How to keep friends with different political views
There’s a lot to be gained from friends with different opinions. That said, it can be difficult to maintain friendships with people who have strongly held opinions, politically speaking. This is why the editorial team at ThriveGlobal asked their readers for advice about maintaining such Read More...
The public now has a direct say on climate matters in Washington state
Oftentimes it feels like regular citizens have little to no say in national or state-level politics. That’s why we’re excited to share news out of Washington state where a new assembly is being formed that will allow 80 randomly-selected members of the public to have a direct say on climate Read More...
Jacinda Ardern is showing politicians how to lead during a crisis
As a citizen of any country, the dream is to have a leader who does everything in their power to make sure their country’s people feel heard, informed, and safe. And if they can avoid all the typical political buzzwords and jargon, then that’s an added bonus. During the coronavirus, political Read More...
Optimist View: Kamp Solutions Magazine Summer 2020
The Kamp Solutions Summer 2020 magazine features great stories with solutions ranging from politics to food to sustainability. If you love The Optimist Daily, you'll love their stories too! Here's a breakdown of just some of the stories you can read in full at the link at the bottom of the Read More...
Green parties are the big winners of the European Parliament elections
For the past several months, we’ve seen waves of protesters young and old take to the streets of Europe to urge politicians to act on the climate crisis. With the European Green parties posting their best-ever results in the European Parliament elections, it seems the protests were simply a Read More...
Possibility: Don’t wrestle with pigs, and other lessons from the ideological battlefield
From The Intelligent Optimist Summer 2016 This U.S. election season is a perfect backdrop for discussing James Hoggan’s new book, I’m Right and You’re an Idiot: The Toxic State of Public Discourse and How to Clean It Up. Hoggan’s special interests—ethical PR and climate change—merge in Read More...
Possibility: The European Union: Think of it as a club
From The Intelligent Optimist Summer 2016 Commentary: Mark Schalekamp is a journalist, writer and “social entrepreneur” whose home country is the Netherlands. “Right now there are already around one million Erasmus babies,” one of my “Youropean” interview subjects remarked. Erasmus Read More...
Possibility: It’s their future
From The Intelligent Optimist Summer 2016 In what could be a growing movement, courts in the United States and the Netherlands are siding with environmental activists who argue that governments that promote fossil fuel use and development are violating environmental laws and constitutional rights, Read More...
Why elections are bad for democracy
From The Intelligent Optimist Magazine Fall/Winter 2016 Our voting system worked well for decades, but now it is broken. It brings forward the wrong people (Donald Trump) and it leads to bad decisions (Brexit). There is a better way to give voice to the people. By David Van Read More...
Possibility: The justice of the crowd
From The Optimist Magazine Fall 2015 In recent years, crowdfunding has become a popular tool to fund projects and interests shared by groups of people. It is particularly common in arts and culture, leaving it up to the audience to determine what gets done and what they want to see. A British Read More...