Marvin Hayes Is Spreading ‘Compost Fever' in Baltimore. He Thinks it Might Save the City.

The law often traps offenders in a cycle of lawbreaking. LEAD allows for drug users to become committed to a program that helps them through the quitting process instead of throwing them into prison and isolating them from the help they need.

Poor neighborhoods in the United States lack quality play spaces for children, also known as play deserts. An organization is enabling communities across the nation to build their own playground.

Evidence continues to build that humans are contributing to a climate change issue that is nothing but bad news for the planet. Hopeful stories from seven countries, including India, Indonesia, and China, show that efforts to combat climate change might finally be working.

A overview of 2014's Fixes columns - connecting the dots between 60 or so ways that people are trying to change the world.

The breakdown of the ozone layer is one of the most well-known effects of climate change. Citizens enact different ways to protect the atmosphere from a build up of methane gas.

Civic leaders in the U.S. struggle to effectively help their distressed neighborhoods. East Lake, Atlanta, created a replicable model that mixes residents of differing socio-economic status, and focuses on education and health in the area.

In Memphis, a creative blight-reduction initiative called 25 Square Blocks broke down the city into blocks. Inspectors were able to quickly identify all the violations and fix them, using the same amount of funding, but less time, as the old call-and-respond model.

Native American student graduation rates are much lower than that of any other demographic. The Red Cloud school teaches students on a reservation in South Dakota about the Lakota history to empower the kids and encourage resilience.

New York City black tar roofs cause a number of environmental problems, including air pollution, heat absorption that raises energy consumption, and storm water runoff in the sewer system. Efforts to turn these old roofs into green spaces cool the buildings, enable the containment of more rainfall, reduce sewer discharge, generate energy, and absorb carbon emissions. New York City has a pilot program offering financial help for green roofs.

To decrease the nation's food waste, activists in Denmark showed the people that it was safe to buy and consume items that were very recently expired. From live demonstrations where celebrity chef features expired items in the entrees to reducing prices for out-of-date items, "Danes now throw away 25 percent less food than they did five years ago."