This Brilliant Teen Has A 10-Year Plan To Clean Up The Pacific Ocean When diving in Greece, Boyan Slat discovered that there was more plastic than fish in the water. The 19-year-old was not only inspired to take action, but he has come up with plan to clean up half the garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean -- in just 10 years. With millions of tons of plastic making its way into the oceans, the environmental activist devised a feasible and efficient way to extract it from the water using "the currents to [his] advantage" by attaching a floating structure to the sea bed to capture the waste. Watch Slat explain his idea in the video above. "I don't really view my age as a disadvantage to get these things done. Simply I've thought about how to tackle the problem and I've worked for a number of years to bring it closer to reality," says Slat, who is founder and president of the Ocean Cleanup Foundation. For more information, check out Slat's website and visit theoceancleanup.com. [h/t Elite Daily] Follow HuffPost Teen on Twitter | Instagram | Tumblr | Pheed | video
Young humpback whale freed from crab fishing lines SAN JOSE, Calif. — The passengers on the Point Sur Clipper had spent the morning of April 27 whale watching in Monterey Bay. At first, they didn’t notice anything wrong when they spotted the humpback. But unlike the other whales, the 25-foot-long young adult stuck near the surface. It didn’t dive down to feast on the blooms of krill that attract humpbacks to the bay. “It wouldn’t fluke up,” said Nancy Black, a marine biologist on board the ship that day. Black called the U.S. Passing Through Tricky Waters Centuries of whaling had nearly killed off the whale population. Most crab pots are removed from the water in the winter, after the largest crabs are taken, said Pete Kalvass, a marine biologist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Humpback Gets GPS Tracking Tag Black called the Coast Guard that Sunday. By 3 p.m., the team had clipped a satellite tag to the gear already wrapped around the whale. By now the seas were churning. Nervous Whale Watching Free To Swim Away
Apply to be an Ambassador! | Akshaya Pātra USA About Youth Ambassadors Akshaya Patra is looking for driven, motivated youth activists, like you, who are passionate about creating a more just world for themselves and others. This is a voluntary role which is open to junior or high school students living anywhere in the United States. As a Youth Ambassador you will develop new skills while working to expand the reach of Akshaya Patra. The program offers the unique opportunity for youth leaders to build leadership, networking, and public presentation skills while improving the lives of over 1.4 million children in India. As a Youth Ambassador, you will: Use Virtual classrooms to learn skills in public speaking, networking, donor cultivation, and fundraising;Make presentations and enroll new donors;Help Akshaya Patra build a grassroots movement in the US. Qualifying Graduates will receive: Program Expectations: Program Commitment: Time Commitments: Applying: Applications for Admission to the Youth Ambassadors Program are on a rolling basis.
Boyan Slat “Human history is basically a list of things that couldn't be done, and then were done.” Boyan Slat (Delft, 1994) combines environmentalism, creativity and technology to tackle global issues of sustainability. Currently working on oceanic plastic pollution, he believes current prevention measures will have to be supplemented by active removal of plastics in order to succeed. “It will be very hard to convince everyone in the world to handle their plastics responsibly, but what we humans are very good in, is inventing technical solutions to our problems. And that’s what we’re doing.” Besides leading The Ocean Cleanup, Boyan is an Aerospace Engineering student at the Delft University of Technology, and is an avid photographer and diver. At age 14, he was awarded the Best Idea of South-Holland award, and a Guinness World Record.
Zika Virus Rumors and Theories That You Should Doubt Mounting evidence points to Zika. The outbreak of microcephaly began in northeastern Brazilian cities where doctors had already seen thousands of people with “doença misteriosa” — the mystery disease — which was later proved to be caused by the Zika virus. Although there is no rapid test for Zika, the symptoms are easily recognized — a rash, bloodshot eyes, fever and joint pain, in large numbers of patients who are almost never dangerously ill. Although they initially misdiagnosed it, Brazilian doctors knew for months that they had a large outbreak of an unusual disease on their hands. Within weeks after the “mystery disease” appeared, doctors began noticing an uptick in adult paralysis — Guillain-Barré syndrome, an auto-immune disease that can be triggered by viral infections. About a year after the outbreak began in northeast Brazil, cases of microcephaly began appearing among newborns there.
Ingenious 19-year-old Develops Plan to Clean up Oceans in 5 Years Image Credit / boyanslat.com By: Amanda Froelich, True Activist. With millions of tons of garbage dumped into the oceans annually and repeat incidence of oil spills like the Deepwater Horizon Disaster, it’s the Ocean which has taken the brunt of unsustainable methods from man. In effect, it’s estimated almost 100,000 marine animals are killed due to debris entanglement and continually rising pollution. To a degree, individual lessening of consumerism and utilizing sustainable methods to re-use and eliminate waste is very beneficial. Slat’s idea consists of an anchored network of floating booms and processing platforms that could be dispatched to garbage patches around the world. Economically, the Ocean Array Project also rises to the top due to its sustainable construct; it’s completely self-supportive, by receiving energy from the sun, currents, and waves. To find out more about the project and to contribute, click here. Sources: Boyan Slat Inhabitat Trending on the Web
How Compassion Leads to Success There’s a common misconception that you have to be a jerk in order to succeed. In fact, science shows that compassionate people are healthier, happier, more popular and more successful. But… ew, what is “lovingkindness?” Sounds supremely syrupy and annoying. That’s where bestselling author, anchorman, and skeptic Dan Harris comes in. What turned it around for him was the science. The research on lovingkindness meditation shows that qualities like lovingkindness and compassion actually make us happier, which means we’re more resilient and capable. To explore this further, he created a new course on the 10% Happier app where he sits down with Sharon Salzberg, who is perhaps the most prominent proponent of lovingkindness meditation in the West, to explore why lovingkindness is actually a “no strings attached” gift to yourself and others. Qualities like lovingkindness and compassion actually make us happier, which means we’re more resilient and capable.
