My mamaw has the book right now so I won’t be able to read it for a little bit but my mom read The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan which is about the Dust Bowl and it puts in perspective all the environmental books I was reading from the 1940’s and 1950’s and the sense of agitation and intensity in them.
Everyone is like yeah yeah the dust bowl we’ve all heard of it, but the Dust Bowl was apocalyptic. The USA practically eliminated the bison—we are talking thousands of square miles of land littered with bones, enormous pyramids of skulls—and committed genocide against their caretakers, and then settlers ripped up the prairie grasses (which protected meters of top soil) with plows
And what happened was, half the country became in engulfed in horrific dirt storms that turned the sky black and reduced visibility to a few feet. Even indoor environments were full of deep drifts of dirt. When it rained, it rained mud instead of water. In ENGLAND the snow was RED because of DIRT. People died from pneumonia because they were breathing the dirt into their lungs.
Even before mom started reading this book, I was reading American books about the environment from the mid 20th century, and they are animated with the zeal and terror of people who have realized that human mismanagement could make the USA literally uninhabitable. I realized, “Oh. This is right after the Dust Bowl.” cause of how they talk about erosion, and I realized just how formative the Dust Bowl was in terms of environmental policy.
Reading about various wildlife species, I realized also how utterly apocalyptic the conditions of the past were for animals. Deer were almost eliminated from my state. Deer.
Why do we have the Migratory Bird Treaty Act? Because just about every large bird species almost went extinct from uncontrolled commercial hunting. We almost had no swans, no cranes, no egrets, no storks. We lost the passenger pigeons and Carolina parakeets, but we could have lost Basically Everything.
So many of the ill-conceived decisions to introduce species to this continent are easily explained by how apocalyptic this period of time was. Why did we think it was a good idea to introduce Kudzu? Because in the 1950’s, erosion sparked a visceral apprehension of CERTAIN DOOM, and logging had made the whole southeast start washing away! Why were so many exotic antelopes introduced to Texas? Because every native large animal was almost wiped out!
From my other readings on the subject (Changes in the Land by William Cronon is a good one) devastating environmental destruction started just about as soon as Europeans started controlling the land, and I am guessing that if you examined the timeline of environmental disaster alongside the migrations west, it would support the argument that settlers started pushing west more and more rapidly because of land degradation and environmental disaster.
I wish this was commoner knowledge, getting to where we are now has been a journey. Environmental history doesn’t start in 1970’s.
It is not the case that things have steadily gotten worse over time and recently are becoming extremely bad, rather, different parts of the environment have become both better and worse in steps forward and backward, and many seemingly unremarkable things around us were earned by a vicious fight, which we can learn from and continue…
my grandparents lived through the Dust Bowl. the story that sticks with me, from Western KS:
there was a storm blowing, so my great grandpa tied a string around his waist and tied it to the house so he could check on the cows without getting lost in the dust.
inside the house, my great grandma was making milk bump soup – a little milk from those cows, with flour and water balls cooked in. Poverty food for sure.
There was so much dust in the air that when she stirred the soup, it turned into mud.
They didn’t have anything else, so no dinner for them or their 3 boys.
They slept with wet cloths over their faces to keep from suffocating.
One of those boys became a farmer, one of the first in the county to adopt conservation practices.
It sometimes feels like the end of the world, these days. It helps me to remember that the world has ended before – whole communities, lives buried under blowing dust, families uprooted, reliant on government handouts to keep from starving.
The world ends, sometimes. the secret is, we keep living anyway.
the people on tiktok filming a blob-like strawberry and saying it’s a GMO one…fucking fake strawberry fans…they literally can grow naturally like this
it’s just the strawberries growing together. do not speak lies of these beautiful freaks ever again
every time I find a strawberry like this i’m not hating. i’m happy because there’s more strawberry to eat. unlike you
its called fasciation and it’s a mutation that happens in plants all the time! it’s perfectly natural, just a neat variation that comes from a wide array of genetic possibilities 🙂
Its so interesting that when people hear gmo they think its gotta look wrong but the real gmo plants are the ones that look perfect and plump everytime, that’s the kinda thing they’re selecting for
The year is 2035. I am in the produce aisle complaining about the quality of the AI generated fruit.
