We’ve all heard about how downtowns have failed in smaller cities while big box stores like Walmart succeed; what we don’t really talk about is why and what’s the solution. First we need to establish that suburban big box stores are horrible for people and the economy (which is easy);
Continue readingAuthor: Adam Clare
Things Are Good: New Zealand Bans New Offshore Drilling, Plans Fully Renewable Future
While Canada continues to condemn the future to climatic destruction by supporting the tar sands, their common wealth partner has decided to plan for the future. New Zealand has declared an all out ban on new offshore drilling projects and have even taken a step further to ban exploration for
Continue readingThings Are Good: Stopping Microfibres from Entering our Ecosystem
The impact that microfibres have on our environment are little known, but new research is coming out that makes microfibres look almost as bad as microbeads (which have been banned in a lot of places). Thankfully people are already working on solutions from better clothing processing to filters put on
Continue readingThings Are Good: EU Bans Bee Bashing Pesticides
Neonicotinoids kill bees, specifically their hives, and the EU just expanded their ban on neonicotinoids to help protect the world’s dying bee populations. Back in 2013 the EU banned pesticides with neonicotinoids in them when spraying pesticides on plants and flowers that attracted bees. That meant that the deadly chemicals
Continue readingThings Are Good: Electric Busses Save Tonnes of Energy
The implementation of electric busses into public transit fleets continues to grow – and it’s happening too quickly for the oil industry. Obviously the oil industry doesn’t like sustainable energy sources; however, public transit systems do. The efficiency gains of an electric bus fleet are evident and as a result
Continue readingThings Are Good: Don’t Waste Your Time Showering Everyday
Every year it seems showering is brought up on this site and the theme is always the same: shower less. Indeed, back in 2006 we looked at a device called an air shower and in 2012 it was a shower that recycles water (cleanly). This year the people over at
Continue readingThings Are Good: These Millionaires Want Higher Taxes
When it comes to taxes Americans love not paying them, but now some millionaires want to change that. The Patriotic Millionaires call on the rich to pay their fair share, and they call for that attitude to permeate the globe. Developed nations tend to tax money made through labour at
Continue readingThings Are Good: Bird Brains Avoid Wind Farms
Opponents of clean energy try to find any reason to stop renewable installations (I guess they hate the planet?) and when it comes to wind farms they suddenly start caring about birds. Their argument is that birds will fly into the blades of wind turbines. This argument was recently studied
Continue readingThings Are Good: Breakdown Plastic Using Digestive Enzymes
Recycling polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastics is difficult as the hard material is tough to breakdown. For years there’s been research into using bacteria to eat the plastic to help with getting the plastic to reusable state. This year a bacterial enzyme called “PETase” has been found to be highly effective
Continue readingThings Are Good: America Might Find Salvation in Satire
2016 witnessed the election of Donald Trump thanks in a large part to Russian meddling in the American democratic process. One of the most effective things that the Russians did was lie and spread contradictory information to make it hard for people to discern reality. Trump’s marketing skills made use
Continue readingThings Are Good: Shipping Industry Finally Delivers on Climate Change
When climate conferences occur and parties sign on to legal agreements like the Paris Agreement some industries are excluded. Historically aviation and shipping have been left out from many climate change agreements which has resulted in both industries being behind the times, inefficient, and down right bad for the planet.
Continue readingThings Are Good: Non-Profit Create $300 Hep C Cure, For-Profit Cure is $84,000
A for-profit pharmaceutical company sells a hepatitis C cure for $84,000 in the United States, which means that the average person cannot afford it and international the cost of the treatment is out of reach. Globally hepatitis C causes 400,000 deaths a year and affects 71 million people. Pharmaceutical companies
Continue readingThings Are Good: Productive Companies Include Workers on Their Board
Since the late 1970s (coinciding with the rise of neoliberalism) wages have stagnated while executive pay keeps rising. This has led to inequality being one of the largest issues facing companies and countries in the 21st century. Accordingly, people sick of neoliberalism have been looking into ways to address inequality
Continue readingThings Are Good: Streetmix: Remix Your Street
Streetmix Let’s be honest, people are bad at conveying their ideas on what streets can look like. Thankfully there’s an open source project designed to help people remix their local streets and share it with others. The web based design tool Streetmix provides a simple drag and drop interface to
Continue readingThings Are Good: Even More Research that Raising Minimum Wage is Good for Everyone
Haters keep telling us that minimum wage is too high, which is really saying they would love free labour for private profits. Those haters are also not thinking about the economy at large. A new, massive, study on the impact of minimum wage concludes that minimum wage increases help people
Continue readingThings Are Good: Here’s an Optimistic Savings Chart
Retirement is a dream too far away for people to think about. We’re all really bad at thinking about the future and we often don’t want to think about money. Four Pillar Freedom put together the early retirement grid to address these concerns, and indeed retirement is something you can
Continue readingThings Are Good: Light Physical Effort can Lengthen Your Life
Worried you’re not getting enough exercise throughout your day? If you don’t think you’re moving around enough then this will be good news for you: every step you take counts to a longer life. A new study has found that it’s how much walking (or movement) you do during the
Continue readingThings Are Good: Using Machine Learning and Traffic Cameras to Replace Cops
Mass surveillance is everywhere in modern cities. Cameras are on every corner monitoring all sorts of activities, which led one person to think about using them to see if traffic cameras can be used to replace traffic cops. The short answers is yes. Personally, I don’t see mass surveillance as
Continue readingThings Are Good: The Happiest Workers are Self-Employed
It’s Wednesday my dudes, which means you’re likely midway through your work week. If you’re looking for a boost in productivity and happiness you may want to consider working for yourself. People who are self-employed report being happier than people who work for bosses in a recent in study about
Continue readingThings Are Good: Safer Cities Stem from Active Communities
In the 1990s former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani popularized the broken window theory which is a zero tolerance approach to getting rid of crime. At first it proved successful and the approach spread, only later was it revealed that other factors were at work. Today, the solution to fighting
Continue reading