the close of 2022

 on the last day of 2022 we wish you a Happy 

"May the Force be with you"

Winter solstice in 2022

 

When is the winter solstice in 2022?

The winter solstice is on Wednesday 21 December 2022. It marks the first day of astronomical winter, and the precise time of the solstice will be at 9:47pm GMT. This differs from meteorological winter, which always begins on 1 December, every year.

 

There are two solstices every year, one in December and one in June.

 

What is the winter solstice?

The winter solstice is when the Sun reaches its lowest point in the sky, and here in the northern hemisphere, that results in the shortest day of the year. It’s not something that you can see, like a meteor shower or planet in opposition, but rather an event that occurs.

 

During the winter solstice, the northern hemisphere is tilted furthest away from the Sun, causing it to reach its lowest point visually in the sky. For us here on Earth, this means it takes the least amount of time to cross the sky, and so we get the shortest day (and longest night) of the year. After the winter solstice, the days begin to get longer and the nights shorter.

 

What does the word ‘solstice’ mean?

The word ‘solstice’ is the scientific term for this astronomical event that happens twice a year. The word solstice is derived from the Latin sol (sun) and sistere (to stand still). Both at the December solstice and the June solstice, the Sun reverses its apparent annual north-south motion and appears to stand still.

 

How the December solstice affects the poles

The Arctic and Antarctic circles are located at 66.5 degrees north and 66.5 degrees south, respectively. The latitude of the Arctic circle is essentially the line, above which the Sun never rises on the December solstice, resulting in 24 hours of darkness.

As you move closer towards the north pole, you’re moving closer towards the point on the Earth that is tilted furthest away from the Sun. The winter solstice is the darkest time of the year for the north pole, and during these winter months, the Sun doesn’t rise from mid-November to late January, buffered by a period of twilight on either side.

    

Sources/Links:

https://www.sciencefocus.com/planet-earth/winter-solstice-shortest-day-year/

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A Massive Global Reforestation Project Is How We Fix Climate Change

This guy has a way with arithmetic’s...

We can conclusively solve our climate change problem with a massive global reforestation campaign. This piece is a quick 2-minute summary

 

Here is how:

 

First, the basic unit of CO2 is a “ton.” A billion tons is a gigaton. Each year, the world emits about 45 billion tons, or 45 gigatons of CO2.

 

We know that forests absorb CO2. How much? An acre of forest absorbs about 15 tons of CO2 in a year. Other tree species absorb somewhat more or less, some of them a lot more.

 

This means we need 3 billion acres of forest to offset our entire worldwide CO2 emissions each year.

 

Does the world have this much land for new forest?

 

Yes, but we will need to regreen deserts. There are about 4.7 billion acres of desert available, and we’ll only need about 3 billion of that. People have been successfully regreening deserts for decades, e.g. in China, Jordan, UAE, and Israel.

 

The limiting factor to regreening a desert is irrigation. We have to irrigate the trees for about 20 years until the vegetation changes the climate and induces its own rainfall.

 

We cannot rely on existing freshwater supplies, as they are all spoken for (food, agriculture, etc), so the only other source is desalination of seawater. This is energy-intensive, so our energy sources need to be low or zero-carbon —solar, for instance.

 

On a per-acre basis, the cost to build a solar array sufficient to power the desalination needed to irrigate that acre of forest for 20 years is about $1000/year per acre.

 

Thus, to reforest 3 billion acres at current prices will cost the world an investment of $3 trillion/year for 20 years.

 

That sounds like a lot, but the world GDP of 2017 was $80 trillion.

 

Therefore, this plan would require an investment of a little less than 4% of world GDP every year for 20 years. Combined with even moderate and gradual reduction in fuel emissions, we would effectively offset all CO2 emissions within 20 years once the forests reach maturity.

 

If we were to reforest the remaining 1.7 billion acres, the excess sequestration capacity would remove all of the CO2 remaining in the atmosphere that we have emitted since 1750 (beginning of the Industrial Revolution) in under 35 years.

Sources/Links:

https://medium.com/@yishan/a-massive-global-reforestation-project-is-how-we-fix-climate-change-e37fa24436a3

https://medium.com/@yishan/a-massive-global-reforestation-project-is-%20-we-fix-climate-change-36afc6d4dc2

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and the Link Award for the Year 2022 goes to...

