I’m hot. I’m so hot, and I’m going to be hotter because we’re going to a hotter place on our vacation. Yayyyy. Not. But whatever, it’s fine. I shall persevere and write this post! (Look at how brave I am)
Heya humans (and everyone else) from the future! ‘Tis the Naomi of 6 days ago. If you didn’t catch my last post (or you skimmed through the 5-paragraph intro), I’ll tell you now that the Naomi of your time is most likely overheating in an amazingly beautiful national park. And why is that important to you? It’s not really, it just means that I’ll be late in responding to your comments and probably won’t read your posts for a bit.
But you get to read mine! Woo-hoo! So anyway, off we go with my pretty sad monthly wrap-up post.
Goals
Publish at least one more chapter of The Dreamer. I did! I did! I did!
Stick to the schedule. Hehe. Well. Not sure why I thought I could do THAT this month. *glares at the Naomi of last month*
Read/watch some environmental stuff. I really wanted to? I was busy, ok?
This Month’s Media
There’s not much, but June 5 was World Environment Day (not sure how I missed that), and Datta Kaashvi posted this amazing post.
Goals
Post another part/chapter of The Dreamer. Again, this should be easy… right?
Post more than 5 times Setting a pretty easy goal since I’ll be gone for half the month… you BETTER reach this goal, future Naomi.
Actually read or watch some climate change stuff! Third time’s a charm?
Holidays
To my knowledge, July doesn’t have any environmental holidays. Sadness.
And that’s that! Um… there’s not much else to say, so goodbye for now!
I am currently dying because I have a lot to do and I can’t read my book. Because you know, I should just be able to read and that should just take up my entire existence. Please?
Heya earthlings (and non-earthlings, hi to you too)! ‘Tis yours truly, and yep, I’m not dead. And also, yep, I didn’t find anything cool like Narnia or Hogwarts. I DID find a lot of really amazing books, but that’s irrelevant. This is not a book blog (although I’ve really been wanting to start a book blog cause like BOOKS ARE LIFE).
So you want to know why I didn’t post for like the entire month (yeah, I know that’s an exaggeration, but it’s fine)? Well, ya see, there’s not really a good explanation for that. Or, actually, the explanation is a long story involving fingers and cars (they’re not compatible), boredom (yes, boredom means being less productive. Don’t ask why.), and beaches. So you can just be glad I’m back (or not glad, but if you’re not glad, then I’m not sure why you’re reading this post so there.).
The OTHER thing that’s probably important to tell you is that I’m gonna be away for 10 days. I’m working on scheduling a few posts, but I won’t be reading your posts or responding to your comments ’till I return. Sorry.
*sits there awkwardly for a few minutes*
Oh, right, the actual post! I’ve just written a 5-paragraph-long intro and I haven’t said one word about The Dreamer. Whoops. Well, the 5 paragraphs were important, ok? Or at least 3 of them were. ANYWHO, today I’m bringing you the first “chapter” of The Dreamer, and if you’re not sure what that is, go check out this post (especially since that post also contains the prologue, which is important. So.).
