See how the slyly worded, rather weaselly marketing claim for CityTrees claiming that these panels of moss contain “The cleaning power of 275 trees” got changed, in people’s minds, to “each panel of moss ABSORBS AS MUCH CARBON DIOXIDE as 275 trees”, a completely ridiculous and impossible claim?? And then see how people immediately decided that moss is therefore somehow more “eco” than trees and that “moss lawns” will magically solve global warming? See how everyone did that, by themselves? The important facts, like ‘when plants absorb carbon dioxide, they release the oxygen and use the carbon for their own construction; therefore, plants only absorb as much carbon as they physically need to grow’ have been utterly discarded in the rush to believe something more viral and exciting.
One sly bit of marketing that the public has been widely encouraged to misinterpret, verbally repeated from a random person to a random Guardian blogger at a garden show, who blogged about it as if it was a fact, has now gotten so scrambled that people on tumblr honestly believe that 12 square meters of moss absorbs as much carbon dioxide as 275 trees.
These screencaps show the actual claims about the CityTrees, which are that the moss, having a lot of surface area for its mass, can filter the particles in air pollutants more efficiently than equivalent-sized plants that are smoother.
You will see the effects of this for years. Years from now, people will insist that moss has the ability to simply erase carbon molecules from the universe. And you’ll know differently, but because it won’t match what people prefer to believe, nobody will listen to you.
It’s just!!! I’m still so annoyed about this!
Carbon. The only element on the periodic table whose atoms exhibit quantum behavior depending on local belief levels. Because, you see, carbon atoms simply pop out of existence whenever they’re inconvenient to the narrative.
IS THIS WHERE THAT FUCKING FIGURE COMES FROM?
I always assumed someone had misunderstood something about the carbon stored in several metres of peat or something!
It literally is. Most of the sources talking about moss lawns circle back to the James Wong Guardian article, which came directly from talking to a CityTrees marketing guy at a plant show. He posted the article and most people have propagated from that source since. (the other articles circle back to Japanese botanical gardens, which are enchanting and important pieces of heritage/plantcraft, but rather a startling thing to suggest that people take up wholesale; a bit like saying that everyone in the world should stop using commercial airlines to save the planet, and should replace all long-haul travel by flying individually owned motorised hang-gliders. Like, okay, I guess that would solve the immediate commercial flight thing, but what about the bonkers new problems this idea would cause? What are you supposed to do if you’re travelling with children, luggage, pets? What about weather? What about the fact that the planet is, very much, largely oceanic. Wait, hang-gliding is a SPECIALISED SKILL and a HOBBY, most people won’t even have the skill to do it safely, or the time to take on this huge new activity! What would be the benefit of doing this instead?? Do we even have evidence that ordinary people can do this in their lives? Can we interview someone who does it for their daily commute, maybe? Do you have pictures? These pictures are stolen from a highly regarded botanical garden in Japan. This is a stock image photo of a temperate rainforest in the USA. Who is doing this?)
(I would also like to challenge bloggers to question their relationship with Asian material culture: when discussing Japanese gardens, why is it important to repeat the adjectives of “cool, serene, peaceful” and their existence as “more enlightened” than “Western” analogues, and what is being extracted and sold here? Which aspects of the cultural meaning of moss cultivation should the average reader absorb and replicate? Is the enlightenment something that travels with having the moss, or…? Why, when encouraging people to reject the (false) connection of American grass lawns to French monarchy, is it important that Americans replace this connection with Japanese sites of heritage? Why are people instructed to participate in ritual consumption of plants and cultures, rather than focusing on their actual household needs and what their actual land can readily give them? Why are indigenous practices never present in North American gardening advice? Why is North American gardening advice presented in a tone of instructing the entire world to follow? Why do biomes get so flattened in these discussions?)
And nobody will ever believe you.
and to add insult to injury the moss bench is built in a way that deters rough sleepers
Ignoring an issue is not the same as an issue being nonexistent
tumblr has a thriving radfem/TERF/transphobia scene like twitter
tumblr posts spread conspiracies and disinformation like tiktoks
tumblr users share fake news and misinformation like facebook users
Assuming these issues don’t exist on tumblr because you haven’t (to your knowledge) seen them does not mean they don’t exist. In fact it makes you more vulnerable to falling victim to believing misinformation and being radicalised because you’ve internalised a sense of security and superiority.
Tumblr is not an inherently better or smarter platform than any other. You can and inevitably will be exposed to these things even here.
