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A Cherokee language class in pre-COVID times (Photo credit: Cherokee Nation)
Though Jacob Chavez grew up around family members who spoke Cherokee - his grandmother was fluent and his father could understand the language - the 23-year-old didn’t learn it as a child.
Now, as a young adult, the Tahlequah, Oklahoma, resident is taking part in a unique program to train Cherokee Nation citizens and those interested in Cherokee culture to become highly proficient in the language by paying them to study it. It’s one that is quickly disappearing.
“It’s in my family and I would like to kind of like, build it back and strengthen it back amongst some of our younger generation that we have and then, it’s just a passion that I’ve had — probably since senior year of high school,” Chavez says. “I just wanted to have that part of my identity and I’ve just been working on it ever since. And I took a couple classes in high school and in college and then now I’m in this program.”
The Cherokee Language Master Apprentice Program is an immersion program for adult Cherokee language learners. The program is geared for novice language enthusiasts, and it is intense: The 40-hour-per-week program runs for two years. Participants are paid $10 per hour, says Howard Paden, Cherokee Nation Language Department executive director.
“It’s not a whole lot, but what we have learned is people who have been really dedicated to learn the language—you have to have that many consecutive hours so they have to have the ability to live and continue to put some groceries on the table and that sort of thing,” he says. “So, it’s worked out really well. You know, we haven’t expected to make them be rich by any means, but we do want them to survive while they learn the language. And so that incentive has allowed people to focus just on the language instead of other things.”
The program, which started about six years ago, has grown. It went from having four students per year to 16, so at any given time, there will be 32 participants taking part in the two-year program when fully filled, Paden says.
For the Cherokee Nation — the largest tribe in the United States by population with more than 380,000 citizens worldwide — the program is taking on extra importance. There are about 2,000 fluent Cherokee speakers, according to Paden, and in the last year, more than 100 have died, some due to COVID-19-related illnesses.
“Right now, we’re losing roughly 5% of our speakers per year,” Paden says. “But we know that it takes quite a bit of time [to learn the language] and it’s not happening organically in our communities anymore.”
Losing so many fluent elders is one reason that the tribe placed them among the top of their COVID-19 vaccination list. According to the tribe, since receiving the first distribution of vaccines on Dec. 14, the Cherokee Nation administered more than 6,500 vaccines, including about 900 Cherokee speakers, as of Jan. 19.
Due to the pandemic, the coursework for the Master Apprentice Program is taught online, something that Chavez says has been difficult but he is making work.
“I’m a very in-person type of learner,” he said. “I can’t really do this technology interface kind of stuff, but I’ve had to adapt and I’m willing to do that. I want to do whatever I’ve got to do to learn and so it’s just kind of a means to an end, really. If I’ve got to use a laptop and get on Zoom, I’ll do that. But I’d much rather be in a classroom. I think we all would. But this is the world we live in and it is what it is.”
The Cherokee Nation looked to several different initiatives to help guide them when creating the Master Apprentice Program. They looked at a program within the Sac and Fox Nation, also based in Oklahoma, as well as the Euchee (Yuchi) and even the Māori from New Zealand.
The Cherokee Nation’s reservation encompasses 14 countries in northeastern Oklahoma, including parts of Tulsa County. There are ongoing discussions to possibly host a class at one Tulsa high school, though Paden is unsure where that stands now with the pandemic — both the high school and the tribe are doing most things online now.
Chavez believes that a tribe can’t have culture without language, and so that’s why he focuses on the future and learning the language.
“Those two things are just kind of joined, and if you lose our language and you still have culture, it’s kind of just a history, almost, because language is so ingrained inside of a culture,” he said. “You know, there’s names for all this stuff like games and ceremonies and things like that. You need the language to use all that. And so it’s vital for our nation and other nations that struggle with their languages … we’ve lost that connection between our elders and our youth because mainly they didn’t want to pass on language. [T]he consensus is that we’re losing it, so we’re trying to build it back now. It’s really important for us.”
