elodieunderglass:

femoids:

What you won’t see companies talk about on Earth Day

Just 90 corporations are responsible for two thirds of man made climate change, and thanks to climate change, world hunger is on the rise.

Climate change is a capitalism problem, not an individual problem.

In science communication you hear about “natural frequencies” and communicating large numbers.

People’s minds shut down when you try to feed them numbers. No matter how good they are at adding up their grocery bill, if you try to get someone to comprehend the weight and meaning of a billion, they just nod along blankly, with a teakettle whistling sound happening behind their eyes. A shut-down mind can’t receive your message. And often a mind will do a preliminary shutdown if you make it feel Bad or Guilty.

That’s a huge, huge problem with trying to communicate science. Especially the science that needs to enter people’s brains to give us a hope of survival. Especially in a political climate in which people genuinely feel that they can pick which facts to believe in, and dismiss competing facts as conspiracy theories.

That’s why one should express scientific concepts and Big Numbers in ways that people will recognise and understand. For maximum impact, use things that people can immediately visualise. Say, “in a room full of 100 people, three of them are at risk.” Say, “this could fill a football field.” Say, “the dinosaur was the size of a golden retriever.” Say, “if you got in your car and drove, this distance would take a week to cover.” Say, “that amount of money would be like you and everyone you know having an extra £500 in your bank account every month.”

The first article linked in the OP is by The Guardian. And it has a splendid example of this.

It tells you that the decision-makers of climate change – the people holding the reins – the humans responsible for 2/3 of the planet’s emissions – “could fit on one or two Greyhound buses.”

If you have the space, just allow that mental image some headroom for a bit.

Climate change feels so big that maybe you feel that it’s hopeless; you could never do anything about it; you didn’t even recycle that plastic fork. The neoliberal idea is that everyone else is your enemy – that everyone else (those fuckers) is eating up your future, and it can’t be stopped because you can’t stop All Humans. You picture all those hungry mouths jostling and competing and gobbling, and perhaps complain edgily about overpopulation, thinking that the Unstoppable Greed of Humanity Is Ushering Us All To Our Inevitable End. In this worldview (which is rather deliberately inculcated) everyone is responsible, and everyone has failed. The insidious idea is that destruction is a key part of humanity (those fuckers) and obviously your horrible neighbors are GOING to water their lawn anyway, so we all deserve to die horribly together, as the punch line for some meta-SF novel. Or maybe you’re a vegan and If Everyone Else Was Too Then We’d All Be Saved, but they’re not, so in the meantime you can prance about explaining this at length on social media, which probably feels amazing? Or something. I don’t know, I don’t really read those subreddits and I’m not on Insta, but they’re extremely common reactions. And of course plenty of people have conveniently decided that it isn’t a problem at all, which is a brilliant decision because they’re obviously untroubled by any speculation.

So perhaps sit with this image instead. Of the decision-makers fitting on two Greyhound buses. That isn’t All Humanity. That’s 90 corporations. A few dozen people. They’re the ones doing it (although they’re quite happy for you to be An Jaded Vegan ™ or to perpetuate Overpopulation Discourse ™ – both are so marvellously distracting and enjoyable – bread and circuses.)

While we run about in a panic forgetting to carry canvas shopping bags, and furiously glaring at our neighbors for leaving their engines running? That handful of people could change the world with remarkably little inconvenience; they just rather prefer not to.

In conclusion – by all means eat mindfully, and limit your consumption, and strategically place your canvas bags in places where you’ll remember to grab them. But when you feel yourself blaming The Humans for the next wave of nebulous fear and panic about the future: stop it. And think of those greyhound buses instead.

xxfireblaze618xx:

shitposts-n-shenanigans:

fallnangelstandingby:

nooby-banana:

rampant-noodle:

magical-girl-ilex:

xhooksjigglypuffx:

teenyfaeprince:

hullclean:

IF YOU ARE COSPLAYING A DISNEY PRINCESS AND YOU ARE GOING SOMEWHERE WHERE THERE ARE GOING TO BE KIDS THAT WILL COME UP TO TALK TO YOU

YOU!!!! CAN!!!! NOT!!!! BE!!!! ANTI!!!! SOCIAL!!!! TO!!!! THEM!!!!

FOR REAL, I JUST WATCHED A VIDEO OF A GIRL DRESSING UP AS ANNA AND SHE WENT TO HER LOCAL MALL

SHE WENT INTO THE DISNEY STORE

WHEN A LITTLE GIRL CAME UP TO HER AND TRIED TO TALK TO HER

THE COSPLAYER WALKED AWAY 

AND LOOKED AT THE LITTLE GIRL LIKE SHE WAS NUTS

THAT IS HORRIBLE

I USED TO DRESS UP AS SNOW WHITE FOR CHARITY EVENTS WITH CHILDREN

I CANNOT TELL YOU HOW AWKWARD IT WAS WHEN OUR ELSA DID NOT TALK TO CHILDREN

SHE WAS NOT INTERESTED IN TALKING OR BEING AROUND THE KIDS AND THAT MAKES THE KIDS UNCOMFORTABLE!!!

