Six talking points to use when debunking the myth that overpopulation is the root of the environmental crisis:
1. Rates of population growth are declining: Between 1950 and 2000, the world population grew at a rate of 1.76%. However, between 2000 and 2050, the rate of growth is expected to decline to 0.77%.
2. Overpopulation is defined by numbers of people, not their behaviors: Industrialized countries, who make up only 20% of the world’s population, are responsible for 80% of the carbon dioxide build-up in the atmosphere. The United States is the worst offender, with 20 tons of carbon emission per person. Therefore, it is not the amount of people that leads to degradation, but what they are doing. Permaculture design illustrates how humans can have a positive impact on the health of our ecosystems, bringing greater health and equity.
3. Overpopulation justifies the scapegoating and human rights violations of poor people, women, people of color, and immigrant communities: Often times the subtext of “too many people” translates to too many poor people, people of color, and immigrants. This idea has been used to justify such practices as the forced sterilization of 35% of women of childbearing age in 1970′s Puerto Rico, under the control of and with funding from the US government. This is a human and reproductive rights violation.
4. Overpopulation points the finger at individuals, not systems: This lets the real culprits off the hook. When we look at the true causes of environmental destruction and poverty, it is often social, political and economic systems, not individuals. We see militaries and the toxic legacy of war, corrupt governments, and a capitalist economic system that puts profit over people and the environment.
5. Supports a degenerative mental model of scarcity: Much of this ideology was created by Thomas Robert Malthus, an 19th century English scholar. Malthus gave us the erroneous idea that the reason there is famine is because there are too many mouths to feed. This hides the reality that we have a distribution problem, not a scarcity problem. Malthus’s work has been used as the philosophical bedrock to justify many human rights violations throughout history.
6. Focusing on overpopulation prevents us from creating effective solutions and building movements for collective self determination: Permaculture teaches us that how we define a problem determines how we design solutions. How does viewing overpopulation as a root problem impact the way we think of and design solutions? What would solutions look like if we viewed people, all people, as an asset? The myth of overpopulation has lead to solutions of population control and fertility treatments, rather than overall health care and women’s rights. The more we blame humans and think we are bad and evil, the harder it is to believe in ourselves, count on each other, and build a collective movement for justice and self determination.
why are star wars planets more boring than earth and our solar system like sure we’ve seen desert, snow, diff types of forest, beach, lava, rain, but like…
rainbow mountains (peru)
red soil (canada/PEI)
rings (saturn’s if they were on earth)
bioluminescent waves
northern lights (canada)
salt flats (bolivia, where they filmed crait but did NOTHING COOL WITH IT except red dust?? like??? come ON)
and cool fauna like the touch me not or like, you know, the venus flytrap.. and don’t get me started on BUGS like… we have bugs cooler than sw aliens
BASICALLY like???? come on star wars you had one (1) job where are the cool alien species
I KNOW!! I did a report on filming locations in Star Wars last year and just made a list of places that looked so surreal they could make a convincing other planet. You covered some on my list but if I could just add a couple more:
Tsingy di Bemaraha, Madagascar
Zhangye Danxia, China (similar to the Rainbow Mountains in terms of appearance)
Chocolate Hills, Philippines
Giant’s Causeway, Northern Ireland
So many missed opportunities with cool ass things on Earth, Lucasfilms smh…
Earth is effing amazing!
Quebrada de Humahuaca, Argentina
Lake Retba, Senegal
Tepui, Venezuela
Tianzi Mountains, China
these would make amazing Star Wars planets OR fantasy material:
Tsingy du Bemaraha, Madagascar again (but a different part)
(those are razor-sharp, if you were wondering. very little of this area has been explored because YIKES)
Lake Natron, Tanzania
(looks cool, but is alkaline enough to Kill Your Shit)
Lake Baikal, Russia
(the deepest lake in the world, seriously)
and I’ll wrap it up with Son Doong Cave, Vietnam, the largest cave in the entire world.
it puts anything Dagobah has to offer to absolute shame:
(seriously, the largest chamber is 660 feet high. you could jam a fucking skyscraper in there and still lose it)
anyway I really like caves thanks for coming to my ted talk
sick of waiting for the lesbian bog spirit that lives in Hozier to drop a new album? until it happens, please consider listening to Brandi Carlile. she makes amazing folk-ish music, somewhat similar to Hozier. plus, she’s a lesbian, and she writes a lot of songs about her wife and daughter.
