Check if your area has a Weed Warriors group/organization. They go around removing invasive plants that are smothering native plants. I find it fun and get a satisfaction of having done something nice while exercising.
If your area doesn't have that, there's most likely opportunities to volunteer with hiking trail maintenance at nearby state parks. Or just go hiking, start small and bring water!
"more heat pumps, more now"
ProPublica is an amazing nonprofit investigative journalism source and they never have a pay wall. Consider donating!
They also have a tool to help you file claims to your insurance company
The City Nerd channel on YouTube and Nebula discusses this issue a LOT. Trains are by far the most cost effective method of transporting large numbers of people and goods.
Here's a video discussing costs of car use
Here's one on the cities with the most affordable housing and transportation costs. As he explains housing and transportation costs are directly linked to each other.
I look at independent randomized controlled trials, not anecdotal evidence. Here's a recent trial from Finland that didn't have industry funding. They compared low-nicotine vaping vs varenicline alone vs placebo. Both varenicline and vaping resulted in about 40% of people quitting at 12 weeks, and 20% of placebo group. So add nicotine replacement therapy and behavioral therapy on top of varenicline and the rates should go higher. Pfizer and other pharmaceutical companies sell most of the FDA-approved cessation therapies, and in comparison the big tobacco companies sell vapes.
Check out SmokeFree.gov! It has great free resources that are science based. Quitting smoking is the number thing someone who smokes can do for their health.
The most effective methods to quit smoking include varenicline (aka Chantix), FDA-approved nicotine replacement therapies (gum, patch, lozenge, inhaler, etc), and behavioral therapy. Combining all of these therapies in a clinical trials results in the most people quitting.
No vape is FDA-approved as a cessation therapy, because no company has applied. There have been some small academic run trials, which tend to show a decrease in smoking, but continued nicotine addiction. Probably because vapes have much higher nicotine content than FDA-approved therapies. While vapes expose people to a lot less carcinogens than smoke, there are some carcinogens and nicotine itself is harmful to vascular and mental health. So if the evidence-based methods don't work, completely switching to vaping would be less harmful.
Agreed! I get this with my Unitarian Universalist church community. UUs don't require anyone to believe a certain scripture, but we have a shared set of principles, like valuing democracy, science, and nature. The community aspect and music program are great by themselves, and our minister's sermons have been a great source of motivation to keep fighting for what we believe in.
Depends on your demographics a bit. Dictatorships like to scapegoat ethnic minorities or other out groups (see Pinochet's, Mao's, Pol Pot's, etc extermination of scientists and educators) for society's problems. These groups of people tend to experience much greater intensity of oppression under dictatorships than already present in the US. This tends to change culture on a fundamental level because most people actively try to fit in with the in group to avoid becoming a target themselves.
While present to some degree in our current system, another core characteristic of dictatorships is that self enrichment for those in power is the primary driving factor for decision making. Dictators don't need to pay lip service to making decisions for the greater good. You see this especially prominently in dictatorships in developing countries with valuable resources... The dictators and their close friends take all of the wealth from resource extraction for themselves and everyone else lives in extreme poverty. Yes we have wealth inequality already, but it would be accelerated even more. You could see even highly skilled professionals having a hard time making ends meet (or in jail for being too smart and having "ideas"), and even more homelessness, potentially even wide scale famine.
In terms of geopolitics... Our relationship with allies would become about how the relationship personally benefits those in power.
You shouldn't be able to smoke outside an ER anyway... People come through there with life threatening problems and need all the oxygen they can get
Why are you interested in the keto diet? Are there specific goals you're trying to accomplish? It's a tricky diet that is best done with medical supervision.
I highly recommend Harvard's Nutrition Source for science-based nutrition information. They use accessible language and have recipes too!
That one scouting ship you forget to upgrade 😂