Plants in your home and workplace can reduce stress and make the air you breath cleaner. If I had my way then every wall would be a bio wall. Since that’s not possible I’m happy to advocate for some plants that are easy to care for. Even if you don’t
Continue readingAuthor: Adam Clare
Things Are Good: Enforcing Environmental Laws can Save the Planet
Nations around the world have been putting more and more environmental protection laws on the books. This has been good to see. However, with many new things it takes awhile for people to get used to them, accordingly the enforcement of these laws has been lax. This means that if
Continue readingThings Are Good: Concordia University Launches Sustainable Bonds
Fundings research can get expensive, particularly when looking into cutting edge technology and techniques. In order to fund research at a new lab at Concordia University the school has launched a sustainable bond. Other schools have done this around the world in order to raise funding, Concordia is the first
Continue readingThings Are Good: We’ve Destroyed the Planet, Let’s Leave Something Beautiful Behind
We’re presently living in the anthropocene and it’s all our fault. The effects of industrialization will be felt for thousands of years to come and be evident millions of years from now (found in everything from fossil records to chemicals). There is a good chance that humanity will go extinct
Continue readingThings Are Good: Economists: Let’s all Work Less
We all work too much. Indeed, millennials are the hardest working generation due to structural effects of poor policy from preceding generations (like the 2008 crash and encouraging rent seeking behaviour). Both the boomers and Gen X earned more for their work than millennials, so what’s the point of current
Continue readingThings Are Good: Canada’s Supreme Court Rules Companies Have to Pay for Environmental Damage
It might seem obvious that companies should pay for damaging property, but that wasn’t the case for years. Up to now companies in Canada were able to extract resources from land (poisoning entire ecosystems) and leave the cleanup costs to be covered by the government. Privatize the profits and socialize
Continue readingThings Are Good: Active People Naturally Crave Healthier Foods
Want to eat healthier but lacking motivation? Start being more active and you’ll find that picking healthier foods will get easier. A least that’s what participants found in a recent study, and there’s no reason to expect different results for you. Researchers took people who had a sedentary lifestyle and
Continue readingThings Are Good: Let’s Rethink Punishment
When someone breaks the law or acts out in a transgressive manner we often turn to punishment to correct their behaviour. We do this in families and as a society, but is it right? If take a moment to look at the roots of modern punishment we might conclude that
Continue readingThings Are Good: Living a Zero-Waste Life is Getting Easier
Zero waste living seems like an impossibility given the amount of packaging everything is put in. Ordering a small item can lead to 10x the packaging of the item itself. The use of packaging seem so out of control that we can’t avoid it. We can. Back in 2010 a
Continue readingThings Are Good: Thinking of Your Partner can Reduce Stress
We all have moments of high stress in our lives, how we deal with the stress is up to us. One technique that could work for you is to think of your romantic partner. A recent study has shown that in a stressful situation people who were with, or thinking
Continue readingThings Are Good: Deny Climate Deniers Political Opportunity
Should we mock and deride people who lie about climate change? Yes, according to a recent op-ed in the Washington Post. At the very least it’s time to stop listening to people who deny reality. The rationale for denying deniers is that they are legitimate threats to our wellbeing. It’s
Continue readingThings Are Good: We can Stop Climate Change Just by Ending Fossil Fuel Usage
It seems that every month we’re confronted with another study pointing out that climate change is happening faster and worse than projected. This constant news cycle can make people tone it out and ignore the defining issue of our day. Thankfully, we also get tons of suggestions to stop climate
Continue readingThings Are Good: Reviving the “Dinosaur of Trees”
Giant redwood trees are beautiful to look at and are great for the environment. We need them now more than ever before. The redwoods filter air, water while also removing tons of carbon due to their sheer size. These trees are so precious that scientists are trying to revive an
Continue readingThings Are Good: GDPR Forces NYT to Serve Better Ads
Online media companies were forced to rethink their advertiser policies last year because of the introduction of the GDPR. The New York Times decided to stop using ad services that tracked you across the web; exactly what the GDPR was designed to do. Most people claimed that because marketers can’t
Continue readingThings Are Good: Planning for a Zero-Growth Economy
The economy is sometimes referred to as an entity outside of human control – it isn’t. We control the economy through policies and practices in each nation. The last half century focussed on growing the economy at the expense of all else from social care to the environment. We’ve seen
Continue readingThings Are Good: California Launches Improved Reverse Income Tax Scheme
California’s welfare system (EITC) includes subsidies sent annually for people living without income and that’s about to change. Under new rules the money given to people who earn less than minimum wage will be sent monthly. This is really good since it provides a stable, reliable, and regular sum every
Continue readingThings Are Good: Let’s Admit Intellectual Property is Nonsense
Depending on your worldview Intellectual Property (IP) is either necessary or holds us back in terms of cultural (and economic ) development. IP applies to more than what you may think, it covers cartoons to medicine. What’s more, international trade has meant that the American approach to IP is spreading.
Continue readingThings Are Good: Don’t Clean Your Plate
Many of us were raised with mentality of “cleaning” our plate at the end of the meal; basically, it means finishing all the food on your plate. Some researchers wondered if this leads to unhealthy overconsumption of food, and indeed it does. There’s some simple things you can do to
Continue readingThings Are Good: Sick Days are Worth it
Showing up to your workplace sick isn’t good for anyone, yet people do it anyway. Obviously, the sick person would rather stay home to heal and feel better (nobody plans on getting their peers ill). Why is it then that we all go to work when we should stay at
Continue readingThings Are Good: Large Cities are Done with Cars
North Americans love cars and that love is literally killing us, and I don’t mean through car exhaust I mean by directly killing people. Over 60 people were needlessly killed by drivers in Toronto in 2018. This is obviously the fault of careless driving, but it’s also the result of
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