Very nice looking knife.

Mostly I use a regular kitchen knife (ie non serrated) for bread too, just have to keep it very sharp. It’s carbon steel so it’s easy to hone and strop.

Modern bikes being less maintainable is largely on the extreme low-end like Walmart bikes, or extreme high end carbon-fiber nonsense designed for rich weekend warriors.

Best if you find a shop that deals in second-hand bikes and get a cheap one. A bike that has been maintained by such a shop is likely to continue being maintainable. Plus you may not know what kind of bike you like til you ride it for a while so don’t spend too much for your first one.

The area this article is talking about was oak savannah:

Within these oak savannas, which were interlaced with prairies, tree crowns covered between 10 percent and 30 percent of the ground. They were essentially a transition between the tight deciduous forests of the East and the fully open grasslands further west.

Most climate scientists say we need to make changes to our personal lives and changes to the system. If one lives in the overdeveloped world, one’s impact is potentially huge. There are basic things that make a difference: eat less meat from ruminants (beef, mutton), don’t fly, have fewer or no kids. Those are low hanging fruit, take little effort, and still leave time and energy for whatever system change tactic one wants to do.

I’ve encountered the term “Imperial mode of living” cited by Kohei Salto. Thanks for posting this interview.

On the theft of resources for the affluent lifestyle, I recommend Cobalt Red, about mining in the DRC. It’s a brutal read. Kids digging with hand tools in toxic pits for $1 a day.

Or, proper running water systems vs having to buy plastic jugs of water.

Certainly the formula can be sharpened but it’s a decent heuristic for thinking about impact.

I = PAT

Impact is equal to population times affluence times technology.

Decreasing human population can help to decrease impact, as long as the smaller population doesn’t disproportionately increase its resource use (affluence x technology)

Sky burial for me please.

I’ve been trying to find clothing made in my overdeveloped country. Though the only textile we make here is wool, maybe linen, it’s a way to support labour practices that are not sweatshops.

Still learning more names of species that live here. I’m starting to spot some trees quicker. ID’d all the trees around my apartment.

Edit: also found local farms to get a good chunk of produce from. Food miles don’t matter as much as people believe, but strong rural economies do: less likely to turn into exurbs, and less of my money going to supermarket extortionists.

Thank you for this.

Note that the population peak happens earlier in this UN model revision.

However there is a plausible case for population to peak much earlier (2040):

https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2024/06/peak-population-projections/