Friday, Jan 23

Welcome to Your Daily Dot where Dot will share tips, advice, and stories on how we can make our world better.

Dear Reader,

We made it to Feel-Good Friday, and I don’t know about you, Reader, but I sure could use some reminders that great things are happening and that there is ample evidence that humans can do wonderful things when we’re guided by care for each other and our planet. 

Let’s start with the news that, in San Diego, Deacon John Roberts has kicked off an initiative that provides bicycles for homeless people. But more than that, his weekly group bike rides (open to anybody, and he loans bikes to those who don’t have one), create community by giving riders the chance to get to know each other and build a network of compassion, safety, and care. Repeat riders who log 100 miles with the group receive their own bike (if they don’t already own one), along with a helmet, light, and lock. (Riders on tricycles meet the threshold at 50 miles.)

It’s a chance to provide carbon-free communication and healthful exercise to a cohort often overlooked. “It’s mind, body and spirit,” Roberts said to Reasons to Be Cheerful. “I like to think that what I’m doing is developing an appetite — for the joy of cycling, for the fitness, for the wholeness that can come with movement and nature and friendship.”

On another front, the BBC reports that Spain has created a national network of climate shelters to help people stay safe during increasingly intense heatwaves. The unhoused are often particularly vulnerable to climate impacts, including extreme heat, and the aim of Spain’s program is to protect vulnerable communities and help them weather hotter summers. 

And let’s revisit this Bluedot story about harvesting hope in Arizona’s hottest metropolis. Former inmate Darren Chapman moved to Phoenix in 2005 and, a year later, founded TigerMountain Foundation. “His mission was simple,” wrote Bluedot contributor Kris Ann Valdez: “empower communities to better themselves from within by turning vacant lots into sustainable working gardens and green spaces; beautifying neighborhoods without gentrifying them.” He succeeded beyond his dreams, building a community that’s sustaining and productive and filled with hope. 

What’s happening in your community that gives you hope? Tell Dot about it. 

Oh … and a tip from a reader. You might remember that, a few weeks ago, Dot wrote about those ubiquitous silica gel packs and how we might repurpose them. Tom wrote to tell me that he and his wife “shepherd a small flock,” which produce more wool than his wife, an avid knitter, can use in a timely fashion. The silica packs come in handy keeping the spun yarn from attracting moisture (and therefore moths) while it waits for Tom’s wife’s knitting needles. So far, it’s working, he reports.

Keep those climate tips coming, Readers. 

Positively,

Dot

What if the most effective climate solutions aren’t coming from Congress or global summits—but from mayors working city by city, block by block? This week on the Bluedot Living podcast Imagine If, former Los Angeles Mayor and U.S. Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti joins us to explore how local leadership has quietly driven some of the biggest climate wins of the past decade. From the rise of Climate Mayors to L.A.’s vision for the first carbon-reducing Olympics, Garcetti shares why practical, community-based action cuts through partisanship—and why courage, joy, and connection are essential tools for climate leadership in uncertain times.

Listen in to imagine what’s possible.

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