Thankfully, calls to defund the police are being heard throughout North America where police have military equipment. Despite decades of “austerity” which witnessed governments defunding social services and programs that helped the disenfranchised we’re finally seeing the police budgets on the chopping block. Why is this good? Well, the police
Continue readingAuthor: Adam Clare
Things Are Good: Collision: How we can Better Protect Endangered Species
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, and Achim Steiner spoke today at Collision at Home about The Lion’s Share organization. The organization looks to protect endangered species by channeling some funding that large companies put into advertising into spending on protecting our environment. It’s basically putting in a voluntary tax earmarked for a specific
Continue readingThings Are Good: Collision: Replacing Plastics with Seaweed
At the last Collision Conference Loliware pitched their eco-conscious business and won. Today Sea Briganti provided an update on the company and the success they’ve had replacing plastic usage with seaweed. They have created an entire line of products which are carbon negative! The company continues to grow and we
Continue readingThings Are Good: Collision: Shaquille O’Neal Wants Your Life to be Steady
“Invest in things that are going to change people’s lives” – @JeffBezos advice to @SHAQ & why he invested in @thesteadyapp #CollisionfromHome #SteadyApp pic.twitter.com/I1yG2RNWtp — Aoileann Ní Chuilleanáin (@Aoils) June 23, 2020 Today at Collision conference Shaquille O’Neal made an appearance to promote Steady, a company that wants to help
Continue readingThings Are Good: Run The Jewels are the Artists we Need Right Now
Earlier this month Run the Jewels released their most recent album and it’s the music we need for these crazy times. The band effectively captures the tensions felt by people on the ground experience racism, classism, and oppression from the police (and the state at large). Their anger isn’t the
Continue readingThings Are Good: Working Less is What We can do to Repair the Economy
Before the pandemic too many people spent too much of the time working instead of living. Now, the opposite is true with employers in North America firing people left and right because companies didn’t save a rainy day fund. Indeed, some companies aren’t paying rent and getting away with it
Continue readingThings Are Good: We Evolved to Walk and it’s Great for our Health
Walking is great! Most of us have heard that we should get 10,000 steps a day to maintain our health, but walking is more than just taking steps. Shane O’Mara in his book In Praise of Walking explores what walking is all about (hint: it’s everything that makes us human).
Continue readingThings Are Good: This Cambodian Circus Helps Kids out of Poverty
Running away to join the circus is dream many kids have. In Cambodia joining the circus can be the best thing a kid can do, and they don’t need to run away to join the fun. Phare Ponleu Selpak is the circus program, after similar in style to Cirque du
Continue readingThings Are Good: Protests Work: Minneapolis Police Defunding Begins and More
Democracy happens in the streets. Every single person who has supported the Black Lives Matter movement, or has shown support for social justice in a direct way, has helped make change happen in America. The conversation about racist police and blatant police brutality is getting more attention now than ever
Continue readingThings Are Good: New Zealand is COVID-19 Free
After a very well managed shutdown of the country, New Zealand is free of COVID-19 and people are able to live as they did before. The country had a strict, vast, and quick reaction to COVID-19 showing up in the nation and it’s paid off. Starting today New Zealanders are
Continue readingThings Are Good: Feeling Lonely? Head to the Virus Cafe
Feeling lonely and not getting out due to the pandemic? Head over to the virtual virus cafe where you can connect with other nice people on the internet and chat for a little bit. The creator clearly wants people to connect in an impromptu but meaningful way while we are
Continue readingThings Are Good: It’s Time to Defund the Police
For extra visual impact. pic.twitter.com/t4CMLHDzbN — Péter — BLM • austerity never works (@96fps) May 31, 2020 Militarization of police forces isn’t just an American problem, it’s a global problem, and it needs to stop. One of the many reasons police are buying tanks and high tech weaponry is because
Continue readingThings Are Good: Protesting Works
Democracy is messy and in order for it to function many voices need to be heard, when some groups can’t be heard they peacefully take to the streets. Despite a history of protesting for a good cause resulting in beneficial societal change there are people who doubt the efficacy of
Continue readingThings Are Good: Ways to Reduce Police Violence
vote This past week saw Americans out on the streets en masse to protest police violence, in particular race-based discrimination practiced by police throughout the nation. Non-white individuals get harassed more, suffer more violence, and are treated worse by the judicial system than white people. This has been proven time
Continue readingThings Are Good: Funding Childhood Programs Improves Life and the Economy
Ensuring that kids have a chance to succeed is the best thing we can do for society. If children of all backgrounds and stations in life get the support the need from the start then all of us benefit, not just the child. We have known this for years, but
Continue readingThings Are Good: Visually Communicating Climate Change
Showing people the impact climate change is having on people usually results in rather depressing images. It doesn’t have to be this way, we can show people the great things people are doing to mediate and react to our changing planet. The mission of Climate Visuals is to help journalists
Continue readingThings Are Good: Does Everyone Have a Victory Garden?
Since at least 2008 we’ve been championing that people with land should plant a food garden. The best time to start your garden is today, the second best time is tomorrow. Being stuck at home to slow the spread of COVID-19 has inspired people to start growing their own gardens
Continue readingThings Are Good: How to Prevent Drivers Smashing into Buildings
This is a fun video exploring how we currently design streets for cars and how the Netherlands dealt with drivers. It’s sadly common that drivers steer their vehicles into buildings (maybe the buildings need to wear reflectors like cyclists?) throughout North America, despite the billions spent on roadways. Thankfully there
Continue readingThings Are Good: Mozilla Launches an Incubator to Fix the Internet
Due to increased consolidation of influential websites on the internet (like Google and Facebook scrapping content from other sites) the quality of the web has arguably decreased. To stymie this corporatization of the internet, the makers of Firefox, Mozilla, have decided to launch a fund to create companies that make
Continue readingThings Are Good: How to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint, and Why You Should Celebrate it
When it comes to reducing your carbon footprint it’s not what you do it’s what can you do. For some people it’s not a big expensive to install solar panels on their homes, whereas others don’t own a home. Every individual action counts. Once you’ve figured out what’s possible for
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