Drop the superiority complex and learn about how to actually protect yourself from falling for misinformation, because being on tumblr does not automatically protect you.
i saw a post today where someone stated that they often can’t tell real information from misinformation online. i am not here to make fun of that person. that being said, the ability to figure out if information is real or not is a critical skill for everyone who uses the internet. you need to be able to do that on your own. it’s great if you can get help or if people will tell you what’s real and what’s not, but you also need to be able to do it by yourself. simple, easy tips under the cut.
Actors In Black And White Movies Were Often Putting Their Lives In Danger During Driving Scenes, As They Weren’t Able To Tell If The Traffic Light Was Red Or Green.
You might think this isn’t true because the view from the windows is obviously greenscreened. But the green would reflect off the dashboard, making it hard for the driver distinguish if the traffic light in front of them was green or not.
This information is specific to Texas, but applicable everywhere with abortion restrictions!
Here is another good thread about resources available to women who need to get an abortion but live in a state where it is restricted. (Remember - abortion is still legal in all 50 states as of today, May 4, 2022.)
TLDR; you don’t need to stockpile Plan B, panic, or assume that extreme methods will be necessary. There are a LOT of resources out there. Know about these resources now so you are prepared just in case.
Self-managed medication abortion is commonandsafe.It may be legally dubious to have it mailed to you, but it is an existing option that many people use. Learn more about the legality at https://www.reprolegalhelpline.org.
Also just general advice - while it may be tempting to share or post things like the copy/paste above, please look to pro-choice activists and organizations instead! They have been preparing for this outcome for years and providing resources that actually help real people (as opposed to posting about hypothetical situations that cause mass panic). There are already people on the ground doing this work. Listen to them!!
Right-wing media often claim that tech platforms censor conservative content, but conservative pages, many of which push anti-abortion misinformation, are thriving on Facebook.
This slogan is sometimes attributed to Marx. In fact he’s not the author, and warns about misusing it.
Pro-capitalist commentators abuse this phrase, claiming a socialist state would seize all property and redistribute it according to perceived need.
In socialism, workers collectively decide what to produce and how. They democratically decide what to do with the products. This leads to more equitable distribution of the wealth they produce.
A “socialist state” does not alienate workers from the fruits of their labour. On the contrary. It exists to stop wealth being taken from those who produce it.
Only in a state of superabundance, where co-operative labour has provided allworkers with more than they need or want, might society voluntarilychoose to distribute on the basis of need.
“In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life’s prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly – only then then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!” - Marx, ‘Critique of the Gotha Programme’
do teenage girls who support communism realize they would be exterminated under it?? as in it literally is stated in the communist manifesto that upper and middle classes are so spoiled theres no chance for resocialization for them and they need to be exterminated for the good of society… like… how do you support an ideology that says youre the scum of earth and you need to die??
“When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character … we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.” - excerpt from The Communist Manifesto
This is actually hella interesting, bc in simple terms, tigers are extroverts and lions are introverts. There’s more to it, but that’s the gist.
Whenever zoo’s tried to put lions and tigers in the same enclosures, the tiger would eventually try to groom the lioness and play constantly. The lioness would lose patience and snaps at them
So basically what I’m saying is that you have a regal and refined gf who stands at the edge of a balcony during parties, sipping champagne
Then you have the other girl who drank all of the little flutes on the servers platter, and is now drunkenly pointing at her gf and telling everyone that that’s her gf and doesn’t she look beautiful I love her so much
So I had to draw them in human form???
You drew them in the corresponding ethnicities for their Geographic locations!!! Bless you, you have no idea how sick and tired I am of white human lion king characters.
THE TIGER/LION LESBIANS ARE BACK!
CAT LESBIANS!
Listen, it is incredibly heart-warming, and I like everybody’s enthusiasm, however, this personally alarm me, because Tigers and Lions live in different habitat and never interact in wild. I don’t know what that tiger is doing in what appear to be an African savannah. So, I decided to look into the backstory of the screenshot.
Disclaimer, I am not an expert and all information are simply gathered by search engine. Please correct me if I am wrong.
Edit:I slowly write this essay as I am going through sources. By the end of it, I am exhausted and crushed. My tone slowly shifted from hopeful to despair. I do not wish to ruin your hapinness, but it is important that we must expose false information and harmful practice disguised as good. Warning of animal death below.
