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Sustainability - Blog Posts
little things that i try to do to get more out of my clothes
How to begin a sustainable way of life
This is a draft of something I've been writing for a couple months. It is mainly focused on the culture of the USA. Feel free to repost or otherwise share, with or without credit.
Do not tell people what to do—help them do it!
Give the gift of relief from being forced to engage in society’s unsustainable ways of life.
“People need to eat more plant-based foods.” ->Talk about your favorite recipes, give others recipes, cook for them, and grow vegetables and plants in your garden and give them away as gifts.
“People need to repair their clothes.” -> Offer to repair others’ clothes, and teach people how to repair their clothes.
“People need to buy less clothes.” -> Give them old clothes that you don’t want, help them repair their clothes
“People need to buy less plastic stuff.” -> Learn to make things that can serve the same purpose, such as baskets, and give them as gifts. Let people borrow things you own so they don’t have to buy their own.
“People need to stop using leafblowers and other gas-guzzling machinery.” -> Offer to rake the leaves. You can use them as compost in your own garden.
“People need to be more educated about nature.”-> Learn about nature yourself. Tell people about nature. Be open about your love of creatures such as snakes, spiders, and frogs. Do not show awareness that this could be strange. You are not obligated to quiet down your enthusiasm for creepy crawlies to demonstrate awareness that it is weird. Point out at every opportunity how these animals are beneficial.
“People need to use cars less.” -> Offer rides to others whenever you must go somewhere. Whenever you are about to go to the store, ask your neighbor or your friend who lives along the way, “Is there anything you need from the store?”
You cannot control others’ behaviors, but you can free them from being controlled.
If you think to yourself, “But this would be so difficult to do!” ask yourself WHY? Why does your society coerce you into less sustainable ways of living, forcing you to consume excessively? After thinking about this, consider that it is less simple and easy than you thought to make more sustainable choices, so why would you judge others for not doing it?
Do not act alone—act with others!
Environmentally friendly behaviors that can be done alone, without collaborating with or consulting another person, are the least powerful of all. Whenever an “environmentally friendly” behavior is suggested, figure out “How can I give this as a gift?” or “How can I make this possible on the level of a whole community?”
“Personal choices” do not work because every single person has to make them individually. If you are focused on making your own personal choice, you are not focused on others. If you are not focused on others, you are not helping them. If nobody is helping each other, most people won’t be able to make the “personal choice.”
You inherently share an ecosystem with your neighbors
Start with your neighbors, the people physically close to you. You live on the same patch of land, containing roots from the same plants and trees. You can speak to them face to face without traveling, which means you can easily bring them physical things without using resources to travel.
Always talk to your neighbors and be friendly with them. Offer them favors unprompted and tell them about how your garden is doing. Do not be afraid to be annoying—a slightly annoying neighbor who is helpful, kind, and can be relied upon for a variety of favors or in times of need is a necessary and inevitable part of a good community. If you make the effort to be present in somebody’s life, they will have to put up with you on some occasions, but that is just life. We cannot rely on each other if we do not put up with each other.
Simply spending time with someone influences them for good
Every hour you spend outside with your neighbor is an hour your neighbor doesn’t spend watching Fox News. Every hour you spend talking with someone and interacting with them in the real world, eating real food and enjoying your real surroundings, is an hour you don’t spend only hearing a curated picture of what reality is like from social media.
Isolation makes it easy for people to become indoctrinated into extremist beliefs. When someone spends more time alone, watching TV, Youtube, or scrolling social media, than they do with others, their concept of what other people are like and what the world is like comes more from social media than real life. TV and online media are meant to influence you in a specific way. Simply restricting the access these influences have to yourself and others is helpful.
A garden is the source of many gifts
If you grow a garden, you can give your neighbors and friends the gift of food, plants, and crafted objects. This is one of the foundational ways to form community. When you give food, you provide support to others. When you give plants, you are encouraging and teaching about gardening. It is even better when you give recipes cooked from things you grew, or items crafted from things you grew. You can also give the gift of knowledge of how to grow these plants, cook these recipes, or craft these objects.
