Loominār Waitlist is Live!

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Loominar logo, featuring a moth over the top of the I

First off, Happy New Years! ✨

I’m going to keep this short and sweet because I can go on and on about this until my fingers bleed, going forward I’ll be investing most of my free time realizing a climate change focused app I’m calling Loominār.

The best way to get an idea of what it’s about is to head on over to loominar.co and reading the mission statement that I put together there (with some help from people dear to me, super-appreciate all the help and feedback – you know who you are 💚).

And if it sounds like something you’d like to be part of, it’s easy to join the waitlist on the same page at the very top ✨

And for those that want some more personal background I really tried to narrow down my thoughts below … By no means an exhaustive list of my thoughts but what came to mind when trying to put this together in time for New Years Eve.

Background

With 2025 coming to a close, we are now only 4 years from 2030. 4 years that I believe will be the most monumental 4 years in terms of climate change action that we have available to us. That will set the tone for the rest of the century.

We have crossed the 1.5C target set fourth in the Paris Accords.

Something I never imagined we’d ever push past growing up. It’s incredibly draining and frankly infuriating to say the least. We are making great strides, don’t get me wrong – a lot of great policy and decision making is still happening, but it feels like the momentum is slowing down instead of speeding up – something which is urgently needed.

Media is seriously underreporting on climate change, given how life-changing for the worse it is for our existence. And journalists should really pick up their fighting spirit and hold politicians and corporations accountable when it comes to the climate, like orders of magnitude more fighting spirit.

I could go on and on about bringing up examples and explaining the nuances to people, and eventually I do hope to this by creating YouTube videos and using that as source material for all other forms of media. But it’s not something I’m willing to proceed with without at least having an app that is available and actively being iterated on.

And truth be told, it feels kind of terrifying to go ahead with this, not only for my introvert nature, but also due to the loud minority that most likely will show up in the comments. If it works out and the app goes live, I fully expect there to be death threats sent to me. That’s just the world we are in right now, with how polarized it has become. There is seemingly no room for nuance or reflection. Not to mention the very real chance that it’s a bot farm coming in to cause mayhem in the comments. But an important point to remember is that roughly 80% in the world want to see more climate action. It’s just that this is a silent majority, you don’t see these people in the comment sections – and I myself am guilty of this. But I think most people can relate to why, there simply isn’t a point arguing and playing keyboard warrior against climate deniers in the comment sections, no matter how many IPCC reports, documentaries, books or YouTube videos I’ve consumed on the matter. The simple truth is that these people are the village idiots of the internet, and unlike the real world – you can’t just shut them out.

And I am a creative person at heart, who just happens to be a programmer. I don’t wanna waste a bunch of time with keyboard warriors or bots in comment fields, it’s pointless. And honestly I’d much rather focus on creative efforts like making video games with friends, drawing, writing the stories in my head into novels, learning guitar, making music, watching sunsets, enjoy the snow, to see an aurora and exploring the world. All while having a job where I feel like contribute something meaningful to society. I wish I did, but I don’t really have it in me to enter the world of politics.

But instead my mind can’t let go of climate change, it has constantly been there. So much so that I feel like if I don’t contribute in some way towards a positive change when it comes to climate impact, that there won’t be a stable future for me to simply enjoy being creative… So I’ll be putting my skillset to use and in my mind the best case scenario for Loominār is that it will:

  • Educate people on climate change and uplift climate action overall
  • Help facilitate and create systemic change, individual footprints has its uses – but it feels like beating your head against a wall if the system you exist within doesn’t easily facilitate a sustainable lifestyle
  • Becomes a movement, which hopefully a significant part of that previous 80% who want more climate action wants to be a part of. And hopefully leverage this social movement to spread far and wide.

All in an effort to be a positive part, no matter how big or small the impact might be, towards getting a grip on climate change, to stabilize and restore our nature and ecosystems to sustainable levels. And I want to do it from scratch, and do it right. So it can have good bones and grow steadily over time. Hopefully even being able to sustain itself, me and a few other developers and creators, and beyond even. The best would be if climate change had been handled decades ago, but here we are so I guess the second best option is that Loominār can bring us all together into being that force for change, and that it can become my and hopefully others primary job and personally that I could have those creative side projects again and this be my main gig for as long as its needed.

And it might sound naive, or even unrealistic. But the fact of the matter is that we are the only species with any real agency in the matter, we can build any system we want.

I don’t think it’s too much to ask for a world that works for everyone, where we prioritize planetary health and the public good. And stop fighting each other over bullshit reasons, and just work together to realize a better and brighter future.

I am sick of feeling helpless about it, I am sick of all the hatred going around, enough is enough.

And I get it, it’s highly emotional, it’s highly cultural. It’s very easy to get stuck or have knee-jerk reactions when it feels like our freedoms are being threatened. I get it, but the least I ask is that allow yourself time to process these feelings, to weigh all the alternatives against each other and inform yourself instead of going with the initial reaction and hanging on for dear life to that. Perhaps then can we build something better to replace what has been unsustinable in the meantime to regain that same or similar freedom again.