Kristi Eaton is a freelance journalist based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Associated Press, The Washington Post and elsewhere. Visit her website atKristiEaton.comor follow her on Twitter@KristiEaton.
There’s a new nature conservation strategy in town – and it means business. During the 1970s, 80s and 90s the main tactic to protect wildlife was to highlight the plight of charismatic “flagship” species (remember the WWF Save the Panda campaign?). Since the millennium, however, a new strategy backed by major conservation organisations such as The Nature Conservancy is to price the benefits that nature provides.
Not all conservationists agree, as borne out by fierce debates in a major international initiative assessing global biodiversity. Yet the idea is now mainstream, as evidenced by the high profile Economics of Biodiversity: Dasgupta Review commissioned by the UK government and lead by the economist Partha Dasgupta.
Proponents of the economic approach argue that if we don’t give nature a price, then we essentially treat it as having zero value. In contrast, if we articulate value in monetary terms, then this can be factored into government and business decisions. Harmful costs to the natural world are no longer “externalised”, to use the economic jargon, and instead the value of “natural capital” is incorporated into balance sheets.
Obviously, not all aspects of nature’s value can be captured in economic terms. Nature is also valued in ways that are spiritual, for example. This is fully recognised by advocates of the approach, who suggest their estimates simply convey minimum values.
The large city of Durban is found in an official ‘biodiversity hotspot’.Slow Walker / shutterstock
On the other side of the debate, concerns about monetary valuation relate to how it might undermine other aspects of nature protection.
To give an example, consider the EU-fundedNatureTrade project, in which computer algorithms are used to quantify benefits from nature (such as carbon storage, pollination, recreation) derived on someone’s land. Landowners are then helped to draw up a contract so they can be paid for these, in an auction the researchers behind the project describe as an “eBay for ecosystem services”. This may seem a great idea, but studies have found that many landowners already protect nature simply because it’s the “right” thing to do, and paying them “crowds out” these social norms.
A hierarchy of needs
Despite the debate, both viewpoints can in fact be complementary.
As an analogy, take psychologist Abraham Maslow’s idea of the hierarchy of needs for human development. These are often illustrated as a pyramid, with quantifiable physiological needs and security at the bottom, and the less tangible values of belonging, esteem, and transcendence at the top. A recent book reveals that Maslow intended improvement of all these aspects simultaneously (after all, what use is security and safety if we do not have hope and meaning?).
There is some debate over whether Maslow himself ever represented his theory as a pyramid.nmilligan / wiki, CC BY-SA
If we were to draw up a similar pyramid representing a healthy environment, at the bottom would be the bare essentials provided by nature, such as having clean air and water, and insects to pollinate crops. Higher up in the pyramid would be the benefits of nature for mental health, and the transcendental aspects which give purpose and spiritual meaning. Different types of people and academic disciplines focus on different layers of the pyramid, but we need them all.
Sometimes the language used by economists doesn’t help. The Dasgupta Review provocatively states: “Nature is an asset.” Yet the boundaries between our self and the natural world are more fuzzy than they may first seem, as I evidence in my book The Self Delusion. As Sigmund Freud realised in 1930, when we feel kinship with – or to use the non-scientific term “love” – something, then we don’t objectify it. Instead, boundaries disappear and it merges with our sense of identity. It is antithetical to many people to refer to a dancing swift, an elegant swan or friendly-looking robin as an “asset”.
Words matter, and there is also danger that such language of commodificationcan encouragepsychological distancing. People who feel less connected to naturedo less to protect it. This is why there is a growing movement involving organisations such as theRSPB(the UK’s largest bird charity), to restore a sense of connection to nature, especially in children.
Given the worry that commodification of nature will pollute our worldviews, the big question is whether we can restrict such parlance to domains of policy and business accounting (where it can arguably do some good). I think we can. Consider how human life is valued: in monetary terms by insurance companies and for medicine procurement by health services, yet still in terms of infinite worth to most of us. Just because monetary valuation is used in some sectors doesn’t mean it will flood across to all.
