NOVA Next: Going Vegan Isn’t the Most Sustainable Option for Humanity

The vegan diet uses no perennial cropland, making it a less effective use of land than you might suspect.

Researchers found that the carrying capacity—the size of the population that can be supported indefinitely by the resources of an ecosystem—of the vegan diet is actually less substantial than two of the vegetarian diets and two out of the four omnivorous diets they studied.

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So, to summarize: vegan isn’t the healthiest option for most, it’s not sustainable, and it’s not what are bodies are hard wired for. If you choose to be vegan, go ahead. But please stop pontificating about how superior it and you are.

It’s all about filling niches.  Try growing enough veggie food in my area to be sustainably vegan. The rajneesh did it, but they had millions of dollars to make their equipment, thousands of people ALL working the fields every day, they took advantage of some strong microclimates, and they lived modestly. The grasslands here can grow hella cattle, sheep, alfalfa and grains, chickens are easy, and the ridges are perfect for goats. Gardens and orchards are not reliable due to late and early frosts and freezes, and importing loads of veggies isn’t very sustainable. And there are a lot of places with similar environmental conditions. Gotta balance it out! There’s no one right way! And the more people eat locally, the more their diets could change to match their conditions more closely which I think is neat.

People should also remember that even if crop fields are not monocultures, they’re still not a replacement for the habitat they’re built over. Non-intensive farming of food animals, however, preserves native habitat and vegetation. Some of the smaller cattle owners around here keep their herds on land that is unchanged from what it was before the cattle, save for fencing every few acres. Wildlife, especially birds, still get a lot of use out of those fields. There’s even a heron that calls one home. Sheep, goats, chickens, turkeys, geese, and pigs can all do well where I am on native forage in the warm months, and hayfields are productive enough to supply for the winters. The fields are already there - this area was once all dairies - but they’re being replaced by strip malls because local animal products are not profitable anymore. A push towards eco-friendly animal farms and local eating would thus do wonders here - not only would it save our grazeland from development by making it worth working again, but it would preserve more of our landscape and our heritage, including heritage livestock breeds bred to thrive in non-intensive systems, many of which face extinction due to the predominance of intensive systems using production crosses. Already local vegetables and fruits are making a come back, but as I said, planting vegetables means taking away native flora, so I hope what stirrings of interest in local meat I’ve already seen continue to grow. What’s written above about the importance of meat in temperate regions is definitely true - we need balance if we want to protect our natural world, because for everyone here to eat vegan, we’d need to tear down many more fields and forests to make up for our short and unreliable growing season.

one thing that makes me sad about startrekverse is that alongside genuinely utopian things like “in the future there will be no poverty or hunger or crimes or illness” there is also “in the future there will be no religion” like what is this a john lennon song. i am sending you my least amused face

it saddens me that apparently a utopian future involves “”transcending”” religion which apparently universally and inherently holds humanity back?? whaaat. give me a break

i dont want to imagine a utopian SPACE FUTURE which has no, like, hijabi starfleet officers, or space rabbis bickering about what counts as “sunset” when you are on a space station. or what counts as “friday” for that matter

BUT MOST OF ALL

I DONT WANT TO IMAGINE A SPACE FUTURE IN WHICH EVERYONE DOES NOT VALIANTLY PRETEND THAT THERE IS NO ONE HOME ON THEIR STARSHIP WHEN THE MORMON MISSIONARY PODS COME BEETLING BY WITH THEIR DIGITAL PAMPHLETS

AND I AM WILLING TO BET THAT YOU DONT WANT TO IMAGINE THAT EITHER

i was nodding along all serious and then my tea came out my nose

“Captain, we’re being hailed”

“On Screen”

“Hello Captain, this is the Mormon Faith Ship Joseph Smith, have you thought about letting Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ into your life?”

“…You have reached the holographic life size double of Captain Pipistrellus, please leave a message after the beep. Um… beep?”

