Head lamp with both red and white light, a game changer for walking the dogs. Red light preserves night vision

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

ProPublica is a no paywall investigative news organization that has really hard hitting reporting that holds corrupt businesses and people accountable. They have a good track record of getting consequences for the things they report on.

World Wildlife Foundation does 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

My local Unitarian Universalist church creates a place for LGBTQ+ and other marginalized people to feel safe and celebrated and the people do so much work trying to make our local community a better place. There’s no expectation to believe any specific scripture, just a shared set of values. Find a congregation near you

I have two friends born to parents of similar ages as that. Both have had very happy families. One was an only child. The other had a similar age gap with his half siblings, they didn’t interact much while he was growing up, but now that he’s an adult they hang out all the time. It seems like both friends have had to deal with more challenging losses of parents earlier in their lives than typical, but there’s no guarantee about tomorrow anyway.

Undecided with Matt Ferrell - new energy tech developments Technology Connections - how contemporary and retro tech works City Nerd with Ray Delahanty - public transit, city planning, housing affordability, city walk throughs

I believe they’re on Nebula as well

You’re welcome!

On the fulfilling community aspect, I found that 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. 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.

There’s two subreddits I really miss: AskScience and AskHistorians. I was a regular and flaired contributor to AskScience, but its super helpful to generate a response when there’s a good question. It would feel weird opining on a random science topic that I come up with. And I loved the well sourced AskHistorians posts. When I do see a c/AskHistorian post on Lemmy the responses are very low effort

The majority of US federal agriculture subsidies go to corn production, the majority of corn production is for live stock feed. Anybody who brings up spending that money on vegetables or basically anything other than corn gets silenced pretty quick

If you’re interested in energy efficiency, here’s a great video from Technology Connections!

Yes the headline is about chest freezers, but he just uses that as an example of highest possible efficiency before getting into other design of fridge/freezers

Agreed, birch leaves are serrated, these look like beeches

I really like the Yoga with Adrienne YouTube channel. She has a large variety of yoga and strengthening exercises from super low impact to intense workouts.

There is definitely some invasive bamboo in the forests near me that’s spreading and taking over the native habitat

It varies a lot by UU congregation. Mine has more focus on Earth based traditions, as in we’re celebrating Earth Day this Sunday instead of Easter. Although we’ve been known to celebrate the high holidays from several major religious traditions.

There are people out there taking action, go find some. Collective action is always stronger than individual action. If you don’t currently have a community that is engaged, consider joining a Unitarian Universalist congregation. Unitarians in the US and Europe resisted the German Nazis by creating documents and providing refuge for Jewish people fleeing the Holocaust. Many congregations today have active social and environmental justice groups, often focusing on local action with low barriers to entry. Nobody is expected to believe any particular scripture, but UUs have a common set of principles, the first being everyone has inherent worth and dignity. The sermons at my congregation lately have been about trans visibility, rising to the moment and processing the chaos, which I’ve found inspiring.

Obligatory Technology Connections video on awnings https://youtu.be/uhbDfi7Ee7k

You may like the book Why Civil Resistance Works by Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan. It includes three indepth cases studies of tactics used by resistance movements.

Check if your area has a Weed Warriors group/organization. They go around removing invasive plants that are smothering native plants. I find it fun and get a satisfaction of having done something nice while exercising.

If your area doesn’t have that, there’s most likely opportunities to volunteer with hiking trail maintenance at nearby state parks. Or just go hiking, start small and bring water!

I look at independent randomized controlled trials, not anecdotal evidence. Here’s a recent trial from Finland that didn’t have industry funding. They compared low-nicotine vaping vs varenicline alone vs placebo. Both varenicline and vaping resulted in about 40% of people quitting at 12 weeks, and 20% of placebo group. So add nicotine replacement therapy and behavioral therapy on top of varenicline and the rates should go higher. Pfizer and other pharmaceutical companies sell most of the FDA-approved cessation therapies, and in comparison the big tobacco companies sell vapes.

Check out SmokeFree.gov! It has great free resources that are science based. Quitting smoking is the number thing someone who smokes can do for their health.

The most effective methods to quit smoking include varenicline (aka Chantix), FDA-approved nicotine replacement therapies (gum, patch, lozenge, inhaler, etc), and behavioral therapy. Combining all of these therapies in a clinical trials results in the most people quitting.

No vape is FDA-approved as a cessation therapy, because no company has applied. There have been some small academic run trials, which tend to show a decrease in smoking, but continued nicotine addiction. Probably because vapes have much higher nicotine content than FDA-approved therapies. While vapes expose people to a lot less carcinogens than smoke, there are some carcinogens and nicotine itself is harmful to vascular and mental health. So if the evidence-based methods don’t work, completely switching to vaping would be less harmful.