Anyone who reads the news today, whether on social media, newspapers, television, blogs, or whatever, is confronted with a litany of disastrous news about global warming, climate change, natural disasters, political crises, corruption, conflict and so on. True to the adage that good news is no news, there are few in-depth news stories about far-reaching events, running mostly in the background, that have potential to change the world. To give them credit, most news outlets nowadays are aware of this deficit and pepper their front pages with good news, most of which are one-offs; heart warming stories that are categorized as “human interest” stories. Don’t get me wrong. I love human interest stories, and devour them with my morning coffee. But they are not weighty enough to counter the leadbelly that results from reading the rest of the news. So how to counter that?

A perceptive listener once corrected me when I quoted: knowledge is power. No, they chided. Knowledge is only potential power. You have to do something with your knowledge to make it powerful. If you think about it, the converse holds true for bad news. Too much knowledge can be disempowering and reduce us to abject helplessness unless we do something about it. But what?

In an earlier blog entitled “Three score years and ten” I outlined a series of actions one can take to counter planetary leadbelly, beginning with baby steps. Meanwhile, here’s another link to a website that tells in-depth stories of people taking action around the planet to restore its health. Today, this particular story about Miyawaki Forests caught my eye. Tell your planetary gloom to take the day off. Follow the two links above, read, and enjoy.