Blog

Jan 24, 2026 1 min read Blog

Woman collected $45k worth of cans and bottles for charity

Over the past few years, Sparwood resident Debbie Russo has been collecting refundable bottles and cans from across the Elk Valley and donating every dollar to Angel Flight. Recently, while reviewing historical donations, Angel Flight discovered that her contributions beginning with her first donation in August 2021, total an incredible $44,669.84.

Angel Flight provides air travel to patients in East Kootenay, Canada—a remote region—who can’t afford to reach their medical appointments.

Debbie is also a cancer survivor, and cancer has touched her family in profound ways. Before Angel Flight existed, Debbie lost her brother, her sister, and her father to cancer. After years of supporting other causes, she shifted her efforts to Angel Flight, a service she knows firsthand makes a meaningful difference for residents of the East Kootenays.

Spearwood resident recognized for charitable contributions to Angel Flight | Cranbrook Daily Townsman

Jan 19, 2026 1 min read Blog

Most Growing Economies Decoupling from Fossil Fuels

Historically, economic growth has required fossil fuel use because of energy demands. The latest reports from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, though, show that these days the great majority of economic growth is happening in economies that are leaving fossil fuels behind. This is also an accelerating trend, so expect the pattern to continue.

In the decade before the Paris Agreement, 32 countries absolutely decoupled emissions from GDP, with 35 more achieving relative decoupling. In the post-Paris decade (2015–2023), these numbers grew to 43 and 40 countries respectively. Today, countries responsible for 46.3% of global GDP and 36.1% of global emissions have absolutely decoupled. Overall, 92% of global GDP and 89% of global emissions now sit in economies that have decoupled in either relative or absolute terms.

Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit | 10 Years Post-Paris: How…

Jan 5, 2026 1 min read Blog

Helping behavior slows the cognitive decline from aging

Being engaged in helping others can make your brain sharper as you age. This is a notable study, too, because it tracked not only volunteering but also informal helping behaviors, which are often not measured.

The new study of more than 30,000 adults in the U.S. looking at individuals over two decades found that the rate of cognitive decline associated with aging fell by 15%-20% for people who formally volunteer their services or who help in more informal ways with neighbors, family or friends outside the home on a regular basis. This cognitive benefit was consistently observed when individuals devoted about two to four hours per week to helping others.

Helping Others Shown To Slow Cognitive Decline | College of Natural Sciences

Jan 4, 2026 1 min read Blog

Empathy and Reasoning Aren’t Rivals

Studying altruism is hard to do because you need to find a population of people that are demonstrably more generous than the average person.

Two groups that make for interesting research subjects are people who make kidney donations to strangers and people who are part of the Effective Altruism (EA) movement. What's interesting about these two groups is that the kidney donors are driven by higher levels of empathy, and the EAs pursue rational approaches to impact. (A lot of EAs are also kidney donors, because of how impactful it can be.)

This paper shows that both groups share a common attribute, a recognition that distant others are important.

On average, organ donors scored higher on empathy, and effective altruists scored higher on reflective reasoning – slowing down and thinking things through. But across all participants, both traits were linked to broader, more outward-looking helping. People with either an elevated heart or head, and especially those with both compared with average adults, tended to support distant others and focus on helping as many people as possible.

Empathy and Reasoning Aren’t Rivals – New Research Shows They Work Together to Drive People to Help More

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