Editor’s note: Green Briefs is a regular series of commentaries by eco-leaders on Vashon, presented in The Beachcomber in partnership with The Whole Vashon Project.

There’s no question that much of the environmental news around the globe this past summer has ranged from worrisome to devastating.

It seems more common these days to hear bad news than to get a dose of what is working. Did you know that The Whole Vashon Project Facebook Group exists to bring some balance and hope?

Today there are 609 members! This group has been managed by the Whole Vashon Project team (especially Rondi Lightmark and Susan McCabe) since its creation pre-pandemic. The number of posts average about 30/month, and range from practical to inspirational. Topics generally cover the Big Four: Fossil fuel emissions, toxic chemicals, soil/earth/water issues, and anything to do with waste.

Below are only a few of the topics posted since last January. If you’d like to read some of the articles referred, just join the group and do a search in the search box using the keywords of the topic. You’ll not only be able to read in depth, but no doubt will also find yourself browsing through the many important projects created by thousands of people working to address the climate crisis.

The first post of 2023 was about creative uses of leftovers and reducing the use of plastic cups (from ZeroWasteVashon and PlasticFree, a new group founded by islander Celia Congdon).

Read more on all these topics:

• Fast fashion — a major problem with textile waste and what some countries are doing about it
• Covering buildings with greenery — a new way to increase carbon sequestration and cool cities
• “Slow flowers” — the flower industry and a new effort to reduce its use of chemicals and industrial growing methods
• Parking lots with solar cover provide shade in hot climates while creating electricity
• A review: cities that prize lakes and greenery over concrete are less flood-prone
• Toxic cigarette butts — nearly 500 Spanish beaches have been declared smoke-free to protect public health and reduce toxins entering the Mediterranean
• How an Ohio community got people to eat their leftovers
• Ancient Tech — The Yakhchāl from 400 BCE was an ancient Persian “refrigerator” that stored food, and even ice, long before electricity was invented
• Adding timber instead of cement to increase the height of old buildings — a three-story brick building in Stockholm has five stories added, all made of wood
• Visionary places — Belgium makes public transport free
• No more peat! It’s not renewable, we need to stop using it in our gardens
• Swimming cougars in PNW — turns out they can travel remarkably long distances
• Recycled ground-up glass used to restore beaches on the Louisiana coast
• From WaterStories.org: microbiologist Cindy Morris shares how microorganisms generate rainfall and how to restore the water cycle
• Food is getting less nutritious — industrial farming is depleting the quality of our food
• Synthetic diamonds — diamond retailers are switching away from mined diamonds with their terrible legacy of environmental destruction and worker abuse
• Bioplastics from avocado pits — a product that breaks down fast and requires less fossil fuel to produce
• 15-minute car chargers in Switzerland (of course the Swiss would invent something about time)
• Over 100 countries have banned plastic bags!
• Insects as food – already common in Africa and the Middle East
• Young farmers seek affordable land — it’s hard for the young to be able to take over from their elders
• Listening to sounds in soil helps us restore forest health — healthy soil has a specific sound, and so do plants
• Microbes that digest plastics have been discovered
• Sepp Holzer, a Swiss farmer who is teaching people to retain water on land instead of allowing runoff — hope for Vashon to stop polluting Puget Sound?
• Eight miles of wildflowers grown for pollinators on a road in the Netherlands, yes!
• Study: organic farms are more cost-effective
• Purified wastewater in California — the future of drinking water in arid countries
• Plastic in chewing gum — other toxins too. Time to pay attention
• Two-thirds of the world’s biodiversity lives in the soil — according to a Swiss study. We must protect our soils!

Rondi Lightmark is the founder of the Whole Vashon Project. Find out more at wholevashonproject.com and to read the content discussed in this article search “Whole Vashon Project Facebook.”