California officials yesterday approved a climate plan that aims to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions by at least 30% by 2020. Central to the plan is a cap-and-trade program and a requirement for utilities to produce a third of their energy from renewable sources such as wind, solar and geothermal. (MSNBC.com has the full story)
Calif. Approves Sweeping Global Warming Plan
Thousands of Trees Help Make Super Bowl a ‘Green’ Event
More than one thousand trees will take root in
(Photo by Sun Star)
10 Things Science Says Will Make You Happy
In the last few years, psychologists and researchers have been digging up hard data on a question previously left to philosophers: What makes us happy? The emerging field of positive psychology is bursting with new findings about how things like money, attitude, culture, memory, health, altruism, and our day-to-day habits affect our well-being.
Here are 10 scientifically proven strategies for getting happy. (YES magazine features an interactive graphic, or read the text under that, to explain the 10 strategies)
Photo by Tim Middleton, www.timages. biz
Rice-Powered Stove Ignites New Hope for Poor Farmers
More than a third of the world’s population can’t afford propane or other petroleum-based cooking fuels, relying instead on wood or charcoal that burns inefficiently in stoves that emit smoke and toxic fumes. One man succeeded in inventing the impossible: a safer, cleaner, and less-expensive way to cook using the waste from rice – turning it into a clean bright blue flame.
Last month, watchmaker Rolex named Belonio as one of its 10 exemplary innovators. Belonio says he plans to use the $50,000 prize to build a stove demonstration and research center in Iloilo, Philippines.
Legacy of Chicago Sit-In: Empowering Laid-off Workers
For some 240 laid-off workers at a manufacturing plant in Chicago, federal law required a 60-day notice that the facility was closing. Their employer gave three days. Following a six-day sit-in protest staged in the factory, the workers won a severance deal that complied with the law. (Christian Science Monitor)
Don’t Stress Over Holiday Guests: 5 Tips
The chance to see your family and friends is truly one of the best parts of the holidays.
But hosting family members and friends in your own home can also be one of the most stressful parts of the holidays. Trying to make everything perfect for guests can only add to your stress. However, with some simple planning, you can have a stress-free time while hosting the ones you love. (Detroit News and GetButtonedUp has the article)
Students Help Reduce Wildlife Roadkill With Novel Project
In 2003, a group of New Mexico students began lobbying the state legislature to address collisions between vehicles and wildlife. As a result, state agencies have installed fences to guide mule deer, black bears, cougars, and other wildlife through safe passages beneath a major highway. So far, the project – completed last year for the relatively modest sum of $750,000 – seems to be working. It has reduced animal fatalities by ninety percent. (Christian Science Monitor)
Afghanistan Crowned Homeless World Cup Champions
Afghanistan defeated Russia 5-4 in the final of the 2008 Homeless World Cup in Melbourne on Sunday.
The Homeless World Cup is a world-class international football tournament that has triggered grass roots football programs in more than 60 nations engaging 30,000 players who are homeless all year round.
(Photo: Sayed Qasem in action during the 2008 Homeless World Cup final against Russia in Melbourne Australia. 7th December 2008. Photo: Sydney Low / Photoworx)
During their 6th world cup last week, 56 nations united for a tournament that included the first women’s cup, won by Zambia.
48,000 Gardens and Green Spaces Created in 2008
Keep America Beautiful announced a record 48,000-plus gardens, green spaces and xeriscapes created in 2008 in its annual Great American Cleanup campaign that cleans-up and greens-up thousands of communities in all 50 states.
“The impact of more than 48,000 gardens nationwide is wonderful to imagine,” said Matthew M. McKenna, President and CEO of Keep America Beautiful, Inc. “Every one of these public spaces could be providing a quiet place to reflect on nature, food for the community, a gateway for the neighborhood, an activity space for kids, or even an offset to a community’s carbon footprint. We are incredibly thankful to all the volunteers and partners who made this possible.”
EPA Scraps Effort to Ease Controls on Power Plants
Six weeks before leaving office, the Bush administration is giving up on an effort to ease restrictions on pollution from coal-burning power plants, a key plank of its original energy agenda and one that put the President at odds with environmentalists his entire eight years in the White House. (AP story at SFgate.com)
(Photo courtesy of Sun Star)
Crafting Our Shifting Moods
I was raised to be intolerant (this was an unconscious act of my ignorant but loveable parents). I was taught that everything was either good or bad and to look at everything in a moral way.
