Doing good can be bad

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At some point in your Instagram scrolling, you've probably come across photos of a friend or an acquaintance or a semi-famous influencer in a country that isn't their own, building a school or playing with local children. They might have even adorned the photo with hashtags like #givingback or #blessed. Hell, maybe they've written a long caption about what they were doing in that country, how they were helping children, and how volunteering is so fulfilling. Well, apparently there is a name for what they're doing: voluntouring, and apparently, it's not all it's hyped up to be. Turns out, in many cases going abroad to volunteer, voluntourism, harms local communities let alone help them. Here's an in-depth guideline to voluntourism, and why its harmful.

A lot of people, including myself, are worried about the future of our planet a la climate change. We are trying to do our best to lessen our impact on the climate. There are loads and loads of advice online about how you can stop using single-use plastics, drive less, fly less, stop using your dryer, eat locally etc. It seems like in the current social and political climate our focus is on what individuals can do to fight climate change. Well, turns out individual actions are really not that helpful. The real change needs to come from big international companies, and governments to control these companies. Postdoctoral Researcher Morten Fibieger Byskov explains why.

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