You will have to sleuth for background information, because the website does not provide any; it just says in boldface and a few lines of detail what the initiative is trying to do:
music selection opens in Spotify
Sounds Right is a music initiative to recognise the value of NATURE and inspire millions of fans to take environmental action. For the first time, NATURE can generate royalties from its own sounds to support its own conservation. Continue reading
Greg Curtis, the former deputy general counsel of Patagonia, is responsible for giving away huge sums of money to causes that are aligned with Patagonia’s history of environmental activism. Adam Amengual for The New York Times
When news broke about the company’s future, we were in awe; since then we heard little so this is a welcome update:
Patagonia’s Profits Are Funding Conservation — and Politics
$71 million of the clothing company’s earnings have been used since September 2022 to fund wildlife restoration, dam removal and Democratic groups.
A little more than $3 million to block a proposed mine in Alaska. Another $3 million to conserve land in Chile and Argentina. And $1 million to help elect Democrats around the country, including $200,000 to a super PAC this month.
The site of the Kalivac Dam on the Vjosa River in Albania, where Holdfast has funded a major conservation project. Andrew Burr/Patagonia
Patagonia, the outdoor apparel brand, is funneling its profits to an array of groups working on everything from dam removal to voter registration.
In total, a network of nonprofit organizations linked to the company has distributed more than $71 million since September 2022, according to publicly available tax filings and internal documents reviewed by The Times. Continue reading
A long-serving animal-control officer described a system intensely pressured to keep animals moving through it. “No Kill sounds great,” the officer said. “But it’s a myth.”Illustration by Antoine Maillard
We have Jonathan Franzen to thank for some of the best writing on caring more about birds, and he helps close out 2023 with a detailed look at the implications and complications of a cat population explosion:
How the “No Kill” Movement Betrays Its Name
By keeping cats outdoors, trap-neuter-release policies have troubling consequences for city residents, local wildlife—and even the cats themselves.
This past June, at the height of kitten season in Los Angeles, Gail Raff got a call for help from the neighborhood of Valley Glen, where a young woman had trapped a cat that needed fixing. Although the City of Los Angeles subsidizes the sterilization of unowned cats, appointments at clinics are hard to come by, and Raff was known in the animal-rescue world as a trapper who secures as many appointments as she can. Continue reading
Chuck Feeney’s stealthy giving earned him a nickname: “the James Bond of Philanthropy.” Atlantic Philanthropies
May the exceptionally wealthy take note of the example set by Chuck Feeney. Only once have we used the word billionaire in these pages, but a couple of times we pointed to this remarkable man who gave away all his billions while alive, and now that story is complete:
Chuck Feeney’s Legacy Is a Lesson for America’s Billionaires
Yes, the man avoided taxes, but he gave away his fortune, seeking nothing in return.
The selfless billionaire is a rare creature indeed. Chuck Feeney, who died on Monday at the age of 92, was one of them. Continue reading
From left, Jess Jones, Ed Rodriguez, Zach Herring and Joshua De-Anda, planting a crab apple tree at 10 Wolcott Street in the Fair Haven neighborhood of New Haven, Conn. Tony Cenicola/The New York Times
Ed Rodriguez has a few years on me, but we have comparable tree counts. The caption of the second photo below captures my my own preference of activity on any given day. Having grown up in Connecticut and moved to Costa Rica decades ago, I note our reverse patterns of migration.
Colbi Edmonds, a member of the 2023-24 New York Times Fellowship class, reports from Seth’s previous hometown New Haven on an initiative I love reading about as much as I enjoy my own versions of the same kind of activity:
“I love to dig and mess around in the soil,” said Ed Rodriguez, who grew up in Puerto Rico but moved to Connecticut in the 1960s. Christopher Capozziello for The New York Times
One Neighborhood, 90 Trees and an 82-Year-Old Crusader
Ed Rodriguez is on a mission to convince his neighbors that they need trees to help combat summer heat — and to make the world a better place. It’s not always so easy.
