7 green stories that ought to cheer you up
Last week’s Media Mayhem column from the Mother Nature Network:
Climate change looks as if it’s coming quicker than previously imagined. The strongest response that our politicians can manage may actually be worse than taking no action. And a huge chunk of one state is expected simply to disappear — even if we do manage to take effective action against global warming.
With news like that, it’s easy to lose sight of hopeful news that’s lurking just outside the media’s spotlight. Often, it’s those hopeful stories — the ones that are about steady, quiet progress rather than political conflict — that make the larger difference in our lives.
And you don’t read about them after they’ve had their effect either. Who cares, for example, that “persistent organic pollutants” no longer show up in the bloodstreams of American women because the chemicals were banned 40 years ago and industry was able to find substitutes; or that new diesel engines required by the EPA put out just 10 percent of the soot and smog that they did just a few years ago.
Here are seven developments that may play a role in solving climate change and other burning problems of the future — and that may never get the headlines they deserve.
For the rest of Media Mayhem, go to the Mother Nature Network.