I present to you…
Kurota’s 7th-grade future wasn’t looking super good. She couldn’t even get the easy first-day-of-school homework done because she couldn’t stop thinking that she knew the blonde girl sitting in the corner of homeroom. Nova, that was her name. Kurota was sure she’d never had a class with this girl, but there was something achingly familiar about her. And this was distracting Kurota from finishing her “My Life in Numbers” homework from Math 7. The easiest homework she’d get all year. If she couldn’t finish this, how could she be expected to get the hard stuff done? She exchanged her homework for her phone and made a mental note to try it again in an hour. Maybe her brain would be less foggy once she’d texted with her best friend. Kurota: This might sound weird, but I feel like I know Nova somehow. Kurota’s phone said that Orenda replied a minute after her text, but the phone must have been wrong because Kurota waited for an eternity. Orenda: Why is that weird? She moved here last year. You probably saw her around. Kurota: Well, maybe. But Orenda. I feel like we were close and I can’t remember how. Orenda: Oooooooh! Maybe she’s your soulmate! Kurota: Stop being your weird magic-obsessed self. You know I don’t believe in that stuff. Orenda: Just ‘cause you don’t believe doesn’t mean it’s not real. People didn’t believe that the earth was round. Doesn’t change the fact that it is. Kurota: And people believed the earth was flat. Doesn’t change the fact that it isn’t. Orenda: Point taken. But Kurota, how else am I SUPPOSED to explain it? Oh, new idea! Maybe she visited you in a dream! Kurota: Orenda, I love you like a sister, but a DREAM? You think she visited me in a DREAM? Orenda: Hey, it’s possible. You have a better idea? Kurota: Hmph. Orenda: Well hmph back to you. Kurota doesn’t know how to reply, so she turns off her phone and gets her homework out. It hasn’t been an hour and her brain’s not any less foggy, but she doesn’t know what else to do, so it’s easy homework and racing thoughts. Thoughts of a girl she just met. Thoughts of a girl she feels like she knew.
And there you have it! This chapter isn’t as good as the prologue because I’m much better at climax-writing than normal-life writing, but it’s fine. The story must go on!
Anywho. I’m going to go read now. Because like. That’s important.
Who came up with the concept of summer vacation? Like, let’s make kids go to school for 5 days a week for 180 days and burn themselves out by learning so much and getting up early, and then let’s give them a many week break on which they lose about half of the knowledge they gained? It. Makes. Zero. Sense. Zero.
Heya! ‘Tis Naomi, and welcome to the SSCC!
Alright, I need to explain the title, don’t I? Alright, so for those who don’t know, a TBR (To-Be-Read) is a list of books that you want to read. So I was like, I should make a climate change TBR for summer! And then I was like, well, I want to watch and listen to things to. Hence, “TBW” (To-Be-Watched) and “TBL” (To-Be-Listened(-To)). Got it? Ohkay, great. Let’s get into this post!
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
I have this book and really want to read it (especially after Kaashvi reccomended it). It’s a nonfiction book (I’m a fiction person) and not super climate changey, but it’s an environmental book that people say started the environmental movement. Seems like something I should read, right?
My mom read this book a while back and liked it, but that was when I was younger and not so interested in all this. But then I saw it on a list of “eco-fiction”, and thought that, whoah, it looked really good. Trees, activists, and artists? Say no more. This one is on the top of my list.
OrdinaryFabGirl recommended this one to me (I asked for book / movie / show / podcast recs in one of my last posts), and it looks so amazing! If anyone feels like getting me a gift for no reason, this is what you should get. Recipes AND information about how eating less meat helps the environment? I need this book!
This is kinda how I got my mom to get Netflix, and we still haven’t watched it. But it’s fine. I’m sure it’s fine. We’ll get to it, and hopefully we’ll get to it this summer. Oh, I’m supposed to be talking about the movie? Well, in a sentence, it’s apparently a very hopeful climate change documentary and I’ve heard tons of good things about it, so there’s that.
I found this one in my list of movie reccomendations from Animation Day, and thought it looked amazing! This one is more ocean-y, centering around coral bleaching (which is when coral basically dies because of the rising temperature of the water).
The TBL is a little different since most of these podcasts are ones I’ve LISTENED to before, but just wanna listen to more. How To Save A Planet is an awesome podcast about… well… how to save a planet, and I really need to listen to more episodes!
I’m relistening to a bunch of Gen-Z Media podcasts right now because I binged through literally all of them and now I only get around 90 minutes of new podcasts each week, which isn’t enough. I really wanna relisten to this movie-length audio drama about a girl and a dog in a climate-change-ruined world.
I’m still getting used to this whole summer thing. I mean, theoretically, it’s amazing because I can like get stuff done and stuff, but um having nothing to do makes it hard for me to feel like doing ANYTHING, and so… welp. Problems.
