Good Fact

Circuses Not a Place for Wild Animals

- Adam Clare

England launched a public consultation about whether or not wild animals should be permitted to perform in circuses and it looks like legislation is on the way. A resounding 94.5% of people opposed the use of wild animals in circuses.

Other animals used by circuses in England including lions, zebras, camels, llamas, reindeer, crocodiles and snakes, will all need to be rehomed, possibly in zoos and wildlife parks.
Jim Fitzpatrick, Animal Welfare Minister, said: ‘I agree with the clear view emerging from the huge response to the government’s consultation that keeping wild animals to perform in travelling circuses is no longer acceptable. So, I am minded to pursue a ban on the use of these animals in circuses.
‘We also want to make sure that circus animals are well looked after once they stop performing. Nobody wants to see them simply destroyed, and we will work with all concerned to secure a future for these animals.’
A massive public consultation on the use of animals was launched in December 21 and closed last week, attracting nearly 13,000 responses.

Read more at the Daily Mail

Truly Green Beer This St. Patrick’s Day

- Dan Harrison 1 Comment

Many breweries have stepped up their efforts to limit the negative environmental effects of brewing beer. Steam Whistle Pilsner has earned praise from many an environmentalist for their progressive steps toward becoming a green brewery.

The Toronto-based brewery gets its electricity from Bullfrog Power, which uses wind and low-impact hydroelectric sources. Its cooling is by Enwave, which uses cold water from deep in Lake Ontario, and new brewing equipment that captures steam cuts their wastewater by a third. Its trucks run on biofuels and, thanks to improved route planning, they cut the amount of fuel they used last year by more than 7,000 litres – while increasing sales.

Of course, Steam Whistle isn’t the only brewery improving their environmental standards: Brasserie McAuslan in Montreal and Molson Coors have both reduced their water use in recent years.

You can read the whole article at The Globe and Mail.

Rebuilding Haiti: Solar Power Essential

- Adam Clare

Repairs and rebuilding has been going on in Haiti after the powerful earthquake hit the country about two weeks ago. They aid teams have run into a problem around energy – there’s not enough diesel. Things that rely on solar power are still working – bizarrely the traffic lights are on such thing. The good news that comes from all of this is the revived interest in renewable power for disaster recovery.

We can all benefit from this research into renewable energy sources for disaster recovery.

Solar setups are quick to install, mobile, and relatively inexpensive compared to the price of rebuilding a damaged electricity grid. They can also be incredibly robust. Alan Doyle, a science editor at MSNBC, recently wrote that a single solar water purification system, recovered from the rubble by the Red Cross, is now purifying 30,000 gallons (over 110,000 liters) of water a day.

Sol Inc, a US-based solar street lighting company, has sent a first shipment of lights for roadways, food distribution, and triage sites. This may sound mundane, until you imagine trying to perform street-side surgery or find family members in the dark. The LED lights can also withstand hurricane force winds – no small thing in a country that has also recently been hit by tropical cyclones. Sol Inc has promised to match donations for people wanting to contribute to the program.

Communications are another crucial need being met by solar. China’s ZTE corporation has donated 1,500 solar cellphones and 300 digital trunking base stations. The same technology was used in China when an earthquake hit the Sichuan Province in May of 2008. A similar project is being set up by a group from Holland.

Renewable energy in Haiti is not a new. Walt Ratterman, CEO of non-profit SunEnergy Power International was working on the electrification of Haitian hospitals at the time of the quake. He is currently still missing.

Keep reading at WorldChanging.

A 4-Day Work Week Works

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

Working full time can easily drain one’s life, so don’t do it. The state of Utah now has their government employees work only four days a week and everyone’s loving it. Perhaps during this time of economic recovery we can negotiate a better people-friendly work week for the labour force.

A whole series of unexpected benefits started to emerge. The number of sick days claimed by workers fell by 9 per cent. Air pollution fell, since people were spending 20 per cent less time in their cars. Some 17,000 tonnes of warming gases were kept out of the atmosphere. They have a new slogan in Utah – Thank God It’s Thursday.

But wouldn’t people be irritated that they couldn’t contact their state authorities on a Friday? Did the standard of service fall? It was a real worry when the programme started. But before, people had to take time off work to contact the authorities, since they were only open during work hours. Now they were open for an hour before work and an hour after it. It actually became easier to see them Monday to Thursday: waiting times for state services have fallen.

Think of it as the anti-Dolly Parton manifesto, puncturing her famous song: “Workin’ 9 to 5/ What a way to make a livin’/ Barely gettin’ by/ Its enough to drive you/ Crazy if you let it…” A queue of US cities and corporations like General Motors are following suit, and Britain’s councils and companies should be sweeping in behind them. It’s a win-win-win – good for employees, good for employers and good for the environment.

And once we started on this course, it could spur us to think in more radical ways about work. If this tiny little tinker with work routines leads to a big burst of human happiness and environmental sanity, what could bigger changes achieve?

Read the full article at the Independent.

Self Control is Like the Flu: It’s Contagious

- Adam Clare

I know it’s strange to say that self control is contagious: but it is, so you should catch it by having friends that are good practitioners of self control.

“The take home message of this study is that picking social influences that are positive can improve your self-control,” said lead author Michelle vanDellen, a visiting assistant professor in the UGA department of psychology. “And by exhibiting self-control, you’re helping others around you do the same.”

People tend to mimic the behavior of those around them, and characteristics such as smoking, drug use and obesity tend to spread through social networks. But vanDellen�s study is thought to be the first to show that self-control is contagious across behaviors. That means that thinking about someone who exercises self-control by regularly exercising, for example, can make your more likely to stick with your financial goals, career goals or anything else that takes self-control on your part.

VanDellen’s findings, which are published in the early online edition of the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, are the result of five separate studies conducted over two years with study co-author Rick Hoyle at Duke University.

In the first study, the researchers randomly assigned 36 volunteers to think about a friend with either good or bad self-control. Those that thought about a friend with good self-control persisted longer on a handgrip task commonly used to measure self-control, while the opposite held true for those who were asked to think about a friend with bad self-control.

Keep reading at SciGuru.

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