 

Link:

https://cm-lousa.pt/locais/vaqueirinho/

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"O Borda d'Água" and "O Seringador"

 

“O Borda d’Água” is one of the most iconic Portuguese Almanacs, along with “O Seringador”

In Portugal, both "O Seringador " (158 years of uninterrupted publication) and "O Borda d’Água " (94 uninterrupted years), do not have online version.

 

The century history of the printed Portuguese almanacs: "O Seringador" and "O Borda d’Água", empirical corpus of contemporary lusophony and communication practices.

 

The almanac is a popular cultural artifact, that means, a narrative that merges scientific knowledge and popular folklore, in one side in the traditionalism and another in the contemporary world.

 

The historiographical study combined with the theory of Folk Communication reveals the ways in which people experience and give meaning to the communication practices, distinguish the past and identify their culture. The Portuguese almanacs, "O Seringador" and "O Borda d`Água" are the empirical corpus: object folk comunicacional: visual, printed, almanac.

Sources/Links:

Almanaques de Cordel: um estudo sobre o Seringador e o Borda d’Água

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320458597_Almanaques_de_Cordel_um_estudo_sobre_o_Seringador_e_o_Borda_d'Agua

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International Mountain Day - 11 December

 

The United Nations General Assembly designated 11 December “International Mountain Day”.

 

As of 2003, it has been observed every year to create awareness about the importance of mountains to life, to highlight the opportunities and constraints in mountain development and to build alliances that will bring positive change to mountain peoples and environments around the world.

 

Sources/Links:

https://www.fao.org/international-mountain-day/en/

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'Secondhand Sunday'

 

'Secondhand Sunday' Encourages People to Give Used Gifts

  

new campaign redirects holiday shoppers away from mass consumption of new goods toward more ethical and sustainable choices.

 

You've heard of Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday—all major shopping days that take place at the end of the November. But now there's another day you can add to the list, and it's one that gets a big thumbs up from Treehugger. The first annual Secondhand Sunday will roll out this year. It is the brainchild of Poshmark, a social commerce marketplace that enables users to buy and sell clothing online, mostly used.

 

Secondhand Sunday, which takes place on November 27 this year (and will always be on the Sunday following U.S. Thanksgiving), comes at an especially good time. The organizers point to the convergence of two key trends: first, ongoing inflation is prompting customers to look for deals and ways to save money; and second, people are increasingly open to receiving secondhand gifts.

 

Poshmark commissioned global research firm Morning Consult to assess the secondhand market. It found that over 90% of American adults say they would be willing to receive a secondhand or resold gift this season, but only 34% are likely to buy them for others. This suggests "massive opportunity to close the gap"—a task that Poshmark has embraced with enthusiasm.

 

Amber McCasland, vice-president of Global Brand and Communications, told Treehugger that consumers have become familiar with dedicated shoppings days in the calendar.

 

"Our team saw an opportunity to hack traditional holiday shopping patterns by shining a spotlight on the many benefits of secondhand shopping and selling ... Secondhand Sunday aims to redirect holiday shopping away from mass consumption of new goods toward choices that support individual economic empowerment, social connection and environmental sustainability. Secondhand Sunday encourages shoppers to think about who they're buying from, and support secondhand sellers during the peak holiday shopping season."

Poshmark is a platform from which individual sellers run their own "closets" or shops, similar to Etsy, and make extra cash. Some do it part-time, others full-time. While sellers have varying motivations for doing business, many are driven by the belief that buying secondhand is important for the environment.

 

One such seller is Ashley Wheeler from Oregon. When she started selling on Poshmark, her husband worked as a truck driver at a landfill site. They were both horrified at the amount of textile waste that was getting dumped, just because it was deemed unsellable by a retailer. Even when her husband asked to bring home items that still had value, he was told no, because "companies had paid the landfill to dispose of their garbage." She told Treehugger:

 

"For us, that was a wake up-call. We realized it wasn't just about us bringing our pre-owned clothing back into the market but finding other inventory that companies were ready to dispose of and help recycle it back into use. That's when we started to learn about Goodwill Outlets (aka the bins) and other similar stores—where we source a majority of our inventory."

