Inspirational Media ArticlesExcerpts of Key Inspirational Media Articles in Major Media
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When David Lee Windecher comes to court, he cuts a striking figure. Once known as “Red,” a notorious North Miami gangster, Windecher has come a long way. The drug dealer and larcenist who had been arrested 13 times by his 20th birthday ... has morphed into one of Atlanta’s hottest young lawyers. Only four years into his law career, [he] uses his own gripping memoir – “The American Dream: HisStory in the Making” – to give troubled kids a road map to putting their adolescent mistakes in the rearview mirror. His message: Too many Americans – prosecutors, citizens, and even gangsters themselves – buy into a myth that youths are a lost cause. Those sentiments were cemented into law in the 1980s and ’90s. “Second chances come hard,” he says. “The problem is that everyone, even the gangsters, looks at the worst, not the potential in other people. But the fact is, you are not a victim of circumstance. You have a choice.” It took watching his brother and two sisters turning to gang life, finding faith in a higher power, and meeting an aspiring FBI agent ... for Windecher to see that there was a way out. He was also shaken by a poem titled “The Monument,” about how God gives each person a unique set of problems to resolve. It says, “no one else may have the blessings that these problems will bring you.” In 2011, Windecher secured an internship with the DeKalb County District Attorney’s Office, [where] in the juvenile division ... he began to strengthen the county’s diversion programs aimed at keeping first-time offenders out of long-term detention.
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From an environmental perspective, plastic cutlery is pretty disastrous. It's often used just once before being thrown in the bin, and every year vast quantities of plastic knives, forks and spoons end up in landfill, where they release harmful substances into the soil as they decompose. However, one enterprising inventor is now hoping to make plastic cutlery obsolete by providing a viable, environmentally-friendly alternative: edible cutlery. Narayana Peesapaty is from India, where 120 billion pieces of disposable plastic cutlery are thrown away each year. His edible cutlery, branded as Bakeys, is made from millet, rice and wheat, and is available in a variety of flavours. Bakeys, founded in Hyderabad in 2011, says its products are "highly nutritious," with a shelf life of three years. If you use a Bakeys spoon and don't eat it, it'll decompose in less than a week. A video showcasing Narayana's invention has gone viral this week after it was shared online by the website The Better India, where it's been viewed more than 2.5 million times in less than a day. It isn't quite as sturdy as its metal or plastic counterparts - Bakeys suggests not using too much force if you use its cutlery to cut into hard foods, saying: "after all these are made of flours" - but its spoons are firm enough to get you through a cup of hot soup without it wilting. But could they ever become popular enough to replace plastic cutlery the world over? We'll have to wait and see.
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In a world of rising tuition fees and mounting student debt, California’s University of the People has started offering an ultra low-cost MBA, it said on Tuesday. The online programme - open to 100 applicants in its first term this September, with capacity expected to expand subsequently - will carry a $200 end of course assessment fee for each of the 12 courses. This would take the total cost to about $2,400 for the qualification, about one-thirtieth of what an average MBA might cost in the US. There are no tuition fees or textbook costs. Developing what UoPeople’s founder Shai Reshef called the “the world’s most cost-effective MBA” was a natural progression for the Pasadena-based institution. Students can expect to complete the course in 15 months on a full-time basis but part-time students have to finish within five years. The MBA is accredited by the Distance Education and Accreditation Commission, a private non-profit organisation. UoPeople has offered undergraduate degrees in business administration or computer science, without tuition fees, to 3,000 students from 180 countries around the world. Its online programmes have a $100 charge for each course exam, taking the total a student can expect to pay for a bachelors degree to about $4,000. The university runs with the support of 4,000 volunteers from other universities and makes use of open-source technology. It has a programme in place that is supported by global foundations and corporations ... to help students who are unable to meet its charges.
