Even the tiniest of towns can do good things for the environment and contribute to global efforts to fighting climate change. We usually cover big cities and their efforts of improving their relationship with the natural environment, so it’s worth looking at the other end of the scale. We’ve
Continue readingTag: Direct Action
Things Are Good: Buying Recycled Products is Good for Everything
Reduce, reuse, and recycle is a mantra heard time and time again. Yet, not everyone follows it (remember that they are in that order for a reason: reduce what you consume in the first place, then reuse what you can, and recycle the rest). It can be easy though. When
Continue readingThings Are Good: Activists in SF Try to Get Drivers to Obey the Law
This year in Toronto drivers have been murdering non-drivers at a record rate. Of course, collisions causing casualties are all avoidable – drivers should watch where they are going and infrastructure designed for car drivers makes roads dangerous for everybody. Toronto isn’t unique for its number of driver caused fatalities in North America. In San […]
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Continue readingThings Are Good: The Oppression of Lawns
The concept of a lawn at a residence has a short, but rich, history. Basically, the rich had large estates and to demonstrate their wealth they had large swaths of land not used for cultivation. Today there are still people trying to show off their wealth by owning large lands of uselessness. Things seem to […]
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Continue readingThings Are Good: Kindness Spreads Like a Disease
When we think of contagious things it usually in a negative context like a flu or other illness. The next time you here of something being contagious you can now have a positive association because kindness is contagious too. New research is discovering that individuals who are around generous people can “catch” that attitude and […]
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Continue readingThings Are Good: Parents Need to be Nagged by Their Kids
Kids are always being told what they can and cannot not do, and new research says that when it comes to the environment it’s parents that should be told what to do. In a study by Stanford University they have found that children who nagged their parents about energy use made a measurable difference on […]
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Continue readingThings Are Good: Drone Built By A Small Tribe Is Protecting Land
We Built a Drone from Digital Democracy on Vimeo. In Guyana there are a lot of illegal mining and logging operations that the government doesn’t pursue due to a lack of evidence. To protect their lands from such activity a small tribe, the Wapichan community, have built a drone to record the damage being done. […]
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Continue readingThings Are Good: Be a Part of the Future: Sign the Leap Manifesto
Canada has been destroying it’s own environment (and trashing international environmental policy) for way too long. As a result of this ignorant neglect a bunch of prominent Canadians have produced the Leap Manifesto. And it’s good. Really good. Here’s just a snippet of the Leap Manifesto: A leap to a
Continue readingThings Are Good: Greenpeace’s Efforts Lead to Fishing Changes in Nauru
The tiny nation of Nauru (which has one of my favourite flags) has changed its laws thanks to the work of Greenpeace. The environmental organization found that fishing trawlers were catching fish at sea then offloading them to essentially a larger factory boat. This practice has been banned in many
Continue readingThings Are Good: Get Informed with Pollenize Canada
Pollenize for iOS and Android can help you navigate the upcoming Canadian election. I’ve checked out the app and it’s a really great way to see where the parties stand on popular issues. I recommend Pollenize if you’re looking for an easy way to understand the election. Pollenize is free
Continue readingThings Are Good: How To Stop An Oil And Gas Pipeline: The Unist’ot’en Camp Resistance
The Unist’ot’en people have been fighting the deplorable people at TransCanada, Enbridge, and other companies who are trying to increase their capability to destroy the environment. The Unist’ot’en camp began in 2010 and has grown since to blockade the land from corporate tools trying to get pipelines through the area.
Continue readingThings Are Good: You’re an Environmentalist?
In some parts of the world it seems that caring about the world around is what nerds do. Corey got sick of this attitude against environmentalists that they did something about it – published a post on Medium. It’s a quick read to reinvigorate your caring for the environment. Don’t
Continue readingThings Are Good: Forget Burning Man, Go To Ephemerisle
Ephemerisle is a libertarian Burning Man on the ocean. It’s goal is like Burning Man’s insofar that it exists to explore new ideas while throwing a big party. Ephemerisle is really trying to figure out how people can survive on the ocean for an extended period of time while finding
Continue readingThings Are Good: Community Solar Garden to Open in BC
Germany, and to a lesser extent other nations, have championed community-owned sustainable energy production. In many ways it gives power to the people. Indeed, one way to encourage mass adoption of sustainable energy is to make policies which favour decentralized and community owned production. This means that big utility companies
Continue readingThings Are Good: Another Way to Deal with Butts
Cigarette butts are usually aren’t disposed of properly (why do smokers think it’s OK to litter?) and this is a problem for many cities. Earlier this year we looked at the Pick Up Your Butts campaign and now a new strategy of dealing with butts has taken hold. A restaurant
Continue readingThings Are Good: Boycott Bottled Water for a Better World
Bottle water is a sham and you all know this. The problem is that a lot of people don’t and that our society permits these individuals to continue their unwarranted consumption. Water is the oil of the 21st century in terms of politics and conflict. It’s best not to make
Continue readingThings Are Good: The Humanitarian Douchery That is Voluntourism
“Voluntourism” is the growing trend of rich people using their vacations to go to poor places where they think they can help. A good chunk of the time these voluntourists are actually causing harm. This may seem counterintuitive but we’ve seen this before in the past with programs of the
Continue readingThings Are Good: Pick Up Your Butts
In Canada, like elsewhere with snow, when the spring thaw comes it reveals plants and it also reveals something gross: discarded cigarette butts. Everyone already knows that smoking kills, but some people may not know the damage done by butts. Butt Blitz has set out to do two things: raise
Continue readingThings Are Good: Greenpeace and the Climate Investigations Center create Anti-Environmental Archives
Some nifty news out of Greenpeace’s PolluterWatch program and the Climate Investigations Centre. They have release an archive of documents that show the deceitful tactics used by climate change deniers and their ilk. A new tool to fight against people who deny the future. In the spirit of the Tobacco Archives and Chemical
Continue readingThings Are Good: Turning Trash Into Health Care in Indonesia
Indonesia has a rather large number of people on reactively small landmass and as a result solid waste has become a problem. Enter Garbage Clinical Insurance which is a company focussed on turning trash collection into health care. It’s a simple solution insofar that people who can’t afford to see
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