A man in New Zealand thinks it’s better to create your own piece of paradise than to move to a natural one and just taking it over. Back in 1987 Hugh Wilson moved to a neglected part of the country where the natural environment was not doing well and has
Continue readingAuthor: Adam Clare
Things Are Good: Dads That Stay Home Are Less Sexist
Moms and dads both can take parental leave in the majority of countries around the world, and researchers have found in places that men take parental leave that the dads become less sexist. Turns out when dads are the primary caregiver for their children learn more about the gendered roles
Continue readingThings Are Good: Cutting Construction Carbon
Building buildings takes a lot of energy and once done the built structure continues to consume energy and have a carbon footprint. Many options exist to reduce the carbon impact of buildings from the point of construction all the way to deconstruction, but the industry still needs to adopt these
Continue readingThings Are Good: Rate Your Landlord
Landlords run a business that profits off a basic human need: shelter. As a result of the basic power imbalance between those who can own multiple homes and those who can’t even afford one the whole landlord tenet relationship is prone to exploitation. The power imbalance is furthered by landlord
Continue readingThings Are Good: New Method Destroys Forever Chemicals
Forever chemicals get their name because there’s no natural way they decompose and we don’t know of efficient ways to break them down, that’s changing though. Researchers at UBC have found a way to destroy one family of forever chemical known as per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. PFAS are found
Continue readingThings Are Good: 10 Ways Jobs can be More Sustainable
Today is the day to celebrate workers. If you’re currently employed and don’t own the company you’re at then, congratulations, you’re a worker! We can thank worker movements of the past for weekends, health care, and many other improvements to our quality of life. In the coming decades we may
Continue readingThings Are Good: Kids Who Go To Art Galleries Are More Generous
Raising kids is a challenge, raising kids that are conscientious and caring is even harder. From new research it’s clear that taking kids to enjoy art will help them care more about the world around them and make them more generous. Art helps people of all ages experience awe and
Continue readingThings Are Good: Off Grid Living for a Decade
The idea of living off the grid may sound impossible or like a pipe dream, but it is possible and cost efficient. A couple have been living off the grid for over a decade in their earth ship that looks and feels like a normal house. The neat stuff they
Continue readingThings Are Good: Three Day Weekends Rule, Good For Your Health
Unions fought hard for a five day work week and now we need to fight for a four day work week. A global study of people who get a three day weekend from their job have better health and are happier. This is quite unsurprising to anyone who has enjoyed
Continue readingThings Are Good: Coal Continues Collapse
One of the worst ways to generate electricity is to burn coal to heat water to spin turbines, the only reason this power generation exists is due to the cheap cost of coal. OF course, when coal is brunt it releases radiation and carbon into the atmosphere worsening local areas
Continue readingThings Are Good: Tokyo Demonstrates the True Cost of Cars
Japan’s well respected car industry sells cars the world over, but at home it’s a different story. Car ownership is low in Japan for obvious reasons like having a good public transit system and high speed trains for intercity travel. In the capital city of Tokyo car ownership is amongst
Continue readingThings Are Good: Machine Learning Improves Enzyme Eating Plastic
A bacteria that eats plastic may sound too good to be true since we have so much plastic waste littering the planet. The rouble with plastic eating bacterias is that they aren’t efficient nor can they survive long outside the lab. So a research team turned to machine learning, or
Continue readingThings Are Good: You Won’t Regret Not Having Kids
People with kids put a lot of pressure on couples without kids to procreate, which is obviously rude but happens anyway. This could lead to people thinking they want kids when really they don’t. In some places there is even social stigma around not having a child. If you’re in
Continue readingThings Are Good: Focus: Multitasking is a Myth
Think you’re bad at multitasking? You probably are, and if you think you’re good at it, well, you’re probably bad at it too. So why do we think multitasking is something we can do and why do we praise people who can? It has partly to do with sexism. There
Continue readingThings Are Good: Canada Readies Beneficial Ownership Registry
Canada’s reputation has a good place to launder money may soon come to an end. A good step to preventing organized crime from using the Canadian economy to “clean” their money is tabled in parliament. The beneficial ownership registry will require companies to declare who or what organization benefits from
Continue readingThings Are Good: Puffinling Patrol Save Baby Puffins
In Iceland puffins get help from humans who volunteer on the Puffling Patrol to ensure that the little birds can thrive. When baby puffins, known as pufflings, hatch they usually head to the sea from their nests on shore, but when bright lights are nearby they’ll go towards the light.
Continue readingThings Are Good: Open Source, 3D Printed, Pollution Monitoring
Efforts to monitor pollution levels around the world aren’t new, but what is new is a system created by MIT’s Senseable City Lab that anyone can make. Called Flatburn, the system is designed to be put on a vehicle to monitor pollution levels throughout a city, which will provide more
Continue readingThings Are Good: Prairie Strips Save Farms
Prairie strips are a farm conservation practice that requires minimal intervention and delivers huge benefits By converting 10% of cropland to native prairie, farmers can reduce soil loss by 95%, total phosphorous loss by 90%, and total nitrogen loss by 85% A quick summary: pic.twitter.com/rfD7PHmuxy — Sam Knowlton (@samdknowlton) March
Continue readingThings Are Good: Start a Small Garden This Spring
Anyone can be a gardener and you can too! All you need is a balcony or small plot of land and you can start growing your own food. To some people, the very idea of caring for other living things can be scary – what if all the plants die?
Continue readingThings Are Good: How Neighbourhoods Are Fighting Climate Change
Neighbourhoods in Canada are trying to change the world by focussing on their own street. Across the country there are streets of houses proving that a transition from using fossil fuels to heat and power a home is possible in a country that loves to subsidize the oil and gas
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