Sargassum, a type of brown macroalgae, has been inundating beaches across the Caribbean since 2011. It comes from the Sargasso Sea in the Atlantic Ocean.

The seaweed has harmed Caribbean economies and human health, making it a national emergency in some island-nations.

Over the past decade, entrepreneurs and scientists have found ways to turn sargassum into nutrient-rich biofertilizers, biostimulants and other organic products to boost agricultural yields while cutting back on chemicals.

Small-scale industry or regional boon?

While the industry remains a small club, the issue isn’t going away. Mexico uses sargassum for a long list of products, such as eco-concrete and biogas. And in Miami, a recent initiative offered cash prizes for innovative uses of sargassum as a mitigation measure, including Carbonwave and a St. Lucian biofertilizer company called Algas Organics. As the industry grows, Morrison anticipated that “ownership” over sargassum, depending on its location in the water, could become a point of contention.

For now, the agroecological benefits of using sargassum to help produce more nutritious food are what keep Forte motivated at Red Diamond.

As a child, his grandmother’s garden was paradise. He climbed mango trees, plucked ripe bananas off the stems and stole the occasional “finger fruit,” a local term for carambola (star fruit, Averrhoa carambola), as an afternoon snack. Forte watched as she recycled plant matter back into the soil, allowing the crops to proliferate year-round.

Looking back, Forte realized his grandmother was practicing what is now called permaculture, a style of agroecology that prioritizes recycling nutrients in a zero-waste manner.

“Nature is something that is ever-changing,” Forte said. “We have to be as flexible and as adaptable as nature to be able to work with it effectively.”

A satirical papyrus showing a lady mouse being served wine by a cat while another cat dresses her hair, a third cares for her baby, and a fourth fans her. The mice have hilarious huge, round ears.

Where: Egyptian Museum Cairo

When: New Kingdom

if you're wondering why THIS tiktok ban bill made it through the senate unlike last time...

As part of Christina's Solarpunk Action Week activities, she tackled cleaning out the pond in her backyard. You can check out parts one and two on our YouTube page. Watch out for Solarpunk Doggo, mucky water, and Christina's dance moves.

Y'all, the world is sleeping on what NASA just pulled off with Voyager 1

The probe has been sending gibberish science data back to Earth, and scientists feared it was just the probe finally dying. You know, after working for 50 GODDAMN YEARS and LEAVING THE GODDAMN SOLAR SYSTEM and STILL CHURNING OUT GODDAMN DATA.

So they analyzed the gibberish and realized that in it was a total readout of EVERYTHING ON THE PROBE. Data, the programming, hardware specs and status, everything. They realized that one of the chips was malfunctioning.

So what do you do when your probe is 22 Billion km away and needs a fix? Why, you just REPROGRAM THAT ENTIRE GODDAMN THING. Told it to avoid the bad chip, store the data elsewhere.

Sent the new code on April 18th. Got a response on April 20th - yeah, it's so far away that it took that long just to transmit.

And the probe is working again.

From a programmer's perspective, that may be the most fucking impressive thing I have ever heard.

public service announcement

Being a young adult is so strange. You enter a coffee shop. The 20 year old girl waiting behind you cried all night because she just came to a new city for university and she feels so alone. That 27 year old guy over there works a job he is overqualified for, he lives with his parents and wants to move out but doesn't know what to do about it. That one 24 year old dude already has a car, a house, and a job waiting for him once he graduates thanks to his dad's connections. The 26 year old barista couldn't complete his higher education because he has to work and take care of his family. The 28 year old girl sitting next to you has no friends to go out with so she is texting her mother. That couple (both 25 years old) are married and the girl is pregnant. The 29 year old writing something on her laptop has realized that she chose the wrong major so she is trying to start all over. We are not alone in this, but we are actually so alone. Do you feel me

🚨 Students at Harvard University launched an encampment in support of Gaza in Harvard Yard moments ago, calling for an end to Harvard's moral and material complicity in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people.

Harvard has invested over $200 million of its over $51 billion endowment in companies with ties to zionist settlements in the West Bank, while most of its investments to the zionist entity are kept secret.

The students are demanding financial transparency regarding investments related to the zionist entity, as well as genocide and occupation in Palestine; divestment from these investments and reinvestment in Palestine; and dropping all charges against student activists.

The University has suppressed student voices in support of Palestine time and time again, suspending the Palestine Solidarity Committee just this week on baseless grounds. They have also enabled attacks on pro-Palestinian students from the media and politicians. Today, the students say enough is enough, and that they will no longer tolerate their institution's support for genocide.

