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We held a Q & A about building a better world. The answers will boost your faith in humanity.

We held a Q & A about building a better world. The answers will boost your faith in humanity.

If you spend much time on social media, it may seem like the world is plagued by seemingly intractable divides. But deep down, most of us really want the same thing—a healthy planet where people get along, have enough, and work together to build a better world. Even if we disagree on how to get there, we all want to believe that a peaceful, prosperous future is possible.


At Upworthy, we believe in the power of people coming together to solve problems. That's why we've partnered with the United Nations as it commemorates 75 years of encouraging international cooperation on global issues. Since 1945, the UN has been at the forefront of finding and implementing solutions to the challenges facing humanity, bringing nearly every country on earth to the table to work toward international peace, human rights, and social progress for all. We think that's pretty awesome.

To kick off this 75th anniversary year, we wanted to hear from individuals and organizations about where humanity is at in 2020 and how we can best get to where we want to be. So we held a Twitter #UpChat and asked 10 questions about building a hopeful future. Here are the questions, along with some responses that will boost your faith that we humans, despite some inevitable fumblings, are collectively headed in the right direction.

Question 1: What's one thing that's positive about the current state of our world?

World Food Program USA shared some encouraging statistics about extreme poverty, health, access to electricity, and hunger and expressed hope for achieving the UN's Sustainable Development Goals.

Teacher Will McDonough reminded us that every time a tragedy, setback, or failure happens, "there emerges a swelling tide of courageous humans willing to go to battle in the name of justice and good." Beautifully said.

Question 2: What's one thing you'd like to change about the current state of our world?

Together First responded that they would like to see "a world where diverse voices calling for change are given a seat at the global decision making table." (Here's one example of why representation matters: Peace agreements last 35% longer when women sit at the negotiating table.)

RELATED: We'll start seeing more lasting peace when women get more seats at the negotiating table.

Silvio Gonzato aptly explained the growing problem with the spread of disinformation, and called for "new normative frameworks which respect freedom of speech but guarantee access to quality information."

Question 3: What does a positive future look like to you? Are we on track?

The Better India envisioned a world "where every time we do or buy something, it turns into a positive ripple effect for the planet and its people."

And Priyanka Jaisinghani wrote, "A positive future means equal access to education, resources and opportunities. A place where girls are elevated, have the opportunity to obtain an education and learn & exercise their rights." YES. (Here's why empowering girls and women is important.)

Question 4: How can we take on climate change?

Plus Social Good laid down the basics: "We need to wake up to the fact that we are in a climate crisis. It is not time for small measures or hesitancy. It's time for big dreams and larger actions."

17-year-old Irish climate activist Saoi offered a specific goal to "reach zero emissions" as well as to "center the conversation around justice and reparations for the global south." (You can find more information about climate change and the global south here.)

Question 5: What's an action you can take (micro or macro) to better our planet?

Girls Not Brides, an organization that works to end child marriage, pointed out that you can "Raise your voice, share the facts, and support the work of activists, campaigns and organisations." Indeed, we don't have to reinvent the wheel. There are many groups working on the ground who can benefit from support and amplification, an action anyone can take.

RELATED: The UN wants to help refugees in an incredible call to action.

Alejandra got specific with her own individual actions, including eating less meat, recycling, educating people to identify and prevent slavery, and promote equality in her workplace. "Local action can ensure global progress," she wrote.

Question 6: What does the world you want to live in look like 25 years from now?

Giving Tuesday wrote, "We need to be supporting organisations that are feeding the hungry, sheltering the unsheltered, healing the wounded; but a positive future is one that uses generosity to fuel systematic + structural change so that those problems don't exist in the first place." Now there's some food for thought.

Leia Cator painted a simple but wonderful sounding future: "25 years from now, I want the world to revolve with sustainable energy, vibrant wilderness, and exciting technology discoveries."

Question 7: Out of the following five issue areas, what are you most optimistic about improving in the next 25 years? Digital world, conflict & violence, inequality, climate, or shifting populations?

