Civic engagement by sticker, L.A. bike plan and other (mostly) good news
I love GOOD Magazine for their content and design. I got a little emotional at work recently when I opened fifteen of their website’s articles just from their bottom-of-the-page grid — probably 95% of the content there. Inspired by their new “Overload” articles where an author with a similar habit to me — link-happy without enough time/energy to read everything in a day — posts snippets with links to interesting articles, here’s my first one. I might do this again later when I have lots to share but need to get my post out the door quickly.
Candy Chang is amazing. She’s started a community engagement project that uses stickers to enable people to imagine how neglected parts of New Orleans could be revitalized. You don’t have to be an urban planner to hope and dream about change in your community.
We’ve been saying all along that living sustainably is good for the economy too, and the New York Times reports that the Clean Air Act has benefits to the tune of $2 trillion annually by 2020. Time to leave the car at home more often, especially because sitting in traffic triggers more heart attacks than smoking and alcohol. Smoggy Los Angeles has a new bike plan that will hopefully deal with the pollution along with its street safety.
The Netherlands is exploring solar panels in cycle paths. Imagine if we had that in the pavement that covers 40% of Vancouver?
Grist talks about parking lots vs livable cities and how free parking is the dumbest thing you’re subsidizing. Speaking of livable cities, Vancouver is ranked the most livable city according to metrics that don’t take into account how happy or stressed or overworked we are, or how grossly unaffordable our housing is, or our debt-to-income ratio. GOOD asks why Canadian and Australian cities rank so highly.
There’s a Victoria farmer working to bring back buzz of native bees.
I’ve always loved Bill Nye and now he’s talking about how not having high-speed rail in the U.S. is embarrassing. Not having it in Canada is embarrassing, too.
I know that David Suzuki is upset about the constant wave-form cycle of the relationship beween concern for the economy and concern for the environment. We don’t have an economy without the environment, people! Green economies are resilient, thriving economies with healthier people.
Death to the low-fat diet! Finally. (Please eat good fats, not GMO canola oil.)
This is not good news and the Republicans love styrofoam. Sorry, what planet did you guys grow up on?!
Please share your mostly good green news below.
This daily green blog challenge is in celebration of David Suzuki’s 75th birthday, supporting the David Suzuki Foundation. Please help me out by sponsoring me online now.
Note: I am writing solely on my own behalf, and do not claim to represent the David Suzuki Foundation or its views here.
