All the most important good news nuggets from last week.
Olympic Nursury: For the first time in history, the Olympic Village will feature a nursery for athletes and their families, complete with diapers, play spaces, and a private breastfeeding area.
Are You a Serial Killer? Every year, millions of houseplants die thanks to their owners doing something wrong. The good news is that nobody will ever need to accidentally kill one again thanks to a brilliant new app.
British Parliament: As of July 2024 there are 263 women in the House of Commons, the highest ever. This is an all-time high at 40 percent.
Conservation Success: Pacific bluefin tuna rebounds a decade ahead of schedule. The species has exceeded international targets - reversing decades of overfishing - thanks to significant international cooperation between fisheries and scientists.
River's Rights: A ruling described by activists as “historic,” a court in Ecuador has ruled that pollution has violated the rights of a river that runs through the country’s capital, Quito - based on an article of Ecuador’s constitution that recognises the rights of natural features like the Machángara River.
Aphra Behn: The 17th century author was the first Englishwoman to earn a living From writing - but despite her barrier-breaking accomplishments, she is not a household name. Plans are afoot to change that.
Transformative Donation: Starting in the fall semester, paying tuition will be one less thing to worry about for most medical students at Johns Hopkins University. The good news comes thanks to businessman Michael Bloomberg’s philanthropic organization, which donated $1 billion to cover tuition.
New Voice: Your voice is a gift - and Marty Kedian, a 59-year-old laryngeal cancer patient from Massachusetts, knows this truth in a way different than most. Kedian recently got his ability to speak back after undergoing a rare voice box transplant.
World First: Denmark to pioneer CO2 tax on farms. The country is on track to become the first to impose a carbon dioxide tax on livestock emissions beginning in 2030. It already has broad support from all those impacted.
Game-Changer: Bill Gates-backed startup creates Lego-like brick that can store air pollution for centuries. This is very good news as it's also "A milestone for affordably removing carbon dioxide from the air". The Washington Post detailed a "deceptively simple" procedure by Graphyte to store a ton of CO2 for around $100 a ton, a number long considered a milestone for affordably removing carbon dioxide from the air.
Hats Off to California: "Something approaching a miracle has been taking place in California this spring. Beginning in early March, for some portion of almost every day, a combination of solar, wind, geothermal, and hydropower has been producing more than a hundred per cent of the state’s demand for electricity. . . . It’s taken years of construction - and solid political leadership in Sacramento - to slowly build this wave, but all of a sudden it’s cresting into view. California has the fifth-largest economy in the world and, in the course of a few months, the state has proved that it’s possible to run a thriving modern economy on clean energy," says Bill McKibben in The New Yorker.
Electric Europe: Europe’s electricity grid is decarbonising at record pace. That’s according to new data from Eurelectric, which show that 74 percent of electricity produced in the EU in the first half of 2024 came from renewable and low-carbon energy sources – a significant increase on the 68 percent share in 2023.
Nigeria's Plastics: A nationwide ban on single-use plastics - including straws, cutlery, plastic bottles, and small water sachets - will begin January 2025. The country, which generates over 2.5 million tonnes of plastic waste annually, is also drafting a new policy to phase out plastics, with producers expected to shift to alternatives within five years, reports Reuters.
NY Media Laws: New York state has taken novel legislative steps to limit children’s exposure to computer algorithmic social media feeds, passing two laws to protect children from social media content and to protect their privacy.
Chiquita Liable: Following 17 years of legal proceedings, victims of paramilitary violence in Colombia have obtained justice, as a jury found the banana company Chiquita Brands International liable for financing a paramilitary group. The ruling is historic because it’s the first time an American jury has held a major U.S. corporation liable for complicity in serious human rights abuses in another country.
Today's Articles
China Renewables: The amount of wind and solar under construction in China is now nearly twice as much as the rest of the world combined.
The Secret to Longevity? We all know the importance of a good night's sleep, but marmots take things to a whole new level.
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