A diversity of viewpoints and approaches is essential to protecting nature effectively. The “economics of nature” are likely here to stay, but that does not replace the tireless efforts of those who have worked for decades to convey the awe-inspiring and transcendental value of nature. As the naturalist Henry David Thoreau put it: “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”
A vital part of the resilience toolbox is the notion of exploring the good life. This has been a major topic of debate over the centuries, starting with the ideas put forward by Aristotle and Epicurus, both great Greek Philosophers of the Classical Age of Athens.
Aristotle professed that the ‘good life’ could be attained through balance and moderation in all aspects of life, from eating and drinking through to doing business. Rather than an Eastern circular notion of ‘completing the cycle’ through balance, for the Greeks, balance and moderation was more of a pendulum in which the further from the centre that the pendulum would swing, the less moderation and balance there was. As one guided their life towards the centre, meaning a lesser swing of the pendulum, the more likely one would be to find balance through moderation. There are similarities here to the notion of resilience. If one has extreme thoughts and emotional swings, that person is less likely to be resilient. This does not mean that the resilient person cannot be passionate. What it does mean is that the passion must be channelled into action. This is a moderation of passion and a very positive and powerful outcome.
Epicurus has a somewhat different view from Aristotle, but it is still associated with a search for the meaning of the ‘good life’. For Epicurus, the main motivation is to avoid pain. This is somewhat controversial in terms of resilience because it may well be that going through the downs of life is somewhat educative in terms of being able to rebuild one’s life. However, let us explore Epicurus’ position a little further.
Firstly, many people see Epicurus as the epitome of excess, hence the notion of epicurian delights and the associated connotations. However, Epicurus was a highly moderate character whose argument was that excess in anything would only lead to some form of pain. Thus, the consumption of too much food would lead to heartburn, feeling overly-full, or in the long run, obesity, all of which lead to either uncomfortable physical sensations, including a lack of fitness, or feelings of guilt.
Likewise, exercise was considered to be good if it was a stroll in the park or a long, leisurely walk, just enough to keep one relatively fit. But, exerting oneself too much would lead to muscle aches and so on, which would be considered to be painful. For Epicurus, life was about avoiding pain. As a result, he created a haven on his own property where his friends and acquaintances would come together to eat, drink and philosophise, but all in moderation of course.
The implications of this philosophy for resilience may well lie in the idea that moderation, as similar to Aristotle, may be one of the keys to resilience. However, the jury is out on the concept of avoidance of pain.
The concept of hospitality also plays a significant part in resilience, particularly the Greek interpretation of the concept. Hospitality or Xenia, as it is known in Greece, is much wider than the notion that we understand in the English-speaking world.
Xenia is the idea of welcoming and entertaining the stranger who comes from far away. Of course, trust comes into this, but it is seen as the obligation of the host, not as something reciprocal that might be repaid at some time in the future, but as ‘the right thing to do’, because the stranger is at least temporarily displaced and in need of support in an unfamiliar environment.
The value of hospitality for resilience is about the spirit of hospitality, that we should treat those around us with hospitality, so that a sense of community can be built. If a community is strong, this holds the potential for greater personal resilience of community members as a source of support. More on community later, but at this point, one can say that indeed hospitality as the basis of community IS the social support side of the resilience equation. The final point on hospitality is that it is a reciprocity that drives it; instead, it is done through a sense of ‘doing the right thing’ (even though reciprocity itself is a valuable tool as well).
So … we have moved so far from nature — or have we?
I mean, I’m not a spiritual guy. I don’t believe in any higher being, and I certainly don’t believe God or any such concept. And yet … I walk into the forest and I feel peace. Let me fill you in.
I work from home — my work is in community building and education, but when I want inspiration, I head for the forest which is within a ten minute drive of my home.
