Industrial farming, golf courses, and some industries all contribute an incredible amount of nutrient runoff that enters our waterways. This influx of unexpected nutrients can cause algae blooms and otherwise damage the local ecosystem. To combat this damage from runoff a team from the Florida International University created a floating
Continue readingAuthor: Adam Clare
Things Are Good: Let’s End Gas Subsidies
For some strange reason countries like Canada keep giving tax money to ultra wealthy oil and gas companies even though they keep killing all life on the planet. Let’s stop this. The team at Solar Share hosted a good information session on how we can reduce government money going to
Continue readingThings Are Good: Hot People are More Likely to be Depressed
There’s a popular theory that hot people have it easier in life, and that might be true for looks but not for temperature. People were asked to self report their levels of depression and it turns out that there’s a correlation between their body temperature and mood. The results revealed
Continue readingThings Are Good: Norway Gamed Oil to Get Rich and Go Green
Norway figured out how to make money from its oil while going green, and other countries should learn this nifty trick. Yes, oil is bad and we need to stop using it right away to avoid climate collapse. What Norway has done is take their bad oil and export it
Continue readingThings Are Good: Cancer Causing Roundup Maker Monsanto Must Pay $2.25 Billion in Damages
Bayer, the corporate owner of Monsanto, must pay $2.25 billion in damages due to Monsanto’s product called Roundup. The chemical spray kills insects very quickly (which is really bad for the planet) and due to it being permitted to use on residential properties the harm it has caused seems pretty
Continue readingThings Are Good: Paris Triples Parking Fees for SUVs
Paris is undergoing a transportation revolution that champions the movement of people over the movement of vehicles and the most recent change was put to the people of the city. Citizens of Paris have voted to triple parking fees for heavy, road destroying, SUVs that take up more space than
Continue readingThings Are Good: How Rotterdam Uses Water to Protect Itself from Flooding
As global warming melts the polar ice caps we are witnessing a human caused increase in sea level. The city of Rotterdam is on the front lines of holding back this tidal increase and they have designed some nifty ways to protect the people that live in the city from
Continue readingThings Are Good: Beautiful Books from Standard Ebooks
Reading is cool, and it can look cool too! The volunteers over at Standard Ebooks have collected public domain books which they polish up with fancy covers to look more appealing. That’s not all though. They also clean up the scans of books that exist and also fix any formatting
Continue readingThings Are Good: Johns Hopkins: Narrow Lanes Save Lives
Johns Hopkins has reached a conclusion: to protect lives we need to narrow lives. Cars kill. Cars (and the people driving them) are more likely to cause death when they move fast and wide lanes encourage speeding. A logical step to curb reckless driving by car drivers is to limit
Continue readingThings Are Good: YOLO: Throw Away Your Phone
We only have one life so use it wisely. It feels like a lot of pressure, but maybe we should focus on the small wins like using out mobile phones less. If you’re one of those people with new year’s resolutions than you may want to consider reducing your phone
Continue readingThings Are Good: Wind Turbines & Birds, Ok; Gas & Birds, Not Ok
People opposed to a clean economy argue that birds get killed by wind turbines so therefore we shouldn’t build wind farms. Of course, those same people would argue that we should stick to planet-killing fossil fuels instead; somehow, in their minds using fossil fuels is better than renewables when it
Continue readingThings Are Good: In Winnipeg the Electric Past is the Future
Broadway looking east, 1914.Archives of Manitoba, Wpg/Streets/Broadway 11 The city of Winnipeg was once a leader in sustainable transit then along came the automobile and the city is now known for the worst intersection in Canada (it’s so bad they ban pedestrians from using it). Winnipeg was home to one
Continue readingThings Are Good: Hawaiian Battery Better Than Coal
Hawaii just became an even better place to live thanks to cleaner air. The state recently decommissioned their coal power plant and replaced it with a much nicer looking battery complex. The battery system had to be designed with potential disasters in mind due to the risks of earthquakes, volcanoes,
Continue readingThings Are Good: Adfree Cities for Happier and Healthier Cities
Billboards are a plight on the environment that also negatively impact our mental health – so why do let them exist? In Sao Paulo they banned billboards a long time ago and their local economy wasn’t negatively impacted while the wellbeing of the people in the city increased. It seems
Continue readingThings Are Good: Active Transportation 10x More Cost Effective Than Passive Transportation
Want a better city but are limited by money? You should invest in active transportation first and foremost. Yet another study has shown that providing spaces for pedestrians and cyclists are a way better investment to improve urban wellbeing than leaving space to metal boxes on wheels. This most recent
Continue readingThings Are Good: Mobile Pollution Boxes Need to Pay to Enter Manhattan
Cars take up a lot of space in urban centres and deprive non-car owners of previous real estate and a clean environment. Yet, for years we have let car drivers occupy our cities with their large metal boxes which impeded the freedom and mobility of others. Back in 2003 London
Continue readingThings Are Good: How Heat Pumps Work
Despite the climate crisis some places (like Canada) are still building houses with fossil fuel based heating systems, and this needs to change. Gas companies and their planet-killing kin have used regulatory capture to ensure their desire to change the climate continues. However, their best efforts to force customers to
Continue readingThings Are Good: Engineered Stone Banned Down Under
If you don’t work in one of the building trades then you might not know about engineered stone, but you have definitely seen it and probably touched it. It’s a type of stone made of crushed silica that is pressed together to make a new, and equally durable, stone (it’s
Continue readingThings Are Good: Solar Retaining Wall Goes Live in Switzerland
It might seem odd to put solar panels on the side of walls in a region with mountains, but that’s exactly what’s happening in Switzerland. One of the cantons in the country is looking to be powered by at least 40% renewables by 2035 (which is quite achievable); with terrain
Continue readingThings Are Good: Canada Now Requires Companies to Disclose Who Benefits
Following similar legislation in other countries Canada has finally introduced a beneficial ownership requirement on Canadian companies. Federally registered companies will have to disclose who owns them, which means it’ll be harder to commit tax fraud. Plus, by having companies reveal who benefits from their existence it will be easier
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