Though some people responded with specific issue areas, many agreed that all five must be addressed because they are interconnected.

As StandUp for kids wrote, "If we don't address all five, we aren't likely to see meaningful improvements in any. They are rightly interconnected, and I think that creative change makers must address them all." This is why conversations like this one are vital.

Question 8: What do you hope world leaders do to engage youth in envisioning and creating the future?

The subject of youth as leaders kept coming in in answers to all of these questions, which is an encouraging sign for the future of our planet.

As World Food Program USA pointed out, youth are already "very engaged and active in causes that matter." Therefore, "leaders should listen to them, be inspired by them, work with them, and help them contribute to their communities."

Priyanka Jaisinghani also pointed out that "Our current & rising generations are demanding deeper commitment and bolder actions. Leaders need to not only include youth in conversations, but collaborate as equal partners."

Question 9: What would you like to see as an outcome from conversations between youth and global leaders?

Sarah Siraj expressed a desire for world leaders to "empathise with the youth and the anxiety they are facing about the political, social and physical climate we live in as opposed to trivialise it. The genuine intent to listen, understand and help is what I'm hoping for."

And Emmanuel Nyame brought some truth to the table, pointing out that "Young people are always engaged just for the visuals and not to use our ideas in national planning and policies," adding, "This attitude must stop! Please!"

Question 10: How can countries and people come together to create better global cooperation for our future?

"Celebrate active citizenship," wrote Conservation International. "Listen to each other, share knowledge and skills, encourage contribution, and drive action, both on a local level and globally."

And Annie Rosenthal added that listening to each other means shifting our hearing toward people instead of profiteers. "We need to start listening to working class people instead of CEOs," she wrote. "We need leaders to be courageous instead of self-interested. We need to reimagine power and change."

Reimagining power and change might just sum up the answers to all of these questions.

The global conversation is just getting started, and you can be a part of it. Share your thoughts on "achieving our shared vision for a safer, fairer and more sustainable world" by participating in a UN75 survey here.

And if you need some encouragement in lending your voice to the conversation, these young people are showing us how it's done. The future is in good hands, but we all have a role to play in shaping it.

Can you grow vegetables in a cardboard box?

In the era of supermarkets and wholesale clubs, growing your own food isn't a necessity for most Americans. But that doesn't mean it's not a good idea to try.

A household garden can be a great way to reduce your grocery bill and increase your intake of nutrient-dense foods. It can also be a good source of exercise and a hobby that gets you outside in the sunshine and fresh air more often. However, not everyone has a yard where they can grow a garden or much outdoor space at all where they live. You can plant things in containers, but that requires some upfront investment in planters.

container garden, growing plants in containers, growing vegetables, homegrown, producePotted plants and herbs can thrive in a container garden.Photo credit: Canva

Or does it? Gardener James Prigioni set out to see if an Amazon shipping box would hold up as a planter for potatoes. He took a basic single-walled Amazon box, lined it with dried leaves to help with moisture retention, added four to five inches of soil (his own homegrown soil he makes), added three dark red seed potatoes, covered them with more soil, added a fertilizer, then watered them.

He also planted a second, smaller Amazon box with two white seed potatoes, following the same steps.

Two weeks later, he had potato plants growing out of the soil. Ten days after that, the boxes were filled with lush plants.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Prigioni explained how to "hill" potato plants when they grow tall enough, which helps encourage more tuber growth and protect the growing potatoes from sunlight. Hilling also helps support the plants as they grow taller so they don't flop over. He also added some mulch to help keep the plants cooler as the summer grew hotter.

After hilling, Prigioni only needed to keep up with watering. Both varieties of potatoes flowered, which let him know the tubers were forming. The red potato leaves developed some pest issues, but not bad enough to need intervention, while the white potato plants were unaffected. "It goes to show how variety selection can make a big difference in the garden," he explained.