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You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but when it comes to other people, sometimes we do. Ronni Abergel a 42-year-old from Copenhagen, Denmark, is trying to change that with the Human Library, a place where individuals can “check out” people, or “human books,” for a 30-minute conversation. Abergel opened the alternative library in Copenhagen in 2000, and has since brought the idea to 70 countries. Human books vary from people who are blind and deaf, bipolar, homeless and, in the case of a Rochester, New York, event, a white woman who grew up in apartheid-era South Africa. That woman, 41-year-old Deb Duguid-May shared her experiences, saying, “What I became so aware of was how fear was used to control people and how fear was used to bond people. Everything I had been taught by my culture was a lie.” In 1993, [Abergel] and a few friends started a successful youth group called “Stop the Violence” after a mutual friend was stabbed. Thankfully the friend survived, but the incident inspired Abergel to help people start open conversations about their differences. When Stop the Violence was asked to develop an activity for a festival in 2000, the group came up with the idea for The Human Library. Abergel hopes to bring his novel concept to all 50 states soon, telling Today: “I figured that if we could make people sit down with a group attached to a certain stigma they don’t like or even know about for that matter, we could diminish violence.”
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When Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau heard about a gay man receiving a hate-filled Valentine, he sent him a moving message of support. Degas Sikorski, a man from Edmonton, Canada, was working for Party City but had not received a shift in months. When he went into work on Valentine’s Day, he noticed his supervisor had made personalized gifts for everyone on staff. When Sikorski looked at his, the openly gay employee noticed ... something nasty: "FA**** YOU ARE NOT GETTING SHIFTS FOR A REASON," was written in black marker on Sikorski's Valentine. Furious, Sikorski's mother, Shelley, posted a picture of the slur on Facebook. A manager at a local Starbucks saw the post and offered Sikorski a job, so that he could quit Party City. Sikorski accepted. Yet, a new job wasn’t the only love Sikorski received thanks to his mother’s post. Edmonton Centre MP Randy Boissonnault eventually saw it as well. He is also openly gay and felt compelled to show his support. "I texted my team ‘Please find a very nice Valentine’s card and bring it to the House,’" Boissonnault told Global News. Boissonnault signed the belated Valentine and got other members of parliament to sign it as well. Trudeau also wrote an inspiring message: “Dear Degas, Know that your friends outnumber the haters by the millions and I’m one of those friends.” A picture of Trudeau signing the card was included in a belated Valentine for Sikorski, which was hand-delivered to him last Saturday by Boissonnault himself.
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David Wheeler is trying to build a business based on honesty, including the fact that his business isn't exactly booming. Wheeler ... launched a dating site in 2014 that encourages users to post both flattering and unflattering photos of themselves and to list their flaws alongside their assets. "We're trying to build a community of honesty, so people can be themselves," Wheeler, 31, told me. But business is a bit slow. "What we're hearing from a lot of people is they love the concept, but they might log on ... and only have 10 members nearby, where Match has a million in every single city." A slight exaggeration, but Match.com does have 2.4 million paid subscribers. A record number of Americans are single after all, and the percentage of those singles using dating websites continues to grow, especially among young people. Wheeler has tried plenty of them himself. "I've been on Match, OK Cupid, Plenty of Fish, eHarmony," he said. "And I met some really good people. I just feel like the honesty in the relationships came out a lot later on those sites. I always wished you were more encouraged to be yourself." So he and his business partner, Jacob Thompson, launched Settle For Love, which just recently became available as an app for Apple and Android. The site and app are both free. Users are encouraged to list their "imperfections" alongside their "perfections" in their profiles. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So why not put the real you out there from the beginning and see whom you attract?
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A Palestinian woman who grew up as a refugee and who now teaches refugee children has been awarded with a $1million (Ł707,000) global prize for reaching excellence. Hanan al-Hroub, who teaches primary school children in the West Bank city of al-Bireh, just outside of Ramallah, was handed the second annual Global Teacher Prize which recognises an individual who has made an exceptional contribution to the profession. The Pope announced Ms al-Hroub – who teaches about non-violence - as the winner in a video message while Prince William also sent his congratulations. "I feel amazing and I still can't believe that the Pope said my name," al-Hroub told The Associated Press. "For an Arab, Palestinian teacher to talk to the world today and to reach the highest peak in teaching could be an example for teachers around the world." In her acceptance speech, Ms al-Hroub repeated her mantra of “No to violence” and spoke of the importance of having dialogue. She said: “I am proud to be a Palestinian female teacher standing on this stage,” the BBC reported, and has promised to spend the prize money on creating scholarships for students who excel to encourage them to become teachers. Ms al-Hroub grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp in Bethlehem. She went into teaching after her children witnessed a shooting on her way home from school, which made her think about how teachers can help children who experience trauma. She educates children about non-violence and has written a book called “We Play and Learn,” which focusses on the importance of playing, trust, respect, honesty and literacy.