IF YOU ARE COSPLAYING A CHARACTER THAT IS POPULAR AMONG CHILDREN, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE BE NICE TO KIDS

TO THEM, THEY ARE ACTUALLY MEETING THIS CHARACTER THAT THEY LOVE OR KNOW

IT IS UP TO YOU TO NOT BE A DICK

You also gotta know that if you’re going somewhere where there will be children and you’re in a costume even slightly similar to a Disney character they will think you are that character. 

 My hair is dyed white and at last year’s Ren Fest I was dressed as a water nymph. So i was in all blue, with glittery blue heeled boots on. Personally, I would have never thought that I looked like Elsa. I had leggings on, not a dress. And no ice themed anything. But that didn’t stop the sweetest little princess from asking me if I was Elsa. 

 I’ll admit that I was thrown for a loop, since I thought I was a pretty convincing mermaid on land with my scale print leggings. But I’m not a dick so I quickly recovered and said I was her cousin. Kids are more than happy to accept that and she smiled then shyly ran back to her mom to tell her she met Elsa’s cousin. 

If you’re in a glittery costume of any sort, in a place where children will be, be prepared to be nice to them. Otherwise you’re just a jerk. No one likes jerks.

Don’t be a dick.

Seriously. If I go anywhere in ANY costume, no matter if I’m a princess, hero, or villain, I’m nice to the kids. They just wanna play!

I don’t even like kids, but one of the most rewarding cosplay moments I’ve had was interacting with littluns as Rose Quartz. Every kid got a hug if their parents said it was okay. Every kid got told that they were very special because they’re a human being. I’m looking forward to doing it again this year, because giving a kid a moment of genuine magic really is something else. It doesn’t hurt you to smile at a child.

When I cosplay Pearl I have precious little ones come up to me and you better bet I goof with them about how gross eating is or how loud amethyst is (and pretend to get a sooooo offended when they say someone else is their favorite gem)

You are making magic real for those kids in that moment and if you aren’t prepared for that, maybe think twice before cosplaying that character. I had a child completely frozen in disbelief and joy over seeing me, a character from a show they love, that’s power you have to wield responsibly.

It’s not just with popular lady characters. My best little-kid-cosplay-moment was when I was cosplaying Thor (not lady Thor from the comics, my own version of genderbent MCU Thor). I was walking through the dealer’s hall and suddenly saw a gaggle of Tiny Avengers in those Walmart costumes barrelling towards me. They crowded me in excitement and asked where Loki was because they wanted to find him and beat him up (I told them to give him an extra punch from me when they found him), then all six tried to crawl into my lap when I said yes to a photo. Cutest thing ever.

BE NICE TO KIDS WHEN YOU’RE IN COSTUME.

//If you’re going to be cosplaying -any- character that children will recognize, BE NICE TO KIDS!!  To them, you -are- that character. And you have no right, what so ever, to destroy the illusion of what, to them, is a magical moment.

When I cosplay Batman, to little kids, I am Batman. And it is such an amazing experience to have kids run up to me and want a hug, and tell me about how when they grow up they want to fight bad guys too. I can’t fathom someone being so rude as to ignore them.

I have a friend who cosplays Han Solo, and a little girl was so excited to see him that when he knelt down to talk to her, she hugged onto him and didn’t want to let go for ten minutes.

Also, remember IF THERE IS A LOST CHILD AT A CONVENTION, AND YOU ARE COSPLAYING A PRINCESS OR A SUPER HERO, THE CHILD WILL GO TO YOU FOR HELP LONG BEFORE THEY THINK TO APPROACH A SECURITY OFFICER!!!  You have a duty to help that child! Help them calm down, escort them to the nearest safe zone, and inform a security officer that the child has misplaced their parents/guardians. -Never- use the term ‘lost child’ in front of the kid, it’s the parents who wandered off and got lost, not the child.

Read this, then read it again.

this is why, no matter who I cosplay, I’m in character to everyone I’ll meet, whether they’re adults, kids, or teens like me. super important, honestly

iguanodamn:

Dipper: I want to do the thing

Someone Else: You can’t do the thing, you are a child and Cannot Possibly do the thing.

Dipper, in approximately 21 minutes, plus commercials: I DID THE THING.

I don’t know what to do about a rabbit that seems to be hopping on you in order to pee on you. Go ask someone who runs a rabbit blog. I know the basics of rabbit care and that’s about it. 

I don’t know much about rabbits, sorry. They kinda just pee everywhere. Might want to read up on litter-training rabbits, I know it’s at least halfway possible.