The visible plants have to start dying before you harvest potatoes, and Prigioni checked in with the boxes themselves when they got to that point.

vegetable garden, growing potatoes, grow potatoes in a cardboard box, Amazon box, farmingFreshly harvested potatoes are so satisfying.Photo credit: Canva

"I am pleasantly surprised with how well the boxes held up," he said, especially for being single-walled boxes. The smaller box was completely intact, while the larger box had begun to split in one corner but not enough to affect the plants' growth. "This thing was completely free to grow in, so you can't beat that," he pointed out.

Prigioni predicted that the red potatoes grown in the larger box would be more productive. As he cut open the box and pulled potatoes from the larger box, they just kept coming, ultimately yielding several dozen potatoes of various sizes. The smaller box did have a smaller yield, but still impressive just from two potatoes planted in an Amazon box.

People often think they don't have room to grow their own food, which is why Prigioni put these potato boxes on his patio. "A lot of people have an area like this," he said.

"I will never look at cardboard boxes the same," Prigioni added. "There are so many uses for them in the garden and it's just a great free resource we have around, especially if you're ordering stuff from Amazon all the time."

cardboard box, container garden, amazon box, growing vegetables, gardeningDo you see a box or do you see a planter?Photo credit: Canva

People loved watching Prigioni's experiment and shared their own joy—and success—in growing potatoes in a similar fashion:

"I have been growing potatoes in every box I can find for several years now. I have had excellent success. I honestly think potatoes prefer cardboard. And yes, most of my boxes were from Amazon."

"I live in an upstairs apartment with a little deck and I have a container garden with containers on every single stair leading to the deck. I grow potatoes in a laundry basket. It's amazing how much food I can get from this type of garden!! Grateful."

"I literally got up and grabbed the empty boxes by our front door, the potatoes that have started to sprout, and soil i had inside and started my planting at 1am. Lol. I will take them outside today and finish. Thank you James!"

"I grew potatoes and tomatoes on my tiny balcony in Germany (in buckets and cardboard boxes). Now I have a big garden here in America. I so love to grow my own food."

"I grew sweet potatoes in cardboard boxes. It’s so much fun."

Next time you're stuck with an Amazon box that you don't have a use for, consider whether you could use it as a planter for potatoes or some other edible harvest. Gardening doesn't have to be fancy to be effective.

You can find more of gardening experiments on The Gardening Channel with James Prigioni.

A map of the United States post land-ice melt.

Land ice: We got a lot of it. Considering the two largest ice sheets on earth — the one on Antarctica and the one on Greenland — extend more than 6 million square miles combined ... yeah, we're talkin' a lot of ice. But what if it was all just ... gone? Not like gone gone, but melted?

If all of earth's land ice melted, it would be nothing short of disastrous. And that's putting it lightly. This video by Business Insider Science (seen below) depicts exactly what our coastlines would look like if all the land ice melted. And spoiler alert: It isn't great. Lots of European cities like, Brussels and Venice, would be basically underwater.

I bring up the topic not just for funsies, of course, but because the maps are real possibilities.

How? Climate change.

As we continue to burn fossil fuels for energy and emit carbon into our atmosphere, the planet gets warmer and warmer. And that, ladies and gentlemen, means melted ice.

A study published this past September by researchers in the U.S., U.K., and Germany found that if we don't change our ways, there's definitely enough fossil fuel resources available for us to completely melt the Antarctic ice sheet.

Basically, the self-inflicted disaster you see above is certainly within the realm of possibility.


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In Africa and the Middle East? Dakar, Accra, Jeddah — gone.



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Millions of people in Asia, in cities like Mumbai, Beijing, and Tokyo, would be uprooted and have to move inland.



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South America would say goodbye to cities like Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires.


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And in the U.S., we'd watch places like Houston, San Francisco, and New York City — not to mention the entire state of Florida — slowly disappear into the sea.


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All GIFs via Business Insider Science/YouTube.

Business Insider based these visuals off National Geographic's estimation that sea levels will rise 216 feet (!) if all of earth's land ice melted into our oceans.

There's even a tool where you can take a detailed look at how your community could be affected by rising seas, for better or worse.

Although ... looking at these maps, it's hard to imagine "for better" is a likely outcome for many of us.

