For the 126th thru 128th consecutive weeks, the Center for Peace & Conflict Studies has compiled a list of acts of kindness and peace. The initiative began as a response to COVID-19 and the racism pandemic but has broadened to include any act of compassion or service to others. Please share these stories. If you have stories of positive acts people/organizations are taking and you would like to share them, please email them to Madison Pavone peacecenter@bsu.edu. All the stories starting from week 1 are available online. Additionally, you can follow the Peace Center on social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) at bsu4peace.
Week 126
Pfizer finds new booster generates higher protection against Omicron
In early November, Pfizer announced its newest COVID-19 bivalent booster vaccine has a “substantially higher” immune response compared to previous boosters. This bivalent booster was introduced in early September for older adults and is now currently open for most people and young children for emergency use. The FDA approved the vaccine to roll out with minimal testing done on the effectiveness of this vaccine, however, in the recent studies currently going at Pfizer, it has been found this vaccine has tremendous effects.
After receiving a vaccine, it takes the body a few weeks to build immunity to help fight against that pathogen. New Pfizer data has shown that in the new booster, “Omicron BA.4/BA.5 neutralizing antibodies increased 13.2 fold from pre-booster levels for the adults 55 and older, compared with a 2.9 fold increase in older adults who got the original vaccine” (CNN, 2022). Additionally, for adults ages 18-55, the neutralizing antibodies increased 9.5 fold. Omicron variant BA.5 now accounts for almost half of reported COVID-19 cases in the United States.
“As we head into the holiday season, we hope these updated data will encourage people to seek out a COVID-19 bivalent booster as soon as they are eligible in order to maintain high levels of protection against the widely circulating Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 sublineages,” explained Chairman and CEO of Pfizer, Albert Bourla. “These updated data also provide confidence in the adaptability of our mRNA platform and our ability to rapidly update the vaccine to match the most prevalent strains each season.”
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/04/health/pfizer-covid-bivalent-booster-omicron-data/index.html
https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer-and-biontech-announce-updated-clinical-data-omicron
11-Year-Old Starts a Food bank
Isaac Winfield, an eleven-year-old boy from Redditch, Worcester, has taken money he’s received from his birthday and used it to start a local food bank. This process started in 2020 amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, when he switched schools and realized that they did not accept food donations. His mother explains that Isaac and his family would always donate to food banks and take food to school to be donated to those in need. He also hands out bags of groceries around his hometown. Isaac began to utilize his backyard greenhouse to store food, while also making it available 24 hours to the public. When this was shared on Facebook, the greenhouse was eventually turned into a larger shed due to growing demands. With help from YouTuber Mark McCann, Isaac and his family now have a van to transport and donate larger amounts of food.
Isaac was born with a rare chromosomal disease which hinders him from reading and writing. The process of gathering and donating food for people in need increases his confidence and allows him to keep going with this process. He has plans to further expand the service, and with the help of sponsors such as Morrison’s and a local charity called Building Bridges, he plans to open a food bank in town. These sponsors also help keep his current services available. On his eleventh birthday, Isaac only wanted donations for his foodbank. His mother says, “He just wanted to get as many donations in as possible to help as many people as he can.” Isaac is also nominated for a local business award for his work.
Source:
https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/kindhearted-boy-used-his-birthday-money-to-start-a-food-bank-in-his-garden-shed/
Jess Wade brings attention to Wikipedia’s gender and racial biases by creating over 1,700 Wikipedia profiles for minority individuals in STEM
Jess Wade is a 33-year-old British physicist and research fellow at Imperial College London. She has received many awards for her work throughout her career, which focuses on a chemical identifying technique called Raman spectroscopy. This is impressive within itself, and to add to the list of her scientific contributions, she is currently working to address gender and racial biases in the STEM community. Wade is specifically recognizing these issues on Wikipedia, a site used by billions of people a month. This story started when Wade met American climatologist Kim Cobb. Cobb has an extensive list of achievements and was quite impressive, but had no platform on Wikipedia recognizing any of her work. Wade soon realized that Cobb was not the only highly accomplished woman without a platform. When Wade became aware of just how much underrepresentation existed, she decided to do something about it herself. In 2017, Wade started the process of creating Wikipedia pages for lesser-known scientists. Each page she makes takes a few hours and a lot of research. Since she started, 1,750 Wikipedia pages have been made by Wade for women and minority scientists and engineers who deserve credit and celebration but had yet to be documented on the site. Not only does she continue to make pages in her free time, but she is now teaching classes and holding events to teach others how to write on Wikipedia as well. Wade is quoted saying, “I truly love seeing people being recognized and honored,” which, Wade said, is “made more possible by having a public profile on something like Wikipedia.”
