reblamb

Alaskan, gardener/subsistence. Naturalist. Wife, Mom, Grandma. Loves talk story time and coffee.

[Cory Booker @CoryBooker]

Making America Sick.

[CanadianClub @CanadianClub]

@Acyn Knock Knock. Do you have any critical minerals?

[Give A Shit About Nature @giveashitnature]

A great whale sequesters about as much carbon as 1,000 trees when it dies, sinking to the seafloor and becoming its own ecosystem for decades. But the work it does while alive is bigger.

Whales dive deep to feed, surface to breathe and defecate, and in doing so, pump iron and nitrogen from the deep ocean up to where phytoplankton can use it.

Phytoplankton produce about half of Earth's oxygen and absorb enormous quantities of CO2. Healthy whale populations make that system more productive than it would otherwise be.

[reblamb @reblambourn]

@jabberworks Is this Cannon Beach?

[reblamb @reblambourn]

@jabberworks Yes they are!

[Ricardo @Ric_RTP]

Neil deGrasse Tyson just revealed that we're building a trap around Earth that could switch off the modern world.

And every major country is making it worse on PURPOSE.

Right now there is a land grab happening a few hundred miles above your head:

SpaceX alone has already put more than 10,000 Starlink satellites into orbit. Around 5,000 objects went up in 2025, and even more are planned this year.

By 2040, there could be 100,000 active satellites circling the planet.

Every major nation is trying to claim its share and there are almost NO laws governing any of it.

Tyson describes the current state of space as a wild west.

So why should you care?

The hidden trap:

In 1978, a NASA scientist named Donald Kessler ran a calculation that space agencies have feared ever since.

He found there is a threshold. Once you pack enough satellites into orbit, a single collision stops being an accident and becomes a chain reaction.

How it works:

Objects in orbit travel at roughly 17,000 miles per hour, which is FASTER than a rifle bullet. At that speed, even a fleck of paint hits with the force of a bullet.

So when two satellites collide, they shatter into thousands of pieces, and every single piece becomes a hypersonic bullet of its own.

Each of those pieces can strike another satellite, which explodes into thousands more. One collision becomes ten. Ten become a hundred. A hundred become a thousand.

Tyson warns that within just a few orbits, this cascade could wipe out close to 100% of the satellites around Earth.

Now think about what those satellites run...

There is no GPS without them, which means no Google Maps, no ride-sharing, and no navigation. As Tyson put it, there is no Uber without GPS.

There is no high-speed internet for ships, planes, remote towns, or entire militaries. There is no reliable weather forecasting and no global financial timing.

The invisible backbone of modern life runs through a few thousand machines in orbit, and we are stacking them closer together every year with no traffic rules and no cleanup crew.

And it has already begun:

Four countries have already blown up their own satellites just to flex their military power. The US, China, Russia, and India have all done it, and every one of those tests scattered thousands of fresh bullets into orbit.

Tyson even joked that if aliens ever came to visit, they took one look at the cloud of junk we wrapped around our own planet and decided it was not worth the risk to land.

Every player already knows the danger. The problem is that the same logic that fills the sky also traps everyone inside it.

Starlink is worth a fortune. Global satellite internet is worth a fortune. Military control of orbit is priceless. So everyone keeps launching, because the first one to stop simply hands the lead to a rival.

No country will slow down, because no law forces them to and there is no reward for going first.

So we keep running the same experiment on the one thin layer of space that every phone, map, market, and military on Earth depends on. We are simply betting that nobody triggers the first big collision.

The scary part is that it only has to happen ONCE.

We spent decades dreaming about everything we would build out in space but we may end up locked underneath the garbage we left there instead.

This is easily the best interview Steven Bartlett has done in a while.

[cow @cowincrisis]

tf did he do???

[MP Arizona☀️🏳️‍🌈💙🌵🐕🐕‍🦺🫂💦🏜🐟🌴🎙🌎🌻♍️🌊 @AzPetrich]

Seems like a good time to remind everyone that the United States Women's National Soccer Team has won 4 World Cups.

[reblamb @reblambourn]

@Emolclause @ElaineChao Duh

[reblamb @reblambourn]

@nytimes @TheAthleticFC The trumptaint

[Brian Krassenstein @krassenstein]

My July 5th Diatribe after Returning from Europe again:

The weirdest thing about leaving America is realizing how much of America is just a sales pitch.

You spend your whole life hearing “greatest country on Earth,” then you go overseas and see clean trains, safer streets, affordable medicine, cities where people can walk without playing Frogger with an SUV, and workers who take vacations without acting like they committed treason.

And then you come home.

You come home to potholes, medical debt, school shooting drills, $17 airport sandwiches, people living in tents under highways, politicians wearing flag pins (or worse, gun pins) while doing absolutely nothing for the people standing in food bank lines, and billionaires being treated like they’re the fragile ones.

