjoy media actively.
When they talk about how much it sucks to go to work, it's a kind of general grumbling (because again, nobody likes the current system).
If you approach going to work and feel like you might just die if you have to go in again. If you come home after work and can't do anything except stare blankly at the TV or your phone. If you can barely make dinner or keep your house clean. If you feel like you're actually drowning all the time and have no ability to actively engage in any enriching activities outside of work.
That's not just the general shittiness of the system. That's a sign that you have a mental or physical health issue that's being compounded by the system. It's a sign of disability.
The medical system where you are may suck donkey balls, but there's a lot you can do just by tracking your symptoms and trying to figure out what's going on. And if you can get medical help, you can vastly improve the quality of your life, even if you can't get out of the system.
---via @ramshacklefey
cw: U.S. government transphobia
So I just read (through tears) the disgusting executive order "Defending Women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government". I'm asking for help if anyone wants to join me.
They've already removed every webpage from whitehouse.gov that had anything to do with gender equality, and I imagine will enforce the removal of the specific pages listed in the EO across other .gov sites and anything else they find.
For the last several years we were told that "anything you put on the web will be there forever" and we're learning if you have enough money and power that can be changed.
I'm starting to archive resources and documents on an external hard drive in an attempt to maintain records of resources for LGBTQIA+ individuals. I'm keeping it out of the cloud to ensure no one can cut me off from accessing it. I'm utilizing archive.org to save the items listed in the EO and resources across the web at the larger organizations that may be targeted directly.
We learned with the shutting down of TikTok that our information can be turned off and VPNs won't work (if the account was created in the US it got turned off so VPNs didn't get us around that). After personally being hit hard from a security breach at work in January of 2023, I've learned, the hard way, that having physical copies of everything is critical.
We're going to need to create a physical copies of things. We're going to need to go back to creating zines, creating leaflets, to handing a physical document to someone to spread information. If anyone wants to help me, we could create a discord or even a tumblr community since this app is kind of flying under the radar at the moment.
I support us using Jeanne Scheper's Five Key Principles: Towards a Critical Zine-Making Ethos in the journal article "Zine Pedagogies: Students as Critical Makers":
- Repurposed Productivity
- Critical Recycling
- Anti-Copyright
- World-Making
- DIY Skill-Sharing
They can erase legislative progress but they can't erase us.
Want to help but don’t know where to start?
In this modern digital age we’ve grown accustomed to easily accessing and sharing information with the click of a button. This is something that we’re seeing can be taken for granted. Webpages removed, social media access turned off, digital media we’ve purchased but lost access to. We’ve been forced behind walls, within apps, behind barriers that can vanish with the flick of a server switch.
Start archiving so it can’t be lost forever. But we need to think smaller. Target your city’s resources, not the entire country’s.
- Pirate that digital media, babe, but also save a physical copy of it, CDs, DVDs, etc. I’m using an external hard drive to save pdfs, files, music, movies, etc. It can be used offline and shared with others.
- Buy the physical book. Digital copies can be removed from digital libraries even if you purchased it. Also, read Farenheit 451.
- Volunteer and financially support the orgs that support and protect marginalized communities. Don’t overwhelm their systems by bombarding with what can I do emails, check out their socials/website for volunteer opportunities and direct needs.
- Check out volunteermatch.org and idealist.org for nonprofit job and volunteer postings.
- Connect with your friends, build a solid group of people you trust locally, that you can support/engage/empower. POCs have been saying this for ages, and many of us have been taking it for granted, but community (local, physical) is how we'll get through this. Do you have someone you can call who would bring you soap/toilet paper/rice/detergent if you needed it?
- Get familiar with physical maps. Having a list of local resource centers marked and mapped out can be printed, copied, and shared with people who need it. Out-of-state visitors may need your help navigating around and staying off the grid. These maps could be invaluable in helping someone be safe.
- Full boomer mode: write down important phone numbers and passwords. I know you have a fancy ass journal that’s empty, use it for something important.
- Start saving/archiving pdf versions of resources listed on websites. I’m starting with gender/trans orgs first. Example: Trans Lifeline
- Create a list of organizations that support or serve marginalized communities within your city. The IRS has master lists of exempt (nonprofits/foundations/etc) for each state that you can start with. FYI this is a huge data clean up/undertaking but could be divvied up amongst friends or if you know a data engineer who can build out a Python/webcrawl query it would help. I suggest filtering out Foundation codes: 10, 11, 13, 14, 17, 18. Then filter out orgs with any faith-based keywords. Benefit of the doubt can not be where you place you or your friends’ safety during this time. Locate orgs with marginalized community keywords. Utilize Guidestar to search orgs to see what communities they serve.
DO NOT SAVE ANY OF THIS IN THE CLOUD AND EXPECT IT TO BE THERE.
Redundancy does not matter. Just because 10 other people in your city might also be saving information does not matter. Is the existence of 1 physical book good enough? Or would 1000 copies of that book be better? We’re removing the barriers to information and knowledge that the control of internet access may take away from us. I’d rather save it and not need it than lose access to it and desperately wish I’d had it.
watch this tiktok for more suggestions including what books/tv shows/movies/video games to check out. The vid is nearly 10 min long so the file is too large to upload here.
Add your suggestions to keep the ball rolling.