GREAT NEWS IN A NUTSHELL! Scientists have found a way to harvest spawning baby corals who have survived a bleaching episode caused by a heatwave, nurture them until they are ready to plant and redistribute them on degraded reefs.
This approach, called “larval restoration,” can be done by hand, but the robot can help cover much larger areas or 1,500 square meters in an hour. Learn more here.
GREAT NEWS IN A NUTSHELL! Doctors are teaming with the Montreal Museum of Fine Art to offer prescription passes to patients. These prescriptions can be ‘refilled’ at will, and allow patients and family members access to the museum. In addition, the museum has hired a full-time art therapist who sees 1,200 patients per year.
It’s a fascinating story that might also point to new possibilities for art museums eager to play important roles in their local communities by teaching people to learn from and engage with art.
In Canada, an incredible new program allows doctors to prescribe museum visits to their patients. Hyperallergic’s Zachary Small visited the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts to talk with Stephen Legari, the first full-time art therapist on staff at a North American museum (he sees 1,200 patients a year), about his work in the city’s encyclopedic museum and what role art can plan in healing.
It’s a fascinating story that might also point to new possibilities for art museums eager to play important roles in their local communities by teaching people to learn from and engage with art. Listen to the podcast here.
Click the photo to read the entire script of these two dynamic women, and how they can have hope for the future.
GREAT NEWS IN A NUTSHELL! Youth is not a handicap when it comes to seeing clearly that if we don’t do something now, our youth will not have a hopeful future. These two powerful young women have made a difference, and in this interview, they meet for the first time and have a moving discussion about how to continue forward to make the necessary changes in time.
GREAT NEWS IN A NUTSHELL! Many people are funding great work by selling very reasonably priced and attractive bracelets and other items made from recycled materials. One really fun one is 8 Billion Trees, and another is 4Ocean.
8 Billion Trees was founded with a simple idea: if people can destroy the Earth, they can also help to rebuild it. Co-founders Mike Powell and Jon Chambers were inspired by groups like Ecosia and Trees for the Future, but saw the opportunity to do something even bigger: plant 8 billion trees.
Taking their passion for entrepreneurship and channeling it into a cause for greater good, 8 Billion Trees was born on November 10th, 2018.
At 8 Billion Trees, the goal is to become the most environmentally aware company on the planet. We don’t simply want to reduce the negative impacts of deforestation and irresponsible forestry–we want to use these issues as fuel to completely revitalize what it means to be environmentally friendly. By changing our environment and spreading awareness, we are hoping to make a global change.
Tragically, roughly half of the Earth’s trees have disappeared in the past 100 years resulting in worldwide devastation, desertification, flooding, and land loss.
Most people are aware that planting trees is an excellent way to support the environment. In fact, they are the most efficient consumers of carbon dioxide on the planet.
Each and every year, one acre of trees absorbs six tons of carbon dioxide from the environment.
Furthermore, they help to fight against climate change, reignite natural water cycles, mitigate the spread of deserts, and revitalize “unusable” areas into fertile farmlands and woods.
However, planting trees also goes much further–it helps to raise the quality of life of Earth’s people significantly, especially in less developed areas. By producing nutritious, fresh forest goods they support local economies and the health of the people who live in them.
Instead of being forced to migrate for food and livable conditions, local men and women are able to find dependable and enjoyable income that provides livable wages from the economic actives created from planting trees. This allows these parents to send their children to school, buy medicine and other crucial health supplies, build shelters, and rise from extreme poverty.
Furthermore, trees provide life and a stable ecosystem for countless species–many of which are now endangered due to rampant deforestation. They also contribute geologically, helping to stabilize coastlines and mountainsides.
By planting trees you do many, many things:
Trees truly are superheros. To learn about even more reasons, view the benefits of planting trees.
YOUR PART? That’s the easy, and fun part! 8BillionTrees supports their work by selling really pretty, very affordable bracelets, made from 90% recycled materials! Click the photo to see the full array, and wear your bracelet proudly!
GREAT NEWS IN A NUTSHELL!
Positive psychology researcher Michelle Gielan has studied optimism and success for more than a decade, and she has found that those with an optimistic outlook are better equipped to deal with stress. Optimism is a great tool for decreasing stress and can even give you back as much as five stress-free months a year. Recently, Michelle partnered on a study with Frost Bank and found individuals with more optimism experience 145 fewer days of financial stress each year than pessimists.
They surveyed 2,000 adults nationwide and found that optimists are seven times more likely to experience high levels of financial well-being. They feel better about their money, no matter how much they make or have, and they’re significantly more likely to make positive choices about it.
Our favorite ‘good news in a nutshell’ newsletter, The Optimist Daily, offers three good habits to develop in making optimism your attitude of choice. Read more…
Click the photo to learn ore about thredUP
GREAT NEWS IN NUTSHELL – EVERYTHING MATTERS!
thredUP is a highly profitable on-line thrift and consignment store which is making a difference in how much of our overflowing closets make it to the land-fill. It offers the opportunity to clean out your closet, sell or donate your overflow, and purchase like-new replacements or upgrades.
Fashion is the second most polluting industry in the world behind oil.
That’s a lot of dirt on our backs. If fashion helps us express who we are and
what we stand for, then our clothing choices matter. It matters that we throw 26 billion pounds of clothing into global landfill every year. It matters that fashion will drain a quarter of the world’s carbon budget by 2050. It matters that a single T-shirt takes 700 gallons of water to produce. The choices we make matter.
To our planet. To our kids.
From thredUP’s website, we learn that:
THAT is worth sharing. Please do, and please head on over to thredUP to empty your surplus, and stock up on your new favorite threds. We’ve also included an honest review of thredUP from a satisfied customer.
GREAT NEWS IN A NUTSHELL!!!
Using it before it hits the ocean! Bravo to food giant Proctor and Gamble, diverting beach plastic into a million and more Head and Shoulders bottles worldwide. This emits 60% less CO2 into the atmosphere and takes less energy. Community beach clean-up groups, please contact P & G. In this growing movement, they have a call out for beach plastic! This is really great news! Spread it!
Procter and Gamble have teamed up with TerraCycle to create an innovative new technology which turns beach plastic into recyclable shampoo bottles. Ditching virgin plastic, they have called on community service organizations nationwide to gather beach plastic, which they process back into eco-friendlier bottles.
So far, P&G has used this technological breakthrough to produce recyclable bottles for the world’s number one top selling shampoo brand, Head & Shoulders, producing more than one million such bottles in more than 10 countries, diverting more than six tons of plastic that could have otherwise ended up n the oceans. Best yet, the innovation is reported to be less energy intensive, and emits 60% less CO2 throughout the production process.
They have also entered Pantene into the Loop Shopping Platform, a new program which sells participating products in reusable containers, which they collect, refill and redistribute.
P&G is a major sponsor of World Oceans Day and a Founding Partner of Youth for the Ocean, a new collaborative initiative from World Oceans Day created to help drive youth awareness on the importance of a healthy ocean.
Head & Shoulders were recognized in 2017 by receiving the United Nations Momentum for Change Award, spearheaded by the UN Climate Change secretariat, whose purpose is to shine light on some of the most innovative and practical examples of what people around the planet are doing to combat climate change.
National Geographic and Plastics News both reported on this hopeful development in curbing the tide of waste plastics, and hopefully moving toward ceasing production of more virgin plastic in the world. Follow the links for more details.