Maria Gonzalez, who lives in New Haven, Conn., was envious of the other side of her street. It was lined with trees, offering some beauty as well as a shield from this summer’s unusual heat. But the sidewalk directly in front of her residence was bare, with trash littering patches of grass. Continue reading
With a film review titled It’s easy to focus on what’s bad — ‘All That Breathes’ celebrates the good it would be difficult to resist reading, but spoilers can be annoying; not here:
In Anne Lamott’s book on writing, she tells a great story about facing tasks that seem overwhelming. Her 10-year-old brother was doing a big school project on birds, and as the deadline loomed, he became paralyzed by how much he still had to do. His father put his arm around him and gave him a piece of advice, “Bird by bird, buddy,” he told him. “Just take it bird by bird.”
This useful life lesson takes literal form in All That Breathes, a wonderful new documentary that arrives on HBO and HBO Max garlanded with international awards. Directed by Shaunak Sen — and ravishingly shot by Ben Bernhard — this inspiring film takes us inside the lives of two ordinary seeming Muslim brothers in Delhi who are actually extraordinary in their dedication to doing good in a city teetering on the edge of apocalypse.
The brothers are named Saud and Nadeem, the former friendly, the latter a little grumpy. Continue reading
Patagonia has become more politically active, going so far as to sue the Trump administration in a bid to protect the Bears Ears National Monument. Laure Joliet for The New York Times
We have mentioned this company multiple times in our pages over the years, because we take inspiration from it, the same way we have taken inspiration from the example set by Chuck Feeney. It is worth noting that I also value everything I have ever bought from Patagonia. The day of this blizzard in New York I took an old beat up backpack in to see if they could repair it in the nearby shop; instead, they gave me a new one.
Good quality products, combined with good service, make the good environmental values of the company all the better:
“Hopefully this will influence a new form of capitalism that doesn’t end up with a few rich people and a bunch of poor people,” said Mr. Chouinard. Meridith Kohut for The New York Times
Billionaire No More: Patagonia Founder Gives Away the Company
Mr. Chouinard filmed an announcement for his employees at home in Wyoming. By giving away the bulk of their assets during their lifetime, the Chouinards have established themselves as among the most charitable families in the country. Natalie Behring for The New York Times
A half century after founding the outdoor apparel maker Patagonia, Yvon Chouinard, the eccentric rock climber who became a reluctant billionaire with his unconventional spin on capitalism, has given the company away.
Rather than selling the company or taking it public, Mr. Chouinard, his wife and two adult children have transferred their ownership of Patagonia, valued at about $3 billion, to a specially designed trust and a nonprofit organization. They were created to preserve the company’s independence and ensure that all of its profits — some $100 million a year — are used to combat climate change and protect undeveloped land around the globe. Continue reading
When I posted about the Botanic Gardens, I did not realize that it was the 12,000th post on this platform; the “promises fulfilled” referenced in the title (and the final photo) seems apt. We started the platform in mid-2011, so we have averaged more than 1,000 posts per year, which is one way to measure how thoroughly the promises have been fulfilled. In the photo to the right, which was taken just prior to my arriving back at the Statler Hotel after my walk through the Botanic Gardens, I was reminded of someone else’s much more consequential promises fulfilled.
Chuck Feeney appeared in our pages because of his unusual, even radical generosity combined with his preference to stay out of the spotlight. I do not know how he felt about having the main campus thoroughfare renamed in his honor, but I have a guess he was reluctant. Even so, I think that in the same spirit that this other signage campaign on campus is valuable, it is also valuable anyone visiting the Cornell campus to know at least a little about Mr. Feeney’s contributions.
MacKenzie Scott never featured in our many posts about the fortune she suddenly found herself with. She wants to give that fortune away, fast. So, she is a person of interest to us, for all kinds of good reasons. But not so fast, the Economist’s semi-charitable subtitle, the charity-industrial complex, seems to say introducing the article below about advisors to givers:
Bridgespan Group: the most powerful consultants you’ve never heard of
They direct philanthropic billions around the world
OVER THE past 18 months, the world has heard a lot about MacKenzie Scott, the billionaire philanthropist formerly married to Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. She has given generously to charities on the frontline of the pandemic, including food banks, schools and children’s health programmes. Relatively unknown, however, is the consultancy that has helped distribute almost $9bn on Ms Scott’s behalf: the Bridgespan Group. Continue reading
Wood artisans take remainders leftover after the creation of larger artifacts, and recycle them by tumbling until smooth. An excellent alternative to polished stones, these “renewable pebbles” are available in the Authentica shops in Costa Rica.