Heya people! ‘Tis Naomi, and today we’re talking ’bout green roofs (as I promised we would in Friday’s post – look at me, keeping my promises!). I was actually really surprised that I had never written a post on green roofs before, so I did a search on it multiple times… but apparently I’ve never really talked about it before. So, uh, here you go!
Green roofs are basically gardens planted on top of flat-roofed buildings. There’s a lot of layers under and each of them does SOMETHING to keep the plants alive, keep roots manageable, keep water in the right places, or all of the above.
Well, green roofs provide a whole bunch of benefits, but this is a climate change blog, so I’ll focus on the three things they do to help fight climate change. And what are those three things? Well.
The first thing is that a green roof, being a green roof, has plants, and those plants, being plants, go through photosynthesis. And if you weren’t aware, when plants go through photosynthesis (so they can, like, make food and stuff), they take carbon in and turn it into oxygen. And, boom, you help climate change. MAYYYBE you don’t make the biggest difference in the whole world, but you make a difference. Woo-hoo!
The second thing is that a green roof makes it so less energy is needed to heat/cool a building. It both provides insulation (wich keeps said building warm), and makes it cooler (because those black roofs are hot and make the building hot and.. that’s not good). And less energy means less greenhouse gases being created to create that energy, so yay!
And the final thing is that a green roof helps the roof last longer. The national park service says that a green roof can last up to twice as long as a normal one. And the less repairs are needed, the less materials and machines are needed. And materials and machines aren’t good for our earth either. So ta-da!
And that’s that! I hope you learned a good bit about green roofs from this post and happy green roof, eyewear, yo-yo, Russian language, drive-in movie, and gardening exercise day!
Yes, I decided on a wim to make a new sign-off. Thoughts?
I am so tired of movies. We watched like a million on our last days of school and just like uuuuuuuuuugh. But, ya know, whatever. I’ll be fiiiiiiine.
Heya! ‘Tis Naomi, and no, I’m not dead. Nearing the end of school, I was in a kinda weird mood where I like couldn’t get ANYTHING done. Blame it on the movies we watched basically the whole school day for a week. But school’s out! And so I’ll hopefully have more time to write blog posts and do all the other things I need to do – except for that one month that I’m away for almost all of. But we’ll get to that when we get to it.
Right now, we’ve got a post to write!
Goals
Stick to the schedule *ahem* Well you see, I did it really well for like the first half of the month. But um. Well.
ACTUALLY do SOME kind of work on This Precious Planet each week I did! I did! You hear that everyone? I ACTUALLY COMPLETED A GOAL. Except, uh, it wasn’t This Precious Planet – it’s The Dreamer now. But whatever. I worked on my story and released the prologue!
Get The Marrow Thieves back out and finish it, watch Kiss The Ground, and maybe watch Don’t Look Up. Oh yeah. That. Well uh – no, no, and no? I kinda forgot about this one…
This Month’s Media
Thanks for asking, but I don’t think I read or watched anything climate change-y this month. Sorries. I’ve got lots of summer reading to do!
Goals
Publish at least one more chapter of The Dreamer. Pretty easy goal. I think.
Stick to the schedule. We’ll… we’ll try.
Read/watch some environmental stuff! Since I failed last month.
Holidays
It’s great outdoors month, and in light of that I’ll try to get some outdoors-y posts out there! And ALSO, June 6 is National Green Roof Day – which yay, because for some reason I haven’t really talked about green roofs on here yet!
And that’s all for today, folks! I’ll see you on Monday with a post about green roofs, and now I better be off – bye!
Question of the day: Do you have any environmental movie, book, or show recommendations for me? Action of the day: Spend some time in nature!
My friends didn’t wave back at meeeee. We waved through a window, and they were walking away, and they didn’t see me. And it was so sad. And- and- and- this has nothing to do with this post. Ohkie, ohkie, starting again.