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For the roughly 2.2 million people incarcerated in U.S. prisons and jails, daily life is often violent, degrading, and hopeless. But what if our approach to those behind bars were constructive, rather than destructive? Four-legged companions ... share living quarters with Fulton County Jail inmates as part of the Canine CellMates program in Atlanta. Believing all inmates have a capacity for good is what inspired [Susan Jacobs-Meadows] to found the program at the jail 2 1/2 years ago. More than 100 inmates have participated, and Jacobs-Meadows says it is extremely rare for an inmate to reoffend after completing the program. Since 2009, inmates at Washingtons Stafford Creek Corrections Center ... have planted more than 1.5 million flowers as environmental stewards in the Sustainability in Prisons Projects Prairie Conservation Nursery Program, [which] also offers the potential for college credit. Solitary confinement at Oregons Snake River Correctional Institution used to mean a concrete cell, no bigger than a parking stall. Prisoners spent about 23 hours a day there. [This] often provoked aggressive behavior from prisoners. So guards tried an experiment: Send inmates back to nature or, more accurately, bring nature to them. The Blue Room, implemented in April 2013, immerses inmates in nature for an hour by playing videos of arid deserts, lush forests, and open oceans as they sit in a chair alone, imagining roaming the wide open spaces before them. The room ... has been credited with a reduction in reported incidents of violence.
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Ever since a 71-year-old Brazilian man rescued a struggling penguin, he's been receiving regular visits from his feathered friend. Joao Pereira de Souza, a retired bricklayer, lives ... just off the coast of Rio de Janeiro. In 2011, he spotted a starving Magellanic penguin drenched in oil on the beach near his house. Naming the penguin Dindim, Pereira de Souza fed him every day until he was strong enough to leave, according to a video from the University of Rio de Janeiro. But the penguin refused to go. Pereira de Souza decided to row a boat out into the water and drop Dindim off to encourage him to swim home. But when he rowed back to shore, he found the penguin waiting for him. "He stayed with me for 11 months and then, just after he changed his coat with new feathers, he disappeared," Pereira de Souza told TV Globo, a Brazilian TV network. Magellanic penguins regularly swim thousands of kilometres a year to breeding spots on the coast of Argentina and Chile. From time to time, penguins show up in warmer Brazilian waters. Many of Pereira de Souza's friends thought that when Dindim finally left, that was it for the human-bird friendship. But a few months later, Dindim returned and found Pereira de Souza. He visits for about four months, a ritual kept for the last five years. "He arrives in June and leaves to go home in February, and every year he becomes more affectionate," Pereira de Souza told TV Globo. De Souza appears to be the only person who can get near Dindim. If others try, he pecks them or waddles away.
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Springing up on the edge of the Sahara desert are rows of curved mirrors as far as the eye can see. They're part of what could become the biggest solar power plant in the world. Morocco is investing about $2.6 billion on the construction of the Ouarzazate complex, which forms the heart of a $9 billion strategy to harness one of the country's greatest natural resources - sunshine. When completed in 2017, it will cover an area nine times the size of New York's Central Park and generate enough electricity to power about one million households. Morocco has been developing solar and other sources of renewable power for years. It has just set itself the ambitious target of meeting just over half the nation's electricity needs from renewable power by 2030. Morocco is using solar technology that operates very differently from traditional solar panels, which use photovoltaic cells to convert sunlight directly into electricity. The Ouarzazate complex uses large curved "mirrors" that track the sun like flowers and channel radiation to generate steam inside a network of tubes. The steam drives a central turbine that generates electricity, which flows into the national grid for use by Moroccan homes and businesses. Perhaps most impressive is that the complex can continue to operate after the sun sets. Heat from the system can be stored for hours in tanks filled with molten salts. That allows steam to be generated for hours and keep turning the turbine at night.
