SteveKLord

A bioluminescent petunia could help people recognize plants for the complex creatures they are.

On a Saturday in February, high school senior Kaylee Lemmien sifted through racks of dresses at Tinker Tailor, a small shop in downtown Elk Rapids, a village of about 1,500 people in northern Michigan.

“I’d call this a mermaid, sequin, light blue gown with a tulle skirt. It’s got a lace-up back, kind of open,” Lemmien said. “Very pretty.”

Tinker Tailor usually alters clothes, but on this day it was selling them — prom dresses, to be exact. Gowns in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors — short and long, neons and pastels, satin and sequins — lined the racks. The garments were donated and consigned by people around the region, with the goal of giving them a new life at the Elk Rapids High School prom in May. Called Sustainable Style, the secondhand shopping initiative takes aim at fast fashion.

French lawmakers advanced a bill that seeks to rein in fast fashion’s impact on the climate, labor rights and the economy. The bill would ban certain “ultra-fast-fashion” companies like Shein from advertising and penalize them by up to 10 euros per individual item of clothing. It also would force fast-fashion retailers to include information on their products’ reuse, repair, recycling and environmental impact next to the product’s price.

These local heroes are making a mark in their communities — through bringing green spaces back to life, creating a cultural hub in the shape of a cinema and turning a home into an artwork

From citizen science to 'Legos of the revolution' this guest post prompts ways to imagine better futures

“The age of plastic began because it mimicked other things, and the functionality was so good that it became its own thing,” fashion designer Uyen Tran told Grist, when we interviewed her for our 2023 Grist 50 list. In 2020, Tran founded a company called TômTex to create bio-based materials that can replace synthetic fabrics as well as leather and suede. She believes that a wave of new materials is ready to outcompete plastic-based textiles. “I think biomaterial is on the edge of becoming its own thing as well. Just give us a few more years, and you will see.”

In this newsletter, we’re rounding up a handful of the materials — from apple waste to artificial spider silk — that are already on the market, offering a glimpse of a plastic-free future for our textiles.

A mural that appeared overnight on a residential building in north London is the work of Banksy, the anonymous street artist has confirmed.

The artist claimed the work as his own in an Instagram post on Monday, following a morning of speculation after it was spotted on Hornsey Road in Finsbury Park.

The mural is painted on a wall that sits behind a tree as the viewer looks south-east down Hornsey Road.

It features a lifesize depiction of a woman holding a pressure washer, having apparently sprayed green paint up the side of a block of flats. Viewed with the tree in the foreground and centred on the wall, the green paint mimics the foliage of the plant, which has been cut back in a process known as pollarding.

Solar pumps are spreading rapidly among rural communities in many water-starved regions across India, Africa, and elsewhere. These devices can tap underground water all day long at no charge, without government scrutiny.

For now, they can be great news for farmers, with the potential to transform agriculture and improve food security. The pumps can supply water throughout the daylight hours, extending their croplands into deserts, ending their reliance on unpredictable rains, and sometimes replacing existing costly-to-operate diesel or grid-powered pumps.

But this solar-powered hydrological revolution is emptying already-stressed underground water reserves—also known as groundwaters or aquifers. The very success of solar pumps is “threatening the viability of many aquifers already at risk of running dry,” Soumya Balasubramanya, an economist at the World Bank with extensive experience of water policy, warned in January.

An innovation that initially looked capable of reducing fossil-fuel consumption while also helping farmers prosper is rapidly turning into an environmental time bomb.

Ticket Sales and Call for Submissions are now open for this year's Solarpunk Conference

We Do Not Paint Our Hopes

In the manifesto of the anarchism movement, moving towards freedom and freedom from authoritarian systems, both in the economic system and in the political system, is one of the pillars of the anarchists’ utopia. It is attention to this ideal that gathers liberators to work for a single goal and save people from the prison of capitalism and give them the ability to create freedom and decide for their own lives. The effects of the anti-capitalist and anti-apartheid struggle in Palestine today are exactly the same effects that anarchism has depicted for us. If the people of the world want to understand the meaning of apartheid and oppressive government, they should look at the behavior of the fake government of the Zionist regime against the Palestinian people. Without understanding this 75-year-old cruelty and racism, you cannot claim to understand the meaning of apartheid because only people who have experienced it themselves will understand the bitter taste. With all the similarities between the Palestinian anarchism movement and the international anarchism movement, we have to point out the differences as well. Of course, these differences do not mean the weakness of international and global anarchism and are only differences that have had an effect on the paradigm of the Palestinian movement due to cultural and geographical requirements. A clear example of this difference is that the FAUDA movement never seeks to paint an ideal image on a board and put it on the historical walls of Palestine. An ideal image of the future, no matter how elegant it is and in compliance with all artistic principles, but in reality it is only an image.

What are we going to do with a pile of images from our utopia? Actors usually install their paintings and pictures in the best part of their house. Although there are many old pictures among them, there are also paintings that do not show the past and the present, but represent a picture of a vague future. What does anarchism decide for the vague picture of the future? Should Palestinian anarchism carry a lot of images of the past and present on its shoulders and look for a suitable place to install them in the old streets and alleys of Quds and Nablus or Acre and Gaza? So, what is the difference between a revolutionary and a painter? Ask yourself this question every day. Perhaps you can find the answer to this question in the crowded cemeteries of Palestine, which are full of young people. Move, move, move. This is the only reason why your anarchist and revolutionary friends are fighting fearlessly in Palestine. Palestinian anarchism does not allow young people to dream of vague paintings, but teaches them from the first day how to move, how to wake others up from slumber, how to be a perfect example of the struggle against apartheid and how to create epics. We leave the depiction of this saga and the narrative of the historical struggle of Palestinian youth against the oppressive Zionist regime to others. This important task, this depiction, is the responsibility of the friends who shed tears for Palestine outside of Palestine and want to do something and have a share in this struggle. Palestinian youth have no right to sit and dream in this full-scale war. They should rise up, fight and not think about anything else until the complete destruction of the invaders and taking back their land.

An eerie glow has been emanating from Wales' forests and rockpools for the country's annual dark skies week.

David Atthowe, a nature guide from Norwich, was invited to shine his ultraviolet (UV) torches on some of the best nature spots in Pembrokeshire and Monmouthshire.

His photos of temperate rain forest in Wales reveal shapes, structures and colours that rival a coral reef.

Does solarpunk dream utopic dreams of clean, just, green cities that are great places to live in vibrant communities with other people? Or is solarpunk about getting back to the land, having your own chickens, being self-sufficient, and helping out your neighbors? City dweller Ariel, who dreams of life in the countryside, and countryside dweller Christina, who sees the advantages of city life, consider the pros and cons of trying to live urban versus rural solarpunk lives.