Greenhouse gases fell by 3.3 % in the European Union in 2011 to the lowest reported level of emissions since 1990 — even while the economy gained 1.6 % in GDP. The total EU emissions that year were 18.4 % below 1990 levels, according to data compiled by the European Environment Agency.
Best Wedding Photo Ever?
The photographer, a friend of the groom who knew that he loved dinosaurs, proposed an official wedding photo package that included a Jurassic surprise.
So, with a little help from Photoshop, and one shot at getting the photo, photographer Quinn Miller told everyone in the wedding party to run toward him looking scared.
With the addition of a T-rex and his magical editing skills, this photo is burning up the Web as “Best Wedding Photo Ever”.
Especially great this one, because he got the shot in one take.
(See a hi-resolution larger version of the photo here.)
The Barber in the Park: Man Called Joe Helps the Homeless and Inspires a Community
For the last 25 years, the man known as Joe the Barber has been offering homeless people in Hartford, Connecticut free haircuts in the park. They walk away sporting a new look, but also with new pride.
For payment? He’ll take a hug.
In 1988 he began offering his services to those in need after he had just retired. Inspiring words from a church sermon gave him the idea that if he could change the appearance of those less fortunate, maybe they could experience the world a little kinder.
He began in shelters and nursing homes, moved to the YMCA, but eventually the 82-year-old settled on an outdoor location near Bushnell Park.
Every Wednesday, unless he is on holiday in Florida, the nearby wooden benches are packed with homeless people — and any other people — waiting for a relaxing haircut and a shave.
(WATCH the video from Fox-CT, or READ the story from Good Morning America)
Thanks to Jaime Sotis for submitting the link!
Rockefeller Charity Pumps $97 Million into Digital Jobs for Unemployed African Youth
The Rockefeller Foundation is spending $97 million on the digital scene in Africa as part of its ongoing initiative to create jobs for young Africans in the rapidly growing information and communications technology sector.
The plan intends to use a technology bridge as a pathway out of poverty for 1 million unemployed youth (15-35) in six countries, according to the Rockefeller Foundation website.
Woman Who Found Dog in Rubble Receives Outpouring of Donations to Replace Home
The video of an elderly woman finding her dog beneath the rubble of her home in Moore, Oklahoma after it had been leveled by a tornado so moved people that they began emailing the CBS news team with offers of support.
Erin DeRuggiero, of Minneapolis, Minn., went a step further when she learned that Barbara Garcia’s home had not been insured. She set up a fundraising page on GoFundMe with a simple plea, “Let’s show her what love and community is all about.”
Since the page was launched nine days ago, $50,000 has been raised for the widow and her dog to buy a new home.
Barbara says she feels more blessed every day. “All you have to do is drive down the street and see the people that… there is just an outpouring of caring and love.
(WATCH the video from May 24, or READ the transcript at CBS News)
Firefighters Use Crane to Rescue Horse Trapped in Well
Firefighters successfully hoisted a horse out of a well in California Monday after it had fallen in and struggled to swim in the 20-feet of water, a fire battalion chief said.
“I actually thought he wasn’t going to make it, then somebody came up with the idea to raise the water level up,” he said.
NYC Launches its Bike Sharing Program, the Nation’s Largest
The nation’s biggest bicycle-sharing program got rolling Monday, as thousands of New Yorkers got their first chance to ride a network billed as a new form of public transit in a city known for it.
The privately financed program—called Citi Bike, after lead sponsor Citigroup Inc.—kicked off with 6,000 bikes at more than 300 stations. Plans call for expanding it to 10,000 bikes docked at 600 places in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens.
Clicking Like a Dolphin Lets Sightless People ‘See’ With Sound
Daniel Kish, blind since he was an infant, can easily dodge the pedestrians, signposts and mailboxes that line the city sidewalk.
He’s taught himself the skills of a dolphin. By clicking his tongue and paying close attention to the echo, he can identify surrounding objects and their location — even their textures.
Now he is teaching young people to become independent using the echolocation.
(WATCH the video below or READ the story from NBC News)
Home Prices Rise 10 Percent, Power US Optimism
Home prices surged during the first quarter at their fastest pace in nearly seven years, the latest sign of a sustained economic recovery.