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Yuval Roth woke at the crack of dawn to drive his large, white van from his home on Israels Mediterranean coast to Checkpoint 300, the main passageway leading from Palestiniancontrolled Bethlehem to Israeli-controlled Jerusalem. Over the past decade, Roth has made it his daily business to transport Palestinians needing medical treatment from army checkpoints to Israeli hospitals. These encounters break down barriers, Roth says. Everything the Palestinians knew about us, and everything we knew about them, simply disintegrates. [In 1993] Roths brother, Ehud, was kidnapped [and killed] by a Hamas cell in the Gaza Strip. Roth decided to mobilize his pain in the cause of education. He joined ... a nonprofit group comprising bereaved Israeli and Palestinian families. He began sharing his personal story with Israeli high school students, alongside a Palestinian counterpart. In late 2005, a Palestinian member of the group asked Roth for a favor: Could Roth drive his sick brother from a checkpoint on the Palestinian-occupied West Bank to Rambam Hospital in Haifa, Israel. Soon, another Palestinian approached Roth, requesting a ride ... for a Palestinian seeking a bone marrow transplant. Things began to snowball, Roth says. I sent out a call for help online, and thats how a group of volunteers started to form. In late 2009, [a $10,000] donation forced Roth to register The Road to Recovery as a nonprofit group. Today it has some 400 active Israeli volunteers.
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A team of Japanese scientists has found a species of bacteria that eats the type of plastic found in most disposable water bottles. The discovery, published ... in the journal Science, could lead to new methods to manage the more than 50 million tons of this particular type of plastic produced globally each year. The plastic found in water bottles is known as polyethylene terephalate, or PET. It is also found in polyester clothing, frozen-dinner trays and blister packaging. Part of the appeal of PET is that it is lightweight, colorless and strong. However, it has also been notoriously resistant to being broken down by microbes - what experts call "biodegradation." Previous studies had found a few species of fungi can grow on PET, but until now, no one had found any microbes that can eat it. To find the plastic-eating bacterium described in the study, the Japanese research team ... collected 250 PET-contaminated samples including sediment, soil and wastewater from a plastic bottle recycling site. Next they screened the microbes living on the samples to see whether any of them were eating the PET and using it to grow. They eventually discovered [a] bacteria species [that] could break down a thin film of PET over the course of six weeks. The research could make it easier to identify other microbes that might have similar PET-degrading capabilities.
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With all the violence and conflict in the world, it's refreshing to know that people from all different demographics are able to sit down together around the world to have an open conversation. That's what Ronni Abergel, 42, has achieved since launching the Human Library in Copenhagen in 2000. Just as you would at a library, you can check out a "book" on a certain topic for an allotted period of time. The only difference is that the "book" is actually a person who you can have a conversation with — and learn from. The type of books you can borrow range from someone who is transgender, deaf, blind, obese or homeless to a person with autism or even a refugee. In the 16 years since its inception, Abergel brought the concept to more than 70 countries, including the U.S.. When the Human Library came to St. Norbert College, ... Sarah Griffiths, who works at the college's Center for International Education, brought her two sons, ages 11 and 13, to check out a book titled "International Woman, Leader of Color, Gender Justice." "When else would my sons get the opportunity to hear a woman from Ghana speak about her experiences with racism after moving to the predominantly white city of Green Bay, Wisconsin?" Griffiths [asked]. Adam Jackson, a black man adopted by a white family at 6 months old, volunteered himself as a book at that same event at St. Norbert College. "It was harder than I thought it would be to share my story," Jackson [said]. "But I'm so happy I had the opportunity to enter the conversation on diversity in a meaningful way."
