Author: Adam Clare

How to be an Activist

Many people are troubled with the state of global politics and maybe you’re one of those bothered people. What are you going to do about it?

Over at Grist they have a simple guide to being an effective activist for your cause (and I’m sure it’s a good one!). In order to be effective you just need to follow through on your actions. Basically, sharing news on Facebook won’t save the world but going out into the world and talking to the right people will.

Show up

Put events on your calendar. Commit to things, and then follow through on them. Even if it’s bringing a pie to a potluck that’s being held to spread awareness of a new transit initiative — just do it. Make the pie. Showing up is more than half the battle. According to Trauss: “All local political scenes are dying for competent participants.”

Pick up the phone — and make the meeting

It’s been said 100 times, but the relatively simple act of calling and/or meeting with your elected official gets a lot of mileage. Joanne Carney of the American Association for the Advancement of Science offers this reminder: “Members of Congress do spend time back in their districts, and they have district offices — and sometimes they’re a little bit more relaxed. So requesting opportunities to meet with [them] when they’re in the district sometimes can be very fruitful.”

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6 Hour Workdays Work Fine

Office room
The eight hour work week that has become standard in the developed world is a result of the industrial revolution and the efforts of unions for reasonable working conditions (without unions who knows how long the workday would be!). Today the long workday doesn’t seem to be justified though. In Sweden a municipal government experimented with a six hour workday and, for the most part, it worked out fine. Inspired by that experiment Swedish companies have been trying the six hour workday and have noticed no decrease in productivity – meaning you can have two more hours to living and it won’t negatively impact your employer.

“Our staff gets time to rest and do things that make them happier in life,” says CEO Maria Brath. “For example, cook good food, spend time with family and friends, exercise. This, then, is profitable for the company, because the staff arrives at work happy and rested and ready to work.”

As in most jobs, employees there likely wouldn’t work for a full eight hours even if they were in the office longer. “Our work is a lot about problem solving and creativity, and we don’t think that can be done efficiently for more than six hours,” she says. “So we produce as much as—or maybe even more than—our competitors do in their eight-hour days.”

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Teen Substance Abuse Decreases When They Have Fun

teen computerBeing a teenager is hard with all the chaos that is finding one’s identity and dealing with the incoming stresses of life. In many places around the world, teens react to these pressures by using illicit substances or otherwise “misbehaving”. Iceland was having a huge problem with teens drinking and smoking throughout the 90s, then they decided to do something about it. Today Iceland has pretty much eliminated smoking among teens and substance abuse is almost a rounding error on surveys.

The solution that Iceland discovered is to give teenagers something to do. It’s that simple. Instead of having bored kids trying to find something to kill time, give them something that they find enjoying.

“We didn’t say to them, you’re coming in for treatment. We said, we’ll teach you anything you want to learn: music, dance, hip hop, art, martial arts.” The idea was that these different classes could provide a variety of alterations in the kids’ brain chemistry, and give them what they needed to cope better with life: some might crave an experience that could help reduce anxiety, others may be after a rush.

At the same time, the recruits got life-skills training, which focused on improving their thoughts about themselves and their lives, and the way they interacted with other people. “The main principle was that drug education doesn’t work because nobody pays attention to it. What is needed are the life skills to act on that information,” Milkman says. Kids were told it was a three-month program. Some stayed five years.

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Visualizing Bold Climate Action

from desmog

There’s so much talk about taking action around climate change that it can be hard to remember what real action looks like. Climate action can take on many different forms and around the world how places react to climate change is different; meaning that we can see so many ways that cities are changing the world. Over at desmog blog they have compiled 11 cities that are making real efforts to take on climate change and what it looks like in picture.

Yokohama, Japan

The city of Yokohama is a winner of the C40 Awards 2016 in the Clean Energy Category. The Yokohama Smart City Project uses Smart Grid technology and solar panels to help cut energy consumption in homes and businesses by between 15 and 22 percent (Yokohama aims to reduce its CO2 emissions by 80 perce

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Thanks to Delaney!

Reusing Renewable Power Pieces

Rotterdam

Despite being more efficient and better than other forms of generating electricity renewable power generation does cause waste. The waste isn’t in the form of smog or tailing ponds or even radioactive barrels. When it comes to wind power the waste generated is broken blades, and there are a lot of them!

Rotterdam has taken charge of their ‘wind waste’ by turning it into playground and park equipment. It turns out that the blades used in wind turbines are perfect for making interesting local parks!

In 2007, the Rotterdam municipality unveiled a playground for Kinderparadijs Meidoorn built out of rotor blades that were originally destined for landfills. Several rotor blades were cut up into parts to serve as tunnels, towers, bridges, hills, ramps and slides. The recycled blades were secured into the ground and painted white with brightly colored stripes.

The city also has public seating at the Willemsplein square where nine intact rotor blades were placed at various angles to create ergonomic public seating with a diversity of seating options. Similarly, in 2014, a durable bus shelter was created in the city of Almere, again from end-of-life turbine blades.

According to the GenVind Innovation Consortium, if only 5 percent of the Netherlands’ yearly production of urban furniture such as playgrounds, public seating and bus shelters were made using waste rotor blades, then the country could get rid of all of its estimated 400 waste rotor blades produced annually.

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