Heya! ‘Tis Naomi, and today’s post is the possible first of a much longer series. I’ve finally gotten to the point where I’m actually going to begin sharing a cli-fi story with you. But only if you want me to! If I do post this entire story here, it will make up a lot of the posts on this blog. So… read through the prologue and tell me what you think of it in the comments? Thanks!
Oh, and if you don’t know what in the world is happening: I’ve been working on writing a cli-fi (climate fiction) story of my own for a while now, and it’s finally ready to share! I won’t be offended if you don’t want to hear the rest of it, but if you do, I’d be really excited to have you all read my story. It incorporates a whole lot of real things, but the characters are fictional and so is a good bit of the plot.
Anywho, since I’m doing a long intro again, without further ado…
NOTE: I submitted this to the Scholastic Competition as a work of flash fiction. It is my own original work and I didn’t copy from anyone else.
Everything was on fire.
Everything was on fire, and they had seen it coming. But they had thought they were safe because everyone said so
Her safety-freak grandparents had even said they were safe, and she didn’t blame them. They’d called 911 that morning when they’d seen the grey sky, the bright blaze. And the people at 911 had said they were safe.
So they hadn’t gone anywhere or done anything about the fire, even as the thick grey clouds began to creep closer, as they could see the light of fire bouncing around. They were safe. They had signed up for the evacuation calls. They would have gotten a notification if something was seriously wrong. Everything would be fine.
That’s what they had thought. But she was sure they’d thought wrong. Because when everything’s on fire, everything is not exactly fine.
Everything is very, very far from fine.
She called to her grandparents but got no answer. Where were they? Were they burning with everything else? No. They couldn’t be. They had to still be alive. After all, this was the trip to Paradise that she had bragged to her sister about going on. This was going to be a fun time to connect with her grandparents.
Not… not whatever this was.
She yelled for her grandparents, further scratching a throat raw from the smoke seeping into the building. Maybe they just hadn’t heard her. They were old, right? And old people can’t hear well. She had to find them. They had to be here somewhere.
But she was stuck. And the fire was in the house now. Everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. She had to get out. They would find their way.
Trying desperately to remember the lessons they gave you in elementary school about how to get out of a burning building, she dropped down so the smoke wouldn’t get in her lungs. Although it already was, and now she was really coughing. What was happening to her vision? And she couldn’t breathe. Why couldn’t she breathe? She needed to get out.
She gasped for the nonexistent air, thinking about her sister’s asthma attacks. Thinking about telling her to calm down, to breathe, rushing to get the inhaler. Now she was the one who couldn’t breathe. And her sister wasn’t there. And the flames, and the air, and she couldn’t, she couldn’t…
The world went black.
And Kurota woke up.
Aaand that’s that! Sooo, please please please give me feedback and I’ll see you Friday!
QOTD: What do you think of the prologue? AOTD: Read some cli-fi!
Shorts feel weird. I got so used to wearing jeans that it’s like… why are my legs BARE? I mean seriously… but it’s hot. So I must wear shorts.
Heya! ‘Tis Naomi, and I’ve been wanting to do this post for a while. When I think about climate change, my brain is automatically like CARBON DIOXIDE, but while this IS the greenhouse gas that’s causing most of climate change, there are other ones too. Hence this post!
So anywho, there’s not much else to say… enjoy!
Okay, so duh. At least for me, climate change = carbon dioxide.
Carbon dioxide is that gas created when we burn fossil fuels and cut down forests. It’s the one that plants suck up when they go through photosynthesis and that’s stored in the ground and in peatlands. Got it? I hope so, ’cause if you don’t, you have no way of telling me (except in the comments, but that’d be a bit weird).
If you’ve been with me forever, you know that forever ago I went through a cow farts phase. Don’t search it up. My writing back then was… interesting. Plus, I keep saying “burb” instead of “burp” and that’s… ya know, I’m kinda getting off-topic, aren’t I? Let’s get back on track. Methane is emitted when cows and sheep who are fed things like corn burp/fart, when waste (mainly from food) isn’t composted, and when coal, natural gas, or oil is produced.