I just had a vivid mental image of a Star Trek AU where the Borg have successfully been pacified by converting them to Mormonism, and now instead of forcibly assimilating entire worlds into the Collective, they just loom ominously and hand out explanatory pamphlets outlining the spiritual benefits of joining the cyber-Mormon hive mind.

They get more converts than you’d think.

Books and Resources (Paganism, Witchcraft and More)

This list has been updated over the years and will continued to be updated over time. If you re-post this elsewhere, kindly credit me because it’s taken a long time to compile what I feel are useful resources on the following topics. The very basics are covered in my FAQ.

Last updated: 6/20/2015

Paganism:

Wicca:

Witchcraft (non-Wiccan):

Witchcraft by Type:

Chaos Magic:

World Mythology:

Hellenic Polytheism and Greek Mythology:

Magic in Ancient Greece:

Roman Polytheism:

Kemeticism and Ancient Egyptian Mythology:

Celtic Recon and Myth:

Druidry/Druidism:

Asatru, Heathenism and Norse Mythology:

Crystals and Stones:

Herbal (Magical, Medicinal):

Notes: please take care before using herbs for medicinal and/or supplemental purposes. Many herbs are toxic (some authors fail to mention this!) and/or have harmful side-effects. Always do research and consult a professional before use. 

Fae and Faerie Faith:

Runes:

Authors to avoid (due to misinformation, historical inaccuracies, poor research, potentially harmful advice, and/or failure to cite sources):

You’re in charge of assigning every child on Earth the monster under their bed. One child in particular has caused every monster assigned to him/her to quit. You decide to assign yourself.

Case: #273402 Status: Disastrous.

I stare at the file and realize I have no options, over the last 2 years every monster assigned to Charlotte Dower has quit, every last one. Her first monster; a giant goldfish-faced humanoid named Bubba, had been with her for four years, and then she wasn’t scared of him anymore. After that it was a string of different common, uncommon, and rare monsters… I even assigned a sentient sock monster to her. He came back crying! I look on my tablet, only one assignable monster left; myself. Field work has never been my cup of tea, but desperate times call for desperate measures. So at 8:03 pm, after Mrs. Gideon tucks in Charlotte and her little brother Daniel; I slither into the space beneath Charlotte’s bed. Across the room underneath Daniel’s crib is a rookie, Chico, a standard Creep kind of monster. I turn my attention to the bed above me, Charlotte is still awake but barely, I reach up over the bed and run an ice cold finger over her cheek, silence, so I do it again. “I’m not afraid of you monster!” She whispers, but her voice is shaking. I can see a small clock on the wall 8:14, a door somewhere in the house slams and there is an audible hitch of breath from above me. A few minutes go by I can hear Francis Gideon yelling at his wife. There are heavy footsteps on the stairs, and loud panting breaths, Charlotte scrambles off the bed and… She. CRAWLS. Under. The. Bed. With. Me. “Move. Over!” Charlotte hisses at me. I do. The door to the bedroom slams open and I smell the stench of human intoxicants before the man even steps inside. I know why Charlotte isn’t afraid of any of my monsters; she’s afraid of her own. Francis reaches a hand under the bed and I thrust my wrist into it, he starts to pull, I slither out. “What the…” I cut Francis’s next words off by unfolding to my full 12 foot height. Looming over the drunken man I caress my cold fingers down his face. “If you ever touch, scare, or harm my child again, I will find you, and I will do the same to you, for all eternity.” I promise to him. As Francis runs from the room he soils himself. I pull Charlotte from under the bed, tuck her back under her covers and kiss her forehead goodnight. “I’ll be back tomorrow night, sleep well darling.” Charlotte Dower is my child, I am the monster under her bed.

WELL GODAMN, WE HAVE OURSELVES A WINNER

Holy shit I’m gonna cry that’s beautiful.

Oh man, I miss my best friend from high school too :( I just don’t understand how we went from bffs to only talking once a year but it hurts so bad. I have plenty of amazing people in my life - but there’s a hole where she used to be, you know?

imagine the flowers at your feet, the stars in the sky

Lavender Moon’s Halloween Giveaway!! 