Because the option to just keep doing what we’re doing in our current status quo is simply unsustainable. And I don’t think it’s too much to ask for a stable future to be able to enjoy the golden years in.

Random bits I just didn’t know where to weave into the text:

I built a version of what ultimately became Loominār alongside my vanlife build. It was originally mainly to keep my own vanlife tripping to a reasonable level in terms of climate impact. To go slow, and stay longer, to really make it count.

But somewhere along the way I realized that it’s kind of insane to focus so heavily on individual footprint, that is literally what the fossil fuel companies have been pushing propaganda for across decades – absolving any personal responsbility and putting it on the consumer.

The problem is systemic, so I had to rethink everything and eventually came up with a concept that I am as of writing this in the process of building into the app, so the app has a more holistic approach focused on social connectedness. Instead of isolated islands which becomes a not-so-vocal majority that despite not voicing it very often actually largely agrees that we want to see a better world, that wants to see more climate action. I do really believe the mission statement on the https://loominar.co website really puts it in the best words I could muster so I hope you check it out if you haven’t already 👀

These perfect conditions that have created a state of balance that allows for not just human life, but all life, to thrive aren’t random. We can observe and measure what is affecting these conditions, and ever since the industralisation – humanity has created an unnatural and rampant change by bringing up inert and dormant resources from deep underground and releasing them into the atmosphere, everything from coal to oil and gas. A lot of progress happened over all these years, but they aren’t tied to each other in any real way. We have just chosen to think of them as interlinked.

When it comes to climate policy there has been a great deal of backpedaling in the US in the past year alone, but also here in Sweden the current administration has been nothing short of a disaster when it comes to climate policy. One of their favorite moves seems to be to rugpull something, and then put parts of the resources back and call it an investment.

But… It’s nowhere close to where it was before this adminstration entered 🙃

Not to mention how they handled the COP conference, leaving early and not really participating or even bothering to send in replacement representatives.

Within the EU we have gone from being one of the top performers in terms of climate action, to one of the worst. All within one adminstration. And we’re probably going to face EU fines for this…

For any Swede, I highly recommend checking out Klimatgranskaren, Tidningen Syre and perhaps tangentially Klägget too (more broadly about shady stuff our administration here in Sweden is involved in).

How the name came about:

It draws a bit from the words

Loom

A frame or machine for interlacing (see interlace sense 1) at right angles two or more sets of threads or yarns to form a cloth[^1]

The loom metaphor captures exactly what I envision for this app: which is the weaving of individual lives into a stronger collective fabric. Just like how the traditional loom device interlaces separate threads to create something greater than the sum of its parts, I hope Loominār will bring people together to form deeper connections and promote collective action around what matters most.

Luminary

A person of prominence or brilliant achievement[^1]

But I want the name loominār to redefine what it means to be a luminary in our current age. Loominār users could become a new kind of luminary –– people who understand what’s at stake and refuse to pretend that climate change isn’t happening, but also refuse to let it happen without doing something about it. These are people who embrace and focus on what actually matters in life: our memories, our relationships with each other and our planet.

Rather than seeking prominence through digital metrics or isolated individual achievement, loominār luminaries find their brilliance in collective action and genuine human connection. They’re forces for good and change, looking ahead with hope, action, and determination rather than fear, apathy or despair, which ultimately leads to inaction and things turning for the worse instead.

And I don’t want to focus on negative things, but a tiny teeny little ounce of the app name is also referring to the verb form of “loom,” which feels especially relevant to our current moment in time:

To take shape as an impending occurrence

Climate change looms over all of us, demanding attention and action. But through the collective power of the loom –– people coming together, thread by thread –– we can weave a different future. One where what’s looming isn’t just crisis, but also the possibility of real, meaningful change created by communities of people who refuse to face it alone.

And lastly nära, which is the swedish word for close/closeness, with an artistic macron instead of the dots on top of the “a”. This emphasizes the app’s focus on genuine closeness and meaningful connections –– something we can do all of us together, as a collective.

I am, to say the least, skeptical when it comes to our economic model as it currently functions – I feel like it has allowed for both progress but also extensive greed to take priority over what is ethical and moral. Where exploitative practices are cheered on all for a arbitrary number to keep going up. While the exploitative practice is literally destroying Earths ability to sustain life. Which does include all of us…

Basically, the simple fact that infinite growth can’t work on a finite planet, eventually something has to give.

And I don’t have the answers here, if anything I’m just adding this as a food for thought point, maybe something we all should start to discuss more. How can we come up with something better, while still ensuring the basics such as accessible healthcare, the ability to retire etcetera.

I was working on creating a Youtube series that would tackle a specific topic per week or biweekly, but the best use of my time currently is to keep at it with building the app. Thankfully, there are already a ton of great creators in the climate action space and eventually I hope to rotate back to making content alongside working on the app when its actually live.

These are just a few example – a good place to start at least, but if you’re looking for more and have Instagram you can check out who I follow on Instagram, it is interspersed with my vanlife peers - eventually I will migrate these to my @joinloominar account, but that’s where they are for the time being 😅