Today’s Good News: Looking Back on 2007

Wiretap Magazine and CodePink’s Medea Benjamin have released lists of some terrific happenings in the past year that you may not have heard, or have forgotten. I bring you some highlights. Happy New Year!Medea’s list is all killer, no filler (see it here). A couple of my favorites:

• We said goodbye to Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzalez, and Karl Rove.
• Grassroots organizing in India’s state of Kerala made a plan to be “waste-free within five years. It includes waste prevention, intensive re-use and recycling, composting, replacing unsustainable materials with sustainable ones, training people to produce these materials, and providing funds for setting up sustainably run businesses.
• Kevin Rudd replaced Bushie John Howard as prime minister of Australia, immediately signing the Kyoto agreement.

Among the youth activist victories noted over at Wiretap (see list here):

• In April, youth gathered at 1,400 locations nationwide demanding that Congress cut carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050.
• Organizers in East Palo Alto closed a hazardous-waste-handling company that had been plaguing the area for more than 40 years.
• The Detroit Summer Collective made a documentary that looks at why students drop out of high school – and student-driven solutions. Check it out here.

Filed by Karen on December 31st, 2007 under Education, Environment, Grassroots Organizing, Youth