(Image by Dr Robert Muller)
Give me the blue sky, the animals running free, the beautiful thick vegetation — even if I’m not trying to create ideas, they come to me when I’m out here.
(Image by Dr Robert Muller)
My local forest is a haven. It’s a sizeable wilderness area in the foothills on the edge of a city of 1.2 million people. When life gets too hectic, I drive into the forest where my shoulders drop, my lungs open, and my frowns just melt away. But … I do this EVERY day — EVERY lunchtime as a break from my work.
This sense of a haven in the midst of the fast pace of modern life — a place where you can be still with your thoughts but still with a feeling of being out there in the world — this is what it’s all about.
Anti-vaccination groups are projected todominatesocial media in the next decade if left unchallenged. To counter their viral misinformation at a time when COVID-19 vaccines are being rolled out, our research team has produced a “psychological vaccine” that helps people detect and resist the lies and hoaxes they encounter online.
The World Health Organization (WHO) expressed concern about a global misinformation “infodemic” in February 2020, recognising that the COVID-19 pandemic would be fought both on the ground and on social media. That’s because an effective vaccine roll out will rely on high vaccine confidence, and viral misinformation can adversely affect that confidence, leading to vaccine hesitancy.
We recently published a large study which found that higher belief in misinformation about the virus was consistently associated with a reduced willingness to get vaccinated. These findings were later reaffirmed in a subsequent study which found a significant relationship between disinformation campaigns and declining vaccination coverage.
The spread of false information about COVID-19 poses a serious risk to not only the success of vaccination campaigns but to public health in general. Our solution is to inoculate people against false information – and we’ve borrowed from the logic of real-life vaccines to inform our approach.
When looking for ways to mitigate misinformation, scientists are confronted with several challenges: first,rumours have been shownto spread faster, further and deeper in social networks than other news, making it difficult for corrections (such as fact-checks) to consistently reach the same number of people as the original misinformation.
Second, even when someone is exposed to a fact-check, research has shown that corrections are unlikely to entirely undo the damage done by misinformation – a phenomenon known as the “continued influence effect”. In other words, approaches to combating misinformation “post-exposure” are probably insufficient.
Our work in recent years has therefore focused on how to prevent people from falling for misinformation in the first place, building on a framework from social psychology known as inoculation theory.
Psychological inoculations are similar to medical vaccines. Exposing someone to a severely weakened dose of the “virus” (in this case misinformation) triggers the production of mental “antibodies”, thus conferring psychological resistance against future unwanted persuasion attempts.
However, rather than only “vaccinating” people against individual examples of misinformation, we instead focus on the more general ways in which people are misled – manipulation techniques such as the use of excessively emotional language, the construction of conspiracy theories, and the false testimony of fake experts.
To do so, we developed a series of online games in which players learn how misinformation works from the inside by being encouraged to create their own fake news: Bad News (about misinformation in general), Harmony Square (about political misinformation) and Go Viral!, which is specifically about misinformation around COVID-19.
Research has shown that a powerful way to induce resistance to persuasion is to make people aware of their own vulnerabilities. In our games, players are forewarned about the dangers of fake news and encouraged to actively generate their own antibodies through gradual exposure to weakened examples of misinformation in a simulated social media environment.
When we assessed the success of these projects, we found that playing a misinformation game reduces the perceived reliability of misinformation (even if participants had never seen the misinformation before); increases people’s confidence in their ability to assess the reliability of misinformation on their feed; and reduces their self-reported willingness to share misinformation with other people in their network. We also found that similar inoculation effects are conferred across cultures and languages.
An image from the ‘psychological vaccine’ game GoViral!Sander van der Linden, Author provided (No reuse)
We then looked at how long the games’ inoculation effect lasted and found that people remained significantly better at spotting manipulation techniques in social media content for at least one week after playing our game Bad News. This “immunity” lasted up to three months when participants were assessed at regular intervals each week. We see these prompts as motivational “booster shots”, topping up people’s immunity to misinformation by staying engaged.