flow winning animated feature is the kind of story that’s going to be taught like the boogeyman to every big animation studio’s intake class for decades
i keep thinking of this team and getting really emotional. maybe it’s because of the being made in blender and kinda looking like a cutscene thing but they really remind me of when tiny indie game studios win massive and Just Can’t Believe It. they came to the oscars with cufflinks of their little cat on it. they had the cat embroidered into the lining of their jackets. they posted photos of them all celebrating with their oscars at in-n-out afterwards. imagine being in an indie studio in a country that’s literally never been recognized by nomination at the oscars, picking up TWO nominations for an ANIMATED film, getting flown out, decking yourselves out in easter eggs of your little guy, going “hey we may not win but holy shit latvia’s at the goddamn oscars let’s gooooo” and then running away with the biggest mainstream animation award there is. i’d lose my fucking mind. peace and love and joy and jubilation on planet earth
this rules actually
idk if anyone cares but i can confirm that the entire country is also collectively losing their minds over this
oscar prize together with the golden globe are going to be displayed at the national art museum for everyone to see
gints has gotten several ‘person of the year’ awards from both the country and the capital city – which is also advertised on the streets
there’s a giant freaking poster on the parliament building
there’s a statue of the kitty right in the city centre
there’s limited edition envelopes and stamps sold
there’s kids books in every bookstore, toys, merch, puzzles, BOARD GAMES
there’s murals in the streets
there’s limited edition coffee – which added gold powder to it once the oscar award was announced
and everyone is offering to do this WILLINGLY (or cashing in on the success depending on how you look at it, but really we’re just excited as fuck)
this is NOT part of a major marketing scheme by the studio – none of this was around before/around the movies actual release
I love going viral on tumblr.com. It’s like if you stood in a field and said some of the stupidest shit a human being is capable of and then like fifty thousand crows attacked you
My animation of a flour sack. Words can’t express how proud I am of these 11 seconds.
I’m so delighted people are enjoying this so much. It was one of my very first animations in freshmen year, after bouncing balls. I was so excited that I just poured time and love into this little guy, and I’m so happy a lot of people like the tiny story I told.
there should be a tax that youtubers pay where 1.5% of all of their revenue goes back to Kevin Macleod for basically supplying YouTube with it’s own soundtrack.
who is this man and what music did he make???
if you hear a royalty free song on youtube, there’s approximately an 80% chance Kevin Macleod wrote it.
here’s some you’ve almost definitely heard:
for those wondering, yes, he also made THE generic royalty free song that was EVERYWHERE in 2014.
also, his site incompetech.com also has graph paper generators, if you’re in need of that. It has any kind of graph paper – INCLUDING hex paper, you tabletop gamers out there! (or knitting paper if you’re into that)
HOHOHOHO?
Y’all, I’ve been a fan of Kevin MacLeod for YEARS. I can identify his music within two seconds. He’s a fucking genius and he deserves all the love and credit and money people can give.
If you’ve played the visual novel The Arcana, you know Kevin McLeod’s music.
Them using Signal wasn’t stupidity, it was done on purpose to avoid having any official records of their conversations--which is legally required. Avoiding an official record is part of Project 2025 to help them all avoid charges or any protests.
That is the part that needs to get focused on, while also continuing pressuring everyone involved until the issue is unavoidable and again, they back down or admit what they are.
And it needs to get stressed over and over again to Republicans who love the military or are in the military–this will get soldiers killed. This is a breach of National Security and it was done on purpose.
These are deeply evil people but this groupchat o’death was done deliberately because Signal will delete their messages.
Tulsi Gabbard will get US soldiers killed. Drunk-ass Pete Hegseth will get US soldiers killed. J.D. Vance will get US soldiers killed. That person in the chat who was *in Russia* will get US soldiers killed.
Regular soldiers who even slightly might breach operational security are punished, even if it was an accident.
You want everyday Republicans and military personnel to get mad about this? Say that. Say all of that. And remember that it’s all to “expand” US (Russian) interests and appear strong in true fascist style.
And every Republican and Democratic Senator who voted to confirm these people should not be forgotten either.
amhrancas 