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Shortly after they got married six years ago, Tommy's wife Renee just started hanging out with the livestock. Tommy warned her ... "Renee, don't name those cows." But she didn't listen. Then she started singing to them, too. And before long, the rancher's wife had turned into a rancher's worst nightmare - a vegan, who couldn't stomach so much as living with a cattle rancher anymore. "He was just going to get out of the business or our marriage was going to be over," Renee explained. Tommy agreed. "It wasn't working. And I said, 'I'm going to sell the whole herd.' She goes, 'Well, if you're going to sell the whole herd anyway, why don't you just sell 'em to me?' What Tommy didn't know was that Renee had been secretly posting a blog called "Vegan Journal of a Rancher's Wife." She attracted thousands of followers. Through those contacts, Renee was able to raise $30,000 - enough for a hostile takeover. And here's where this story gets good. After his wife raised the money, Tommy did something rare for a rancher, or any man for that matter - he put aside his ego and reconsidered a core belief. He stopped eating meat, liked how he felt, and now works for his wife and the Rowdy Girl Vegan Farm Animal Sanctuary. As best we can tell, it's the only cattle ranch conversion in the country. So now that he's changed for Renee, is there anything Tommy would change about his wife? "I can't think of a thing," he said. And there is everything you need to know, to stay married forever.
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In the mid 1970s, psychologist Merrill Elias began tracking the cognitive abilities of more than a thousand people. The goal: to observe the relationship between people's blood pressure and brain performance. There was never an inkling that his research would lead to any sort of discovery about chocolate. And yet, 40 years later, it seems to have done just that. The questionnaire gathered all sorts of information about the dietary habits of the participants, [which] revealed an interesting pattern. "We found that people who eat chocolate at least once a week tend to perform better cognitively," said Elias. "It's significant - it touches a number of cognitive domains." The findings ... come largely thanks to the interest of Georgina Crichton, a nutrition researcher. What's going on? Crichton can't say with absolute certainty. Nor can Elias, who says he expected to observe the opposite effect - that chocolate, given its sugar content, would be correlated with stunted rather than enhanced cognitive abilities. But they have a few ideas. Nutrients called cocoa flavanols, which are found naturally in cocoa, and thus chocolate, seem to have a positive effect on people's brains. Chocolate, like both coffee and tea, also has methylxanthines, plant-produced compounds that enhance various bodily functions. A lot of previous research has shown that there are, or at least could be, immediate cognitive benefits from eating chocolate. But rarely, if ever, have researchers been able to observe the impact of habitual chocolate eating on the brain.
Note: The study, from the science journal Appetite, can be found here. Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
Komal Ahmad was a UC Berkeley undergrad when she encountered a homeless man begging for food. Something compelled her to stop and invite him for lunch. He scarfed up the food. In between bites, he told her his story: He’d just returned from a second tour of duty in Iraq but hadn’t yet received his benefits. He had been evicted, had no money and hadn’t eaten in three days. Right across the street was the Berkeley dining hall, which she knew threw out thousands of pounds of food. “This is dumb; we can fix this,” she recalls thinking. Five years later, Ahmad, 26, is leading Copia, a company seeking to apply a Silicon Valley playbook to food recovery - retrieving surplus food for donation to nonprofits feeding the hungry. The problem is vast. About 35 million tons of food are wasted in the United States every year ... even while 1 in 6 people go hungry. Hundreds of local groups nationwide, largely run by volunteers, already pick up surplus food to feed the needy. In San Francisco, nonprofit Food Runners has been active for almost 30 years and has spawned similar efforts on the Peninsula and and elsewhere. Supporting the local efforts, Congress passed a Good Samaritan Food Donation law in 1996 to protect food donors from liability if products given in good faith cause harm. Copia is refining its approach in the Bay Area, picking up leftovers from tech companies, Super Bowl parties, Stanford Hospital and others for same-day delivery to nonprofits.
