Vathaba - Integrated Agriculture - Rice grown in a banana plantation

To end 2023 on a positive note, here are the outcomes of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, earlier this month. For the first time in nearly 30 years of conferences (the first was held in Berlin in 1995), the delegates at COP recognized the need to transition […]

waves crashing in Hawaii

Anyone who has spent a bit of time at the ocean or sea will have noticed how the water levels rise and fall twice a day, independent of the wind or other meteorological conditions. The tides are the result of the gravitational pull of the moon, the rotational force of the Earth, and the sun. […]

View of Le Morne Brabant peninsula from the top of Le Morne Brabant, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Mauritius Credit: ©dcarsprungli

Before photos, there were drawings. They ranged from cave drawings of animals like lions, bison, mammoths, horses, and warty pigs, to illustrations in early Victorian botanical journals of the natural world, portraying meticulously described species that served to document life on earth. These drawings brought living things in distant and close destinations to all those […]

Amazon Rainforest, near Manaus

Efforts to save and enhance biodiversity work better when local communities are involved. That is the conclusion of research undertaken in 2021 by 17 scientists on “The role of Indigenous peoples and local communities in effective and equitable conservation,” published in the journal Ecology & Society. “Involving IPLCs [Indigenous peoples and local communities] is perceived […]

meditation

Following The Good Times’ recent post on the benefits of laughing, did you know that you can get the same benefits and more from meditating? More likely than not, when you hear the word meditation – or in today’s more modern lingo, mindfulness – you picture someone sitting on the ground with their legs crossed, saying […]

Waxworm By Sam Droege - https://www.flickr.com/photos/54563451@N08/19051745004/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41690212

In the quest to solve the plastic pollution crisis, organizations of all types are working on solutions. The Good Times has highlighted a few on these pages in the past, such as the Ocean Cleanup removing plastics from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the Aquapreneur Innovation Initiative to remove microplastics from water, bacteria that have […]

Areca palm leaf

In a natural cycle, leaves fall from Areca palm trees in the city of Hyderabad, India, to make room for new ones. For centuries, people have used these leaves as plates. Bollant Industries has taken this a step further, developing an ingenious system that takes these leaves and recycled paper and presses them into eco-friendly […]

Crib A'Glow phototherapy crib

Babies get jaundice, a common and usually harmless ailment that causes yellowing of the skin and the whites of their eyes. Some 60% of all babies worldwide get jaundice and most do not require any treatment. For those who do, the first step is phototherapy, or exposure to blue light, which helps a newborn’s liver […]

Every year, an estimated $80 billion of valuable metals are discarded in consumer and industrial waste streams (known as the urban mine). This is all the more regrettable since humanity’s appetite for the electronics that use these metals is ever-growing, leading to increased needs to mine more metals. But traditional mining takes a real toll […]

Water lentils 3268zauber, CC BY-SA 3.0 Source: , via Wikimedia Commons

As the world’s population grows, so does the need for proteins to ensure healthy diets. But current practices to produce protein, such as meat, poultry, fish, eggs, and dairy products, are unsustainable and harmful for the environment. Whether red or white, meats require prodigious amounts of water to produce them, both to raise the animals […]