Much of America's most populated regions would be severely affected by rising sea levels, as you'll notice exploring the map, created by Alex Tingle using data provided by NASA.

Take, for instance, the West Coast. (Goodbye, San Fran!)



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Or the East Coast. (See ya, Philly!)


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And the Gulf Coast. (RIP, Bourbon Street!)

"This would not happen overnight, but the mind-boggling point is that our actions today are changing the face of planet Earth as we know it and will continue to do so for tens of thousands of years to come," said lead author of the study Ricarda Winkelmann, of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

If we want to stop this from happening," she says, "we need to keep coal, gas, and oil in the ground."

The good news? Most of our coastlines are still intact! And they can stay that way, too — if we act now.

World leaders are finallystarting to treat climate change like the global crisis that it is — and you can help get the point across to them, too.

Check out Business Insider's video below:


- YouTubewww.youtube.com


This article originally appeared eleven years ago.

Relaxed008/YouTube

UPS driver invited to family's cookout.

Family cookouts are the ultimate get-together. Good food, good people, and good quality time together. Invites are usually extended to close friends and kin—but one family extended the invite to a UPS driver (and total stranger) working a shift on a holiday weekend, proving community and hospitality are still alive and well.

TikToker @1fanto shared a touching video with his followers from Easter weekend where his family invited a UPS driver making rounds in their neighborhood to come to their cookout and 'make a plate.'

"Everybody family around here 😭," he captioned the video. "Everybody invited to the cookout.😂"

@1fanto

Everybody family around here 😭 #easter #cookout #wherethefunction

In the video, the UPS driver is seen standing in the family's driveway, and a group of cookout attendees warmly welcome him to join them. The uncle of @1fanto says to the driver, "You've been working hard all day man, you can go on in there!" He calls out for a woman named Stephanie to "take care of him!"

The UPS driver walks up the driveway, and they encourage him to go inside and get his fill as he enters the garage. After securing a plate of food and a drink, the driver walks back outside to mingle with guests, shaking hands with the uncle who invited him.

"You good?" the uncle asks, and the driver responds, "Yeah I'm good. They hooked me up. Thank you so much. Appreciate y'all for inviting me out." On his way back to his truck, the uncle encourages the driver to invite other workers to stop by as well.

@1fanto

Explaination to last video! Thank yall for the support really appreciate it. Yall are invited to the next cookout 🤝. #easter #cookout #fyp #upsdriver #invitedtothecookout

In a follow up video, @1fanto explained more about how the invite went down. He shares that the UPS driver was driving by the family's house on the Saturday before Easter, and at the time the family was enjoying a big fish fry cookout together. His uncle flagged the driver down, and he pulled over.

He shares that his uncle told the driver, "Go inside and get you a plate!" The driver asked him, "Are you sure?" But he reassured him, adding that the family made sure to ask the driver what he wanted and didn't want on his plate to "make sure he was good and got everything he needed".

"I saw it had a positive impact. That's what my family do. That's not something that we just do for social media," @1fanto shared. "That's something that we do on a regular basis that doesn't just happen when the camera's on. It happens when the camera's off, too. We're all equal. We all bleed the same."

Viewers had lots of positive things to say in the comment section.

"I am a UPS driver and that makes our day. People showing love to us"

"Your family represents the best of America🫶🏼 Your uncle is now all of our uncle."

"Working the holidays suck. But they made that man’s entire day. Love it."

"I love when people are nice for no reason. You’re so real ♥️thank you for being so kind."

Angelo Merendino

Angelo Merendino with his late wife Jennifer

When I saw these incredible photos Angelo Merendino took of his wife, Jennifer, as she battled breast cancer, I felt that I shouldn't be seeing this snapshot of their intimate, private lives. The photos humanize the face of cancer and capture the difficulty, fear, and pain that they experienced during the difficult time.

But as Angelo commented: "These photographs do not define us, but they are us."

In his photo exhibition, Angelo wrote:

"Jennifer was diagnosed with breast cancer five months after our wedding. She passed less than four years later. During our journey we realized that many people are unaware of the reality of day to day life with cancer. After Jen’s cancer metastasized we decided to share our life through photographs."