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One woman established a new law to prevent child marriage, and is enforcing it with serious gusto. Theresa Kachindamoto, senior chief in the Dedza District in Central Malawi, was tired of seeing 12-year-old girls walking around with babies on their hips. She decided to take a stand and made 50 of her sub-chiefs sign an agreement to end child marriage in her area of authority. “I told them: ‘Whether you like it or not, I want these marriages to be terminated,’” Kachindamoto [said]. But she didn’t stop there: She made the leaders annul any existing underage unions, and send all of the children involved back to school. While marrying under age 18 in Malawi has been illegal since early 2015, children can still be married under so-called “customary law,” meaning with parental consent and overseen by traditional leaders. When four male chiefs continued to approve underage marriages, Kachindamoto suspended them as a warning to others, only hiring them back once they confirmed they had annulled the unions. “First it was difficult, but now people are understanding,” she said to the outlet. To ensure children are not being pulled out of school, Kachindamoto operates a secret network of parents to keep an eye on others. And when parents can’t afford to pay school fees, she’ll pay them herself or find someone else who can. In June alone, she annulled more than 300 child marriages, according to the organization. And over the past three years, the figure reaches close to 850.
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Just two days after Norma’s husband of 67 years passed away, she was diagnosed with uterine cancer. Doctors gave her the options of surgery, radiation or chemotherapy. She decided she would forgo any treatment, telling the doctors, “I’m 90 years old, I’m hitting the road.” Norma’s son, Tim, and daughter-in-law, Ramie, are full-time RVers. Since Norma couldn’t live at home alone without her husband, they invited her to join them on the road. Six months later, the three of them, along with their poodle Ringo, are enjoying the trip of a lifetime. Ramie, who spoke for the family, said that Norma is a set of fresh eyes on this indefinite road trip. “She’s very quiet and humble, and then she has this streak of adventure that surprises us.” Adventure is right. After leaving Northern Michigan in August, their first big stop was Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota. From there, they traveled to Yellowstone National Park and then onto the Rocky Mountains. All the while, they've been documenting their adventure on the Driving Miss Norma Facebook page. Norma’s favorite activity was riding in a hot air balloon in Florida, a Christmas gift from Tim and Ramie. Ramie told ABC News that Norma is feeling better than ever. “She continues to surprise us on this trip," she said. "She’s getting healthier, I think, from eating well and being outside a lot. She’s breathing fresh air and getting to see new things all the time. The trio hopes that Norma’s story will help other families to start conversations about end-of-life plans.
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Federal officials are preparing to enforce an 86-year-old ban on importing goods made by children or slaves under new provisions of a law signed by President Barack Obama. "This law slams shut an unconscionable and archaic loophole that forced America to accept products made by children or slave labor," said Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who worked on the legislation. The Tariff Act of 1930, which gave Customs and Border Protection the authority to seize shipments where forced labor was suspected and block further imports, was last used in 2000, and has been used only 39 times all together largely because of two words: "consumptive demand" - if there was not sufficient supply to meet domestic demand, imports were allowed regardless of how they were produced. The Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act signed by Obama on Wednesday eliminated that language, allowing stiffer enforcement. To start an investigation, Customs needs to receive a petition from anyone - a business, an agency, even a non-citizen - showing "reasonably but not conclusively" that imports were made at least in part with forced labor. A Labor Department list of more than 350 goods produced by child labor or forced labor provides a detailed breakdown that human rights groups plan to use as they petition the government to take action.
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The tiny nation of Bhutan [is] wedged in the Himalayas between China and India. The country has been in the international spotlight mainly for ... its unique approach to calculating economic growth by taking the pulse of its people's gross national happiness. The nation is among one of just a handful of so-called carbon negative countries in the world, meaning it soaks up more carbon than it produces thanks to vast forests. Amidst all this, it's also developing a new economic engine in the form of hydropower while expanding economic and political ties to neighboring India and China. "We need to strengthen our economy, but equally important are other aspects of human development, which include social development, environment sustainability, culture," [said Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay]. "And this whole idea of balancing material growth - which is important on the one hand - with social development, this is what the sense of gross national happiness is all about." We're already carbon negative. Our entire country, we generate 2.2 million tons of carbon dioxide a year. However, our forests sequester more than 6 million tons. So the idea is to keep that track record - in fact, to add to it. What we're trying to do is raise money to invest in our protected areas. More than half our country is protected as national parks and nature reserves."
Note: Watch Bhutan's Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay deliver a TED Talk on the important connection between happiness and environmental sustainability.
Important Note: Explore our full index to key excerpts of revealing major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.