Life Changes
Healing Through Storytelling: Lessons from The Odyssey
The journey of Odysseus in Homer's 'The Odyssey' offers profound insights into healing...
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- Written by: Peter Sale, United Nations University
In tropical developing countries, effective coastal management must acknowledge the widespread dependence of poor and politically weak communities on the use of fish for food. Acknowledging this dependence on artisanal fisheries is pivotal to reconciling the largely separate agendas for food security and biodiversity conservation.
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- Written by: Shelley Poticha
The urbanization of our population has major implications for climate change. The sheer volume of all this growth in highly concentrated areas, combined with the corresponding growth in carbon emissions, requires that our cities be able to adapt and evolve more quickly than ever before.The good news is: they can.
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- Written by: Edward Struzik, Ensia
At the top of the world, it’s time to get ready for a new future. In the winter of 2013–14, hundreds of milk-white birds with luminous yellow eyes and wingspans of up to 5 feet descended on beaches, farmers’ fields, city parks and airport runways throughout southern Canada and the United States.
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- Written by: Steve Early, YES! Magazine
In the wake of a Missouri grand jury’s decision not to indict Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot and killed Michael Brown, it can be difficult to imagine a place where law enforcement and a racially diverse population work together productively in the United States.
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- Written by: Edward Hanna, University of Sheffield
For several years now climatologists have puzzled over an apparent conundrum: why is Antarctic sea ice continuing to expand, albeit at the relatively slow rate of about one to two percent per decade, while Arctic sea ice has been declining rapidly?
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- Written by: Denis Hayes, Ensia
When we design cities like ecosystems, they have the potential to address many of our most pressing issues. Of all the things people build, cities are the most important.
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- Written by: Morgan Saletta, University of Melbourne
There is no shortage of shouting and dire warnings about the state of the climate and our need to phase out fossil fuels. But there is a more silent revolution happening too — in micropower.
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- Written by: Peter Christoff, University of Melbourne
The United States, the world’s biggest historical emitter of greenhouse gases, has pledged to cut emissions by 26-28% by 2025 relative to 2005 levels, while China, the current biggest emitter, has promised to peak its emissions by no later than 2030.
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- Written by: Kayla Schultz, YES! Magazine
When it comes to providing jobs and money to towns and cities, not all renewable energy is created equal. At last month’s People’s Climate March, among the most popular signs were ones supporting renewable energy like wind and solar as the best way to avoid a climate catastrophe.
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- Written by: Pep Canadell, CSIRO
Through burning fossil fuels, humans are rapidly driving up levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which in turn is raising global temperatures.
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- Written by: Chuck Collins, YES! Magazine
Groups have been divesting money from oil, coal, and gas for years. Now they’re hoping to get more climate-healing bang for their buck.
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- Written by: Howard Neufeld, Appalachian State University
One of nature’s most spectacular events occurs every autumn, when the leaves of hardwood trees burst into brilliant color before falling to the ground. These autumnal displays entice people to experience nature in all its raw beauty.
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- Written by: Sekita Grant
Global business can find good investments that also address climate change by looking to the world’s most vulnerable populations.
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- Written by: Kate Aronoff, Waging NonVilolence
Combined, the People’s Climate March on Sunday followed by Flood Wall Street the next day, uplifted a narrative around climate change that was impossible for even the most mainstream of media to ignore. In the words of Fox News talking head James Carville, “It’s the economy, stupid.”
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- Written by: Chris Chipello, McGill University
Despite what appears to be an insurmountable problem, it may be possible to significantly reduce global water scarcity in 35 years.
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- Written by: Jon Major, University of Liverpool
Two companies in Japan recently announced they are to begin building two huge solar power islands that will float on reservoirs. This follows Kagoshima solar power plant, the country’s largest, which opened in late 2013 and is found floating in the sea just off the coast of southern Japan.
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- Written by: Jonathan Bridge, University of Liverpool
The critical links between water, sanitation, and our global consumption of energy – the “energy-water nexus” are more obvious than ever before. But how many of us will take direct action at the most basic level of all?
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- Written by: William Laurance, Ensia
I believe we have a problem — a big problem. According to demographers, by the end of this century we’ll have around 11 billion mouths to feed. Most of the additional 4 billion people alive then will be in developing nations.
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- Written by: Claire Kelloway, ProPublica
After a decade of relatively little rain, California is facing its third year of debilitating drought. The drought has placed a $44.7-billion-a-year agriculture industry, drinking water for millions of people, and some 204 cities located in high-risk fire zones in jeopardy.
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- Written by: Todd Reubold
Globally 1.2 billion people live in areas of water scarcity — defined by the United Nations as locations with an annual water supply that drops below 1,000 cubic meters per person.
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- Written by: Madeline Ostrander, Ensia
If you’ve ever wondered how much little things really matter, consider the mountain pine beetle. Roughly the size of a grain of rice, the glossy black insect lives only about a year. A throng of beetles can ravage a pine as tall as an eight-story building, as the tree first oozes sap, then its needles turn rusty red...
