Kick starting the week with an eclectic bundle of good news nuggets.
At OGN Towers, we're big fans of street artist David Zinn and wish we could be lucky enough to see his joyous creations first hand in his home town of Ann Arbor, Michigan. In the meantime, we can still smile at his artistry from afar. Fabulous!
The city of Derby in northern England has just given the green light for the UK’s largest urban rewilding project, calling it a Natural Health Service. Spanning 130 hectares (320 acres), the plan has been described as a “huge moment” by the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, which is working with the city council. “This is an incredible opportunity for the people of Derby,” said the Trust's CEO. “It sets an exciting precedent to push at the boundaries of what our parks and green spaces offer people, but also for tackling the rapid decline in wildlife, like hedgehogs and bees.”
Take inspiration from an 83-year-old retired eye doctor nicknamed the "Nimblewill Nomad" as he becomes the oldest known person to hike the Appalachian Trail. MJ Eberhart said he broke down in tears after completing the roughly 2,200-mile trail, which stretches from Georgia to Maine. "I've got a couple of skid marks on me, but I'm ok," he said. "You've got to have an incredible resolve to do this." Mr Eberhart set out on his great "odyssey" in February, adding hundreds of extra miles to his mission by walking from his home in Alabama to the start of the trail in Georgia.
World's largest floating solar farm - roughly the size of 70 soccer fields - has begun operations at the Sirindhorn Dam on a river in Thailand. The facility combines two techniques of electricity generation: During the day, 145,000 solar panels collect energy from the sun, while at night, three turbines convert electricity from flowing water, reflecting the country’s push to achieve carbon-neutral status by 2050. At COP26, the Thai Prime Minister pledged that his country would attain carbon neutrality by 2050, much sooner than the earlier target date of 2065. Since natural gas accounts for two-thirds of Thailand's current power output, the announcement is extremely significant, and the solar farm is a step toward that direction.
Austrian village finally grew weary of Fucking, its current name - which some say dates back to the 11th century - and it's now going to be called Fugging. No more pesky tourists stopping for a photo!
A geoengineering idea posits that, because there’s too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, why not suck some out? It’s a process called “direct air capture” (DAC). In 2022 Carbon Engineering, a Canadian firm, will start building the world’s biggest DAC facility in Texas, capable of capturing 1m tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. To give you a measure of the impact of 1m tonnes, consider that just one tonne of CO2 is equivalent to the average emission of one passenger on a return-flight from Paris to New York or driving 6,000km in a diesel car. Several other firms have already built smaller pilot plants. The race is on to get costs down and scale the technology up.
Pop-up shops-cum-exhibitions in both New York and London are celebrating David Bowie. Located in the Manhattan's Soho where the British singer lived, the multimedia experience, entitled “Bowie 75,” will remain open free of charge through January. The date of Bowie’s birthday, 8 January (he would have been 75 this year), will be marked. Meanwhile, in London, the pop-up is at 14 Heddon Street, the spot pictured on the front of Bowie’s 1972 album The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars. Described as ‘part-exhibition’ and ‘part-shop,’ it will sell limited edition records and memorabilia curated by the singer’s estate.
It's been announced that all HGV vehicles sold in the UK will have to be zero-emission by 2040, or 2035 in the case of those under 26 tonnes. This puts the UK in pole position when it comes to phasing out internal combustion engines from its vehicle fleets.
Clever observation: “Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.” Leonardo da Vinci.
Dive in Deeper
Nature Mood-Booster
Gorgeous, uplifting 4 minute time-lapse film called Island in the Sky by Timestorm Films.
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