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By: Jaime Clifton, Research Curator

“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread.”

--John Muir, 19th-century environmentalist

By: Beverly deVries, M.A., creator of Humans of a Warming World

Before humans ever conceived of sustainable design, nature was doing a good job. Plants and animals have evolved to use energy efficiently, to be multi-functional yet balanced, and to use information to carry out living processes.

By: Jaime Clifton, Research Curator

A report by the Ellen MacArthur foundation earlier this year predicted that there would be more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050, unless urgent action was taken. And the Dutch are taking action in a private/public partnership working with environmental entrepreneur, 21-year old Boyan Slat.

“When a whale dies, the story has just begun”

-- Sweet Fern Productions

The rainforest is generous. It has always been there for us. It supplies us with wood from its trees and medicine from its plants. It even allows us escape into its beauty. It has watched us leave time and again, but we always come back. We know how to make things, amazing things, so why would we need an old forest anymore? We breathe air, and the rainforest makes air. If we lose our forests, we lose our climate.

May was the 13th month in a row to break temperature records according to figures published this week that are the latest in 2016’s string of incredible climate records which scientists have described as a bombshell and an emergency.

Highland Park, a small city within Metro Detroit, could no longer afford basic residential services in 2011. Many homes were cut off from running water and streetlights were even torn from the sidewalks.