Around the world: Three-fourths of Niger is desert, and news headlines focus on hunger there. But over two decades, poor farmers in the country's south have "regreened" 12.5 million desolate acres. In all, Niger farmers have nurtured the growth of some 200 million trees--discovering that trees and crops are not competitors but are complementary. The trees protect the soil, bringing big crop-yield increases, and they provide fruit, nutritious leaves, fodder, and firewood. Now young people are returning to villages in Niger, and school kids are learning to care for the trees, too.
Are you willing to step up as a solutions-news ban breaker?
Neuroscientists tell us our brains are "plastic," with new neuronal connections being created all the time, forming new "streambeds" in our brains that shape our responses to life. So isn't actively choosing what shapes our brains perhaps the most powerful ways to change ourselves, enabling us to change the world?
Facing unprecedented challenges, we can choose to remain open to possibility and creativity--not mired in despair. Surely, the latter is a luxury that none can afford. We can create and enthusiastically share a solutions story today, every day. It is a revolutionary act.
Here are my top picks to help you "break the ban":
Small Planet Institute
Yes! Magazine
Solutions Journal
Ecologic Development Fund
Handprinter
Sierra Club
ZERI (Zero Emissions Research Initiatives)
Your Olive Branch
World Future Council
OdeWire: News for Intelligent Optimists
Frances Moore Lappà © is a contributing editor to YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas and practical actions. This article is adapted from EcoMind: Changing the Way We Think, to Create the World We Want.
Interested?
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Before 2004, no state allowed same-sex marriage. Today, it's legal in 11 states and the District of Columbia. If you want to see how political progress is made, look to the local level. - Boston Aftermath Shows Nation Less--Not More--Afraid of Muslims
Despite the horrific attacks and media slurs that followed the Boston bombing, the behavior of ordinary people and elected representatives shows improved tolerance of muslims and other immigrants.
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