Source:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/10/17/jess-wade-scientist-wikiepdia-women/
Week 124
Jamie Thurston’s Charity ‘52 Lives’ Promotes Kindness and Altruism
There’s a theory discovered by researchers that explains how an act of kindness towards one person has the ability to positively impact 125 people. This story started with one act of kindness, which later became the foundation for the charity 52 Lives. Jamie Thurston, author of The Kindness Journal, was on a secondhand furniture website when she noticed an advertisement from someone in need of a rug. Although Thurston did not have a rug to donate, she offered to deliver a donated one, as the advertisement's author did not have a car. Thurston and many others discovered that this woman had just escaped from terrible domestic circumstances and had kids to take care of. Not only did this woman receive a rug, but she received many other secondhand items to help her situation. After this donation, Thurston describes her experience of a ‘helpers high’ and how this led her to keep helping those in need. The day after this event, she set up a Facebook page called 52 Lives. The aim of this page was to help one person every week, and had friends and family recommend people in need. She appeared on Holly Willoughby’s TV series Surprise Surprise, and after this her charity took off. 52 Lives currently has more than 70,000 followers on Facebook and has helped over 300 people in need. Help provided includes donations, cards, messages, and fulfilling gifts from wish lists. This charity is also known to have donated toys, books, and bedding for families in women refuges, donated to women fleeing domestic violence, and provided uniforms for children in school. After Thurston won $30,000 for her work as an award, she used the money to start the School of Kindness. This is a free workshop which teaches the importance of altruism to children.
Source:
https://www.positive.news/society/the-woman-who-spreads-altruism-for-a-living/
Historic wins for LGBTQ+ nominees in this year’s midterm elections
In this last midterm election in early November, there were a record number of LGBTQ+ nominees eligible for offices around the country. Out of the 678 LGBTQ candidates, at least 340 have won their races, beating the previous record of 336 in the 2020 election. Many of the LGBTQ candidates who ran were a part of a underrepresented part of the LGBTQ community such as people of color or trans and nonbinary people. This type of representation in our government is important for young LGBTQ people who need their rights protected and need to see people like them involved in the government.
There were many firsts this year with several notable winners. Among the elected were the country’s two first openly lesbian governors, Maura Healy in Massachusetts and Tina Kotek in Oregon. Erick Russel has become the first Black LGBTQ person elected to a Connecticut state office. In New Hampshire, James Rosener became the first trans member to be elected to any United States state legislature. Zooey Zephyr will be Montana’s first openly trans person in the state’s legislature and has won by almost 80% of the votes. Alaska voted has elected its first three LGBTQ politicians into the state legislature, Ashley Carrick, Jeannie Armstrong, and Andrew Gray.
Despite these amazing wins for the LGBTQ+ community's representation in the government, it is far from equitable. In fact, according to NPR, “the U.S. needs to elect more than 35,000 additional out LGBTQ people to office” among all levels of government in order to reach equal representation to the general public. Additionally, we must remember the over 300 pieces of anti-LGBTQ pieces of legislation that have been introduced over the past year and are continually being introduced which target trans people specifically. Though representation matters and always will matter, we must stay focused on keeping this underrepresented community safe.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/11/14/1136165932/lgbtq-candidates-elections-winners
Héloïse Luzzati’s Label, La Boîte à Pépites, Promotes Overlooked Women Composers
"We don't want to rewrite the story of the music. We want to add the women who count in the story," says Héloïse Luzzati, founder of a new music label called La Boîte à Pépites ('The Jewel Box'). This independent label focuses on promoting music written by successful female composers whose works seemingly disappeared after their deaths. During the pandemic, when performances and rehearsals slowed down, Luzzati devoted her time to working on increasing knowledge of musical compositions written by women from various time periods. Luzzati is a cellist, and the inspiration behind her work started when she realized most of her repertoire consisted of music composed by men. Since she started, she has gone from promoting women’s compositions through videos, recorded performances, festivals, and now, a new label. Her first completed project includes a disc collection of vocal and chamber music written by Parisian composer Charlotte Sohy (1887-1955). In Luzzati’s words, Sohy’s music comes “from someone who faced tremendous odds, having survived two world wars, mothered seven children, and cared for a conductor-composer.” The women who created musical compositions during their time faced immense amounts of prejudice, and Sohy specifically would often write under her grandfather’s name to avoid scrutiny. Schools and music teachers tend to completely overlook women in music, their stories, and their compositions, which is why the foundation of La Boîte à Pépites is so important. In 2023/24, collections from Alice Mary Smith (who is thought to be the first British woman to compose a full symphony), Rita Strohl, Liza Lehmann, and Adela Maddison will be published to further push the celebration of these women and their music.
