March • 2022
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Unlocking the Key to Happiness HOPE. HELPING. HAPPINESS.
We all want to be happy and live lives that make us and those around us feel good. Often, especially in our Western culture, that leads to mental images of achieving goals, expressing ourselves authentically, reaching financial milestones, and other personal fulfillments that make us feel successful and proud. Driving for success and the vision of a better, more positive future makes us feel good, but equally important and often underrated is the sense of joy and fulfillment that comes from sharing our generosity with others. What brings people happiness may also differ between cultures, but most cultures have discovered that the key to real happiness, the thing that releases chemicals in our brains that give us a sense of joy and peace, is “giving.” Generous people are often happier, more fulfilled and content with their lives. For them, giving back to others makes them feel better in return, creating a cycle of positive interactions and a more
caring community as a whole. Giving our time and resources is good for us, so it stands to reason that generous people are good for our communities. Importantly, generosity does not have to be expensive, either. There are countless ways to give thoughtfully that cost nothing at all, from small acts of kindness like sharing compliments and words of encouragement, to writing positive reviews about your favourite restaurants and businesses, to volunteering your time or help to a friend or neighbour in need. Knowing that giving brings happiness, we are pleased that the Great Commission Foundation (GCF) is in a natural position to help Canadians find ways to b e g e n e ro u s . We w o rk with Christian ministries and projects in a dynamic cooperative relationship and currently have over 500 projects operating worldwide. Our projects engage in activities that fall under our charitable mandates,
including the advancement of education, the relief of poverty, and the advancement of the Christian faith. We provide the administrative foundation to operate with integrity and financial transparency, while our projects provide personnel in the field. GCF offers an abundance of giving opportunities through o u r p ro j e c t s , i n c l u d i n g orphanages, anti-trafficking work, education, care for widows, health care, kids camps, and more, that can be supported practically as a volunteer, prayerfully, or financially. No matter who or where you are, there is a way that you, a generous person, can help. We also provide taxdeductible receipts for eligible financial gifts as a registered charitable foundation. This year, let’s all spread the spirit of generosity by giving our time and resources, then enjoy the benefits of happiness and joy.
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SPREADING THE SPIRIT OF GENEROSITY
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Penguins Offer Varied Clues to Antarctic Climate Change GLORIA DICKIE AND NATALIE THOMAS
Peering through binoculars from an inflatable motorboat bobbing in frigid waters, polar ecology researchers Michael Wethington and Alex Borowicz scan a rocky outcrop on Antarctica’s Andersson Island for splatterings of redbrown guano that might signal a colony of penguins nearby. The birds have become far more than an iconic symbol of the earth’s frozen south. Scientists now use them as key indicators for understanding climate change near the South Pole—with certain western regions like the Antarctic Peninsula having undergone rapid warming, while East Antarctica remains cold and capped in ice. “We are counting penguin nests to understand how many penguins are in a colony, producing chicks every year, and whether that number is going up or down with the environmental conditions,”
said Borowicz, of Stony Brook University in New York. For climate researchers, nothing is easy in the remote and icy reaches of Antarctica. But penguins are easier to track than other species because they nest on land, and their black feathers and their waste can be spotted against the white expanse. “We can use penguins as a bioindicator to see how the rest of the ecosystem is operating,” said Wethington, also of Stony Brook. Simple counts of individual penguins alongside other methods like analyses of satellite images tell a nuanced story, with some penguins dubbed ‘winners’ as climate change opens new habitats while others are forced to seek colder climes. WAVE OF ‘GENTOOFICATION’ Gentoo penguins, with bright red-orange beaks and distinctive white markings on their heads, are partial to open water without
chunks of ice bobbing around. When temperatures on the Antarctic Peninsula began rising faster than almost anywhere else in the world during the latter half of the 20th century, Gentoo populations expanded southwards in what some scientists call the “Gentoofication” of Antarctica. “Gentoo penguins don’t like sea ice,” said David Ainley, a biologist with the ecological consulting firm H.T. Harvey & Associates who has been studying penguins for more than 50 years. “They mostly forage over the continental shelf and don’t go far out to sea.” As sea ice has decreased along the western side of the peninsula, Gentoos have taken advantage of the hospitable conditions. But the same conditions have been worse for tuxedo-wearing Adelies, who rely on sea ice for breeding and feeding. “When we find Adelie penguins, we typically know that sea ice is nearby,” Wethington
ADELIE PENGUINS STAND TOGETHER AS SCIENTISTS INVESTIGATE THE IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON ANTARCTICA’S PENGUIN COLONIES, ON THE EASTERN SIDE OF THE ANTARCTIC PENINSULA © REUTERS/NATALIE THOMAS
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said. “And whenever we’ve seen sea ice declining or disappearing altogether, then we’re seeing corresponding Adelie penguin populations decline substantially.” Though widespread Adelie penguins are increasing in number overall, some populations have fallen by more than 65 percent. ‘SAFE SPACE’ On their January expedition to the region, the Stony Brook scientists found that Adelie colonies around the still-icy Weddell Sea had remained stable during the past decade. “This peninsula is maybe a safe space as we see climate change progressing and overall warming throughout the globe,” Wethington said. Heather Lynch, an ecologist at Stony Brook University who helped lead the expedition aboard the MV Arctic Sunrise, said the findings highlighted the region’s conservation value.
In 2020, a team from the British Antarctic Survey discovered 11 new emperor penguin colonies from satellite images, boosting known emperor penguin colonies by 20 percent. But since 2016, nearly every chick has perished in the Halley Bay colony along the far eastern side of the Weddell Sea, which has long been home to the world’s second-largest emperor penguin colony, with some 25,000 breeding pairs gathering every year. Scientists suspect the 2016 El Niño event changed the sea ice dynamic in the area, and worry for the penguins as climate change increases the frequency and severity of El Niño events. While the chicks’ deaths were not a direct result of climate change, “there is a climate change aspect to the loss,” said Peter Fretwell, a geographic information scientist at the British Antarctic Survey. —Reuters