I recommend all of her songs, but especially:
“The Stranger At My Door”, “I Belong To You”, “The Mother”, “Josephine”, and “Wilder (We’re Chained”.
ed literally CAN NOT deal with his brother stuck in a suit of armor for years and years it hurts him more than losing his limbs and automail ever could. he wishes over and over again that he could give his body to al – then he goes LIGHTBULB and so during that year that he’s recovering he studies and studies and they all think it’s to get al’s body back but not quite.
and like 6 months in he’s like okay i think ive figured it out and he can kinda stand and walk around and what not so he’s like al cmere im going to try something. they’re all like ????? and ed tugs down his pants and on his hip is a scar. a very familiar, precise scar. ed had carved al’s seal into his flesh then let it heal and done it again again until it had scarred just like he’d wanted it to. winry screams and threatens to strangle him and ed is like ‘pls stop’ and al gets it then and if he could cry he would and he asks ed over and over again if he’s sure and ed just tells him to shut up, claps his hands together and presses them to al’s seal
then next thing he knows he’s staring down at himself and the first thing he says is “i am short” and is immediately horrified and the first thing al does is throw himself down on the ground to feel grass between his fingers and hugs winry to feel skin and now he is crying because he can
and so this is how they survive this, by sharing ed’s body between them. ed tried to say it should be 50/50 but al refused so ed is in his own body for 2 weeks then al is in it for 1 week and they don’t tell anyone because they’re not insane. and when ed’s sleeping weird places or eating a ton it’s actually usually al. their wildly different personalities would be a problem, except that they’re still children and like twins who switch places they get a giant kick out of it. al loves pretending to be loud and angry and having a fly away temper and it’s all ed can do to go chasing after al shouting ‘brother!’ trying to act disapproving but inside he is laughing so damn much
there’s no negative effects, nothing goes wrong. they don’t knows this, but it’s actually helping, because their souls gain a stronger connection and ed’s body spends a whole lot more time sleeping and eating then it would otherwise so al’s body is actually getting a reasonable-ish about of nutrients and sleep behind the gate. also every time ed switches their souls it’s like he’s renewing the seal so al’s soul never gets loose and isn’t going to be rejected form the armor.
then al remembers the gate and can do hands free alchemy, which is awesome, because now they can go into battle in each other’s bodies when before they always needed to hastily switch back otherwise people would start asking questions. it becomes something so easy and natural between them, and more than once ed’s been up late studying with his eyelids drooping, exhausted past the point of reason but unwilling to stop. and he just goes ‘al, come here, sleep for me so i can finish this book’ an al loves sleeping so he’s like ‘fuck yeah’
al doesn’t need to make a list of things to eat and experiences to do because he gets to experience them all, it’s just you know, keeping up a timeshare of his brother’s body isn’t realistic and he’d really like his own back, thanks.
and they don’t have secrets, obviously, can’t when they spend half the time running around in the other’s body. except ed kind of develops a crush on mustang and roy’s confused with all these mixed signals?? because sometimes ed looks at him like he wants to eat him and other times there’s nothing???? but one day ed says screw this and he and roy end up making out and all that and kinda sort of start a relationship ish and ed means to tell al, he does, he just can’t bring himself too. so it’s 2 weeks of dating roy and he switches their bodies, and still hasn’t told him. they’re spending the day away from base so ed doesn’t worry about it, is like okay, i’ll tell al tomorrow this is not a big deal i can handle this
except they’re, i don’t know, in the market or the library or something and roy sees ed is and internally like ed! ededed! ❤ ❤ ❤ but he has to pretend to be cool so he corners ed and kisses him and is shocked and hurt when ed pushes him away and ed just stares at him for a long moment before howling “oh my GOD you and brother are DATING?”
and they don’t call roy a genius for nothing so he’s like “…. alphonse?” and ed goes really pale and and then al’s armour rounds the corner like ‘brother! what’s wrong i heard you yell – “ and he sees them and goes “oh shit” and roy is like “EDWARD???”
and it’s like fuck, after about 5 years of playing this game they’ve been caught. and so roy drags them back to the office and everyone gathers’ round while they explain and eds like ‘you should have just gone along with it al, jeez’
‘gone along with it?’ al in ed’s body screams, ‘the COLONEL KISSED ME’ and then he goes kinda pale and whispers ‘my first kiss was the colonel so unfair i don’t even like boys’
and havoc, breda, and maes take this opportunity to excuse themselves so they can die laughing in the hallway while ed and roy look kinda embarassed and riza just. regrets everything. why is this idiotic pyromaniac her best friend again???
and things settle down and continue on and roy is very, very careful about who’s in ed’s body when in the future. and al eventually gets his body back and it’s not sickly and dying its just kind of underfed, so this isn’t too bad. and the very first thing he does is tacklE winry to the ground and they lock themselves in her room for like four hours because timeshare of ed’s body or not none of them had felt comfortable with them having sex with al in his body, and winry even had to close her eyes when they’d kissed.
and their souls have mingled so much that al and ed are almost telepathic with each other which they think is the coolsest thing ever and literally everyone else despises because they only abuse their new powers to be brats, because that’s what the do, obviously
tora42's nonsensne 