The Goodnewspaper The Go Go Go Edition

HELLO HELLO! Welcome to the Go Go Go edition! We originally titled this edition of the paper The Transportation Edition — but isn't Go Go Go such a cute rebrand? The stories in this edition are an enthusiastic celebration of the ways we get around. (And I promise this is anything but boring!). Transportation has a profound impact on everything — from the climate and our cities and neighborhoods to our health and our happiness. I'm proud to live in a city where I can easily get around anywhere with just my bicycle and our public transit system — no car necessary. Even better, most of my friends and neighbors also choose car-free transportation whenever they can. And this kind of positive transportation experience isn't just limited to bigger cities:…

When Katya Echazarreta was a little girl, she used to pretend her Barbie doll was an astronaut preparing for a mission in space. Now, Barbie has created a doll modeled after her: a real-life astronaut, who was the first Mexicanborn American woman to visit space — and the youngest, at just 27 years old. The young electrical engineer is pursuing her Master's at Johns Hopkins University and has worked on five missions with NASA. Last summer, she ventured out on a mission of her own with an organization called Space for Humanity. Her work? To analyze the “Overview Effect,” a phenomenon of experiencing the world with a completely new perspective after seeing Earth from above, which psychologists study to better understand the cosmos and our relationship with the planet. “I…

Most of us are probably satisfied with the care and compassion of our commercial flight attendants sharing snacks and sodas on our journeys in the sky. However, Orbis, an international nonprofit working to end avoidable blindness, knows the true potential of a plane. Meet the Flying Eye Hospital. It's the world's only fully accredited ophthalmic teaching hospital — all on board an MD-10 aircraft. Equal parts classroom, operating room, and recovery suites, the plane allows clinical teams to learn on board while traveling across the world to end avoidable blindness. Between live surgical demonstrations and a telehealth program called Cybersight, the plane reaches medical students across the globe, training eye care teams full of doctors, nurses, and technicians and making the case for health ministries to invest in the prevention…

Angelina Tsuboi is a software developer — and has been since she was a kid. At 16, when she decided to add “student pilot” to her resume, she already had over nine years of programming experience. While she was already keen on making solutions more accessible to the world, she found a new barrier in her pursuit of becoming a pilot: the overwhelming cost to obtaining a private pilot's license. Tsuboi embarked on an arduous and seemingly endless scholarship search, so she put her programming skills up to the task and created a solution. That solution is Pilot Fast Track, an app that allows users to find customized scholarships, tailored by certification, aircraft preference, location, gender, ethnicity, and more, helping reduce financial barriers to the aviation industry. “Women in aviation…

DO YOUR RESEARCH Instead of booking the first available flight, try to find one within your budget on a newer aircraft or one that flies directly to your destination. You can also research airports that curb their emissions! MAKE DIFFERENT CHOICES When your travel day comes around, make smart, eco-conscious decisions. Pack light, bring your reusables, eat plant-based meals, and use digital tickets to reduce your personal environmental impact. OFFSET YOUR EMISSIONS If you have the means, consider offsetting the carbon emissions of your flight. Apps like Commons help users track their carbon footprint and invest in a vetted portfolio of climate solutions.…

WE HAVE GOOD NEWS Sometimes “saving the turtles” looks a bit different than opting against a plastic straw. Along Japan's Nara Prefecture, just south of Kyoto, West Japan Railway workers have taken on a little project to help save turtles in the area. Since 2002, 13 turtles have gotten caught while trying to pass railroad tracks, crushing them in the switch rail mechanism, the part of the tracks that helps switch the trains’ directions. Not only does this kill the turtles, but it harms the whole transportation ecosystem, delaying train schedules and forcing the rails to be serviced before trains can safely journey forward. Railway teams created U-shaped concrete tunnels that sit beneath the railroad tracks where the turtles often travel. The turtles saunter — slow and steady — until…