More on gift-giving
Some people are uncomfortable with receiving items or services as gifts. They want to feel like they are giving something back, instead of having obligation to return the favor hanging over them.
It can help to ask a simple favor that can be easily fulfilled. People generally like the feeling of helping someone else.
When you give someone a gift, it can help to say something like “Oh, I have too many of this thing to take care of/store/eat myself! Do you think you could take some?” This makes your neighbor feel like they are helping you.
When allowing others to borrow items, you might not get them back. Don’t worry about that. It just means the item found a place where it was needed the most. You can ask about the item if you think it might have been forgotten, and this can create an opportunity for a second meeting. But don’t press.
If the person you give to insists upon some form of payment, this is a good opportunity to negotiate a trade.
Ask to be given compostable or recyclable things
Ask your neighbor to save compostable scraps, biodegradable cardboard and paper products, and any other items that might be put to use. Use them in your own compost pile. Or, start a compost pile at the edge of the yard where you both can add to it. Remember that “wet” compost like vegetable and fruit bits needs to be mixed with twice as much of “dry” and “woody” compost like cardboard, leaves, small twigs, paper and wood bits.
Use the front yard for gardening
Overcome the cultural norm that the front yard is only decorative. Use the front yard for gardening so you can be seen by others enjoying your garden, and others can witness the demonstration of the possibilities of land. In the front yard, anything you do intentionally with your land can be witnessed. It also makes you a visible presence in your community.
Grow staple foods
Don’t just grow vegetables that cannot be the core component of a meal themselves. Grow potatoes, dry beans, black eyed peas and other nourishing, calorie-dense foods. Grow the ingredients of meals. You could even build a garden around a recipe.
Invite neighbors and friends over to eat food made from things you grew
Be sure to send them home with leftovers.
Grow plants for baskets
Containers are one of the fundamental human needs. If we had more containers, we wouldn’t need plastic so much. You can learn to make baskets, and to grow plants that provide the raw materials for baskets.
If someone rakes their leaves, ask to have the leaves
If you see someone putting leaves in bags, don’t be afraid to ask if you can have the leaves. More likely than not they will be happy to agree.
Collaborate with neighbors to plant things in the no-man’s-land of the property line
In the border land between your neighbor’s yard and your yard, it is almost always just mowed grass because no one can plant anything without it affecting their neighbor. But these border lands add up to a lot of space. It would be much better if you talked to your neighbor about what would be nice to plant there, and together created a plan for that space.
Give others the freedom to wander
Make it clear that you will not get mad if the neighbor’s kids play in your yard or run across it. Invite the neighbors onto your land as much as possible. Tell them they are allowed to spend time in a favored spot whenever they would like.
The power of the hand-made sign
If there is a yard sale, you always know about it because of the hand-drawn signs placed around. Therefore, a cookout or unwanted item exchange can be announced the same way. In rural areas I have seen hand-made signs that say: FIREWOOD or WE BUY GOATS or EGGS. This is one of the few technologies of community that remain in the USA. If someone who looks to buy and sell can put up a hand-made sign, why shouldn’t you?
Religious people or people with strong political opinions like to put signs everywhere. If they have the confidence and courage to do so, why shouldn’t you?
So if there is a message you would like everyone to see, use the simple power of the hand-made sign. Proclaim “BEE FRIENDLY ZONE!” above your pollinator garden with all the confidence of a religious fundamentalist billboard. Announce to the world, “VEGETABLES FREE TO ALL—JUST ASK!” “WE TAKE LEAVES—NO PESTICIDES.” Instead of YARD SALE, or perhaps in conjunction with YARD SALE, you can write, PLANT EXCHANGE or SEED SWAP or CLOTHING SWAP. Who can stop you?