Herd Immunity
Of course, our work is not without its limitations. Although these games have been played over a million times around the world and have been shared by governments, the WHO, and the United Nations, not everyone is interested in playing an online game.
But the game itself functions as just one kind of “virtual needle”. A global “vaccination programme” against misinformation will require a suite of different interventions. For example, we’re working with Google’s technology incubator “Jigsaw”, and our colleague Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, to develop and test a series of short animated inoculation videos.
Like the game, these videos forewarn and administer a micro-dose of a manipulation technique, which primes the watcher to spot similar techniques in the information they subsequently consume online. We intend to publish our study on the efficacy of video vaccines later this year.
As the pandemic continues to wreak havoc worldwide, a successful vaccine rollout is of vital interest to the global community. Preventing the spread of misinformation about the virus and the vaccines that have been developed against it is a crucial component of this effort.
Although it is not possible to inoculate everyone against misinformation on a permanent basis, if enough people have gained a sufficient level of psychological immunity to misinformation, fake news won’t have a chance to spread as far and as wide as it does currently. This will help arrest the alarming growth of anti-vaccination sentiment on the internet.
What if we could build a global waste disposal service for carbon? In this forward-thinking talk, carbon capture advisor Bas Sudmeijer proposes building CO2 networks: partnerships between cities around the world that would share the cost and geological resources needed to trap emissions deep in the earth -- and give us a shot at stalling climate change.
This talk was presented at a TED Institute event given in partnership with BCG. TED editors featured it among our selections on the home page. Read more about the TED Institute.
You could be forgiven for thinking that 2020 was little more than a slow-motion train wreck broken up into 365 individual units. But if you’re a regular RTBC reader, you know that’s not true.
Yes, it was a most difficult year. But it was also a year of problems solved, hopes sustained and seemingly insurmountable challenges met. We reported on literally hundreds of good things that happened this year, from the earth-shaking to the arcane. Here are 112 of the highlights.
The world is gaining two million acres of leafy cover per year, an increase of about five per cent since 2000, equivalent to the leaf area of all the Amazon rainforests.
Credit: Pierre Prestat / Flickr
The hole in the ozone layer is expected to heal completely by 2030 in the northern hemisphere and mid-latitudes, by 2050 in the southern hemisphere and by 2060 at the poles.
In a 25 year period, homicides in North America and Western Europe fell by 46 per cent.
In 2016, the only country in Europe to reimburse for PrEP, the once-a-day pill that can prevent HIV, was France. Today, the national health systems of 14 European countries reimburse for PrEP.
After California learned that many college students drop out because they can’t afford relatively small expenses, it started offering them up to $1,500 in aid. Now 70% of them graduate.
The number of Chinese people living in extreme poverty was 88% in 1981. By 2015 it had fallen to 0.7%.
A $2.75 billion project is covering the radiation-contaminated farmland in Fukushima with solar and wind farms that will produce 600 megawatts of electricity –– two-thirds as much as a nuclear plant.
A German organization has helped 3,200 people understand how it feels to be disabled by having them grocery shop while wearing vision-obscuring goggles and movement-constricting vests.
Aboriginal Australians have received $80 million to conduct “defensive burning,” which is credited with stopping enough wildfires to reduce greenhouse gases there by 40%.
Rockford, Illinois began tracking the personal situations of each of its homeless residents. Now the city is on track to reduce homelessness to functional zero this year.
A high school in Detroit employs a counselor who guides its graduates throughout their college careers. Last year, she logged 2,600 miles on the road visiting her former students on campus.
Decades after being eradicated, 14 wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park in 1995. Today there are hundreds–– and their bloodlines can be traced to that original pack.
