The ability to tolerate ambiguity varies from person to person and that ability can impact how we interact with the world around us. The intolerance of uncertainty contributes to one’s anxiety and some researches think that individuals strive to make their lives more certain for comfort. Indeed, there has been
Continue readingAuthor: Adam Clare
Things Are Good: How Nations Worked Together to Address the Ozone Hole
Way back in 1987 nations of the world signed the Montreal Protocol to address some environmental problems. The biggest environmental issue discussed at the time was the hole in the ozone layer and thanks to everyone confronting it the hole in the ozone layer is basically gone. It’s proof that
Continue readingThings Are Good: Coast to Coast Artistic Billboards for Resilience in Canada
Resilience (English) from MAWA Programs on Vimeo. Thanks to the Resilience art project from now until August art is being shown on billboards from coast to coast in Canada. You can locate billboards near you (or on your travels) via their map. It’s a creative way to use billboards to
Continue readingThings Are Good: Improving Your Fitness Through Incidental Movement
Do you find it hard to fit the gym into your schedule and you just can’t seem to find any time to workout? Don’t worry about it! Instead of stressing about getting to the gym just change up your daily routine. One of the easiest things you can do to
Continue readingThings Are Good: A Community-Driven Map of Pre-Colonized Land
If you’ve ever wondered about the history of the land you’re on then this website (and app) is for you! The website Native-Land collects historical data from around the world of what peoples claimed what land so any curious individual can investigate some cartographic history. Layers on the map include
Continue readingThings Are Good: Being Lazy Doesn’t Mean Your a Bad Person
Too many of us look at others and think they are no-good lazy people. Think about the person living on the streets or a friend who never seems to be able to keep their job. We see people who are struggling through life and instead of thinking about what external
Continue readingThings Are Good: Economists: Improve the Economy by Empowering Workers
Attacks on unions isn’t anything new, even when workers are asking for safer conditions or a little job security. What is new is that economists are starting to realize that we need stronger worker groups to advocate for labour or the economy as a whole suffers. Over the last few
Continue readingThings Are Good: This New Paris Community Demonstrates Sustainable Cities
In the capital of France, the new Clichy-Batignolles development demonstrates how a city can have a carbon-neutral footprint while providing modern living. The development itself is built on old industrial lands and includes community housing, a theatre, and many other important features of a city including a massive park. The
Continue readingThings Are Good: Eating Yogurt Helps Reduce Inflammation
Eat more yogurt to help reduce inflammation inside your body. Yummy yogurt is also good for your tummy. Some recent research has concluded that yogurt can help reduce inflammation while also helping those with obesity. Be careful though and check the sugar content of popular yogurt brands since the sugar
Continue readingThings Are Good: Diamonds Suck; De Beers Gives Up
Back in 2006 Josh Kaufman got married and during that process he discover the sham of modern diamonds – they aren’t that valuable. Kaufman created the website Diamonds Suck to raise awareness of a diamond alternative: maisonette. It was known then that blood diamonds were a problem and still today
Continue readingThings Are Good: Places Erupt Tackles Trolls in Their Newest Video
The Toronto-based band Places Erupt has put a lot of thought into the state of online discourse and decided to share their two cents. Their most recent video is all about online trolls and the disconnect between how they behave in their in person interactions compared to their online interactions.
Continue readingThings Are Good: Need a Job? Let’s Give Jobs to Everybody!
Underemployment runs rampant in too many sectors of our economy; and this contributes to a long-term unsustainable economic system. For example, people born in the 1980s are now the brokest generation since the Depression (for reasons why see this post). With these problems in mind, some thinkers are calling for
Continue readingThings Are Good: This Artist Wants You to Buy All His Personal Data on eBay
Oli Frost got inspired by companies earning profit from his data and decided to sell it directly to anybody who wants it. He’s downloaded all his data from Facebook (and you can too) and put it up on eBay for anyone to buy. Proceeds from the sale of his Facebook
Continue readingThings Are Good: Free Public Transit Throughout Estonia
We provide access to roads for free to car drivers so why don’t we match free access to movement to people who don’t drive cars? That’s part of the rationale for Estonia providing free public transit for the entire nation – the first country to do so. Estonia is a
Continue readingThings Are Good: Worker-Owned Companies can Save Capitalism
We’re all well aware of the harm caused by the box-box retailers on local communities and their international suppliers; indeed, the people hurt the most are the workers. As a result of the pressures of large multinational corporations mixed with poor working conditions an old solution is gaining new traction.
Continue readingThings Are Good: How to Deal with Problematic Recyclables
Recycling programs still can’t recycle every consumer good, which means that we still need to think about what we put in the blue box (or whatever colour it is where you live). Some plastics are too hard to recycle and some containers too hard to clean. The CBC recently ran
Continue readingThings Are Good: GDPR Might Make the Internet Better by Eliminating Shady Businesses
Now that the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is in effect companies are reacting. You may have noticed new messages on websites outlining that they are collecting information on you, or maybe you’ve received emails updating you on new privacy policies. Those notices are a result of the GDPR’s rules
Continue readingThings Are Good: Science by People for People
To the average person it might look like scientists operate in an ivory tower away from reality, which, can make engaging in scientific issues intimidating. To bridge this gap engaged citizens and scientists have launched themselves into the “citizen science” way of doing things. Basically what that means is that
Continue readingThings Are Good: Stick it to Straws
People are more aware than ever before about the damage to our planet caused by plastics. The whole life-cycle of plastics causes harm from collecting non-renewable oils to the long lifetime of most plastic products. Plastic has even been found at the bottom of the Mariana Trench (video below)! Of
Continue readingThings Are Good: Bus to the Future
Every couple of years some new-fangled technological solution pops up claiming to fix all of our transit woes. We’ve long been promised flying cars and still we need to people on the ground. Today cities are hoping that ride-sharing apps will fill in the void left from poorly funded public
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