Polar Bears and Climate Change Floods. Droughts. Heat waves. Massive storms. Climate change is not just about polar bears, the iconic symbol of a melting Arctic. It affects the entire planet. In fact, if our chief scientist, Dr. "Events like these will continue to increase in number and severity as the world continues to warm." What's causing climate change? What's causing climate change? Greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere act like a blanket that keeps the earth warm. Other factors such as deforestation have added to the problem. Do scientists agree about climate change? The laws of physics dictate that the world will grow warmer and warmer as greenhouse gas concentrations rise. Are scientists still debating climate change? The important point to remember is that natural fluctuations in the climate system will continue with global warming, but the baseline will climb higher and higher. And once we cross those thresholds, it will be bad news not only for polar bears—but countless other species, including humans.
Analysis: Is the Miracle of Microfinance Illusory? by S Kulkami (philadelphia and boston)Wednesday, October 07, 2015Inter Press Service PHILADELPHIA AND BOSTON, Oct 07 (IPS) - Mohammad Yunus, the founder of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, transformed the lives of millions of poor women through unsecured micro loans or micro credit to self-help groups. Microcredit evolved into microfinance that also includes savings and basic forms of insurance and transfer mechanisms. Within a few years, microfinance became a global phenomenon. Although microfinance continues to grow, the enthusiasm for it shows signs of waning. In recent years, there has been a great deal of scepticism regarding the "miracle" of microfinance. According to data from MIX, which tracks microfinance institutions (MFIs), there is a solid and growing base of microfinance providers, with a global loan portfolio amounting to US$ 81.5 billion in 2012 with an outreach of 91.4 million low income clients. Research has documented that social networks help the diffusion of microfinance.
ARKive - Discover the world's most endangered species Wildscreen's Arkive project was launched in 2003 and grew to become the world's biggest encyclopaedia of life on Earth. With the help of over 7,000 of the world’s best wildlife filmmakers and photographers, conservationists and scientists, Arkive.org featured multi-media fact-files for more than 16,000 endangered species. Freely accessible to everyone, over half a million people every month, from over 200 countries, used Arkive to learn and discover the wonders of the natural world. Since 2013 Wildscreen was unable to raise sufficient funds from trusts, foundations, corporates and individual donors to support the year-round costs of keeping Arkive online. Therefore, the charity had been using its reserves to keep the project online and was unable to fund any dedicated staff to maintain Arkive, let alone future-proof it, for over half a decade. Therefore, a very hard decision was made to take the www.arkive.org website offline in February 2019.
This is how New Yorkers react to the sight of a child bride It’s not every day you see a 12-year-old posing for wedding photos with a 65-year-old man in the middle of a city. New Yorkers walking through Times Square were in for a shock when they spotted a young girl in a wedding dress beside a man more than five times her age. Their disgust is palpable. “How old are you sweetheart?” “How is this happening?” “Are you f**king kidding me?” The groom insists “I have the permission of the parents,” but the people walking by are not prepared to settle for this. The video stunt was orchestrated by YouTuber Coby Persin to shed light on the prevalence of child marriage across the world. Every year, 15 million girls are married as children. And in Lebanon, 1 in 100 people are married before their 15th birthday. Denied agency over their own futures and the chance to create a life for themselves, child brides often lose their right to education. Ending child marriage is crucial to empowering women and girls around the world.
Malala Fund Blog - Malala's Nobel Peace Prize Speech Join Malala in seeing #TheLast at Malala.org Let us become the first generation to decide to be the last that sees empty classrooms, lost childhoods, and wasted potential.Let this be the last time that a boy or a girl spends their childhood in a factory.Let this be the last time that a girl is forced into early child marriage.Let this be the last time that an innocent child loses life in war.Let this be the last time that a child remains out of school.Let this end with us.And let us begin this ending…. together…. today….. right here, right now. Topics: #TheLast Nobel Peace Prize youtube.com I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up For Education And Was Shot By The Taliban (Book) Malala Yousafzai (Award Winner) video
This Repo Man Goes After Officials Who Misuse Money Meant To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, Malaria : Goats and Soda No, he didn't repossess this car from a corrupt official. As a hobby, global health avenger Cees Klumper fixes up classic cars. This one is the actual El Camino used in the TV series My Name Is Earl. Klumper tracked it down and had it shipped to Geneva. toggle caption Courtesy of Anneke Cees Klumper No, he didn't repossess this car from a corrupt official. Courtesy of Anneke Cees Klumper If you're a government official, you don't want to get a call from Cees Klumper's office. Because there's a good chance what you'll hear is basically this: "Either you send us back the money that was misused in the past, or we'll deduct double the amount from your future grants. That's the message Klumper says he routinely delivers to governments as well as to some companies and NGOs. How have these corrupt grant recipients tried to scam the Global Fund? In the Global Fund's case, he says, a lot of the fraud has involved the large-scale purchases his organization finances.
Mo'ne Davis Has a Memoir Coming Next March NEW YORK (AP) — A memoir when you're still a teenager may seem premature, but not for Mo'ne Davis, the first female pitcher to win a Little League World Series game. "Mo'ne Davis: Remember My Name" will be released next March by HarperCollins Children's Books, the publisher told The Associated Press on Monday. The honor roll student from Philadelphia became a sensation last summer after leading the Taney Dragons to a 4-0 victory over Nashville, when she was just 13. "When I joined an all-boys baseball team, my mom wasn't too happy," Mo'ne said in a statement issued Monday through HarperCollins. Later this month, she and her fellow Taney Dragons will help kick off the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Financial terms for the book deal were not disclosed.