We have been offering options on how to spend, while visiting Costa Rica, in ways that benefit the environment here. Small potatoes, but it is what we do.
Much more important for the planet as a whole, and for all humanity inhabiting it, is spending, or rather investing, that can have truly global impact. Robinson Meyer, a staff writer at The Atlantic, and author of the newsletter The Weekly Planet, has this useful guide for citizens of the USA:
Allison Bailey / NurPhoto / AP
A New Estimate of the ‘Most Effective’ Way to Fight Climate Change
Climate-concerned donors should focus on helping to pass climate policy, not offset their emissions, an advisory group says.
On a dollar-for-dollar basis, where will your money do the most to fight climate change? Continue reading
Last month a magazine article was published about the origins of Organikos. We have told bits and pieces of the story in these pages, but Carol Latter was the first person to tell the story from a perspective outside of our family. The online version of the story has two photos, whereas the tangibly published version has ten; in both cases we were happy that a magazine from the state I grew up in, and where Seth has been living since 2018, was interested in sharing this founding story.
Today, reading Marella Gayla’s story about founders trending younger (and why), plenty to ponder. My takeaway is that for whatever reason ambitious young people see an important link between entrepreneurship and positive social outcomes, we can count that as a good thing:
Is Every Ambitious Teen-ager a “Founder and C.E.O.”?
Forget Model U.N. and the SATs. Kids today want to tell college admissions officers all about the companies they’ve started to save the world.
One striking innovation of modern meritocracy is the teen-age executive. High-school students used to spiff up their college applications with extracurriculars like Model U.N. and student council. Today’s overachievers want to grace their résumés with the words “founder and C.E.O.” When schools in Fremont, California, shut down in March, Jagannath Prabhakaran, a sixteen-year-old, seized the opportunity to join the ranks. Continue reading
The JunkFood project is to continue, even though Alchemist has now reopened its doors (Credit: Soren Gammelmark)
How words matter is a longstanding theme here, and I have occasionally let a Danish word capture my attention. I am susceptible to stories about modern Danish norms, much as I was by Norse mythology as a kid. So, thanks to Mark Johanson and the BBC for bringing this to our attention:
How a long-forgotten word rallied a nation
A word buried in the history books helped Danes mobilise during the pandemic, flattening the curve and lifting community spirit.
Danish chef Rasmus Munk shocked the culinary world last year with the opening of his audacious Copenhagen restaurant Alchemist, which offers a multisensory food and entertainment experience across 50 courses and five acts. More surprising, still, was what the Michelin-starred chef did next when the pandemic brought his marathon meals to an abrupt halt on 15 March.
By 19 March, Munk had pivoted from serving 2,900kr ($450) worth of molecular gastronomy (think wood ants preserved in candy ‘amber’ and cherry-infused lamb brains) for 48 nightly guests to whipping up 600 daily portions of down-to-earth staples (such as pasta carbonara and chicken puff pie) for Copenhagen’s homeless and socially vulnerable residents.
“I put out a call for help on Instagram, and the next day I had nearly 1,000 emails from fellow chefs and everyday people who offered to drive the food out to the 14 shelters we now work with,” he explains. Hotels and restaurants also got in touch to donate food that would have otherwise gone to waste. Soon, Alchemist’s four kitchens were buzzing with masked volunteers, and the nascent social responsibility project JunkFood, which Munk had started as an experiment before the pandemic, took root. Continue reading
Hugh Somerleyton, right, and Argus Hardy on the Somerleyton estate in Suffolk. Photograph: Si Barber/The Guardian
This idea has caught on, spreading like a good alternative to wildfire:
Farmers hatch plan to return area the size of Dorset to wild nature
WildEast aims to convince farmers, councils and others across East Anglia to pledge land to wildlife
View over the Somerleyton estate. Photograph: Si Barber/The Guardian
Returning an area the size of Dorset to wild nature, reintroducing extinct lynx, pelicans and beavers and championing regenerative farming to restore soil health are the radical aims of a new charitable foundation.