It’s very short-lived, only spending about 10 years in the atmosphere before it goes *poof*, but it’s many times worse than CO2.
I’m going to take a guess and say that nitrous oxide is the least known greenhouse gas on this list. I knew about methane, I knew about CO2, but Nitrous Oxide? I had no idea it existed.
This greenhouse gas is created mainly by farming, and, according to CBC, one molecule of Nitrous Oxide is 300 times more powerful than one molecule of Carbon Dioxide. Am I the only one getting blown away by these facts?
NASA. “Carbon Dioxide Concentration | NASA Global Climate Change.” Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet, NASA, 2017, climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/carbon-dioxide/.
And that is it! Hopefully you enjoyed this post, and I’ll see you Monday!
Question of the Day: Which of these greenhouse gases do you think is most important to learn more about? Action of the Day: Watch Kiss the Ground (something I need to do)!
Fun fact: There’s this creepy carwash that we pass by on our walk home from school, and I just had to WALK THROUGH THE PARKING LOT FOR IT. It was so scaryyyy. But uh, anyway. Net zero.
Heya! ‘Tis Naomi. Alright, first off, no, I’m not dead (although if you thought that it was kinda an extreme reaction to me not posting for literally one day…), I just… uh… missed a day. Sorry. But anywho, I’m back now, and so… welcome to the post!
A quick disclaimer: This post is a bit more opinionated than some of my other posts have been. While I have been careful to get reliable and true facts to base my opinion on, please do realize that my opinion is 100% NOT fact.
Alrighty, so, let’s stop intro-ing and begin… informing?
I’ve actually talked a good bit about net-zero in previous posts, but I’ll do a quick explainer here if you don’t know what it is. Net-zero basically means that the amount of greenhouse gases we put INto the atmosphere is canceled out by the amount of greenhouse gases we take OUT. Pretty simple, right?
Yes. Net-zero is absolutely possible. It’s not easy to get to, but it’s possible. As long as everyone has concrete plans to reach this goal, we CAN reach it. We can convert from gas to electric cars, we can change our energy from natural gas to renewables, and if we still have a little bit of emissions, we can suck them up with things like trees and carbon capture technology.
The first problem is greenwashing (when a company basically pretends they’re doing good things for the environment when they aren’t). Problem is, while net-zero is a great goal, it’s also something that companies can kinda… blow off. If net-zero was done right, the main part of getting there would be REDUCING emissions and the carbon sequestration (taking carbon OUT of the atmosphere by planting trees or using carbon capture technology) would come next.
But… guess what a lot of companies, especially ones that create oil and other fossil fuels, DON’T want to do? You (maybe) guessed it! Switching out their cheap greenhouse gas-intensive ways of doing things with more expensive carbon-neutral ways of doing things.
So what does “net-zero by 2050” mean when you want to keep emitting the same amount of carbon? It means not changing your ways and just using unrealistic ways to store carbon (I mean, seriously: at the moment, we literally don’t have room to plant enough trees to store all this carbon and we aaalso don’t have awesome carbon sequestration technology). Which doesn’t work.
Aaand the OTHER point is that, well, even if we DO reach net-zero, it would kinda be important to reach net-negative. There’s already a substantial amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and just stopping releasing them / reaching net zero will mean that the temperatures will sorta stop going up but stay too high, which is still a problem. To really get this whole climate chang thing under control, we have to take out more carbon than we put in, at least in my opinion
NASA. “Is It Too Late to Prevent Climate Change? – Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet.” Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet, NASA, 2019, climate.nasa.gov/faq/16/is-it-too-late-to-prevent-climate-change/.