TL;DR : Both animal are killed by other tigers as they are housed in a small, over crowded enclosure with terrible management. They live in a privately owned “nature reserve” that claimed to rewild them, but they never get to be free. They all died.
The Introduction, who makes this video? Where was it filmed?
Unfortunately, Savannah, the lion has passed away, killed by another tiger in the reserve. The tigress Julie, who has become old, relied on her to help defend their territory. She was soon also killed by another tiger.
End
Savannah is Julies adoptive daughter, and she is exhibiting her Lion’s nature by staying with her “pride” and help Julie raise her siblings and defend the territory. I don’t‘ know if they engage in same sex behaviour. It is possible because it is documented in male sibling lions living together.
Tigers are a highly violent and solitary animal, and they won’t tolerate each other, only socialize face-to-face during mating season. It is possible that they engage in same sex behaviour too, but it has not been documented as any interaction is so rare.
Male and female tigers may kill each other over violent territory competition, and it becomes much more violent and bloody as their natural habitat is being destroyed.
But it is what not happening here. There’s no known South China Tiger, a sub species of tiger, population in wilderness of China, let alone Africa. This story took place in a nature reserve, Tiger Canyon.
The video uploader name is changed to JohnVary. (https://www.youtube.com/user/sunettefou/videos) But this name has connection to Tiger Canyon, as it is one of his private nature reserves. So, it is most likely the exact same video in the screenshot.
I can’t find an article about Tiger Canyon, but it is appeared that it is a part of Laohu Valley. This article (https://min.news/en/animal/57dacbf19a1b42c9b81d081c3b495864.html) mention Savannah and Julie by names. While the source video plays a song mourning Savannah’s death, this article get into more details of their time as they were alive and how they died.
End
Laohu Valley is a home of self-sustained, free-roaming South China Tigers in Africa. They hunt medium-sized prey animals normally eaten by lions. This project is met with concern of introducing an invasive species, but they were assured that the tigers are kept in a fenced-off area, completely tiger-proof. And the area was previously damaged from over grazing, and it will be beneficial to rebuild it into an ecosystem that can sustain tigers.
This is where I felt it is a red flag.
Part 3: TW Animal Death
TW: Animal Death, point of no return
Despite being named “Laohu, Tiger” the only place that is fenced to house tigers in the valley is only 1.8 Square Km (0.694 square miles). In 2019, it is reported to house 18 tigers and, 1 lion. I don’t know how much space a tiger need to thrive, but we have discussed that both animals were killed in territory dispute. Horrifyingly, this lethal fights seem to be common occurrences. These passages are copied from the article:
Thedensity of tigers in Laohu Valley is very high.The competition between tigers for territory is very fierce.
…
…and the other tigress, Mirage, had been the best for a long time. The territory of Savannah and Julie have also been defeated steadily by the joint fight of Savannah and Julie, and even failed to raise her own cubs in a few years.
…
There is no concept of closeness between each other. Many tigers will fight for territory with their parents when they grow up.
Two cubs that grew up with Savannah at the same time. That’s it, they are the tiger boys who killed their father’s male tigers when they grew up.
It is clear that this is not a facility that provide them good quality of life. Julie survived for so long because she had Savannah helping her.
Part 4: Savannah
Then,where does Savannah came from? That’s no natural population of lion in that area. In the original video, the song which mourn her death mention that she was:
Savannah born in darkness. Confined by wire cages, Is offered a chance of freedom, By a tigress and her cubs.
In the Laohu Valley Reserve in Africa, those with good things have done such an experiment, putting lion cubs that have lost their mothers in the tiger’s den, hoping to see whether the tiger will destroy it.
I do not know much, but I don’t think putting a defenceless cub inside an enclosure and left it at the total mercy of a tiger is a proper animal care.
Tiger Canyon is surrounded by a large body of nature reserve that house native African animal. So, it is entirely possible that they have stolen the cub. They claimed that Savannah lost her mother, but at this point I have doubt.
Part 5: Scandal concerning Tiger Canyon, and The Vartys
I am tired, I am sad. At this point I will just copy-paste articles.