But the most revolutionary feature of WildEast may be that it is founded by three farmers in the most intensively farmed region of Britain.
Hugh Somerleyton, Argus Hardy and Olly Birkbeck, who own more than 3,200 hectares (8,000 acres) on their family farms in Suffolk and Norfolk, are seeking to persuade farmers and also councils, businesses, schools and ordinary people across East Anglia to pledge a fifth of their land to wildlife. Continue reading
Los Angeles’s participating chefs Photo: Courtesy of Ask Chefs Anything
Devorah Lev-Tov, a writer who covers food, among other things, surprisingly has not shown up in our pages before. I am happy to link to this particular story as a first. Food and agriculture have been central to this platform since we started it in 2011. Also, immigrants-r-us, so I appreciate the effort on their behalf as much as I appreciate the visibility it is receiving in a location surprising to me. Vogue is an unlikely publication for me to source from, but credit where due, a great story:
Ask Chefs Anything: Famous Foodies Are Auctioning Their Time in Support of Immigrant Workers
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to ravage the country and force businesses to shut down, among the hardest hit are immigrant workers—many of whom worked in the restaurant or other service industries. Now, they are left with no jobs and no unemployment benefits, struggling to put food on their plates and send money home to their families, while fearing getting sick without any support from the government.
In an effort to help them, dozens of famous chefs—including Alison Roman, Nancy Silverton, Tom Colicchio, Eric Ripert, Suzanne Goin, and Dominique Ansel—are auctioning off 30-minute virtual discussions where they will share recipes and cooking tips via a new initiative called Ask Chefs Anything. New York City’s ended last week, Los Angeles’s auction is going on now through May 11, and Philadelphia’s takes place May 13 to 17, with more cities to follow. Continue reading
In a bit over a week, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s yearly push for a massive, coordinated citizen science effort in birdwatching will take place. On May 9th, I’ll be trying to see as many bird species as I can within my neighborhood of New Haven, Connecticut, just like I did last year, when I photographed the Black-and-white Warbler pictured below (recently featured as a Bird of the Day, if it looks familiar). But this time around, I’ll be part of the Spoonbills Dream Team, raising money for the BirdsCaribbean campaign to support the Journal of Caribbean Ornithology.
A bottle of hand sanitizer stands next to free lunches for people under the age of 18 outside the Aurora Public Library as branch manager Phillip Challis, back, looks on in an effort to help city residents and reduce the spread of the new coronavirus Wednesday, March 25, 2020, in Aurora, Colo. The new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people, but for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
This is far from the first time we’ve heralded librarians, media specialists and libraries on this site as the super heroes they are, not to mention their ability to adapt; we will continue to herald their adaptiveness in times of public turmoil:
Public Libraries’ Novel Response to a Novel Virus
America’s public libraries have led the ranks of “second responders,” stepping up for their communities in times of natural or manmade disasters, like hurricanes, floods, shootings, fires, and big downturns in individual lives.
Throughout all these events, libraries have stayed open, filling in for the kids when their schools closed; offering therapeutic sessions in art or conversation or writing after losses of life; bringing in nurses or social workers when services were unavailable to people; and hiring life-counselors for the homeless, whom they offer shelter and safety during the day.
Today, interventions like those have a ring of simpler days. But libraries have learned from their experience and attention to these previous, pre-pandemic efforts. They are pivoting quickly to new ways of offering services to the public—the core of their mission. When libraries closed their doors abruptly, they immediately opened their digital communications, collaborations, and creative activity to reach their public in ways as novel as the virus that forced them into it.
You can be sure that this is just the beginning. Today libraries are already acting and improvising. Later, they’ll be figuring out what the experience means to their future operations and their role in American communities.