Someone has to do it for society to change
Some of these ideas might be eccentric, strange, or even socially unacceptable, but there is no way to change what is normal except to move against it. Someone has to be weird. It might as well be you.
found my old ipod shuffle a few weeks ago when i was cleaning out the garage. now my mom just said that she has the charger. she kept it all these years knowing we’d find it someday lol. anyway i’ll update this in the morning if it still works
russia commits ecocide in Ukraine
i have such beef with ethical and eco-friendly companies. WHERE IS THE COLOUR 😭😭 why does being eco mean it all has to be beige???? make it fun please i beg i dont want to be beige.
The words #WORLDHUNGER has become a catchphrase for industrialists, superpowers and wealthy individuals. They use it as a toss tag to sound significant on their standing with the world in that they are doing something about it, while in actual fact they are accelerating their way up in the world using hungry mouths as stepping stones.
These stepping stones are scattered all over in uncertainty, and they are being used in promise of a better life for as long as they can take the stepping. And now you look closely at these stones and you see that have worn out through time because their former youth has been depleted by external factors in most cases which are not domestic by nature.
Yet you hear countries like the US, wasting in such monumental scale while busy preaching campaigns to stop world hunger, one tends to loose grip with the bigger picture and wonder....is this part of the play?!
Considering the amount of resources on the planet, free natural resources which are being squabbled by greed and self interests, it is clear that this world hunger gospel is only a smear on the face to entertain the sense of normality, that we must think our governments are restless and they are thinking about our wellbeing, well my friends it’s high time we wake up and smell the stench of bureaucracy, because the administrative corridors of the world have a bigger picture in mind and unfortunately...it doesn't include you and your hungry stomach, because if it did, then it wouldn't take re-elections after re-elections, term in and term out to get it right, and definitely wouldn't stretch the length of the whole generation to address it.
The whole planet is overflowing with food for all humanity and equally so, throughout the seven continents the problem is that someone is keeping it from being equally available because they want to be depended upon through all the political terminologies you can think of. So want to know who is the ultimate culprit in all of these chaos?, #Politics, they have proved themselves to be a central failure as the government system of choice, in economics and of-cause the civil society. Like one wise man has put it rightly...”POVERTY IS A CHOICE”, the very choice that the masses have taken by being subjects to their governments, by entrusting their futures in the hands of entities that don’t have their best interests at heart, people are being moved from their lands because of mineral deposits indigenous of their land, and what do they get in return for loosing their lands?, “NOTHING”.
We must indeed shift the blame to the rightful recipients “POLITICIANS”, for as long as our livelihoods, and our lands are administered through political systems, “CHAOS” will always be the order of the day!
A Beginner’s Guide to Advanced Air Mobility
Soaring over traffic in an air taxi, receiving packages faster, and participating in a sustainable, safer mode of transportation: all could be possible with a revolutionary new type of air transportation system in development called Advanced Air Mobility (AAM).
AAM could include new aircraft developed by industry, called electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles, or eVTOLs, for use in passenger, package, or cargo delivery. It may also include new places for these aircraft to take off and land called vertiports.
Our work in Advanced Air Mobility will transform the way people and goods will move through the skies. This includes using Advanced Air Mobility for public good missions such as disaster, medical, and wildfire response.
What is Advanced Air Mobility?
Our vision for Advanced Air Mobility is to map out a safe, accessible, and affordable new air transportation system alongside industry, community partners, and the Federal Aviation Administration.
Once developed, passengers and cargo will travel on-demand in innovative, automated aircraft called eVTOLs, across town, between neighboring cities, or to other locations typically accessed today by car.
What are the benefits of Advanced Air Mobility?
The addition of Advanced Air Mobility will benefit the public in several ways: easier access for travelers between rural, suburban, and urban communities; rapid package delivery; reduced commute times; disaster response, and new solutions for medical transport of passengers and supplies.
What are the challenges associated with Advanced Air Mobility?
Various NASA simulation and flight testing efforts will study noise, automation, safety, vertiports, airspace development and operations, infrastructure, and ride quality, along with other focus areas like community integration.
These areas all need to be further researched before Advanced Air Mobility could be integrated into our skies. We’re helping emerging aviation markets navigate the creation of this new transportation system.
