This is the members only edition of Future Crunch, a weekly roundup of good news, mindblowing science, and the best bits of the internet (not necessarily in that order). One third of your subscription fee goes to charity.
Good news you probably didn't hear about
The WHO just released a new report detailing astonishing progress on measles. Between 2000 and 2020 the annual number of measles deaths fell by 94%, from 1,072,800 to 60,700, averting an estimated 31.7 million deaths. That's a lot of lives saved! Might be worth remembering the next time someone complains about how awful the world is. WHO
The WHO also just released its Global Tobacco Trends report, showing that in 2000, around a third of the global population over the age of 15 were tobacco users. By 2020, this had declined to under a quarter, and is projected to fall even further to a fifth by 2025. Reminder: tobacco is the single biggest preventable cause of cancer, with 1 in 8 cases and 1 in 5 deaths caused by smoking.
The Canadian Cancer Society says there has been significant progress in the fight against prostate cancer. Since peaking in 1995, Canada's prostate cancer death rate has been cut in half, from 45.1 to 22.7 per 100,000 people. One in eight men can expect to get the disease in their lifetime; thanks to science, it's no longer the death sentence it used to be. Newswire
The HPV vaccine has reduced cases of cervical cancer amongst young women in England by nearly 90% since 2008. Cervical cancer kills more than 300,000 women around the world each year but that number is set to fall dramatically, with over 100 countries now using the vaccine as part of a global plan to eliminate the disease. BBC
A new civil law in the United Arab Emirates will allow non-Muslims to marry, divorce and get joint child custody, making it the first Gulf country to reform marriage and divorce laws that were formerly based on religious principles. Last year the UAE also decriminalized premarital sexual relations, relaxed rules around alcohol and criminalized the practice of honour killing. Reuters
A victory for the LGBTQIA+ rights in Spain with new legislation giving single women, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people access to medically assisted reproduction in the public health system, where it is free of charge. Advocates fought for six years to overturn previous legislation that limited free IVF to heterosexual women with partners. The Star
Expanding reproductive rights is expanding human rights
Uge Sangil - President, Spanish Federation of LGBTQ+ Rights
The Spanish government is also taking on the problem of childhood obesity by banning advertising for unhealthy foods such as chocolate, juices, and ice creams to children. The regulations will come into force next year across TV, radio, internet, social media, and apps. El Pais
Is it possible for a city to make 50% of transport walkable and cyclable? Vancouver hit that goal five years ahead of target in 2015, with half of all inner-city trips taken by walking, biking, or transit rather than car. Now Paris is on a mission to do something similar, with a new set of plans to make the city 100% cyclable over the next five years. Bloomberg
Thirty years ago, assisted dying was only legal in Switzerland. Since 2015 however, Belgium, Luxembourg, Canada, New Zealand, Spain, the Netherlands, Colombia, five Australian states, ten American states and most recently Portugal have legalized the practice. Campaigns in Catholic countries like Chile, Ireland, Italy, and Uruguay are making slow but steady progress too. Economist
More than two in three Americans now support legalizing marijuana, maintaining the record-high level reached last year. A decade ago less than half of the country was in favour. This might just be one of the most successful rebrands of all time. It's not weed or pot any more, it's medicine. Gallup
The Social Progress Index measures health, safety, education, technology, and human rights across 99.97% of the world’s population. In its latest report, it says that 147 nations recorded a better score than they did a decade ago, with just four countries (the US, Brazil, Syria and South Sudan) doing worse. “Social progress is advancing across the world, but it remains slow and uneven.”
The only home we've ever known
China will plant 36,000 km2 of new forest (more than the total area of Belgium) every year until 2025 as it bids to combat climate change and protect natural habitats. Over the next five years officials say they will also expand the national park system, create wildlife corridors to alleviate habitat fragmentation, and crack down further on illegal wildlife trade. Reuters
A rare forest honeybee, presumed to be wiped out by disease, has been discovered in the ancient woodlands of Blenheim Palace, a 400-acre paradise of biodiversity subjected to minimal human intervention. The honeybees are thought to be the last wild descendants of Britain’s native honeybee and seem to have evolved the ability to survive the varroa mite. Guardian
A reserve spanning Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, and Serbia will become the first UNESCO biosphere to cover five different countries. Dubbed the ‘Amazon of Europe’, the new biosphere will protect floodplains, forests, gravel banks, and backwaters, and look after a huge number of animal species, including the highest density of breeding white-tailed eagles in continental Europe. Euro News
The State of the Thames Report, led by the Zoological Society of London, says the river is now home to 92 bird species and 115 marine species, including sharks, seahorses, eels, and seals. Water quality has improved too, with dissolved oxygen concentrations showing an increase from 2007 to 2020. Not bad for a river declared ‘biologically dead’ in 1957. Nature recovers if we let it. BBC
The restoration of Rabbit Island off the coast of Louisiana has resulted in a thriving local bird population with biologists counting 16 times more bird nests than expected. The island had eroded to 200 acres, but dredging funded by settlement money from the 2010 BP oil spill added another 102 acres for wildlife last year. AP
More than 20 years after the US Fish and Wildlife Service deemed the Canada lynx a threatened species, the agency has agreed on a recovery plan for the elusive, forest-dwelling carnivores. Last week the agency settled with six conservation groups that sued it over its management of lynx. “This is a victory for lynx, science, and for everyone who values healthy ecosystems.” Aspen Times
Animal rights activists have taken home another win in the battle to end cosmetic testing after New Jersey’s Governor Phil Murphy signed a new law that will ban the sale of animal-tested beauty products in the state. The law will come into force from 1 March 2022, with those disregarding the rules facing a penalty of up to US$1,000 per product sale. Cosmetics Business
After five years of pressure from animal rights activists, travel company Expedia will stop selling holiday packages that include performances by captive dolphins and whales, as part of a global movement by travel companies to stop promoting unethical animal attractions. Guardian
We are delighted that Expedia Group are finally making a stand. It’s time for other travel giants to do the right thing and follow suit.
