Each week find a round-up of selected news and resources related to global ethical issues and positive solutions that you can use in your solutionary teaching/work.
Here’s some recent news worth knowing:
We continue to devastate the environment…
- The world suffered near-record tropical deforestation in 2017, as forests are cleared for agriculture, destroyed for logging, mining, and other industries, and decimated by extreme weather and wildfires.
- Palm oil plantations have a devastating impact on orangutans and other wildlife, but a new study shows that other vegetable oils, such as soy and sunflower, wouldn’t be any better, because they’d just shift the problem to another area of the world.
- The US Forest Service has offered Nestlé a permit to continue to draw millions of gallons of water from the Strawberry Creek watershed (currently rated as “impaired”) in the San Bernardino National Forest. Opponents say the company’s actions are having a devastating impact on wildlife and the watershed.
- The Ocean Conservancy’s report on the 2017 International Coastal Cleanup notes that this year the top-10 trash items collected were all made from plastic. Nearly 800,000 volunteers from 100 countries picked up about 20.5 million pounds of trash.
- New research shows that, while younger Americans tend to be more environmentally conscious than older generations, as people in the US age, they tend to “grow less supportive of spending money to protect the natural environment.”
Some good and bad news for nonhuman animals…
- Restaurants in Vietnam are serving critically endangered “megafish,” which is increasing demand and devastating the species.
- Banff, Canada, has switched to using special-effects pyrotechnics instead of fireworks, in order to minimize impact and harm to wildlife and animal companions.
- Japan has announced plans to push for resuming commercial whaling of species with “healthy” numbers and for lowering “the proportion of votes to set catch quotas.”
- A study of the impact of shipping traffic in the Arctic on marine mammals reveals that animals such as narwhales, beluga and bowhead whales, and walruses would be especially negatively impacted.
Regarding refugees and immigrants…
- Over the weekend, there were hundreds of rallies, marches, and protests across the US, with participants calling for an end to separating migrant families and some calling for an end to ICE.
- A US federal judge has issued an injunction that temporarily halts the separation of children from their parents at the southern border and that calls for reuniting within 14-30 days (depending on the child’s age) families who have already been separated.
- According to attorneys in several US states, immigrant children as young as three are being forced to appear in court alone for their deportation hearings.
Regarding human health and well-being…
- The Trump administration is reversing an Obama-era policy and is calling on schools and universities to “adopt race-blind admissions standards.”
- According to the World Data Lab, Nigeria has replaced India as the country “with the largest number of people living in extreme poverty.” About 87 million people in Nigeria live below the extreme poverty line, which is about $1.90 a day.
- A new study published in Lancet Planetary Health reveals that worldwide diabetes risk is prevalent at air pollution levels that are “well below what is considered safe” by the US EPA and the World Health Organization. In 2016, there were 3.2 million new diabetes cases that were attributable to air pollution.
- An analysis by the Environmental Working Group found that federal scientists detected “antibiotic-resistant bacteria” on up to 79% of animal meats in US grocery stores. The bacteria were found on “79 percent of ground turkey, 71 percent of pork chops, 62 percent of ground beef, and 36 percent of chicken breasts, wings and thighs” that were sampled.
- New York state is adopting a “cutting-edge program” to help reduce the risk of suicide. Initially developed in Switzerland, the program has shown success in Finland, Sweden, and Lithuania, and an initial study of the program showed that “it reduced suicidal behavior by 80 percent and hospitalizations by 72 percent.”
Some of those working to make a positive difference…
- A campaign on a British military base in Cyprus to reduce the deaths of hundreds of thousands of migratory songbirds a year due to poachers has resulted in a “72% drop in the illegal killing of birds in the area over the last year.”
- A six-year-old boy’s plan to sell lemonade to raise money to help immigrant children who have been separated from their parents has resulted in a fundraiser that netted more than $13,000.
- Rhode Island has filed a suit against several major fossil fuel companies, asserting that they have contributed “to climate change that is damaging infrastructure and coastal communities.”
And add this resource to your solutionary toolkit:
- Check out how this middle school social studies teacher takes just five minutes a day to discuss current events in her class.
Be sure to forward this to at least ONE person who would benefit from these resources.
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The post What’s New Wednesday 7-4-18: News & Resources for Educators & Solutionaries appeared first on Institute for Humane Education.