The year of optimism

Happy 2022 to you and you and you...

Welcome back to Down-To-Earth by Jenna, fun chats about your offline world •

… and welcome to 2022! 🌱

Here are three things that I’m thinking about this week:

• Drones can be highly entertaining: and they don’t spew poisonous gases into the air, scare animals, and endanger people and limbs like fireworks. 🕵️‍♀️ Take a look this inspiring video from China:

• Bees understand the assignment: Listen to one of the world’s top naturalist beekeepers of all time, Fedor Lazuntin of Keeping Bees with a Smile: A Vision and Practice of Natural Apiculture:

“There was a certain researcher studying how honeycomb is constructed. He compelled some bees to build comb under conditions they would never encounter in nature—and each and every time, they hit upon the ideal solution to the problem. He spun the hives in a centrifuge, altered the magnetic field— and eventually was even able to obtain a spherical comb that he dragged around to various forums and exhibitions for many years afterward. By this researcher’s own account, the bees built this comb in several stages: they went to work, stopped, “thought,” destroyed what they’d built, and began anew—and they did this multiple times until they found the proper solution. I repeat: such actions cannot be chalked up to mere instinct, since this challenge was likely being encountered for the first time in the entire history of bees’ existence.” 😮

• Banks, however, really don’t understand the assignment: Did you know that your own hard-earned money is likely, right at this very moment, being invested into fossil fuels, fracking, coal, god-knows-what? Stuff that totally does not reflect your values? Take a look at this snapshot from a report from the Rainforest Action Network. Find this to be highly concerning? Look up your bank and find alternatives here.

To your week enthusiastically petting every dog you meet on the street,

Jenna