Sources:
https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/articles/4930--video-interview-heloise-luzzati-on-la-boite-a-pepites
Week 125
The U.S has Nearly Reached its Goal to House Every Homeless Veteran in the Country
In 2016, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs began setting goals to prevent and end homelessness among military vets. After seeing significant progress, the U.S. has set its 2022 goal to house at least 38,000 veterans. Not only has the U.S. nearly achieved their goal, but it has brought the number of homeless vets down to nearly zero.
So far, the department has assisted in 30,914 permanent housing placements, meeting 81.35% of their yearly goal. With an aim to safeguard veterans from the crisis of homelessness, VA’s homeless programs are now averaging 3,434 placements each month. Now, to complete their yearly goal, they would need to continue placing 2,362 veterans a month into permanent housing through December. Meeting the Biden administration’s placement goal for the year is now extremely hopeful.
At the beginning of the year, recent data showed that on any given night in January, 33,136 veterans were sleeping on the streets. This number has been reduced by 55% since 2010. HUD Secretary Marcia L. Fudge said when discussing the VA’s efforts, “All Veterans deserve to have what they need to lead healthy, safe, and successful lives—that starts with a place to call home [...] we are closer than ever in ensuring that every Veteran in America has a home.”
Source: https://www.va.gov/HOMELESS/38k_National_Housing_Challenge.asp#:~:text=As%20of%20September%2030%2C%202022%2C%20VA%20has%20achieved,permanent%20housing%20each%20month%20through%20December%2031%2C%202022.
The Newest Egyptian Pyramid Made Completely out of Plastic
Egypt just got a brand-new pyramid in their Western desert, and it’s made entirely out of plastic recovered from the Nile. Standing taller than a three-story building and weighing in at 20 tons, this epic sculptural work will be the visual for this year’s annual Paris Climate Accord meeting (COP27) and brings attention to the issue of plastic pollution. This project was led by Zero Co. and The Hidden Sea, who are seeking funding to continue the cleanup of single-use plastic for the next 100 years.
The pyramid is the equivalent of 1 million plastic water bottles, but founder of The Hidden Sea Justin Moran says, “Despite its epic size, the pyramid shows just a fraction of what is an incredible crisis.” The Hidden Sea is a wine company that vows to remove 10 plastic pieces from the ocean per every bottle bought. “Powered by wine drinkers, The Hidden Sea has removed 18 million plastic bottles from the ocean so far; this demonstrates that consumers simply need a clear way to be part of the solution. This COP27, our message is clear. It’s time to draw a line in the sand and change how we manage the crisis. Those who have the ability, have the responsibility.”
Zero Co. and The Hidden Sea are hoping to raise $1,000,000 over the next 12 months for their 100YR CLEANUP, which is estimated to remove 15 million pieces of plastic waste. To personally commemorate the launch of the 100YR CLEANUP, Zero Co. chief Mike Smith camped out on the top of the pyramid for three days, calling in support from people and businesses to join the movement. While at the pyramid’s peak, Smith said, “We can’t fix the plastic problem alone, but we can give everyone the ability to take action. By working together [...] we’ll be able to build a scalable solution to the problem and have a huge impact.”
Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/world-s-largest-plastic-waste-pyramid-lands-in-egyptian-desert/vi-AA13HTcl?category=foryou
An Increase in Carbon Capture Projects Give a New Positive Outlook for Climate Change
A worldwide effort for positive climate action has brought on a record number of carbon capture products this past year. Over the past 12 months alone, the Global CCS Institute reported a growth of 44% in carbon capture and storage projects. So what is CCS?
Carbon capture and storage is used for filtering emissions from power generators, steel mills, cement plants, and other industrial sites. They then bury the sequestered carbon underground, greatly limiting the emission levels into our environment. At a time when emission levels are also very high, CEO of the climate change think tank Jarad Daniels believes the outlook for climate action “has never been more positive” after this increase in CCS. The record high total is thanks to 196 commercial facilities in the project pipeline, including 30 in operation, 11 under construction, and 153 in development. Sixty-one new facilities have been added to the project pipeline in 2022 alone. The CO2 capture capacity of all facilities under development has grown from 169 million tons per annum to 244. Daniels also stated that “CCS is increasingly commercially competitive. We anticipate even more strategic partnerships and collaboration driving deployment, particularly through CCS networks.” This means that as CCS continues to scale-up, prices will be going down and efficiency will be going up. These projects also offer economic and social benefits by bringing in local jobs to communities which once relied on carbon-intensive industries, such as coal mining.
Among other experts, Daniels believes that CCS is essential for reaching our national climate goals and working together towards a positive balance for the climate. Over the next decade, it will be an “absolutely critical time to move from ambition to action.”
Source: https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/44-pt-more-carbon-capture-and-storage-projects-in-the-pipeline/