What Went Right Last Week
- Editor OGN Daily
- Jun 18, 2023
- 4 min read
Synopsis of last week's most important good news highlights.
Eliminating Meningitis: Successful trials of a new meningitis vaccine in Africa have raised hopes for the elimination of a disease that kills about 250,000 people a year.
Lady Chief Justice: One of two women will become lord chief justice for England and Wales for the first time, ending a “male stranglehold on the post dating back 755 years”, said The Telegraph. The appointment will be announced later this month.
Global Plastics Treaty: In Paris, the world’s governments agreed to draft a new treaty to control plastics. The UN says it could cut production by a massive 80 percent.
Stork Recovery: North America's only native stork is thriving again, according to new data. Once predicted to be wiped out, the recovery is partly due to the storks' resourcefulness.
The First Ever Stars May Have Just Been Found: If this is verified, it's the end of one of the biggest searches in all of astrophysics and the start of a whole new universe of scientific exploration and discovery.
Chicken or Egg? Scientists believe they may have finally found the answer to the question: which came first, the chicken or the egg? The chicken’s earliest reptilian ancestors, “dating back millions of years before even the dinosaurs evolved, may not have laid eggs”, said The Times. Researchers from the University of Bristol in the UK and Nanjing University in China believe the early ancestors of modern birds and reptiles may have given birth to live young rather than laying eggs.
EU Breaks Record: Wind and solar produced more electricity in the EU than fossil fuels in May, for the first full month on record, says Ember. Almost a third of EU electricity was generated from wind and solar, while fossil fuels generated a record low of 27 percent.
New Alzheimer's Test: Scientists have moved a step closer to developing a blood test that can predict whether people are at risk of Alzheimer’s, reports The Times. The disease has long been associated with the build-up of a protein called amyloid in the brain, but although everyone with Alzheimer’s has these amyloid plaques, not everyone with the plaques gets Alzheimer’s, suggesting that something else is involved. Now, researchers have identified what that might be: a star-shaped cell called an astrocyte.
Irish Incentive: The government of Ireland has announced it will pay new-comers $90,000 to move to an Irish island. Applications begin 1 July.
The IRA is Working: The United States is experiencing a once-in-a-generation manufacturing boom, reversing decades of decline. New factories are springing up across the country, building clean energy products that have never been made in America at this scale. The scale and speed of the shift has been stunning - clean energy is no niche industry anymore; it’s now a pillar of the national economy, says Canary Media.
Humpback Migration: Up to 50,000 humpback whales are expected to pass Australia’s east coast during this year's annual migration from Antartica to the Great Barrier Reef - which runs from May to July. That's up from just a few hundred in the 1960s.
Gun Reform: California Governor Gavin Newsom has laid out a plan to make the 28th Amendment to the Constitution about gun reform. Though it faces an uphill battle, says Politico, it would raise the minimum age to buy a firearm, mandate universal background checks, institute a waiting period on all gun sales, and ban assault rifles.
Roman Mausoleum: In the south London, construction work has uncovered a "completely unique" Roman mausoleum containing beautiful mosaic flooring.
Marine Park: Australia is going to triple the size of its Macquarie Island Marine Park and close off an area larger than Germany to fishing and mining. Located between Tasmania and Antarctica, the park will expand to 183,500 square miles (475,465 km2).
Youth Activists Sue Montana Over Fossil Fuels: Sixteen young Montanans are suing their state over its support of the fossil fuel industry in a climate lawsuit that is the first of its kind to go to trial.
Electrifying: European electric truck sales grew fourfold in the first quarter of 2023. This confirms a recent IEA outlook showing electric truck sales are starting take off. According to Bloomberg, buses are going electric too - the latest estimates are that by 2032, about half of the world’s buses will be entirely battery-powered. Indeed, buses are going electric faster than cars.
Seminal Moment: China has passed the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Ecosystem Protection Act, a comprehensive law protecting the Tibetan plateau and its surroundings, an area of over one million square miles (2.5m km2), larger than all of Western Europe, reports Mongabay. It's a seminal moment in the story of conservation in China–not perfect, but a huge turnaround from the country's historical approach to nature.
US Coal: According to IEEFA, coal-fired electricity generation in the United States collapsed in the first three months of this year, falling by 28 percent, and pushing the share of black rocks in the power market below 17 percent, versus more than 22 percent in the same quarter last year.
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