The housing-market revival—and an accompanying report on consumer confidence— is boosting both asset prices and spending.
The latest reports were big factors driving financial markets Tuesday. Stock investors, encouraged by the strong data, sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average to a new high.
Italian Ingenuity: Europe’s First Zero Waste Town
Capannori, a rural town in the Italian province of Lucca, in Tuscany, boasts a proud history. Six years ago, it became a trendsetter and leader, not just in Italy but throughout all of Europe, as the continent’s first Zero Waste town.
Today, about 3.5 million Italian citizens carefully separate their waste into colored bags before leaving them on their doorsteps for collection. The movement has spread further, too, to other European countries.
Giorgio del Ghingaro, the mayor of Capannori (population 46,000), defines this trend as a “cultural revolution” that began with rubbish and in time went much further. Since 2007, residents of Capannori have reduced their urban waste by 30 percent as part of a Zero Waste strategy, which calls for the elimination of all superfluous waste – anything that can be recycled – by 2020.
Initially, the project looked quite ambitious. Its model was that of San Francisco, California, which differs from the Tuscan town in size and conformation. Nevertheless, Capannori’s midterm goal of recycling 75 percent of waste by 2015 was met long in advance; the town in 2013 recycled 82 percent.
After Capannori tested door-to-door collection methods in one part of the town, successfully increasing waste recycling from 30 to 70 percent, “we decided to embark in the zero waste adventure”, Del Ghingaro said.
Locals leading the charge
Since then, Capannori’s waste management has become a model for all of Europe. Joan Marc Simon, executive director of Zero Waste Europe and European coordinator of the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, confirms that the Zero Waste strategy came to Spain through the Italian experience.
“When it comes to waste, Italy has given the best and worst examples. But if you look at the good practices…Italy, and Capannori in particular, was definitely the model to follow,” Simon said.
Since 2008, one hundred cities in Spain, all concentrated in Catalonia and the Basque Country, have adopted the strategy. “Southern Europe is giving a lesson on how things can and should be done in a more sustainable way,” Simon stressed.
Rossano Ercolini, Capannori resident, primary school teacher and environmental activist who is the winner of the Goldman Prize for the environment, knows well how local experience can serve the rest of Europe. After all, he is the man who introduced the Zero Waste strategy to Italy – and Europe.
It all started in 1997, when construction plans for an incinerator near the town encountered firm opposition. Ercolini, who is also president of Zero Waste Europe and of Ambiente e Futuro (Environment and Future), a local environmental movement, was part of it.
Swedes Are Such Good Recyclers They’ve Run Out of Garbage – And Now Import it
“Ambiente e Futuro engaged in a strong fight against this proposal,” he explained. Key to the movement’s success was “informing the population about the risks of incineration and offering them a viable alternative. Without the citizens’ commitment, none of this would be possible.”
In introducing the alternative method of separate collection, “we held assemblies…to explain the new system and to hear people’s doubts and concerns,” Ercolini recounted. “We worked together to find solutions.”
Luigi, 67, has lived in Capannori for over 40 years. “People always find a reason to complain,” he said of the door-to-door collection system. “But honestly, I find the system quite easy.” Residents are given different rubbish bins and colored bags, along with an informational flyer. “If you get it wrong, they just leave a note explaining why they could not collect your bag”.
Indeed, the town decided to avoid fines, so as not to penalize residents for mistakes, and to reward residents instead. Beginning in January, they introduced something called an R-feed waste system.
“Every family has been given a fixed number of gray bags… for non-recyclable waste, with a code on it. The garbage collector has a reader which stores the data so that every family will pay waste tax according to how much non-recyclable rubbish they produced throughout the year,” Del Ghingaro explained.
Targeting the source
Zero Waste does not mean just door-to-door separate collection. It also requires a series of parallel actions aimed at reducing the production of avoidable waste. “We strongly focused on water,” Del Ghingaro told IPS. “Buying water at the supermarket means also buying a lot of plastic. Therefore we made a strong campaign in order to enhance the use of public water.”
Fifteen public water springs were restored and purified, and plastic bottles have been banned from all schools and public buildings, which now use only public water.