Wildlife conservationist Li Quan initially enlisted the help of John Varty (wildlife filmmaker) and Dave Varty (eco-tourism developer) in South Africa to assist in the rehabilitation process.[7] However, Li Quan and her husband, investment banker Stuart Bray, became concerned that the Vartys were misusing the project’s funds to buy land for themselves. Later, in July 2002, the Vartys admitted to borrowing a small portion of Bray’s money.[7] After a legal audit, it was discovered that over R5-million had been borrowed by the Vartys, having been used to pay off the Vartys’ Londolozi Productions debt on unauthorized salaries. Some of the money was also said to have gone into the Vartys’ personal loan accounts and towards paying off their Betty’s Bay seaside property.[7][8] Finally, in October 2002, a few weeks before an agreement was due to be signed with Chinese authorities after the Chinese Wildlife Department began to recognize the project’s conservation value,the Vartys pulled out of the project.[7] John Varty has since founded his own “tiger rewilding” project, Tiger Canyons, also near Philippolis, using the land he acquired with Bray’s funds. However, because Tiger Canyons uses unendangered hybrid breeds of tigers, it has been criticized as having no conservation value, as well as for being used solely for the purpose of creating the film Living with Tigers, which would air on Discovery Channel.[9]
This documentary features a Bengal tiger re-wilding project started by John Varty in 2000. This project involvestraining captive-bred Bengal tiger cubs by their human trainers so that the tigers can regain their predatory instincts.
A strong criticism about this project is with the chosen cubs. Experts state that the four tigers (Ron, Julie, Seatao and Shadow) involved in the re-wilding projectare not purebred Bengal tigers and should not be used for breeding. The four tigers are not recorded in the Bengal tiger studbook and should not be deemed as purebred Bengal tigers. Many tigers in the world’s zoos are genetically impure, and there is no reason to suppose these four are not among them.[2]
The tigers in the Tiger Canyons Project have recently been confirmed to be crossbred Siberian/Bengal tigers. Tigers that are not genetically pure are not allowed to participate in the tiger Species Survival Plan, which aims to breed genetically pure tiger specimens and individuals.[6]
Thedocumentary has been alleged by some to be a fraud.[7] One source claims that the tigers are unable to hunt, and the film crew chased the prey up against the fence and into the path of the tigers just for the sake of dramatic footage. Cory Meacham, a US-based environmental journalist mentioned that “the film has about as much to do with tiger conservation as a Disney cartoon.” An additional assertion is that the tigers have not been releasedandstill reside in a small enclosure under constant watch and with frequenthumancontact. Some conservationists fear the public’s being misled by false representation of footage.[8] (dead link)
TL;DR
TW: Animal Death
Both animal are killed by other tigers as they are housed in a small, over crowded enclosure with terrible management. They live in a privately owned “nature reserve” that claimed to rewild them, but they never get to be free. They all died.
End
Foot note: R5 million is most likey mispell of 45 or 55.
⚠️Thank you for the Fact Checking and Fact Gathering ⚠️
seriously. This was a lot of work and it is a horrendous emotional toll. I feel a little guilty I hadn’t looked deeper into this even though I was aware tigers and lions don’t cross paths in the wild. I was too captivated by everything else and I guess I assumed this had all happened under decent circumstances. However, I am glad you paused and took time to bring this to light.
Thank you. Its important. (And I hope others who have read the original post see this and reblog this)
the phrase “curiosity killed the cat” is actually not the full phrase it actually is “curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought it back” so don’t let anyone tell you not to be a curious little baby okay go and be interested in the world uwu
See also:
Blood is thicker than water The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.
Meaning that relationships formed by choice are stronger than those formed by birth.
Let’s not forget that “Jack of all trades, master of none” ends with “But better than a master of one.”
It means that being equally good/average at everything is much better than being perfect at one thing and sucking at everything else. So don’t worry if you’re not perfect at something you do! Being okay is better!
It goes to show that conformity isn’t always a good thing. And that just because more than one person has the same idea, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good idea.
what the fuck why haven’t i heard the full version to any of these
“Birds of a feather flock together” ends with “until the cat comes.”
It’s actually a warning about fair-weather friends, not an assessment of how complementary people are.
oh my god not this fucking post again not a single word of this is true every “true version” of a proverb you read on the internet is a lie THEY WERE EXTENDED BY LATER WRITERS TO REVERSE/ALTER/COMMENT ON THE ORIGINAL MEANING NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND
True. But many of them aren’t accurate, and don’tmean what people assume they mean.
“Curiosity killed the cat” used to be “Care killed the cat”. The proverb originated from the 1598 play “Every Man In His Humor”: “…Helter skelter, hang sorrow, care will kill a cat, up-tails all, and a pox on the hangman” and “Care killed the Cat./ It is said that ‘a cat has nine lives,’ yet care would wear them all out.” It’s not a warning against curiosity; it’s a warning against obsessive worry and fixation. (So yeah, go ahead and be curious; just don’t obsess over the object of your curiosity.)
