This story was originally published by Reasons to be Cheerful
This week, we’re doing something a little different: taking a spin through our most-read stories of the year. We hope you enjoy this trip down memory lane, and we’ll be back with our usual What We’re Reading fare in 2025.
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A Post-Election Day Poem by Rebecca Faulkner
In the weeks leading up to Election Day, we asked our readers to fill in the blank: No matter who wins, ______. The responses were so inspiring that in addition to sharing 109 of them on Election Day, we published a poem the next day that Rebecca Faulkner — our managing director and an accomplished poet — assembled from the response. Though different in form from our usual stories, this one really resonated.
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How a Colombian City Cooled Dramatically in Just Three Years by Peter Yeung
It’s hard to argue with a solution whose results are so clear and impressive: In Medellín, “green corridors” full of plants and trees are driving down temperatures. As Contributing Editor Peter Yeung reports, “Medellín’s temperatures fell by 2°C in the first three years of the program, and officials expect a further decrease of 4 to 5°C over the next few decades, even taking into account climate change.”
A vertical garden at Medellin’s City Hall. Credit: Peter Yeung -
How One Indian State Went 100% Organic by Geetanjali Krishna
This is an example of one of our favorite types of stories: looking at a place that has accomplished something big and retracing how it happened — with useful takeaways for other places that might want to try something similar. The state of Sikkim took a slow and thoughtful approach to going organic, and as Contributing Editor Geetanjali Krishna explains, it paid off.
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How Electric Harps Are Protecting Honey Bees by Charlie Metcalfe
We have to confess: There was a lot of talk in the office about this one. At first we were surprised by how many readers were drawn to a story about, well, electrocuting hornets in droves. But we shouldn’t have been. Our smart and savvy readers understood that this is really a story about protecting vulnerable pollinators. Plus, electric harps sound pretty cool.
Asian hornets first arrived in France in 2004 via a shipping crate. Credit: S. Richard Cervera / INRAE -
A Surprising Way to Stop Bullying by Michaela Haas
When Contributing Editor Michaela Haas began looking into this story, she was shocked that the “No-Blame Approach” — a counterintuitive method that hinges on asking the bullies to help solve the problem — wasn’t more well-known. We’re glad our story could help spread the word!
The post What We’re Reading: Our Most Popular Stories of 2024 appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.