Having your name start with one of the last letters of the alphabet is terrible. Oh, I’m talking about my last name. No, N is not at the end of the alphabet. And you probably don’t really understand this since you don’t know my last name… forget it. *ahem*
Heya! ‘Tis Naomi, and today I decided that I’d go over some of the climate change words that are kinda not common. I’m sure some of you know at least MOST of these words, but sometimes I use them and realize that I’m not exactly using easy-to-understand words. I’ve done so much research for my posts that I’m very familiar with this terminology, but uh… not everyone is. So yeah. You probably didn’t need that explained, but I explained it. You could have skimmed it. You’re reading this voluntarily… right?
Ooh also, before we get to the actual post: I’m open to word suggestions! I’d actually really appreciate them, since I’m not sure what words you know and don’t. And maybe you’ll come up with a word that I don’t know either! And then we’ll BOTH learn something new. Oh gosh, I’m doing a long intro, aren’t I? Let’s get to the post.
Net zero is basically the goal right now. But what is it, exactly? In a net zero world, we’re taking as much carbon out of the atmosphere as we’re putting it. This doesn’t necessarily mean that we AREN’T putting carbon into the atmosphere, just that it’s canceled out by the other things we’re doing, like planting trees.
Is net zero the answer? The answer to that question is a long one (post coming soon: Net-Zero // Is It the Solution?), but basically, it’s complicated. While net zero is a good goal, we’re going to need to go… net negative (hehe, just made up that word) to actually keep our world… semi-unchanged. But anyway, long explanation, but hopefully now you get the term!
I’m grouping these together because they’re like… the same but opposite. Ok, ok, that sounded weird. I’m explaining, gosh!
Adaptation is when we basically cope with or adapt to a climate change changed world. There’s an amount of change that’s unstoppable now, and that’s what we need to adapt to. Things like creating climate-change-resistant crops count as climate change adaptations.
But we can still stop the worst of climate change, and that’s where mitigation comes in. Mitigation is when we do things that reduce climate change, like converting to electric vehicles or more environmental food.
Carbon sinks are the things that store carbon and keep it out of the atmosphere. The most famous of these are trees, but oceans and peatlands are some of the best carbon sinks that we have!
Question of the day: What climate change-y words would you like to learn? Action of the day: Learn about one carbon sink and do something to protect it!
Does anyone else think that April maybe didn’t actually exist? Like, it was April 1… yesterday, right? But hold on, It’s almost MAY? Wha-huh- what did I MISS?
Hiya! ‘Tis Naomi, and welcome to the April wrap-up post. When you read this, it’ll be two days into April May, and that’s CRAZY. I mean like WHAT HAPPENED TO TIME? But anyway. Time DID decide to pass, so it’s monthly wrap-up time again. Here we go!
Goals
Stick to the schedule I only missed ONE day of the schedule this month, which I think is actually pretty good. *nods*
Finish drafting This Precious Planet and begin to write it (if people are interested). *ahem* Um. Well. I should really do this. SOMEONE MOTIVATE ME PLEASE.
Storytime! It took me forever to start The Marrow Thieves, a cli-fi book about a time when only Native Americans can dream due to Climate Change (not an awesome description, but oh well). Then, I remembered I had to finish another book and so it took me forever to READ it. But then it was overdue at the library. And I had to go return it. So uh. Didn’t finish it. But want to!
I didn’t read/watch much climate-change-ey stuff this month…
Goals
Stick to the schedule This one explains itself.
ACTUALLY do SOME kind of work on This Precious Planet each week Yeah, I didn’t do it last month. But I’m still hoping I can! You go this, Naomi.
Get The Marrow Thieves back out and finish it, watch Kiss The Ground, and maybe watch Don’t Look Up. I need to get back into Climate Changey media.
Other than May 1, which was Hurricane Preparedness Day (just missed it), there aren’t any environmental holidays in May. *cries* Why aren’t there more of these holidays? There is SO MUCH we could celebrate!
And that is that! I’m off to make sure that my computer isn’t lying to me when it says that we’re on the 5th month of 2022 already.
Question of the Day: What are your May plans? Action of the Day: Read a book or watch a movie about climate change!
The Society To Stop Climate Change 