AllAboutBirds.org has a great article about how farmers are using nature’s natural pest control – birds – to protect crops. From bluebirds eating damaging worms and insects, to barn owls eating hundreds of mice per season, our flying friends are helping us grow food, while enjoying their natural lives!
Check out the article here: At Orchards and Vineyards, Birds Are Outperforming Pesticides
Betty White’s 100th birthday would have been on January 17th, and animal lovers decided to honor her with a wildly successful fundraiser! A whopping 12.7 million dollars was raised by the #BettyWhiteChallenge to support animal shelters and rescues. Betty was a passionate animal lover, so it’s wonderful to see her memory honored in such a wonderful way! Check out the whole story here.
My Youtube channel: Sky High Affirmations
Good news! On October 11, The Ocean Cleanup project finished their final test run of System 002, designed to clear plastic garbage out of the ocean. The test run cleaned 20,000 pounds of garbage out of the water!
Their goal is to clean most of the Pacific Garbage Patch by 2040. Much of this trash consists of fishing nets and other commercial fishing debris, while the rest is consumer plastic that ends up in the water system. While there’s still a big path ahead, it’s wonderful to hear that the test run was successful, and we could be on the way to a cleaner ocean very soon!
Check out their Twitter here to stay up to date!
My Youtube channel: Sky High Affirmations
This November will be the 550th birthday of Guru Nanak, the founder of India’s Sikh religion. In celebration, Sikhs are undertaking a project to plant 1,000,000 trees all over the world!
The project, coordinated by EcoSikh, is described as “a gift to the entire planet”, and is intended to slow climate change and help reconnect people with nature. Most of the trees will be planted in India, but there are also some being planted in other parts of the world as well. They plan to use species of trees and shrubs native to the area, which provides food and shelter to local wildlife.
They are also working with Afforestt, an organization that promotes the planting and care of mini-forests, and plan to have the project completed by Guru Nanak’s birthday in November.
This is so inspiring! The whole Earth and everyone on it will benefit from this wonderful project!
——
Please support us with a donation! 🙂 –> Ko-Fi/SkyHigh
Check out my Youtube channel for positive videos –> Sky High on YouTube
Follow me on Twitter –> @SkyHighAffirm
There has been a lot of talk about building walls lately…but this is one wall that EVERYONE can gladly support!
The Great Green Wall is an initiative currently happening in Africa. The goal is to build a massive wall of trees at the edge of the Sahara, to prevent the desert from expanding and taking over too much usable land. Many countries are participating, and the final wall will span the entire width of the continent — an astounding 8000km (5000mi) long!!
The project is about 15% completed so far, and the goals are to restore 100 million hectares of farmland, create 350,000 jobs, and trap 250 million tons of carbon by 2030. Once completed, the Great Green Wall will be the largest living structure on the planet, 3 times the size of the Great Barrier Reef. Wow!
This is such a cool project, and I can’t believe I’ve just now learned about it! It’s an amazing show of solidarity for so many countries to work together on such an ambitious plan, and the results sound promising so far. Not only is it good for the people of Africa, it should also be enormously helpful for wildlife and the Earth’s climate as well.
It’s wonderful to see people working together to create a win-win situation for the entire world! You can see more details about the Green Wall project at their website here.
——
If you enjoy this content, please support us with a coffee! 🙂 –> Ko-Fi/SkyHigh
Check out my Youtube channel for positive videos –> Sky High on YouTube
Follow me on Twitter –> @SkyHighAffirm
According to the news, the world is going to hell in a handbasket, getting worse and worse every day. But that’s rarely the truth — the news wants us to be stressed and worried, because they think we’ll tune in more and buy more from their advertisers.
In reality, good things happen every day! In a lot of ways, 2018 was a rough year, but it was also a year when we made a lot of progress in multiple areas.
Check out this great article from Future Crunch: “99 Good News Stories You Probably Didn’t Hear About“, with a list of almost 100 great things that happened in the past year.