Gray wolves in Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley. Credit: Scott Kublin / Flickr
After canvassers engaged in empathy-based dialogue with 1,900 voters in a district that voted for Trump, that same district voted for the Democratic candidate in the 2018 mid-term elections.
A collective of women farmers in Mesopotamia have adopted ancient techniques that require no chemicals or irrigation. Their June harvest yielded 485 tons of wheat.
Chami, an economist at the International Monetary Fund, calculated great whales provide over $1 trillion in economic value, in large part due to their role in fighting climate change. Credit: Ju Lei / Flickr
A biologist invented a sensor that detects spikes in ethylene, the chemical that makes fruits ripen, so distributors can sell it before it spoils. It’s already saved one company $400,000 in wasted food.
In Denver, carbon dioxide captured from a beer brewery’s fermentation process is being used to stimulate the growth of 2,500 marijuana plants.
Atlanta is building soccer fields on the unused lots that surround its transit stations. 300 low-income kids are registered to play, and a “station vs. station” tournament is in the works.
Police in Durham, England are helping arrestees get access to social services instead of prosecuting them. Of the 2,600 people they’ve helped, only 6% have re-offended.
Since 2011, 2,000 businesses in 60 communities across Canada have become wheelchair accessible with simple, DIY ramps.
In Kentucky, an initiative to bring preschool to the people has provided portable schooling to over 100 families.
In the past decade, 546 coal-fired power units in the U.S. have either been closed or slated for retirement.
Over 720 hyper-local volunteer groups formed across the U.K. to help residents who are vulnerable to the coronavirus stay homebound and healthy.
French luxury perfume makers like Givenchy and Dior are reconfiguring their equipment to churn out hand sanitizer. The gel will be distributed for free to the country’s network of 39 teaching hospitals, serving eight million patients annually.
Credit: FWC Fish and Wildlife Research Center / Flickr
New Jersey fishermen are using sonar to clear the seabed of abandoned crab traps, which can continue to collect and kill crabs for years. So far they’ve hauled up over 2,200 traps.
A hospital in Columbus, Ohio has spent $80 million to build and repair homes in its neighborhood to make them healthier places to live.
Everyone in the Italian city of Vò was tested for coronavirus. 89 of those tests came back positive. The city instituted a nine day period of isolation and that number dropped to six.
France converted a high-speed train into a 200-mile-per-hour hospital to race coronavirus patients to less-overwhelmed regions of the country.
Credit: Enzo Jiang / Flickr
The Twin Cities campus of the University of Minnesota has more than doubled its graduation rate for Native American students.
Young writers produced over 1,000 publications through the help of youth writing organizations.
Australian tour boat companies are taxiing scientists to the Great Barrier Reef to repair its coral. So far, over 1,000 pieces of coral have been replanted.
Cambridge, Massachusetts is paying its restaurants to keep the city’s homeless residents nourished. The initiative delivered 1,800 meals in its first week.
Staff of a closed restaurant in Cambridge preparing meals. Credit: Subhash Roy / Flickr
Cities are taking advantage of the dramatic decrease in car traffic to speed up transit projects. With Los Angeles traffic down 60% the city will expedite the extension of the city’s Purple Line.
In Brazil’s ranking of 5,000 school districts, the impoverished city of Sobral jumped from 1,366th to number one.
In a recent national poll, 59 percent of respondents said they’d support a government investment of $1.5 trillion in wind and solar.
California has spent nearly $200 million on over 100 machines that convert cow dung into clean energy, mitigating thousands of tons of greenhouse gases.
Paris is creating 650 kilometers of pop-up “corona cycleways” for travel once the lockdown ends.
Credit: Mikael Colville-Andersen / Flickr
Two years after reforms New Jersey started releasing defendants accused of low-level crimes rather than holding them on bail, violent crime decreased by 16%.
Buffalo in Rwanda’s Akagera National Park have rebounded in number from 500 to 3,500 in 10 years thanks to a partnership between poachers and park officials.