Hi friends! It’s the spookiest month of the year, and so to help you be your best witchy self I’m holding a little giveaway! The winner will receive a copy of the Witchlings oracle, the New Herb Bible, a package of my favorite incense, and three crystals - green calcite, rose quartz, and amethyst.

The rules:

And that’s it! I’ll choose a winner on October 16th, so you’ll hopefully receive your witchy goods in time for Halloween :D Have fun! <3 

Tomorrow is the last day to enter!! AHH!! <3 

reblog this and put the age you realised you were not straight in the tags

Starry night and coffee  Maori Sakai Exhibition 2016 “Coffee for you” -Personal work-

Skull in a salt lake.

This is always weirdly calming to watch

you know how there are moonbeam girls? the soft ones with curves and a smile that makes everything feel safe. the ones you could hug all day and be warm forever. the ones who have those eyes that feel like coming home and a voice like a warm cup of tea and a blanket

and the sunshine girls? the ones who know themselves inside and out and are just comfortable in their own skin and make you feel wanted and beautiful because them even looking at you makes you feel special because they’re so amazing and how could someone that radiant even exist

and then the stardust girls? they’re just so ethereal and every way they move makes the world a little more brilliant and everything they do is perfect and makes you gasp because they’re too good for this world and they can’t possibly be human and there’s just so much in their mind and all you want is to climb inside and revel at their brilliance

and the galaxy girls? their laughter is the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen and when you make eye contact and they start to come towards you it’s like you finally know where you belong and they’re colorful and amazing and god how are they even here

and the sunset girls? all you really want is for them to hold you and sing to you and tell you stories because they have so much art in their souls aching to come out and all you want is to see them shine like you know they can because the world doesn’t deserve to see their creativity but god does it need to

girls are amazing and i love them

The Lovers Oracle by Sulamith Wülfing is probably the strangest little oracle deck that I have. Bought it quite some time ago already. The art is absolutely stunning but the cards do not hold messages. On the backs, they all feature a question that you can ask your partner. Things like - “Are you still inlove with me or are we good friends?” - “If there’s a person in history I would’ve liked, who would it be?” - “When you are experiencing deep pain, do you feel carried by me?” - and much more. I haven’t used the deck at all and I knew that I most likely wouldn’t but I had to take it with me. The cards were and are just too beautiful. Couldn’t pass it up! Anyways, I wanted to show you guys this pretty little deck. ⭐️

as a general rule. if what we’re calling ‘cultural appropriation’ sounds like nazi ideology (i.e. ‘white people should only do white people things and black people should only do black people things’) with progressive language, we are performing a very very poor application of what ‘cultural appropriation’ means. this is troublingly popular in the blogosphere right now and i think we all need to be more critical of what it is we may be saying or implying, even unintentionally.

There is nothing wrong with everyone enjoying each other’s cultures so long as those cultures have been shared. 

Eating Chinese food, watching Bollywood movies, going to see Cambodian dancers, or learning to speak Korean so you can watch every K drama in existence is totally fine. The invitation to participate in those things came from within those cultures. The Mexican family that owns the place where I get fajitas wants me to eat fajitas. Their whole business model kind of depends on it, actually. 

If you see something from another culture you think you might want to participate in, but you don’t know if that would be disrespectful or appropriative, you can just…ask. Like. A Jewish friend explained what a mezuzah was to me, recently. (It’s the little scroll-thing near their front doors that they touch when they come into their house. It basically means “this is a Jewish household.”)

“Oh, cool,” I said. “Can I touch it? Or is it only for Jewish people?”

“You can touch it or you can not touch it,” she said. “I don’t care.”

“Cool, I’m gonna touch it, then.”

“Cool.”

It’s not hard.

You want to twerk, twerk. I’ve never heard a black person say they didn’t think anybody else should be allowed to twerk. Just that they want us to acknowledge that they invented that shit, not Miley fucking Cyrus.

this is a good post.

Thank you, I was trying to sort this out in my head but you explained it very well.

snake witch aesthetic

(more here)