When will Advanced Air Mobility take off?
We provide various test results to the FAA to help with new policy and standards creation. We aim to give industry and the FAA recommendations for requirements to build a scalable Advanced Air Mobility system to help enable the industry to flourish by 2030.
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A Beginner’s Guide to Sustainable Aviation
Do you dream of catching a short flight between cities or journeying across the globe? The aviation industry currently makes up 2-3% of all carbon emissions, but the shift toward electric and hybrid aircraft will help tackle climate change and minimize the environmental impacts of commercial aviation.
Sustainable flight will revolutionize the way we travel. From battery-powered aircraft that reduce fuel consumption, to new lightweight materials that can improve safety and efficiency during flight, here are a few important things to know about the world of sustainable aviation, and what it takes to make air travel cleaner and safer for our planet.
What is Electrified Aircraft Propulsion?
Similar to electric or hybrid-electric cars, sustainable aircraft designs feature electric powertrain systems – the system of components that help propel an aircraft during flight – to help reduce fuel use and emissions. Electrified Aircraft Propulsion (EAP) systems let aircraft work using electric motors, and alternative fuels, rather than relying solely on traditional jet engines burning fossil fuels. At NASA, we’re developing innovative EAP technologies ranging from advanced electric machines designed to increase power and performance to new aircraft materials developed to minimize weight and reduce fuel usage.
What are the challenges with electrifying flight?
Unlike electric vehicles on the ground, electrified aircraft face greater challenges when managing weight and heat while they’re running. In order to ensure maximum efficiency and safety, aircraft components must be designed with minimal weight to help reduce the amount of drag slowing the plane down and causing excess fuel burn. Electrified aircraft must also have advanced thermal management systems to help transfer heat effectively, and ensure onboard systems are kept cool to avoid damage.
Our research and development of EAP technologies offer innovative solutions to these challenges. Designed to keep weight at a minimum, aircraft components such as the High Efficiency Megawatt Motor feature advanced technology that enable increased power and efficiency with three times less heat loss and weight than traditional aircraft motors. New material technologies such as electrical insulation also help transport heat more effectively to minimize heat buildup and are made of lightweight materials to ensure efficiency at high altitudes.
What are the benefits of sustainable aviation?
From an environmental perspective, aircraft electrification offers unique opportunities to lower global emissions and minimize reliance on fossil fuels. The introduction of hybrid- or fully electric aircraft will significantly reduce overall fuel consumption by generating power and thrust via electricity and electric motors. Lightweight EAP systems and components can also help improve aircraft efficiency and reduce fuel burn, while using non-conventional, alternative fuels can help reduce harmful emissions. From an economic standpoint, EAP technologies could help strengthen commercial airliner markets with aircraft designed for around 180 passengers. Green technologies can also benefit both airline companies and you when you fly by potentially reducing aircraft maintenance and in-flight energy costs, making air travel more affordable.
When will sustainable flight take off?
To help turn visions of eco-friendly air travel into reality, we’re teaming up with industry to test EAP technologies on aircraft and introduce them to the U.S. commercial aviation fleet no later than 2035.
Under our Electrified Powertrain Flight Demonstration (EPFD) project, we will conduct ground and flight tests using existing aircraft modified with EAP systems to assist in transitioning these technologies into commercial products. Flight demonstrations will also enable us to identify key risks and barriers associated with integrating new EAP systems into commercial airliners and develop new standards for future EAP aircraft as they take to the skies within the next decade.
There you have it: a quick glimpse into the world of sustainable aviation, and the shift towards keeping our skies cleaner and safer. As we embark on this journey, climb aboard and stay up to date on our latest technology developments and future flight demonstrations.
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6 Ways NASA is Involved in Climate Science
When it comes to climate change, we play a unique role in observing and understanding changes to the planet. Thanks to NASA’s Earth observations and related research, we know our planet and its climate are changing profoundly. We also know human activities, like releasing carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere, are driving this change.