Here are some of the things libraries are doing now. These are a few examples of many: Continue reading
Photograph from Alamy
You can count on these pages continuing to feature these kinds of stories, that remind us of what still can and must be done, or simply provide a daily dose of charm:
My Old Nemesis: Plastic Bags
On Earth Day, 2019, when New York’s Governor, Andrew Cuomo, signed a bill banning single-use plastic bags, he said, “You see plastic bags hanging in trees, blowing down the streets, in landfills, and in our waterways, and there is no doubt they are doing tremendous damage.” It is true that nowadays people do see plastic bags in trees. But they didn’t used to—not because the bags weren’t there but because the people didn’t see them. I believe I am the first person who actually saw bags in trees—that is, noticed them in any official way. Twenty-seven years ago, I wrote a short article for this magazine about plastic bags and other debris in the trees of New York City. Once I started noticing the bags, I couldn’t stop, and I soon passed the affliction on to my friends Bill McClelland and Tim McClelland. Noticing bags in trees changed our lives. Continue reading
A black kite, a carnivorous scavenger, flying over the Ghazipur area of New Delhi. Black kites are a common sight in the city, but are often fatally injured by the flying of paper kites.
We will take heroics wherever we can find them:
Meet the Bird Medics of New Delhi
Two brothers have given everything to treat raptors injured by a popular pastime.
By Photographs by
Kite-flying became a symbol of national pride after India gained independence from Britain in 1947.
NEW DELHI — Sitting in his basement, below the crowded dirt roads of Wazirabad village, Mohammad Saud leaned over the body of an injured black kite.
The room was cramped, its walls chipping blue paint, the noise from the streets above drowned out by the whir of a fan. Mr. Saud stared at the bird in front of him for a couple of seconds, then gently folded its wing over with a gloved hand. At least two bones, four tendons and two muscles had been snapped. The bird’s head tilted back limply, eyes cloudy. Mr. Saud adjusted his glasses with the crook of his elbow, then stated the obvious: “This is a gone case. Nothing can be done.”
Mr. Saud placed the kite back into a thin cardboard box. As he did so, Salik Rehman, a young employee of Mr. Saud, reached into a different cardboard box and pulled out another black kite. This bird’s right wing was wrapped in a gauze bandage stained with dried blood and pus. Mr. Saud examined it briefly. Another gone case, he concluded; it would have to be euthanized. Continue reading
Recent research has explored “helping” behavior in species ranging from nonhuman primates to rats and bats. To see whether intelligent birds might help out a feathered pal, scientists did an experiment using African grey parrots like these. Henry Lok/EyeEm/Getty Images
Thanks to Nell Greenfieldboyce, science correspondent at National Public Radio (USA), for summarizing findings about how some animals help one another. We are on the lookout for more stories of how, why, when acts of kindness happen, and if we need to turn to parrots for inspiration, no problem:
Polly Share A Cracker? Parrots Can Practice Acts Of Kindness, Study Finds
Parrots can perform impressive feats of intelligence, and a new study suggests that some of these “feathered apes” may also practice acts of kindness.
African grey parrots voluntarily helped a partner get a food reward by giving the other bird a valuable metal token that could be exchanged for a walnut, according to a newly published report in the journal Current Biology. Continue reading
Foodrunners may have the unusual problem of overabundance, in the form of waste and generous people donating their time. Thanks to Marisa Endicott (again) and Mother Jones for bringing this organization to our attention.
Alleviating hunger, one volunteer and donor at a time:
Tech Company Free Meals Beget a Lot of Leftovers. Meet the Man on a Mission to Rescue Them.
Food Runners saves extra grub before it’s wasted, and delivers it to hungry mouths.
Marisa Endicott
Tso loads his car with Tetris-like precision. Marisa Endicott
I meet Les Tso on a corner in San Francisco’s SoMa district on a wet Thursday afternoon. He pulls his silver Isuzu SUV into an alley. “Today because it’s the first rain, people are going to be driving cluelessly—there are a lot of Uber and Lyft drivers that come from out of the area,” Tso warns me. “Makes it more exciting, I guess.”
Tso picks up donations from an average 16 places a day. Marisa Endicott
Tso works as a driver for Food Runners, a nonprofit that picks up leftover food from grocery stores, companies, events, and restaurants and brings it to organizations working to feed the hungry. For four hours every weekday, Tso braves the worst of Bay Area traffic to makes his 80 to 90 pickups (an average of 16 a day), primarily from tech companies—including Google, Juul, and LinkedIn—that have become an omnipresent force in the city. Continue reading
Organikos 