All images by Angelo Merendino, published here with permission.


cancer, cancer treatment, marriage, love, love storiesAngelo and Jennifer drink beersassets.rebelmouse.io

On his website, Angelo writes:

"With each challenge we grew closer. Words became less important. One night Jen had just been admitted to the hospital, her pain was out of control. She grabbed my arm, her eyes watering, 'You have to look in my eyes, that’s the only way I can handle this pain.' We loved each other with every bit of our souls. Jen taught me to love, to listen, to give and to believe in others and myself. I’ve never been as happy as I was during this time."

cancer, cancer treatment, marriage, love, love storiesJennifer holds Angeloassets.rebelmouse.io



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"People assume that treatment makes you better, that things become OK, that life goes back to 'normal,' Angelo wrote. "There is no normal in cancer-land. Cancer survivors have to define a new sense of normal, often daily. And how can others understand what we had to live with everyday?"

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This article originally appeared thirteen years ago.

What is "boomer panic"?

In a video posted in September 2023, TikToker @myexistentialdread used the phrase “boomer panic” to explain how baby boomers (1946 to 1964) can quickly become unhinged when faced with the most minor problems. It all started when she visited a Lowe’s hardware store and encountered a boomer-aged woman working at the check-out stand.

“I had a dowel that didn’t have a price tag on it, whatever, so I ran back and took a photo of the price tag. And as I was walking back towards her, I was holding up my phone… because I had multiple dowels and that was the one that didn’t have the price tag on it,” she said in the video. “And she looks at me and she goes, ‘I don’t know which one that is,’ and she starts like, panicking.” The TikToker said that the woman was “screechy, panicking for no reason.”

Many people raised by boomers understood what she meant by "boomer panic." "Boomer panic is such a good phrase for this! Minor inconvenience straight to panic," the most popular commenter wrote. And while there was some boomer-bashing in the comments, some younger people tried to explain why the older folks have such a hard time regulating their emotions: “From conversations with my mother, they weren’t allowed to make mistakes and were harshly punished if they did.” The TikToker responded, “A lot of people mentioned this, and it breaks my heart. I think you’re right,” Myexistentialdread responded.

A follow-up video by YourTango Editor Brian Sundholm tried to explain boomer panic in an empathetic way.

“Well, it's likely that there actually was a reason the woman started panicking about a seemingly meaningless problem,” Sundholm said. “Most of us nowadays know the importance of recognizing and feeling our emotions.” Sundholm then quoted therapist Mitzi Bachman, who says that when people bottle up their emotions and refuse to express them, it can result in an "unhinged" reaction.

TikToker Gabi Day shared a similar phenomenon she noticed with her boomer mom; she called the behavior “anxiety-at-you.”

Day’s boomer mother was “reactive,” “nervous,” and “anxious” throughout her childhood. Now, she is still on edge with Day’s children. “She's immediately like gasping and just really like exaggerated physical reactions, and then, of course, that kind of startles my kid,” Day said. “Again, I know that this comes from a place of care. It's just a lot,” she continued.

@itsgabiday

It comes from a place of love but it is exhausting 🫠😬 #millennialmomsoftiktok #boomergrandma #reparenting #gentleparenting

There is a significant difference in emotional intelligence and regulation between how boomers were raised and how younger generations, such as Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z, were brought up. Boomers grew up when they had to bottle up their feelings to show their resilience. This can lead to growing anger, frustration with situations and people, chronic stress, and anxiety—all conditions that can lead to panicky, unhinged behavior.

Ultimately, Sundholm says that we should sympathize with boomers who have difficulty regulating their emotions and see it as an example of the great strides subsequent generations have made in managing their mental health. “It may seem a little harsh to call something "boomer panic," but in the context of how many of them were raised, it makes a lot of sense,” Sundholm says. “It also underlines the importance of emotional regulation skills and teaching them to future generations. And maybe most important, having compassion for those who never had a chance to learn them.”

This article originally appeared in March