For now, Ercolini’s task is to analyze the 18 percent of rubbish that still requires traditional waste management and find a solution. The results so far show that the main problem lies at the roots of the production chain. “Companies need to take responsibility for what they put on the market and redesign their products in order to make them sustainable,” he says.
Following a letter of concern that the Capannori Municipality wrote to the coffee giant Lavazza, the company started a pilot project to substitute standard non-recyclable coffee capsules for espresso machines with new, reusable ones. “We are also studying a way to use the coffee grounds to grow mushrooms,” Ercolini added.
Zero Waste Europe’s Simon told IPS that he is optimistic and convinced that the Zero Waste strategy could become the standard for waste management. Indeed the EU, through the Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Strategy, has already established that by 2020 all European countries must stop using incinerators to burn anything that can be recycled.
“Our movement is nothing but the vanguard of what…needs to become the norm,” Simon concluded.
Originally published by Inter Press Service, reprinted with permission.
Photo credits: www.comune.capannori.it
Far Right Protesters Make Friends With Muslims After Being Invited for Tea
A mosque has been praised for serving tea and biscuits to English Defence League supporters after the far-right group arranged a demonstration there.
About six people turned up to protest at the mosque in Bull Lane, York, on Sunday and were invited inside to play football with Muslim worshippers.
Good Samaritans Swarm Into Moore, Make Tornado Recovery Less Painful
One week after the tornado that damaged 12,000 homes in Moore, strangers are moving bricks and sifting through rubble for heirlooms on behalf of people they don’t even know.
One carpenter drove 24 hours from New York City just to help out. He says the hugs are unforgettable.
“You get the best quality hugs out here that you could possibly imagine,” he said.
From free lunches to free massages, the outpouring of support is overwhelming. A warehouse can barely contain all the donations.
(WATCH the video or READ the story from CBS News)
France Interrupts Two Bullet Trains to Aid Lost Woman
Earlier this month, workers at France’s national railway company, SNCF, delivered extraordinary customer service to help an elderly woman who boarded the wrong high speed train and was headed 250km in the wrong direction.
In tears, she asked the passenger sitting next to her what she could do. A regular traveller on the TGV line, he went to see guards.
How Timbuktu’s Manuscripts Were Saved From Jihadists
One year ago radical Islamists entered Timbuktu and began terrorizing local residents who were smoking, drinking, listening to Western music, or doing anything else deemed to be a sin.
Cultural artifacts were in danger too.
But a secret operation had been set in motion within weeks of the jihadist takeover. It included donkeys, safe houses and smugglers, all deployed to protect thousands of ancient manuscripts by sneaking them out of town.
Veteran Surprised by Combat Partner- A Yellow Lab Named Casey He Vowed to Adopt
On this Memorial Day, here is a heart-warming story about a Marine who vowed to take care of his partner if they each escaped Afghanistan alive. Marine Sgt. Ross Gundlach made that promise to a canine bomb-sniffing dog, a loving co-worker he felt especially indebted to.
Now living in Madison, Wis., Gundlach been trying to adopt 4-year-old Casey. He learned she had finished her military service but now worked for the Iowa State Fire Marshal’s Office sniffing out explosives.
Ross’s persistent pleading with State Fire Marshal Ray Reynolds made an impression.
First Reynolds got in touch with the Iowa Elk’s Association, which agreed to donate $8,500 to buy another dog for the agency.
Then, he concocted a story to get the sergeant to travel down from Wisconsin.
The 25-year-old thought he was traveling on May 17 to personally plead his case to state officials. Instead, an elaborate ceremony was being planned for the capital building’s rotunda room to surprise him with the dog.
(WATCH the video below, or READ an article from Fox News)
Deploying iPads Will Save U.S Air Force $50 Million Over Ten Years
The U.S. Air Force expects to save more the five million dollars per year as a result of deploying 18,000 Apple iPads in the field.
When the iPads replace heavy, paper-bound flight manuals, a spokesman for the Air Force’s Air Mobility Command said, a savings of well over $50 million on printing costs and fuel is the result.
“We’re saving about 90 pounds of paper per aircraft and limiting the need for each crew member to carry a 30 to 40 pound paper file,” Major Brian Moritz, manager of AMC’s electronic flight bag program, when speaking to The Street.