Wheeler now buys cast-off items by the pound from Goodwill's "last chance" bins and resells them on Poshmark. She said it's possible to find designer and high-end fashion brands, and that often items are still in great or new condition.

 

When asked what she looks for, Wheeler said, "We focus on brands and fabric materials when we are sourcing items. We prefer natural materials like linen, silk, hemp, organic cotton, etc. We also look at functionality: work boots, jeans, sweaters, puffer coats, windbreakers ... Functionality typically lasts longer in someone's closet and they are more likely to pick up over trends, from our experience."

 

While Poshmark has run smaller, more targeted holiday campaigns in the past, McCasland said that Secondhand Sunday is "our first concerted effort to change the cultural conversation around how people shop and gift during the holidays." The hope is that, instead of running out to buy new items as gifts, people will realize that it's acceptable and even preferable to source used items instead. And they may discover Poshmark for the first time—an easily accessible website and app that allows you to search for specific styles, sizes, and brands.

 

Manish Chandra, company founder and CEO, said in a press release, "We want to promote and celebrate the idea that our sellers' virtual closets are the new must-see holiday storefronts, and invite consumers across the nation to choose secondhand, on Secondhand Sunday and all year long."

 

Whether you visit a local thrift store or go online to Poshmark, there's a world of used clothing out there that's just waiting to be worn. To choose that over new is a small yet meaningful act of environmental preservation. It says no to more production, more resource extraction, more exploitative labor practices in distant countries. It extends the lifespan of already created garments, reduces the number of clothes being discarded, and cuts down on the methane emitted when textiles break down in landfill.

 

So, really, you can't go wrong. Secondhand Sunday is a great idea that gets people off conventional shopping websites and out of malls while promoting circular fashion, waste reduction, and financial savings. Poshmark encourages people to participate and spread the word by using the #SecondhandSunday hashtag on social media.

 

 

 

Sources/Links:

https://www.treehugger.com/secondhand-sunday-poshmark-6831360

 

https://www.secondhandsunday.poshmark.com/

 

https://poshmark.com/

 

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A Poison Like No Other

 

 

America Recycles Day is celebrated on November 15 every year and is a shadow of its former self. It used to be our favourite day to question the recycling industry and the companies behind the event. In my first post about it in 2008, I wrote:

 

"Let's call recycling what it is – a fraud, a sham, a scam perpetrated by big business on the citizens and municipalities of America. Look who sponsors the National Recycling Coalition, behind America Recycles Day: Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Anheuser-Busch, Coors, Owens-Illinois, International Bottled Water Association (IWBA), the same people who brought you that other fraud, Keep America Beautiful. Recycling is simply the transfer of producer responsibility for what they produce to the taxpayer who has to pick it up and take it away."

 

Of all those fancy big sponsors, only the International Bottled Water Association remains, joined by a Dutch beer company, an insurance company, and a craft distiller I have never heard of. This year they are pushing job creation.

 

“Educating and motivating Americans to recycle is one of the most important aspects of our mission at Keep America Beautiful. Today we celebrate those who passionately work to create programs and projects to increase awareness and action for a circular economy. Thank you for being stewards of sustainability,” said Jennifer Lawson, Keep America Beautiful's president and CEO.

 

But as we have noted before, the purpose of educating and motivating Americans to recycle is to make them feel good about single-use products. The reason for talking about the circular economy is because recycling is broken and circular sounds better. And while aluminum and cardboard have value and are recycled, most single-use plastics are not worth very much. That's why, as a Greenpeace report recently showed, less than 5% of plastics in the U.S. are recycled, and the rest is being burned, landfilled, or lost on land or in the oceans.

 

Sources/Links:

https://www.treehugger.com/a-poison-like-no-other-matt-simon-book-review-6828665

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17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

THE 17 GOALS

 

17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

  

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015, provides a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future. At its heart are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are an urgent call for action by all countries - developed and developing - in a global partnership. They recognize that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth – all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.

 

 

 

 

 

Do you know all 17 SDGs?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XTBYMfZyrM

 

 

Understanding the Dimensions of Sustainable Development

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgNLonYOc9s

 

 

Sources/Links:

https://sdgs.un.org/goals

 

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