At a local Toronto coffee shop, a group of baristas as tight-knit as you’ll ever find, brew up delicious coffee. But more than that, the staff here are given purpose, life-skills, and a chance to make genuine connections with their peers. At the Coffee Shed, all of the baristas have
Continue readingAuthor: Dan Harrison
Things Are Good: Better Block is Bettering Cities
The Better Block initiative was started in Dallas, Texas as a rapid urban revitalization project of an underused, nearly abandoned block of old buildings along an old streetcar line. They project takes the “pop-up” business model to completely revitalise old city blocks with storefronts, community events, and cafés, and sustainable
Continue readingThings Are Good: World Poverty Levels Falling
For the first time ever, the poverty level in each region of the world has fallen. According to the World Bank’s Development Research Group, the number of people living on less than $1.25 per day (at 2005 prices) was less in 2008 than it was in 2005. This report suggests
Continue readingThings Are Good: Young Farmers Band Together to Propose New Farm Bill
Farmers don’t have it easy. There are significant hurdles to overcome for young farmers trying to produce sustainable food on traditional farms. There is a surging movement of young farmers trying to bring apprenticeships, local partnerships, and community supported agriculture (CSA) to the masses by proposing changes to the 2012
Continue readingThings Are Good: Haikus in NYC for Pedestrian and Cyclist Safety
City of New York Makes streets safe with poety Haikus may save lives!
Continue readingThings Are Good: Public Bike Share Coming to New York?
It’s no secret that we here at Things Are Good like bikes and bike sharing (we may have even posted about it once or twice…), and now some more good news concerning bike sharing has come in. New York City is looking to set up North America’s largest bike sharing
Continue readingThings Are Good: Make Your Daily Glass of Wine a Little Easier on the Planet
The forward thinking company GreenBottle has been producing and selling a paper-based milk bottle for the past few years, but has recently toyed with making a paper wine bottle! We all know wine is delicious, but it often comes from far away places (South Africa, Australia, South America, Europe) and
Continue readingThings Are Good: Wind Power Is Getting Even Better…
A new report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance has shown that wind power will keep coming down in price until it becomes cheaper than coal, gas, nuclear, and cheap natural gas power generation. Wind power is already competitive (or even better than traditional energy sources) in the long run when emissions, natural resource mining, […]
Continue readingThings Are Good: Like Bixi….but Waaaaaay Bigger
At a time when owning a car in China has become the ultimate symbol of success, it’s very encouraging to see systems like Hangzhou’s bike share working so well.
The city of Hangzhou, with its population of roughly seven million, has 50 000 bikes in their bike share program!
Hangzhou’s 2,050 bike-share stations are spaced less than […]
Things Are Good: Driving Down Car Use in Great Britain
A recent article in The Independent highlights how car use in England is on the decline. A combination of factors (including high gas prices, poor congestion, and general disdain for internal combustion engines) has lead to fewer people getting their licenses, and fewer people using their cars.
[Steve] Goodwin [professor of transport policy […]
Things Are Good: Haydn Makes You Healthy
Well not just Haydn, or classical music for that matter – a recent study in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health has shown that the greater an individual’s engagement in cultural activities, the greater the benefit to their personal health. This trend exists across many different artistic and creative pursuits, and affects both […]
Continue readingThings Are Good: Going Green to Bring in the Green.
A Cambridge, Ontario metal fabrication company, VeriForm, has become an ecological leader in a field notorious for neglecting the effects of their business and product on the environment. A capital investment of $78000 has allowed VeriForm to implement many small changes (i.e. a centralized programmable thermostat, high-efficiency lighting systems, etc.) which saves the company […]
Continue readingThings Are Good: Fresh, Local Food in Winnipeg
The University of Winnipeg was once lambasted in the annual MacLean’s ranking of Canadian Universities for having some of the worst campus food in the country (which is saying a lot…). Instead of wallowing in self-pity and eating another Big Mac to dull the pain, they hired a young, idealistic executive chef and completely […]
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