This article from Good News Network lists advancements made on the environmental and conservation front: “The Best Environmental News of 2018”
And this cute article from BoredPanda shows artist Mauro Gatti’s cute illustrations of some positive news stories: “I’m Honestly Fed Up With All The Bad News So I Illustrated The Best News Of 2018”
Despite some of the tumultuous stories we hear, the world is getting better and better in a lot of ways. Don’t let the bad news get you down; focus on all of the good news instead! 🙂
——
If you enjoy this content, please support us with a coffee! 🙂 –> Ko-Fi/SkyHigh
Check out my Youtube channel for positive videos –> Sky High on YouTube
Follow me on Twitter –> @SkyHighAffirm
I had a bird rescue adventure over the weekend. Friday night I saw something flapping on the sidewalk outside, so I went out to check. It was a little bird, soaked to the skin from the rain and barely moving. 😢
I brought it inside, and it was able to dry off and get a good night’s sleep on a nice warm towel. It perked up and was eating and looking around the next morning.
I’m not sure, but I think it could be a sparrow? It looks pretty similar to this photo from TheSpruce:
I found a bird rescue near town and dropped it off on Saturday along with a $20 donation. Hopefully they can help it recover from whatever happened.
Good luck to you, little bird!
——
If you enjoy this content, please support us with a coffee! 🙂 –> Ko-Fi/SkyHigh
Check out my Youtube channel for positive videos –> Sky High on YouTube
Follow me on Twitter –> @SkyHighAffirm
It’s been a long, hot summer, but here in the northern hemisphere we’re heading into autumn! The cool weather took its time getting here, but I’m starting to see signs of the turn of the season in the nature around my home.
Most of the leaves are still summer green, but there are a few hints of changing leaves; the oak in my front yard dropped this lovely red leaf, and the dogwood is just beginning to turn yellow.
The dogwood is also popping out shiny, bright red berries.
And the oak tree has been dropping acorns for a while now.
One of my neighbors is excited to see the cool weather too! 🙂
I love autumn, how about you? I’m looking forward to colorful leaves, fresh apples, and lots of nice long walks with the dog!
——
If you enjoy this content, please support us with a coffee! 🙂 –> Ko-Fi/SkyHigh
Check out my Youtube channel for positive videos –> Sky High on YouTube
Follow me on Twitter –> @SkyHighAffirm
In recent years we’ve been learning about the negative effects that waste plastic has on our oceans and on marine life. A regular plastic water bottle takes an average of 450 years to decompose, and in the meantime it chokes wildlife and clogs up delicate ecosystems.
One startup has a special water bottle in development – one that completely biodegrades in 3 weeks. This bottle, developed by 27-year-old James Longcroft and his company “Choose Water”, is made completely of paper, with a steel cap. All of the materials used in the bottles break down into non-toxic substances that don’t harm the environment or hurt wildlife.
Even better, the company has pledged to donate profits to Water for Africa, a charity that helps rural communities get clean water.
Choose Water had an Indiegogo campaign earlier this year that met 144% of the funding goals, so hopefully we should be seeing these cool new bottles on store shelves soon!
It’s so inspiring to see people working to clean up our oceans and protect our beautiful planet!
——
If you enjoy this content, please support us with a coffee! 🙂 –> Ko-Fi/SkyHigh
Check out my Youtube channel for positive videos –> Sky High on YouTube
Follow me on Twitter –> @SkyHighAffirm
A theme park in France has trained birds to provide a helpful public service – picking up trash!
Puy du Fou, a popular historical theme park in western France, keeps their park clean with the help of a crew of six birds. The birds are Rooks, a member of the Corvid family, which includes crows, ravens, and magpies. These birds are known for their incredible intelligence and learning ability.
The rooks help keep the park clean by picking up cigarette butts and other trash, then putting them in a bin in exchange for food treats. The park’s owners hope these avian litter-cleaners will inspire us humans to take better care of our environment as well!
A Dutch company called Crowded Cities is hoping to use these super smart birds to clean on a larger scale. They’re testing a new device, called a “Crow Bar”, that rewards wild birds for bringing in cigarette butts. It should be interesting to see where they’re able to go with this cool idea!
Isn’t nature awesome? 🙂
——
If you enjoy this content, please support us with a coffee! 🙂 –> Ko-Fi/SkyHigh
Check out my Youtube channel for positive videos –> Sky High on YouTube
Follow me on Twitter –> @SkyHighAffirm
SkyHighAffirmations 