I’d be curious to know your strategy (if you have one) for moving toward food self-sufficiency. It seems as though your current situation is not serving you, and I wish you success in finding something that does.

Hansen and colleagues in Feb 2025 published an excellent paper explaining the higher climate sensitivity and the aerosol cooling effect. I’ve used their numbers and others to update the image used in the Climate Bathtub analogy.

I found this to be an intriguing summary: https://wiki.slrpnk.net/articles:whatissolarpunk

But what is driving all of that soy production in the first place?

As long as no sentient beings were used without their consent (e.g. to extract genetic material), then I see no ethical issue from a vegan point of view. I do have to question though, on a finite planet with an ever-worsening ecological catastrophe, whether developing such products is an irresponsible use of time and energy and material resources.

Thank you for posting this. When I read the article, I also rejected the idea that the burning was necessary, but it was a small enough part of the article that I didn’t bother to point out the falsehood. The rainforest does not need to burn in order to be productive. I encourage people to read up on veganic permaculture food forests and syntropic agriculture methods. None of these subsistence farmers would ever go hungry (in the absence of “natural” disasters) if they, as communities, implemented these systems of food production.

I choose to interpret the bottom centre image as a human arriving to free a chicken from a cage, but I cannot know if that was the intention of whoever originally put together this collage or whoever took the photo or whoever was being photographed.

Lemongrass, sugar cane, grass in general… “It won’t get out of control. It doesn’t even produce seeds in this climate.” And then of course it does.

If most major markets adopted deforestation-free soy production

But what is driving all of that soy production in the first place?

their key food crops – maize, cassava, sorghum, rice, millet, soybean and yam – were affected by extreme weather

Drought was the most severe risk, particularly affecting maize and cassava. Flooding was the second major threat. It drowned maize and cassava and caused their roots to rot.

This is worrying because droughts in Nigeria have become more frequent and prolonged over the past two decades. The number of extreme dry spells has increased by an estimated 28% compared to the 1990s. The number of places in Nigeria that are affected by flooding has increased due to more erratic rainfall and poor drainage.

We recommend that proactive adaptation measures are needed urgently. These include:

• Drought-resistant crop varieties […]
• Efficient water management […]

Have these people considered planting trees? It seems like growing more fruit trees and farming with the forest rather than cutting it down would solve all of these problems if implemented by enough people. Forests bring all sorts of ecological benefits including regulating the local water cycle, and of course the perennial nature of the trees prevents one poor growing season from destroying someone’s entire livelihood. Planting more trees seemed to work pretty well for people in Malawi and Kenya, so I see no reason for Nigeria to be much different.

“If the wars of this century were fought over oil, the wars of the next century will be fought over water.”

– Dr. Ismail Serageldin

I guess only the people at the London Times know.

disappearing forests and rivers drying up

the report said that many ecosystems around the world were so stressed that they could soon pass a tipping point

Britain, which imports 40 per cent of its food, including a fifth of its animal feed from South America, would struggle to feed itself unless it made expensive investments in its supply chains, the authors said.

Could these issues be related?

These investments could include lab-grown meat and new crop varieties.

Or… fruit trees?

“This government is hiding the true danger of climate change from the people,” a source close to the development of the report claimed. “We need to have an honest conversation about the risks we face to our prosperity and how to mitigate them.”

mitigation 101

I dunno. The world before was a bit too fucking cold. I wouldn’t complain if the climate settled at around 0.5°C or even 1°C warmer. More than that gets scary, but so do ice ages.

I can’t really disagree with you. It is possible, especially with community support. Rather than saying that not everyone can grow all of their own food, I should say that for the disabled poor living in urban environments in very cold or dry areas of the world, growing 100% of their own food would be much more difficult and/or require more innovative methods. Thank you for not backing down on this. We should never give up. Do you grow all of your own food now, or are you still in the process?

“ It’s difficult to accept, and not everyone is in a position to grow all of their own food, but if we can,” I totally disagree, seeds from food, even cheapest, can be grown to plants for food. Do not even need adults to learn & do this, super easily, the children can do it.

When I say that not everyone is in a position to grow all of their own food, I mean that some people may be trapped by poverty or disability in an urban environment in an inhospitable (desert/tundra) climate where they have limited space for growing food and the growing season is too short to have year-round production. For non-impoverished able-bodied people, yes, growing and foraging all of one’s own food is perfectly feasible.

I was not focused on bring-up awesome alternatives like this, more awareness, too as many people as possible. I did not think there were so many people that already knew this, like it seems you do. I hope everyone gets how bad this is for efforts to save our Living Earth & All Living Beings on it! Thank you!

I’m glad that you appreciate what I wrote and what those projects are doing. :)

A Critical Look at UN IPCC’s Emissions Accounting

The Truth Behind the Numbers

Where the Truth Lies

Of course growing your own food or knowing the grower is the only way to ensure that something is vegan. Corporate- and carnist-controlled agricultural operations often use animals as fertiliser and eradicate wild animals not just on the farm itself but in the surrounding area as well as a pre-emptive measure. Everyone has a right to protect their food supply, but what you’re describing here seems like the active pre-emptive killing rather than a response to the non-humans’ actions.

It’s difficult to accept, and not everyone is in a position to grow all of their own food, but if we can, then of course growing our own food forests using veganic methods is the most peaceful and practical option. Amazon Restore and Pacha Libre are promoting this, and there are probably other committed ethical vegan food forest projects in the world of which I’m not aware. Community and local food production in harmony with the forest and native animals… I imagine that such is the solarpunk way.

And let’s not forget the massive amount of deforestation for growing the feed crops that they use. It’s an ecological catastrophe at every level.

Alley cropping with Inga edulis or a similar leguminous tree for mulch would work very well as part of a syntropic approach to pure reforestation or food forests.