As part of Pakistan’s “Billion Tree Tsunami,” hundreds of thousands of trees have been planted, restoring the depleted Changa Manga forest by 85 percent in the last few years.
Even though schools are closed, school buses in Ohio’s Kanawha County are dropping off 12,500 weekly meals at “every bus stop along our normal routes.”
50 leading European financial firms endorsed a Covid-19 recovery plan to retrofit buildings, electrify transportation systems and build renewable energy and storage.
New York City’s census response rate is 49%. America’s is 60%. But one working-class community in the Bronx is winning the census with a 70% response rate.
In a Milwaukee high school where a violence-interruption group works with students, attendance has risen by 14% and graduation rates have been twice as high as projected.
At least 15 cities are taking steps to divert some of their policing budgets toward social services and neglected communities.
Thanks to conservation efforts, Oregon’s Fender’s blue butterfly, which numbered fewer than 1,500 in the 1990s, is now fluttering 30,000 strong.
Credit: LIHI
To fight homelessness during the coronavirus, Washington State is building tiny houses that cost 62% less than putting people up in hotel rooms. (And they’re permanent!)
After Camden, NJ reorganized its police force under a community-policing model, its crime rate dropped by half and reports of excessive force by police fell by 95%.
Elk were hunted to extinction in Kentucky before the Civil War. Thanks to reintroduction efforts, today some 13,000 elk roam the Bluegrass State.
A jazz club in Paris has re-opened for performances –– for one patron at a time. In just a few weeks, Le Gare hosted over 3,000 concerts for one.
At-risk teenagers in North Carolina are turning an abandoned prison into a farm — the program has been 92% effective at preventing recidivism and adult incarceration.
West Virginia elected its first transgender official –– the 27th out trans person to be elected to office in the U.S.
Oregon’s vineyards are keeping their farmworkers safe. 400 workers have been tested for Covid-19 –– only two have been hospitalized and they are recovering at home.
A new app, cooperatively owned by 51 Latin American housekeepers, has increased some workers’ average hourly wages from $11 to $25.
The hashtag #NativeTikTok, where Indigenous users perform and share their stories, has reached almost 200 million views.
Seattle eliminated parking minimums in most of its central neighborhoods. The result? Some 18,000 fewer parking spaces, saving an estimated $537 million.
One in four Europeans either owns an e-bike or plans to buy one this year.
Credit: Zweirad-Industrie-Verband
Residents in a San Francisco housing project set up their own impromptu contact tracing effort and reduced their positive Covid-19 cases from 7% to 1%.
Indiana is requiring that its new 1,400-acre solar farm be seeded with pollinator-friendly plants.
7.6 million acres of the Great Bear Rainforest are completely off limits to logging thanks to a unique partnership between loggers and conservationists.
A program at a Connecticut prison houses 14 incarcerated young women with 10 older mentors who offer counseling, classes, job training and addiction help.
15 streets and intersections in Oakland were designated “essential places” to help essential workers get where they need to go.
Between April and June, grassroots organizations trained over 16,000 people on how to address everyday racism. Aftereward, 99% said they felt equipped to help if they witnessed a racist incident.
Last week Colorado passed Proposition 118, which guarantees new parents the right to three months of paid family leave.
After opening a supervised injection site for drug users, Vancouver saw overdose deaths within a 500 meter radius decrease by 35 percent.
When Switzerland started prescribing heroin to addicts in combination with methadone and therapy, their daily heroin use dropped from 81 percent to six percent.
The Mall of America is renting out space to 17 minority-owned businesses rent-free for the holiday season.
After a tornado, Greenburg, Kansas rebuilt itself as a wind-powered town, making it one of the few places in the U.S. that runs on 100 percent renewables.
In an effort to become a “zero-waste city,” one of Berlin’s best-known department stores has dedicated 7,000 square feet to used goods.
A California program offers rent assistance for middle-income folks who make 80% of their area’s median income but don’t quite qualify for subsidized housing.