Not only do we make these observations, we help people and groups use this knowledge to benefit society. The work we do at NASA is critical to helping us understand the ways our planet is responding to increased temperatures.
Here are 6 ways that we are involved in climate science and informing decisions:
1. Monitoring Earth’s vital signs
Just like a doctor checks your vitals when you go in for a visit, here at NASA we are constantly monitoring Earth’s vital signs - carbon dioxide levels, global temperature, Arctic sea ice minimum, the ice sheets and sea level, and more.
We use satellites in space, observations from airplanes and ships, and data collected on the ground to understand our planet and its changing climate. Scientists also use computers to model and understand what's happening now and what might happen in the future.
People who study Earth see that the planet’s climate is getting warmer. Earth's temperature has gone up more than 1 degree Celsius (~2 degrees Fahrenheit) in the last 100 years. This may not seem like much, but small changes in Earth's temperature can have big effects. The current warming trend is of particular significance, because it is predominantly the result of human activity since the mid-20th century and is proceeding at an unprecedented rate.
People drive cars. People heat and cool their houses. People cook food. All those things take energy. Human-produced greenhouse gas emissions are largely responsible for warming our planet. Burning fossil fuels -- which includes coal, oil, and natural gas -- releases greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, where they act like an insulating blanket and trap heat near Earth’s surface.
At NASA, we use satellites and instruments on board the International Space Station to confirm measurements of atmospheric carbon levels. They’ve been increasing much faster than any other time in history.
2. Tracking global land use and its impacts
We also monitor and track global land use. Currently, half the world's population lives in urban areas, and by 2025, the United Nations projects that number will rise to 60%.
With so many people living and moving to metropolitan areas, the scientific world recognizes the need to study and understand the impacts of urban growth both locally and globally.
The International Space Station helps with this effort to monitor Earth. Its position in low-Earth orbit provides variable views and lighting over more than 90% of the inhabited surface of Earth, a useful complement to sensor systems on satellites in higher-altitude polar orbits. This high-resolution imaging of land and sea allows tracking of urban and forest growth, monitoring of hurricanes and volcanic eruptions, documenting of melting glaciers and deforestation, understanding how agriculture may be impacted by water stress, and measuring carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere.
3. Research into the causes of climate change
Being able to monitor Earth’s climate from space also allows us to understand what’s driving these changes.
With the CERES instruments, which fly on multiple Earth satellites, our scientists measure the Earth’s planetary energy balance – the amount of energy Earth receives from the Sun and how much it radiates back to space. Over time, less energy being radiated back to space is evidence of an increase in Earth’s greenhouse effect. Human emissions of greenhouse gases are trapping more and more heat.
NASA scientists also use computer models to simulate changes in Earth’s climate as a result of human and natural drivers of temperature change.
These simulations show that human activities such as greenhouse gas emissions, along with natural factors, are necessary to simulate the changes in Earth’s climate that we have observed; natural forces alone can’t do so.
4. Research into the effects of climate change
Global climate change has already had observable effects on the environment. Glaciers and ice sheets have shrunk, ice on rivers and lakes is breaking up earlier, plant and animal ranges have shifted, and trees are flowering sooner.
The effects of global climate change that scientists predicted are now occurring: loss of sea ice, accelerated sea level rise and longer, more intense heat waves.
Climate modelers have predicted that, as the planet warms, Earth will experience more severe heat waves and droughts, larger and more extreme wildfires, and longer and more intense hurricane seasons on average. The events of 2020 are consistent with what models have predicted: extreme climate events are more likely because of greenhouse gas emissions.
Plants are also struggling to keep up with rising carbon dioxide levels. Plants play a key role in mitigating climate change. The more carbon dioxide they absorb during photosynthesis, the less carbon dioxide remains trapped in the atmosphere where it can cause temperatures to rise. But scientists have identified an unsettling trend – 86% of land ecosystems globally are becoming progressively less efficient at absorbing the increasing levels of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Helping organizations to use all the data and knowledge NASA generates is another part of our job. We’ve helped South Dakota fight West Nile Virus, helped managers across the Western U.S. handle water, helped The Nature Conservancy protect land for shorebirds, and others. We also support developing countries as they work to address climate and other challenges through a 15-year partnership with the United States Agency for International Development.
