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5 Things You Need To Know Today (September 17, 2018)

Emma Loewe
Author:
September 17, 2018
Emma Loewe
mbg Sustainability + Health Director
By Emma Loewe
mbg Sustainability + Health Director
Emma Loewe is the Senior Sustainability Editor at mindbodygreen and the author of "Return to Nature: The New Science of How Natural Landscapes Restore Us."
Photo by Irina Nisiforova
September 17, 2018

1. Mangroves might save the world from climate change, and Apple is trying to save the mangroves.

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Mangroves are seaside forests that have a particularly high carbon absorption and storage rates. "If you want to actually change the thermostat of the world in your lifetime, then ending the destruction of mangroves and restoring them is one of the biggest things you can do," said M. Sanjayan, chief executive officer of Conservation International, a nonprofit Apple partnered with on this project. The company committed an undisclosed amount to help experts plant trees and care for damaged or degraded ones in Colombia. (Fast Company)

2. Your next IKEA shipment might come in an electric truck.

Building on a slew of other environmental commitments, the company is aiming to make its deliveries across New York, Los Angeles, Amsterdam, Paris, and Shanghai emission-free by 2020. If all goes to plan, the rest of its global locations will catch up by 2025. (Fast Company)

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3. People with a lot of relationship insecurity tend to use Facebook in unhealthy ways.

A new study found people who tend to be more insecure about their relationships also tend to have more negative behaviors when using Facebook. Being constantly anxious about your relationship was associated with using the platform to compare yourself to others, overshare personal information, misrepresent yourself, and ignore other responsibilities. If you tend to worry a lot about your relationships, maybe go easy on the social media—or at the very least, pay close attention to what you're doing with it. (PsyPost)

4. Want to know how polluted your neighborhood is? Google can help with that.

Google is adding air quality sensors to its street view vehicles, allowing them to map air quality on a neighborhood-to-neighborhood basis. The sensors will detect amounts of carbon dioxide, nitric oxide, carbon monoxide, ozone, particulate matter, and nitrogen dioxide wherever the cars go. The program is currently being tested in Mexico City, Sydney, and Houston. (Inhabitat)

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5. Jeff Bezos launched a new $2 billion charitable fund.

The Amazon CEO just announced the Bezos Day One Fund, which will focus on supporting families and children in low-income communities. Homelessness, hunger, and access to quality education are the main challenges that Bezos, the richest man in the world, has committed to fight. The fund is named for his "Day 1" mentality, the idea that we should never stop looking for ways to improve our world. (Fortune)

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Emma Loewe author page.
Emma Loewe
mbg Sustainability + Health Director

Emma Loewe is the Sustainability and Health Director at mindbodygreen and the author of Return to Nature: The New Science of How Natural Landscapes Restore Us. She is also the co-author of The Spirit Almanac: A Modern Guide To Ancient Self Care, which she wrote alongside Lindsay Kellner.

Emma received her B.A. in Environmental Science & Policy with a specialty in environmental communications from Duke University. In addition to penning over 1,000 mbg articles on topics from the water crisis in California to the rise of urban beekeeping, her work has appeared on Grist, Bloomberg News, Bustle, and Forbes. She's spoken about the intersection of self-care and sustainability on podcasts and live events alongside environmental thought leaders like Marci Zaroff, Gay Browne, and Summer Rayne Oakes.