The earliest verified usage of “Blood is Thicker Than Water” was in the German fable Reynard the Fox: “I also hear it said, kin-blood is not spoiled by water.“In the original context, it probably meant that the waters (and distance) of oceans don’t dim familial relations. I’ve seen a lot of sources claiming that the phrase is an ancient Arabic proverb, and that it did originally include “is thicker than than the water of the womb” (i.e. blood covenants or alliances being stronger than family ties); I’ve also heard it claimed that the “water of the womb” version refers to the bonds formed between soldiers over bloodshed in battle (i.e. brothers in arms). I can’t find any solid evidence supporting the latter two, but in any case, the saying doesn’t mean quite what people usually take it to mean, OR what they’re saying here.
“Jack of all trades, master of none” was originally just “jack of all trades”, and had the same connotation that the full phrase has today. “But better than a master of one” was tacked on later, and has nothing to do with the original saying.
“Great minds think alike” doesn’t seem to have a definite origin. The earliest usage I can find dates from Daubridgecourt Belchier’s 1681 play “Hans Beer Pot, his Invisible Comedy of See me and See me not”:“Though he made that verse, Those words were made before. Good wits doe jump.”(”jump” meaning “agree with completely”). So yes: it means exactly what most people think it means. The “but fools rarely differ” addition doesn’t show up in any literary source; Wikitionary suggests that it’s usually spoken as a comeback of sorts (or, if you’re making a joke, “More like fools seldom differ in this case”).
“Birds of a feather flock together”,according to Wikitionary, seems to have first appeared in William Turner’s 1545 “Rescuing of Romish Fox”:”Byrdes of on kynde and color flok and flye allwayes together.“(However, it may have its roots in Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 27:10: “Birds resort unto their like.”) It, like the last proverb, means exactly what most people think it means: people who are similar often congregate. It’s a neutral statement; it says nothing about whether such behavior is good or bad.
Reading laterally is a great way to fact check in real time! In collaboration with MediaWise, John explains how to utilize those browser tabs effectively.
Try lateral reading next time you’re on the Internet.
WHY DID I ONLY RECENTLY LEARN ABOUT THE SALT LICK TEST?!?!
I swear, learning how to easily tell if you are deficient in salt has been Groundbreaking in learning how to care for my body.
For the uninitiated, if you feel dizzy or weirdly tired, or you cant seem to hydrate properly, no matter how much water you drink, you may easily be lacking salt.
Yes salt! The thing everyone tells you to try and minimize as much as possible. You are likely not getting enough, and there is an easy way to test it:
Go into you kitchen and grab some plain salt, flaky or fine preferably, since rough salt has less surface area, but it still works, just slower.
Grab a pinch of it and just drop it on your tongue, and let it dissolve on it. What does it taste like? This is just salt. Does it taste kinda mild? Slightly savoury even and actually quite good? Could you easily go for another pinch, just for the taste? You probably should, cause that’s your body telling you i Wants More Salt, it Neeeds it!
Do that a couple times over the next few hours, letting your body adjust in the meantime, until it suddenly tastes Too Salty. The same amount of salt, suddenlt tasting quite different, too salty, unpleasant, bad. Thats a sign that you no longer need more salt.
For me it took like two days from barely tasting the salt, to feeling much better and suddenly not wanting more salt.
This has recently helped me so much, why was i not taught this super simple but useful way to check in with my bodily needs?
Signs of low salt can also include nausea, headache, and muscle weakness. Seizures can also happen, but being aware these other symptoms can be signs of low salt and taking corrective action makes that less likely to happen. Also, over-hydrating yourself can cause low salt, but were going into summer so stay hydrated, but eat salt!
Reduced salt levels was the first side-effect they warned me off with my new meds. Its not something you want to fuck around and find out about.
okay the tags added at the bottom are definitely onto something but folks…the salt lick test is not a thing, nor is it based on any science or fact
this is made up and worded to seem like it’s a scientifically accurate test when it just isn’t. please fact check statements like these before sharing them around, eating pure salt until you feel sick of it is not going to help you help identify or eliminate a deficiency of sodium.
absolutely the idea that salt must be avoided at all costs is dangerous, but so is misinformation. I know this isn’t the usual content of my blog but I had to say something