5. Action on sustainability
Sustainability involves taking action now to enable a future where the environment and living conditions are protected and enhanced. We work with many government, nonprofit, and business partners to use our data and modeling to inform their decisions and actions. We are also working to advance technologies for more efficient flight, including hybrid-electric propulsion, advanced materials, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.
These advances in research and technology will not only bring about positive changes to the climate and the world in which we live, but they will also drive the economic engine of America and our partners in industry, to remain the world-wide leader in flight development.
We partner with the private sector to facilitate the transfer of our research and NASA-developed technologies. Many innovations originally developed for use in the skies above help make life more sustainable on Earth. For example:
Our Earth-observing satellites help farmers produce more with less water.
Expertise in rocket engineering led to a technique that lessens the environmental impact of burning coal.
A fuel cell that runs equipment at oil wells reduces the need to vent greenhouse gases.
6. Applying climate research to preserve NASA centers in coastal areas
Sea level rise in the two-thirds of Earth covered by water may jeopardize up to two-thirds of NASA's infrastructure built within mere feet of sea level.
Some NASA centers and facilities are located in coastal real estate because the shoreline is a safer, less inhabited surrounding for launching rockets. But now these launch pads, laboratories, airfields, and testing facilities are potentially at risk because of sea level rise. We’ve worked internally at NASA to identify climate risks and support planning at our centers.
NASA Climate Science
Climate change is one of the most complex issues facing us today. It involves many dimensions – science, economics, society, politics, and moral and ethical questions – and is a global problem, felt on local scales, that will be around for decades and centuries to come. With our Eyes on the Earth and wealth of knowledge on the Earth’s climate system and its components, we are one of the world’s experts in climate science.
Visit our Climate site to explore and learn more.
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From Earth to the Moon: How Are We Getting There?
More than 45 years since humans last set foot on the lunar surface, we’re going back to the Moon and getting ready for Mars. The Artemis program will send the first woman and next man to walk on the surface of the Moon by 2024, establish sustainable lunar exploration and pave the way for future missions deeper into the solar system.
Getting There
Our powerful new rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), will send astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft a quarter million miles from Earth to lunar orbit. The spacecraft is designed to support astronauts traveling hundreds of thousands of miles from home, where getting back to Earth takes days rather hours.
Lunar Outpost
Astronauts will dock Orion at our new lunar outpost that will orbit the Moon called the Gateway. This small spaceship will serve as a temporary home and office for astronauts in orbit between missions to the surface of the Moon. It will provide us and our partners access to the entire surface of the Moon, including places we’ve never been before like the lunar South Pole. Even before our first trip to Mars, astronauts will use the Gateway to train for life far away from Earth, and we will use it to practice moving a spaceship in different orbits in deep space.
Expeditions to the Moon
The crew will board a human landing system docked to the Gateway to take expeditions down to the surface of the Moon. We have proposed using a three-stage landing system, with a transfer vehicle to take crew to low-lunar orbit, a descent element to land safely on the surface, and an ascent element to take them back to the Gateway.
Return to Earth
Astronauts will ultimately return to Earth aboard the Orion spacecraft. Orion will enter the Earth’s atmosphere traveling at 25,000 miles per hour, will slow to 300 mph, then parachutes will deploy to slow the spacecraft to approximately 20 mph before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean.
Red Planet
We will establish sustainable lunar exploration within the next decade, and from there, we will prepare for our next giant leap – sending astronauts to Mars!
Discover more about our plans to go to the Moon and on to Mars: https://www.nasa.gov/moontomars
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Go green — in space!
Good things come in mini-fridge-sized packages. This small spacecraft is our Green Propellant Infusion Mission and will test a low toxicity propellant. This technology could lengthen mission durations by using less propellant.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.