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Total number of posts: 23552
Here comes the bus
When Andy Didorosi opened the newspaper in January and discovered that Detroit had axed plans to build a light rail system, he was deeply disappointed. He’d been hoping the new railway would rejuvenate his city, which has suffered decay, poverty, crime and joblessness since the decline of the Read More...
Knock on Wood
Trees grow slowly, but growing trees for a living requires -constant maintenance—controlled burns, pruning, thinning, harvesting, planting. Most tree farmers stop at that, but Chuck Leavell takes it further. On Charlane Plantation, his 2,200-acre tree farm about 20 miles southeast of Macon, Read More...
Energy for all
It sounds almost too simple: Install solar panels in remote homes and villages, and thereby improve the lives of residents. Solar power allows people to read at night, watch TV and heat clinics and schools. “A big change for a little effort,” says Robert Freling, director of the Solar Electric Read More...
Green is good
Every Sunday morning I go to the gym to do 30 minutes of strength training. I don’t really enjoy it but I see it as a kind of necessary physical therapy. After all, it slows muscle loss. And since I decided I don’t have to like it but that I do need to do it, I’ve managed to keep up with my Read More...
Transformational media
For many years The Intelligent Optimist’s reporting was unusual in a world dominated by media only interested in whatever goes wrong. The voice of our magazine was soft, almost a gentle whisper. But the tide is changing. We see more and more seeds of promise and possibility sprouting. Read More...
The economy shrinks and life gets better
Imagine a world where less money is spent on defense, a world with fewer weapons and bombs to fall into the wrong hands. Would you feel safer? I know some people believe guns buy safety. But more guns, a lot of guns, don’t make society safer. So when less money is spent on military stuff, I Read More...
Rise and dance
"I am over how long it seems to take anyone to ever respond to rape. I am over Facebook taking weeks to take down rape pages. I am over the hundreds of thousands of women in Congo still waiting for the rapes to end and the rapists to be held accountable. I am over the thousands Read More...
A small act of rebellion
Janisse Ray calls them revolutionaries: the seed savers, thousands of Americans who plant historic and endangered seeds in their gardens or on their farms and eat the results. In The Seed Underground (published by Chelsea Green), she explains why this small act of rebellion against the monoculture Read More...
Ancient healing in the modern world
Brant Secunda beats on his drum and mumbles incomprehensibly. Now and then I catch the name Wali, which is the name of my son, who is sitting beside me. We both stare at the smoke rising from the little dish of glowing coals on the table before us. Secunda stands and brushes Wali’s body with a Read More...
The yogurt mamas
Every morning, 56-year-old Elizabeth Gabeal from Tanzania goes to work in a small community kitchen in her village in the Mwanza region. The kitchen is known as Jiko la Maziwa Imara, Swahili for “the kitchen for healthy milk.” Here, she makes yogurt that she sells to friends and family. In Read More...