Notices by Botany 💚 Bae (invaderxan@sunbeam.city)

In Côte d'Ivoire, capitalist exploitation causes deforestation. Cacao farmers get paid so little they become desperate, and the only way they can see to earn more so they can survive is to grow more.

Some take to destroying protected forests so they can grow more cacao to sell. But as awful as the killing of trees by burning their roots is, I can't blame these people. It's not their fault, it's the fault of a corrupt and exploitative system which doesn't give them enough money to live.

@sophia
"The telescreen recieved and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live – did live, from habit that became instinct – in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.

– George Orwell, 1984

Random odd question. Is there any way to post to Mastodon by e-mail?

Arboreal pop quiz! 🌳

The world's tallest living tree is a Coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) in North America, which stands 115.72 m tall.

Which of Earth's continents is home to the second tallest?

[ ] South America
[ ] Africa
[ ] Asia
[ ] Oceania

El Árbol del Tule is a tree growing in Oaxaca state, Mexico, and it has the stoutest trunk of any tree in the world. Its a 35 metre tall Montezuma cypress, and its main trunk has a circumference of over 42 metres, even larger than any known giant sequoia.

It also goes by the Nahuatl name of Ahuehuete, meaning "Old man of the water". According to the local Zapotec people, it was planted 1400 years ago by a priest of Ehecatl, the Aztec wind god, named Pecocha.

Cats can see optical illusions too.

“The government tried to sell our lands to the oil companies without our permission. Our rainforest is our life. We decide what happens in our lands. We will never sell our rainforest to the oil companies. Today, the courts recognized that the Waorani people, and all indigenous peoples have rights over our territories that must be respected. The government’s interests in oil is not more valuable than our rights, our forests, our lives.”
–Nemonte Nenquimo

So whether or not you're vegetarian or vegan, cutting down on your meat intake is a good idea for various reasons – high among them being environmental concerns and overuse of antibiotics on farms. It would be foolish to think otherwise.

The thing is, some cultures have been using meat substitutes in food for centuries. Either for religious reasons, like some schools of Buddhism, or among people who don't always have access to meat. So it can be worth following their example.

Humans are not evolved to be herbivores, and I really don't like all the people who say "go vegan" without also telling people exactly what that means. So in case anyone finds it useful, here's a little thread about meat substitutes to include in your diet, and nutrients to make sure you're getting enough of!

I think we should bring back zeppelins to replace aeroplanes. Hear me out...

• Uses hydrogen for lift, which can easily be produced by electrolysing water using photovoltaic energy

• Can be driven by electric motors, which are much more efficient than any combustion engine

• Lots of area for thin film solar panels to power them

• Can be designed in ways to prevent potential Hindenburg-like incidents

• Air travel without huge CO2 emissions

• Quieter and less hazardous to birds

Being non-binary, I've used a lot of avatars, both gendered and neutral over the past decade of social media. And any time I present as even vaguely female, people seem much more eager to jump into my mentions to tell me that I'm wrong. Much more aggressively so, I might add.

Just an observation.

2009: Young people use Twitter. Old people complain about how this terrible "Twitter" thing is ruining society.

2019: Old people use Twitter. Young people complain about how this terrible "Twitter" thing is ruining society.

Before the rise of industry, it was normal for people to sleep in two phases each night.

People had no set bedtimes. Sleeping was determined by whether or not there were things to do. Most people would have a first and second sleep, with a couple of hours awake inbetween. This is probably the way humans are supposed to sleep.

Modern schedules don't really let us do that. Perhaps we should think about changing that.

https://www.sciencealert.com/humans-used-to-sleep-in-two-shifts-maybe-we-should-again

This is monilaria moniliformis, and it’s a succulent that looks like little fuzzy bunnies.

I hope you’re having a nice afternoon! 💚

Tea (camellia sinensis) shares thousands of years of history with humans, and is deeply rooted in East Asian culture. Most tea grows as small shrubs, but it can live for a long time – and it can grow up to be a very large tree!

The tree in this photo was the oldest known tea tree in the world, estimated to be 3200 years old. Before the tree died in 2012, its leaves were used to make pu-erh, a kind of fermented black tea which can be aged for many years before being drunk.

The Sun is 150 million km away. That's a greater distance than any human has ever travelled.

Every second 1.8 trillion trillion trillion photons of sunlight hit the surface of Earth and, despite that distance, they still make the plants grow and feel warm against your skin.

And honestly, I never stop being amazed by this.

It makes me sad when people dismiss Art Nouveau as being "for the rich" while acting as if things aren't really Solarpunk unless they're gritty or recycled looking. People act as if pretty things are only for the wealthy – which is just what the wealthy want you to believe.

Art Nouveau is perfect for the Solarpunk movement, and not just because of the plant-based themes. It's deeper than that.

Art Nouveau was an inherently anti-capitalist movement.