There’s a lot of misconceptions about how to make cities a better place to live that need to be cleared up. A popular belief is that adding more lanes for cars will help curb traffic jams – when the opposite it true. Some backwards-looking individuals think that adding bike lanes
Continue readingAuthor: Adam Clare
Things Are Good: A Little Exercise Goes a Long Way
At the start of the year people tend to make resolutions that they don’t hold – like regularly going to the gym. The good news is that you can break your resolutions and be OK, as long as you do something. Instead of trying to go to the gym and
Continue readingThings Are Good: Trees are Great for Cities
Cleaning the air and keeping areas cool are what trees do best. A new study has looked into how best to use trees from a purely utilitarian standpoint. Essentially they drilled down to what trees do best and where they can thrive. The researchers cataloged the best places to plant
Continue readingThings Are Good: Obama and Canada Bans New Coastal Oil and Gas Drilling
Obama is leaving office and he’s clearly worried that the next president will ignore climate change and its effects on humanity. In order to stymie any damage that president Trump can do, Obama has passed a law that effectively bans ocean-based drilling for oil and gas in some areas. In
Continue readingThings Are Good: Spent Grains From Beer Used to Grow Mushrooms
An enterprising student went on a brewery tour and discovered a lot of food waste. Grain is used when making beer in a similar way that tea is steeped, after the grain has been soaking in the water it is discarded. In some areas that grain gets turned into compost,
Continue readingThings Are Good: Now is the Time to Sell Stocks in Fossil Fuels
Most everyone knows that fossil fuel energy is on its way out and renewable energy usage is accelerating. This means that air quality will improve and energy will become cheaper, all good things. Yet, there’s a large group of companies that don’t see the obvious. Enter the divestment campaign. Divestment
Continue readingThings Are Good: How Cities are Turning Food Waste Into…Food
Cities have a problem with food: they waste a lot of it. The current food distribution setup encourages bulk deliveries via trucks which means that when that large amount of food goes bad – a lot of it does all at the same time. Governments have looked into this problem
Continue readingThings Are Good: There’s Profit in Reusing Office Furniture
When opening an office a key thing to take into consideration is where people are going to work. In these modern times just letting employees sit on the floor won’t cut it. Buying furniture can be expensive and add a lot to startup costs, so an enterprising company has taken
Continue readingThings Are Good: Being a Lazy Vegan is Easy
A vegetarian diet is simple: stop eating meat. A vegan diet is also simple: don’t consume any animal products. In practice, these diets can be seen as difficult for people because of the culture surrounding them. Vegans can be seen as aggressive in their opinions, but that’s a vocal minority.
Continue readingThings Are Good: Amnesty International’s Guide to Safe Messaging
Thanks to the bravery of whistleblowers we know that the Five Eyes are monitoring all internet chatter regardless of who’s talking. This is a big concern for people who care about freedom and rights to have personal communication. As a result, Amnesty International put together a review of messaging apps
Continue readingThings Are Good: Economy Continues to Grow Despite Decrease in Emissions
Economists used to measure progress using emission rates correlated to GDP, now that comparison is ridiculous. A few years ago we looked at how carbon output is shrinking while economies grow and that is continuing to be the case. Earlier this year it was predicted that the global economy will
Continue readingThings Are Good: Riding a Bike in the USA is Getting Safer
Riding a bicycle is getting safer in American cities thanks to improvements in infrastructure. Usually the USA is associated with being the land of the car (and it still is very car-focussed) so it’s really nice to see that a sustainable and friendly form of transportation is getting the attention
Continue readingThings Are Good: Stop Trying to be Happy
Want to be happy? Stop trying! The key to happiness is accept reality and not to imagine some greater version of happiness. Projecting oneself into a better future and striving for something that cannot be just builds a disconnected between expectations and your everyday experience. This dissonance creates unneeded stress
Continue readingThings Are Good: Standing Rock Sioux Achieve a Victory
This is proof that direct protest action works. The US Army Corps of Engineers has decided to not grant permission to allow the Dakota Access pipeline to be built as planned. The pipeline was meant to go through burial lands of the Standing Rock Sioux which is offensive in itself,
Continue readingThings Are Good: Public Transit Makes Cities Safer
Obviously public transit is great for getting people around cities and is a very scalable traffic solution. One spinoff of a good public transit system is that the streets get safer. In Canada he number of collisions increases every year with the vast majority of these collisions the result of
Continue readingThings Are Good: 47 Developing Countries Leapfrogging to Renewables
At the tail end of the Marrakech UN conference on the climate 47 countries formed the Climate Vulnerable Forum to share the one goal: getting to 100% renewable energy as fast as possible. Previously, economists and politicians argued that developing countries will need to use coal or other destructive carbon-based
Continue readingThings Are Good: It’s Time for the Economy to Shrink
money With the frequent boom and bust cycles the economy goes through it is rare for people to argue that perhaps the downward portion of cycles should continue. Shrinking the economy can actually be a good thing when done with good direction. DW has gathered many examples of places and
Continue readingThings Are Good: James Burke Connections App for Your Thinking Needs
James Burke is known for his series on BBC called Connections, which was all about how seemingly random inventions (or concepts) are actually connected in interesting ways. He has spent his life advocating for people to look at the in-between of industries and fields of research because it is there
Continue readingThings Are Good: Stop The Traffik App
Human trafficking is a real problem throughout the globe and sadly it isn’t showing signs of slowing down. An organization, Stop the Traffik, is focused on ending human trafficking and has launched an app to help in that process. The charity has a good history of stopping trafficking (see their
Continue readingThings Are Good: France Phasing out Coal by 2023
Not to be outdone by other nations, France has announced that the country will eliminate use of coal for electricity by 2023. Yesterday we looked at Canada’s plan to phase out coal plants by 2030, which in Canada caused concern. In France, there’s little debate that we need to stop
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