After just months away from home I could see the ineffectiveness of this baseline education on my human interactions. The orientation around moral judgments doesn’t allow for others to have spiritual beliefs or ethics different from my own.
(Photo by Tim Middleton – www.Timages.biz)
Through several years of formal education, informal study and work in both corporate and small business settings, I redesigned that pattern, which was affecting both my personal and work life, to produce more meaning in my life.
Now I am morphing into a more tolerant, blending person. I suspect I’ll get there by the time I’m dead.
Changing this moral orientation has had a huge effect on how I choose to think about which things to do and how to do them.
Woman Returns $100K Found in Restaurant Bathroom (Video)
A Murfreesboro, Tenn. woman who recently found $100K in the bathroom of a local restaurant located the owner of the money and returned it. She even refused a $1,000 reward after hearing the woman’s story.
Read the USA Today report HERE
Unconventional, Alternative Medicine Use on the Rise
About four in 10 U.S. adults and one in nine children are turning to unconventional medical approaches for chronic pain and other health problems, health officials said on Wednesday. (Reuters News has the report)
Toddler’s Santa Wish To Bring Daddy Home Comes True
Three Year old Kensley Penney has been a Good Girl this year. So good in fact that Santa, with some help from the Pentagon granted her wish to bring Daddy home for Christmas.
This is the video. Very Very heartwarming. There is nothing more sincere and real than a young child’s heartfelt emotion.
(Photo courtesy of Sun Star)
Spider Silk and Gore-tex Re-fashioning Medicine
At Tufts University, Massachusetts scientists are pioneering a method of manipulating spider silk to genetically engineer new bone tissue, thus allowing them — in theory — to re-grow damaged bones and teeth… At Rush University, Indiana, meanwhile, a team of cardiologists are trialing a device made of Gore-Tex — the waterproof fabric used in much outdoor clothing — to help repair holes in the human heart. (Full Science-Health Report at CNN)
Refaeli Does Her Part to Save the Beaches (Video)
Israeli model and Leonardo Dicaprio’s girlfriend Bar Refaeli puts her face to a good cause. She is helping to raise awareness about protecting the world’s beaches.
Is Success a Given in 2009?
Many people are in the midst of reinventing their lives in the coming months.
Perhaps you are dealing with a layoff. Maybe you are looking at retirement and wondering what changes might be in store. Maybe you have recently married or divorced.
Change, whether out of choice or circumstance, can bombard you with an overwhelming feeling of unhappiness and fear. It’s easy to spiral down and judge your current situation in a negative light.
You look for signs to let you know if you are on the right path and to make sense of your world. What does it mean when you feel afraid? Does the fear mean you are exactly on the right path or does it mean you need to retreat? Should you trust your upbringing even though the old beliefs no longer serve you?
Even if you get what you want, you can wind up feeling frustrated and confused. What does it all mean?
This is where my friend and mentor, Marlene Chism, comes in really handy. When I talk to her on the telephone during those moments in which I am wondering, ‘Where IS the success?’, it is like having someone drill a big hole in the dark foreboding sky — suddenly some light is shining through!
Today she is launching her new book, Success is a Given: Reading the Signs While Re-inventing Your Life. Owning this book will be like having that giant drill in your hands personally.
Thanks to the Kindness of Strangers, New Kidneys for Five Unrelated People (Video)
Surgical teams at the prestigious Johns Hopkins University Hospital say they’ve created a five-way donor kidney “swap” involving 10 people, including a mom who lost her daughter to drugs and now wants to save someone else’s daughter. Afterward, medical staff expressed a desire to change a 26 year-old law that may prevent such deals.
With Violence Down, Iraqis Celebrate Religious Holiday as They Did in the Past
For the past few years, Nawal Abdulla Hadi of Baghdad couldn’t travel to see her family for the Eid al-Adha, giving up the traditional reunion during the annual Muslim holiday because the roads weren’t safe. Today she is packing up the car with the kids and heading south.
Malaria Vaccine Shows Promise in Babies and Youngsters
A promising malaria vaccine gives babies and young children significant protection against the deadly disease, suggest two clinical trials to be published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine. They delivered a 53 percent reduced rate of malaria. (CBC Canada has full story)