Photo: Vlad Burac/Unsplash (CC0)
We’re closing out the week at Squirrel News talking about how Australia is planning to give away free solar power due to a national surplus, Japan’s litter-picking scheme becoming a global sport, and how Lithuania managed to reduce its suicide rate by more than 50%.
In Australia, negative electricity prices – in which more power is produced than is necessarily needed – often happen during the middle of the day. To balance out the grid, a new programme would require electricity providers to offer free electricity to everyone for at least three hours a day.
Source: Electrek
The draft climate action plan includes targets to decarbonise building heat systems, phase out new petrol and diesel cars by 2030, increase woodland planting and accelerate peatland restoration.
Source: BBC News
When Lithuania joined the EU in 2004, the suicide rate was roughly 44 per 100,000 residents: the highest in the region. Thanks to the launch of the Suicide Prevention Bureau, an emphasis on providing more community-based services, and a shift away from an overly-medicalised approach, it’s now at 19.5 per 100,000 people.
Source: Reasons To Be Cheerful
Tuberculosis is the world’s deadliest infectious disease, with 1.2 million people dying of it each year – roughly 3,500 per day. In remote regions, or areas where there simply aren’t enough radiologists to treat everyone, mobile x-ray machines and AI algorithms are helping to detect this bacterial infection.
Source: NPR
Every Wednesday and Friday, customers at the Pratt Free Market in Baltimore are welcome to grab whatever they can fit in a library-supplied bag – entirely for free. The market, which is 90% volunteer-run, is stocked like any other grocery store, with fresh produce, dry goods, paper goods, feminine hygiene products, baby essentials, and household items.
Source: Good Good Good
The pilot project, launched in partnership with seven government agencies, including the Swedish Food Agency, has meant students are more inclined to stay at school rather than head to the nearest kiosk for sweets. Teachers have also noticed that students seem more engaged.
Source: The Guardian
Across the US, teachers’ unions are demanding that districts act on climate change – from winning contracts with schools to add solar panels to school buildings to electrifying school bus fleets and providing EV chargers at all facilities.
Source: Hechinger Report
Bikes Not Bombs started in 1984 with the intention of providing aid bicycles to people in the Global South. 80,000 bikes later, the workshop now employs teen mechanics in a 10-week programme, teaching them how to care for an operate a used bike before offering them a chance to work for the nonprofit themselves.
Source: Good Good Good
Some 53 million tonnes of plastic waste and approximately 4.5 trillion cigarette butts are discarded on streets across the globe each year. Japanese runner Kenichi Mamitsuka began scooping up some of them on his morning jogs in 2008, and soon hit on the idea of gamifying his public-spirited act to raise awareness of littering.
Source: Positive News
Lamija Dzigal’s mission has two main aims: protecting the endangered Bosnian mountain horses, while also raising awareness of the benefits of equine therapy for children with disabilities.
Source: Deutsche Welle
