just doing our duty👇
27.02.2026 04:52
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just doing our duty👇
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A review of The Long Heat says, “It may be too late for 1.5 degrees C, but it is also, as [authors] Carton and Malm write, ‘too late to give up.’”
This op-ed in the Anchorage Daily News traces the devastation back to climate change and capitalism: “We are witnessing the first wave of climate change refugees in the United States…their displacement is not just a loss of land; it is a loss of language, tradition, and the rhythm of life itself.”
From The Last Straw Monthly Round-up: Extreme weather might be one of the most visible signs of climate change, but crossing planetary thresholds takes many forms. This month we take a look at how to help Typhoon Halong survivors in Alaska, a cob building comeback?, wildfire prevention, and more...
We’ll prioritize completed or near-complete projects, but we’re open to including especially compelling works-in-progress.
Send us high resolution photos of your building in a fire-prone area or build after a fire along with the following info: building location (city, state, country), designer and/or builder, and any brief details about what makes the building more regenerative, natural, or resilient than typical.
Open Call: Get your building featured in the next issue of The Last Straw magazine!
If your building is selected, it’ll be featured in the next magazine and you’ll receive a free copy of the issue! Email all submissions to editors@thelaststraw.org by October 31st!
There is no "miracle" technology! We need to relearn and update the sufficient lifeways that predate cheap fossil fuels.
Cafecito is a great Argentine spot with empandas and yerba mate.
This month's TLS Talks is an online panel discussion between six young professionals making their own way in architecture, construction, and education with natural materials. Register for free (donations encouraged) here: www.eventbrite.com/e/how-to-wor...
The real "there is no alternative"
Authoritarian neoliberalism: make more people houseless, poor, surveilled, and automated out of a job, and then throw them in a hole.
@newframeworks.bsky.social co-owner Jose Ignacio “Nacho” De La Cruz was violently abducted by ICE on June 14th, along with his 18 year old stepdaughter, Heidi. Support them and learn more about how ICE, building, and everything are connected here: www.newframeworks.com/support-our-...
Yeah, it's definitely an uphill battle in many places where building depts prefer "the way it's always been done" over anything else. We've heard people have had success by referencing the relevant IRC appendices (BI, BJ, BK, and BL), even if your jurisdiction hasn't adopted them though!
We are blowing past our modest climate thresholds faster than expected: “irreversible tipping points in the climate system — like the melting of Arctic ice sheets or the wide-scale collapse of coral reefs — are closer at hand than scientists previously believed.” from archive.is/202505291047...
Our first TLS Talk with Ace McArleton starts in less an hour! We'll talk about New Frameworks' SEED program, and hear from the first couple program graduates. Tune in for free and ask your questions!
Straw house lime plastered covered in wild wine.
The 1st #strawhouse in Europe was renovated after ~100 years. I asked the cncp-feuillette.fr about problems with the renovation for a lecture:
"We didn't need to carry out any major renovations, just plastering and limewash paint, because it was in very good condition."
“Unlike many carbon removal solutions still in development, biomass building products are already commercially manufactured in the United States and globally.” Even if you just skim this, the conventional material carbon and monetary cost comparisons are worth a look: rmi.org/insight/buil...?
Join our live video call May 28 w/ New Frameworks co-founder Ace McArleton as he talks about the SEED program, which helps make sure "high-performance, carbon-smart, and socially just building practices are accessible, scalable, and shared." Register for free : www.eventbrite.com/e/ace-mcarle...
Good clarifying piece that calls for building new institutions and points out architecture's connection to everything, requiring that "we...all become architecture critics"
A recent study found that on a global scale soil is getting worse at retaining moisture: www.carbonbrief.org/global-soil-... It also found that dry soil is a more significant cause of sea level rise than previously thought, creating even more ripe conditions for droughts, floods, wildfires.
Lloyd Alter seems just as frustrated as The Last Farm is with the arguments in Abundance. Alter focuses on imagining what might happen if sufficiency would be valued more than endless growth. His vision is kind of uplifting and shares a bit of history too. lloydalter.substack.com/p/how-to-bui...
The Last Farm wrote that Abundance suggests “all of our problems will be solved via deregulation and technology plus a tiny dash of sensible regulation, which will unlock an endless flow of treats powered by magic” thelastfarm.substack.com/p/on-abundan...
Malcolm Harris writes that “Abundance is mostly hard to argue with, by design: Klein and Thompson have written a super-partisan sales pitch for a politics of new construction rather than a rigorous, methodical inquiry regarding the causes of national stagnation.” thebaffler.com/latest/whats...
You may have heard that a new book called Abundance came out recently, with Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson claiming to offer a way out of climate crisis that would be neither uncomfortable nor unpopular. Critical reviews quickly came out picking apart the book's oversimplifications:
We're new here, but not new to the world. We've been putting out stuff about natural building and ecological design for almost 33 years! Here's a little bit about a few DIY-ers helped revive natural building methods: www.thelaststraw.org/a-history-of...