Wedding Services All Conjured Last-Minute for Bride With Sudden, Severe Cancer
Proof that human kindness and generosity has not gone out of style, a wedding planner worked for weeks with volunteers and vendors in April to create the “Wedding of a Lifetime” for cancer patient, Jennifer Batugo and her fiance Brian Gargano. They needed a last minute date change for their planned August wedding because the bride may not live that long.
After learning of her terminal diagnosis in March, Gargano placed a call to L.A. wedding officiant Elysia Skye. Though he didn’t know it at the time, Skye also happened to be a breast cancer survivor who runs a non-profit breast-cancer support organization.
Donations poured in for the food and drink, photography, videography, makeup, accessories, balloons, hotel accommodations, flowers, flights, music, and wedding cake — even a white 1959 Rolls Royce.
On Sunday April 21 they got married in a picturesque Japanese garden on a Los Angeles hilltop having been cheered on by hundreds of strangers donating cash and prayers for their big day.
(WATCH a ‘thank you video’ below)
Thanks to Joel Arellano for submitting the link on our Facebook Page!
Woman Loses 276 Pounds With Simple Plan Instead of Surgery
Theresa Borawski primarily relied on an electric wheelchair to get around. She hadn’t even walked to the mailbox in two years. That was March 2011, when Borawski weighed 428 pounds.
“I could no longer participate in life’s activities and was forced to become a spectator while people around me lived their life,” she wrote on iReport.com.
“Today, I am 276 pounds lighter, 14 jean sizes smaller, and no longer need a wheelchair or cane to get around. I am a walking, talking miracle and have been given a second chance at life.”
How did she spiral out of control in the first place? It started when she was 8 years old and her father died. Everyone gave her treats to eat and extra portions to help ease the pain.
Food did seem to help and so the pattern continued throughout her life. She even masked the pain of being overweight by eating more. Soon she was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis, which worsened as she ate more sugar.
She describes one moment as the miracle she needed: “After my grandmother died, my sister told me that she was having bariatric surgery.”
She had heard horror stories about the procedure, so she went to the refrigerator to get (what else?) a sugary soda. She suddenly realized after looking at the label that she was consuming 7000 calories per week just in drinks.
She poured the soda down the drain and upended the sugar bowls. She decided to restrict her diet to 1,000 calories a day, which wasn’t so hard for her because being immobile doesn’t require much energy.
“I started eating eggs and dry toast or oatmeal for breakfast and replaced my fast-food lunches with a can of low-calorie soup or fruit and yogurt. I began eating pork, chicken or stir fry for dinner with A LOT of vegetables.
Soon the pounds were just melting away, all without surgery, diet pills, any specific diet plan, or even exercise until a few months ago due to the immobility.”
The key was not finding the right diet, it was finding a plan that she could live with for the rest of her life.
(READ the full story from CNN)
Thanks to Joel Arellano for submitting the link on our Facebook Page!
Stranger Gives Waitress a $1,000 Tip to Fund her Dream Trip To Italy
A blogger on Tumblr shared an inspiring story about her mom who is a waitress and her long-time dream to go to Italy and visit her family’s roots. This is from her description:
“My mom and I have been working the same waitress job for 5-6 years now. About 15 minutes ago this guy she waited on left and told her to take care. — Just that.
Prior to this she had talked to him about Italy. Her people are from Florence, this and that, and she said she’s never been. She got 8 years of art education and she’s working a waitress job. It’s pretty sad and disappointing, I guess. Her and my father divorced 6 years ago and she hasn’t had a real job ever. Just been stuck in a small town she’s not from.
This man who we have never seen before tipped her $1,000 dollars for a trip to Italy. Walked out, not another word.
Just when I start to lose faith in humanity…”
She also tagged the story with these descriptors: “There might be some hope” and “I’m still utterly shocked.”
(From the original May 20 post at Casual Cynic Blog)
Electric Utility Emissions 70% Cleaner Than in 1990
Yearly measurements from the 100 largest power producers in the U.S. show that emissions from sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides are 70 percent lower than they were in 1990, according to a new report that highlights progress in the nation’s electric power sector. Mercury is down 40 percent since 2000, the first year it was tracked.