And somehow we’re all supposed to stand there, hand over heart, and pretend this is normal.

I don’t hate America. I hate what America has been taught to tolerate.

I hate that we call basic things “radical.” Healthcare? Radical. Paid leave? Radical. Clean air? Radical. Kids not getting shot in math class? Somehow political.

Meanwhile, the loudest “patriots” are usually the same people telling struggling Americans to shut up, stop complaining, and be grateful.

Grateful for what? A flag doesn’t pay rent. A bald eagle doesn’t cover insulin. Fireworks don’t fix bridges. And chanting “USA” doesn’t make a broken system less broken.

America has incredible people. That’s the tragedy. The people are better than the system they’ve been forced to defend.

So no, I’m not going to call America the greatest country on Earth just because it has the best marketing department.

Real patriotism isn’t pretending the country is perfect.

Real patriotism is being angry that it isn’t, and blaming minorities and immigrants for your own piece of shit life that you created.

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

U.S. farmers are intentionally flooding their fields to revive ancient "prairie potholes," creating temporary "pop-up" wetlands that deliver a huge boost to migratory birds while improving soil health.

In regions like California's Central Valley and the Mississippi Delta, innovative programs—most notably BirdReturns (launched by The Nature Conservancy in 2014)—pay farmers to strategically flood low-lying or post-harvest fields at precise times during bird migrations. These short-term wetlands mimic the natural prairie potholes and seasonal marshes that once dotted the landscape but were largely drained for agriculture.

By timing floods to align with peak migration periods (e.g., spring and fall for shorebirds, waterfowl, and sandhill cranes), farmers provide essential stopover habitat: shallow water, mudflats, and abundant food for millions of birds traveling along flyways like the Pacific Flyway. The approach has transformed tens of thousands of acres of working farmland into critical refueling stations, with studies showing dramatic increases in bird use and numbers—sometimes 3.5 times higher in these managed pop-up wetlands compared to standard fields.

Farmers also gain practical benefits. Seasonal flooding enhances soil structure, boosts nutrient cycling (as bird activity and water help break down residues), recharges groundwater, reduces erosion, and supports long-term land productivity—often without hurting crop yields in subsequent seasons.

This win-win model proves that modern agriculture and wildlife conservation can reinforce each other, turning productive farmland into flexible ecological assets that sustain both birds and resilient farming systems.

[The Nature Conservancy. BirdReturns: Creating Dynamic Habitat for Migratory Birds. The Nature Conservancy California]

[Ben See @ClimateBen]

Another sign of rapid minor mass extinction..

See thread:
https://t.co/jbfUMod36R

[Give A Shit About Nature @giveashitnature]

The greatest trick coffee pod companies ever pulled was convincing people to pay more for cheap coffee wrapped in trash.

Tens of billions of single-use coffee pods and capsules are used every year. Many are made from mixed plastic, foil, aluminum, filters, lids, and wet coffee grounds, which makes them annoying or impossible to recycle through normal curbside systems. Even the 'recyclable' ones often require special collection programs most people don't have easy access to.

The pod gives you one cup of coffee, then leaves behind a tiny piece of manufactured garbage that may outlive you.

A French press, drip maker, moka pot, pour-over, percolator, or reusable pod can make coffee every morning without throwing away a plastic capsule every time you wake up. The grounds can go in your compost.

This is one of those environmental swaps that is not complicated. You don't need a lifestyle overhaul. You don't need to become a coffee snob. You just need to make the switch.

[Rick Wilson @TheRickWilson]

This is fantastic!

[reblamb @reblambourn]

@mcuban @elonmusk We didn’t choose 401 k’s, foisted on us when pensions were destroyed. Way to go Bush

[M.S @MalaakSafa]

Remember: every person needs clean water to survive. No one needs AI-powered mass surveillance to survive.

[Give A Shit About Nature @giveashitnature]

Don't buy butterfly bush. Plant butterfly weed instead.

Butterfly bush (Left) is native to China. It produces 40,000 seeds per flower spike with germination rates above 80%, and is now listed as invasive in over 25 states. It feeds adult butterflies nectar but is host to essentially no native caterpillars. You're feeding the adults and starving the babies.

Butterfly weed (Right) is a native milkweed. It hosts monarch caterpillars at every life stage and supports 100+ other native pollinators. It doesn't spread aggressively, fits in any sunny garden bed, and survives drought easily once established.

Planting non-native nectar plants without native host plants is what entomologists call an "ecological trap." It looks like a butterfly garden but it functions as a dead end.

[reblamb @reblambourn]

@Pontifex @Heidi_Cuda Wealth is a personal sense of “place” , the sacred land, pubic commons, community, and service, and loving family.