This brings the number of ongoing encampments to 19, with more to come.

bail funds for pro-palestine activists

a15 bail and legal defense fund (supporting community members criminalized in the us for solidarity with palestine)

university of texas at austin students bail fund venmo @ psc_atx (livestream)

columbia students bail fund venmo @ bcabolitioncollective

the palestine legal defense fund supports acitvists across the united states

palestine legal defence also supplies free legal support for activists

the national bail fund network may update with local bail fund efforts as events continue to unfold

this list is updated as of 24 april 10pm EST. i'll try to update as i find further bail funds and legal supports: if you know of other funds or if information shared here is incorrect, please reblog with updated info (+ a timestamp) so people can give and access support.

palestine will be free, solidarity forever 🍉 🇵🇸

i think if you're participating in a fandom yet vehemently hate the source material it's probably time to move on to another fandom instead of wasting your time constantly criticizing the source material and/or those who genuinely enjoy it

Hey friends, Benjamin Maldonaldo reached out to us on Instagram and asked us to share his post about a SOLARPUNK SURVEY which is super awesome!! He wants to take the temperature of what solarpunks are thinking/feeling about solarpunk itself as a movement/genre for his bachelor's thesis, and we think it's a rad concept. Here's the link:

"Dear Solarpunks, my name is Benjamín Maldonado, a Chilean 21 year old Solarpunk enthusiast that throughout the last few months, has tried to learn as much as possible about the movement and genre. This personal passion led me to choose Solarpunk as the subject of my thesis for the Bachelor of Cultural Anthropology at Leiden University. The following survey will be part of that thesis, where I will ask you about your thoughts on different matters like the Solarpunk movement, Solarpunk content, Solarpunk communities and some basic demographics. Based on the time I have spent in Solarpunk forums, it is very likely that you are also curious on what other Solarpunks think. Given this, after I close the survey I would like to share my findings with you all, hopefully contributing to the ongoing debates within the community. Your participation in this survey is entirely voluntary, and all responses will be kept confidential. Your personal information will not be divulged, and your individual responses will remain anonymous. The data gathered from this survey will be used solely for research purposes related to this research, supervised by Assistant Professor Rodrigo Ochigame and Assistant Professor John Boy

Although I am sure there are a lot of underage Solarpunks who have a lot to say, I sadly will not be allowing people younger than 18. This is solely a legal matter. Your understanding and cooperation on this matter are greatly appreciated."

If one of your initiatives is helping to solve the triple global crisis of climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss, then the Champions of the Earth award could be for you.

The call for entries launched by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is open until 5 May 2024.

Absolutely amazing 🏳️‍🌈🫶🌈

A photographer’s portrait in a mirror, a hundred years ago, Japan, ca. 1920. Text and image via Old Japanese Photos on Facebook

 Our “snapshots” are brief, structured case studies that give a taste of the many diverse ways that startups have been trying to grow into community ownership and governance, albeit with mixed results.

The snapshots range from my Colorado neighbors Namaste Solar and Trident bookstore, which converted to employee ownership, to major open-source software projects like Debian and Python, which are mini-democracies accountable to their developers. There is NIO, a Chinese electric car company whose founder set aside a chunk of stock for car-buyers, and Defector Media, a co-op founded by employees who quit their previous job in protest. There are also blockchain-based efforts, like Gitcoin and SongADAO, that have tried to make good on a new technology’s often-betrayed promises for making a more inclusive economy.

I have taken two main lessons from these snapshots so far.

1. There is widespread craving for a better kind of exit—and the creativity to back it up. Entrepreneurs, investors, users, and workers alike are all recognizing the need for a new approach, and they are trying lots of different ways to get it. They are relying on old technology and the latest innovations. They are using many different legal structures and techniques for empowering communities. The resourcefulness is pretty astonishing, really.

2. Better exits need to be easier—and this will require structural change. In just about every case, E2C attempts have faced profound challenges. They are often working at the very edge of what the law allows, because many of our laws were written to serve profit-seeking investors, not communities. Much of what communities wanted was simply not possible. Truly changing the landscape of exits will mean policy change that takes communities seriously as sources of innovation and accountability.

I want to stress this second point. It first became clear to me when working with collaborators at Zebras Unite on the idea of turning Meetup into a user-owned cooperative. The founder wanted it. The business model made perfect sense—a rare platform whose users actually pay for it. The company was up for a fire sale. But we simply could not find investors or lenders prepared to back a deal like that. This is a problem I have seen with many other co-op efforts, over and over. Policy is the most powerful shaping force for where capital can aggregate, and there is no adequate policy to support capital for large-scale community ownership. This is also the reason we have lost many community-owned companies in recent years, from New Belgium Brewing to Mountain Equipment Co-op—the most successful community-owned companies too often can’t access the capital they need to flourish.