Buffalo

When you think of American hubs of green energy innovation, you probably don’t think of Buffalo, New York. Yes, Buffalo. But guess what, soon, you could.

Like many Rust Belt cities, as industry left the area, Buffalo saw a huge decrease in population and a spike in poverty. But community activists are getting creative, finding ways to help poor people save money and get jobs. And some efforts are fighting climate change too.

America’s National Park Service maintain some 84 million acres of land, 4.5 million acres of oceans and lakes and countless miles of rivers and seashores — and it’s growing. This summer, three monuments were added to the National Park Service and two more were put under the care of the Bureau of Land Management.

A New York zoo is hand-rearing a polar bear cub born to one of its adult bears. But now, the zoo is being asked to take in another cub, an orphan, from Alaska, in hopes that the two will grow up healthier if they do so together.

A new phenomenon, called “Cash Mobs,” is spreading across the country, changing the way people view local businesses. Similar to flash mobs, Cash Mobs organize customers to spend money at struggling locally owned businesses to support their community.