I figured it was in response to people using the ships as a gotcha. Pointing out that solar panels are manufactured using power that, itself, isn’t green yet, and are shipped using non-green methods. If done in good faith, I’d suspect the were unfamiliar with using one existing process to bootstrap a new one, but it’s usually just another way of saying we should maintain the status quo (however bad) until its replacement is absolutely perfect.

A few folks I know switched smoothly from “climate change is fake” to “maybe it’s real but there’s nothing we can do about it at this point. Might as well live it up.” Basically anything to avoid change at any level.

I think that’s the defeatism they’re talking about here, not people pointing out the issues.

Electric Arc Furnaces are probably our best bet for that - they’re an established, proven technology and can be swapped over to a green power source without any other changes (assuming the society has the energy capacity). I think I remember reading that a factory somewhere in Europe had already done that but a quick search has failed me.

I really enjoy reading about the investigations that follow any big crypto heist, where they track the stolen money through various exchanges etc. The Swindled podcast just did one about a pretty poor attempt to launder crypto (see Razzlekhan) and Darknet diaries did one on the much more competent (suspected North Korean) heist of eth from Axie Infinity and their various laundering efforts including through Tornado cash. It’s surprisingly transparent in a lot of ways. It seems like stealing the money is often the comparatively easy part, and getting their huge sums out of crypto and into something they can use (while thousands watch the money like hawks) is much harder.

Site prep is key, so make sure to bring a sledgehammer.

Yeah I don’t think they’re talking about you

It depends on what you need to enjoy the space.

If you’re looking for a grass alternative and aren’t running around on it all the time, roman chamomile can be a good, low-growing, pet-safe plant. We used this on my neighbor’s postage stamp front lawn so he wouldn’t have to mow but it would still look nice and intentional. There are also a handful of other low-growing plants which require much less maintenance and are more drought-tolerant than grass, but they tend to be best for low-traffic areas, so if you’re out there playing catch or capture the flag with your kids most days they’re probably not as good as grass.

If you’re in a shady area, moss might be an option. It also prefers low traffic.

And the option abhored by HOAs and your fussiest neighbors: just don’t bother maintaining a perfect lawn. A lot of the work and environmental damage comes from keeping a perfect monocrop of a specific grass cultivar. Fertilizer to keep the soil good enough (which gets washed into local waterways and causes algae blooms) pesticides (which kill bees and a slew of other insects) and herbicides to kill any plants that try to compete with the grass (which remain in the soil as well). Traps for rodents that try to exist in the yard. Not to mention the energy and person-hours spent on trimming it frequently. Just accepting that grass isn’t really meant to form a thick lawn in most areas, and will look a bit patchy, multi-hued, and feature some other plants, will greatly reduce the effort and damage caused.

Or if you can’t stand the thought of doing that (or will get in trouble) consider downsizing it a little - section off the least-used sections of your lawn, plant some cool native trees or shrubs, throw down some mulch so it looks intentional.

And the last option (where applicable): no grass.

When I was a kid our house was in the woods, with no clearing to speak of, so we mostly just played on the forest floor, which was mostly leaves and pine needles. If you pick up the sticks and keep it somewhat open, it can look really beautiful.

That’s interesting - this is the first I’m hearing of them doing that to jets.

This isn’t the original, but I took the photo and cleaned it up a bit:

I’ve seen similar, I’d never had trouble just running the drill till the sides were smooth before, but some of these sticks were still pretty live, and no matter how long I let the drill cut into the sides, or what speed I used, it still produced fluffy sawdust and left those splinters along the inside of some. I’d been planning to wait a year on those and drill them again but it took more sticks than I’d planned to fill it. For what it’s worth, they’re pretty soft, but they might harden as they dry? If it’s a legit risk for the bees I’ll definitely pull those tubes. I think cardboard tubes are probably the better way long term, certainly they’re less work which would make replacing them easier. I just prefer to make things myself when I can.

So far, we haven’t noticed any issues with birds or other critters. If we do, I’ll add a screen, but I didn’t want to risk making things easier for spiders, or helping water splash the holes if I didn’t have to.

We did have carpenter ants climb up behind the sticks so I need to figure out our solution to that. I’m really hoping thats new and that they didn’t get into the bee holes or take any eggs. The tree seems healthy so I’m thinking the bee house was what appealed to them?

I’ll update if I learn anything else.

And the ones from trigun

The solarpunk genre in general might have some good stuff for you - my favorite so far is Murder in the Tool Library, but the Terraformers might be closer to what you’re looking for.

Honestly watching people deny that COVID was real as it happened around them in real time kind of drove home to me that there was no way they’d recognize climate change. The longer time scale, and the fact that it’s more difficult to link a specific disaster to a specific cause (vs uncle bob coughed on someone, then they went to the hospital and died) I think means climate change will be hard mode.