Yes, I keep slowly expanding my mulched native flower bed.

If you’re in the US, Prairie Moon Nursery has a great selection of exclusively plants native to North America and ships. Live plants tend to be best in the spring, their seed mixes are excellent in late fall. And they have a lot of how to guides.

Went back and rewatched the first few seasons of Tosh.O, that’s some good early Internet content and commentary, curated for a teenage boy audience though.

Beyond the direct plug-in kind of solar. There’s now solar generators. Basically a portable battery pack that accepts solar energy and has its own outlets, no change in laws needed.

Anker Solix is having a sale this weekend.

Charity Navigator is a handy website to vet charities

Coalition for Rainforest Nations They operate globally with indigenous and local communities to do everything possible to protect rainforests and reforest areas. The donations really stretch far because they predominantly work in low income areas

Coral Reef Alliance similar to the Coalition for Rainforests, but for coral reefs.

ProPublica No paywall investigative news organization that has really hard hitting reporting that holds polluters accountable by government agencies

World Wildlife Foundation great work with preserving biodiversity and raising awareness of nature with the public. It’s hard to care about something if you don’t know about it

Union of Concerned Scientists A political advocacy org defending science, and opposing the climate crisis and nuclear weapons

Lahaina Community Land Trust supporting Native Hawaiian victims of the Lahaina fire and trying to prevent their land from being bought up by private equity and billionaires

Local food bank, local green space advocates, and local housing support orgs

Yes, plus this has extra resiliency benefits for climate disasters and avoiding pain when the price of fossil fuels spike for some reason…

Noticing biodiversity as migrating birds return for spring and flowers start popping out of the ground. If you don’t have it yet, check out the Merlin app, it can identify birds by their song and you can save them… Kinda like mundane adult Pokemon

Andor is arguably the best Star Wars content since the original movies

Heat pump technology has come a long way recently. In locations that stay above 0F (-18C) they’re now competitive with fossil gas furnaces for performance and cost (cost results may vary based on local incentives). Many units now work below 0F too, but they get more expensive/less efficient

Personalized mRNA vaccines to prevent pancreatic cancer recurrence after surgery have had some promising early results in clinical trials. This is one of the hardest cancers to treat, so this could be huge.

Thought I’d share that UU congregations I’ve been a part of really don’t like focusing too much on Jesus/Christianity, especially outside of the high Christian holidays. We even held an Earth Day service on an Easter Sunday because we have more members who identify with various varieties of paganism/wicca or are agnostic

Fellow UU here, second checking them out. Wanted to emphasize that there’s no expectation to believe a particular religious text. Our services lately have been around the themes of practicing resistance (which can take many forms) and being resilient in the face of adversity. Our congregation celebrates holidays from most major religious traditions as well as secular holidays like Earth Day and Trans Day of Visibility. I’m also a big fan of the community volunteer opportunities and music program. Each congregation is a bit different based on the membership, here’s a link to find one near you. Many stream services on Zoom so you can check them out with very low commitment.

Try finding a supportive and fulfilling community that helps you achieve your life goals. I’ve found this at my Unitarian Universalist (UU) church. UU’s don’t believe in a shared religious text, instead they have a core set of shared values. My church has people who identify as atheist, Christian, several types of pagan, Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim, etc. We celebrate religious holidays from all of them as well as secular holidays like Trans Day of Visibility and Earth day. The focus is on being together and trying to make the world a better place. There’s active volunteer groups for hunger relief, housing support, the environment, and LGBTQ support. I also really like the music program. There’s a handy website to find a congregation near you, many stream services on Zoom so you can test them out before going in person. They can vary a lot based on the members of each congregation.

VSGX is a diversified Vanguard ETF with >6,000 different non-US company stocks. This is an ESG-screened fund, basically meaning that it avoids fossil fuel and tobacco companies. Since it’s Vanguard, it has a super low 0.1% expense ratio

BNDX is the Vanguard international bond ETF, with ~58% of holdings in Europe-based bonds. It has a 0.07% expense ratio and pays a monthly dividend equal to about 4% return/year

VSGX is a diversified Vanguard ETF with >6,000 different non-US company stocks. This is an ESG-screened fund, basically meaning that it avoids fossil fuel and tobacco companies. Since it’s Vanguard, it has a super low 0.1% expense ratio

BNDX is the Vanguard international bond ETF, with ~58% of holdings in Europe-based bonds. It has a 0.07% expense ratio and pays a monthly dividend equal to about 4% return/year