Katheryn Wise, World Animal Protection
Saving the world is cheaper than ruining it
The diplomats went to Glasgow and failed to save the world (again) and everyone is bitterly disappointed (again). A whole lot of blah blah blah. Empty promises, blatant greenwashing, all talk no action. Emissions continue to rise. The loss and damage is devastating. Trust has been breached. The resulting frustration, anger and incredulity is warranted and yes, the real work will absolutely have to now continue outside those halls.
Except... those halls aren’t really the place where humanity comes to save the world. They’re the place where humanity checks in on whether or not we're saving the world. David Roberts describes the COP meetings as a ‘flash for a camera’, Guy Daley (who we forgot to credit in our last newsletter) compares them to pressuring a friend to buying a round when you're at the pub, and those are both great turns of phrase, but the one we really wish we had thought of is from Nat Keohane, who says that COP26 was a ‘Glasgow half full.’
We agree. Consider where we’ve come from. The Paris Agreement and the progress it unlocked pulled temperature projections down from 6C to 3.7C, better but still catastrophic for humanity. After Glasgow, 90% of the world’s emissions are now covered by net zero targets, and projections have been revised down to between 1.8C and 2.4C, better again but still dangerous. What really moved the needle were updated national targets announced in the leadup (~0.2C) and commitments during the conference itself (~0.1C). We are still far from where we need to be, but anyone who doesn't think this represents an epic achievement has forgotten that just six years ago the G7 shocked the world by announcing a 70% emissions reduction target by 2050 and net zero by 2100.
Laurence Tubiana, the architect of the Paris Agreement, points out that Glasgow has also made 1.5C the new 2C. No one in their right mind is talking about ‘well below 2C’ any more. The text is weak, the 1.5C goal is only just alive, and time is running out to save the planet yes, but convincing everyone it needed to be saved took a lot longer than expected, thanks to the predatory tactics of the fossil fuels industry. They'll continue using every dirty trick in the book, but after Glasgow, it's probably safe to say that the era of is denialism over. The science is now undisputed and the economics are all in favour of a clean energy transition. This powerful combination of understanding and capability will accelerate all of our efforts over time.
Acceleration is a key word here. One of the most underappreciated achievements from COP26 was an increase in the frequency of the ratchet from every five years to every year. This was a big win by young people, indigenous leaders, activists and vulnerable countries on the climate frontline, who forced a concession requiring fresh rounds of national commitments on an annual basis. In 12 months at COP27, we will get another global moment where governments will face intense public and geopolitical pressure to strengthen their decarbonisation plans. Same thing for COP28, and so on. It’s a much-needed tightening of the multilateral system: annual ratcheting to ensure we are halving emissions by 2030 is the only thing that will keep 1.5C in sight.
In and amongst all of the blah blah blah, Glasgow provided the most unequivocal signal yet that the transition to clean technologies will accelerate, building on the blizzard of initiatives announced during the meeting to make that signal feel real. These included the first-ever alliance targeting fossil fuel extraction, a 220-member climate action coalition, a $130 trillion financial alliance, an unprecedented cooperation agreement between the US and China, and multiple coalitions on ending deforestation, methane and coal. The activists are right to be wary - launch events and press releases don’t reduce carbon emissions - but what really mattered was that sense of inevitability that the days of fossil fuels are numbered.
Take coal, for example. The line on phasing down unabated coal and fossil fuel subsidies is weak and compromised but its very existence is still a breakthrough. For the first time ever at a COP, we named the problem and made it clear that an end to carbon intensive energy sources is urgently needed. In many respects, the focus on the drama of 'phasedown' or 'phaseout' in the final few hours of the meeting overshadowed the effect of other commitments. Thanks to Glasgow, 90 new coal power projects will be cancelled, another 130 are looking highly questionable, and 750 coal-fired power plants around the world now have phase-out dates, up from 380 before. A further 1,600 coal plants are now covered by carbon neutrality targets, 95% of the world's total. Not bad for two weeks right?
We're already seeing the effects. Immediately after the conclusion of the conference, shares in a range of coal mining companies dipped. In South Africa, the country's energy department has admitted it needs to start preparing for the end of coal, a marked shift in rhetoric, and a few days ago, Vietnam's Ministry of Industry and Trade, was just ordered to revise its latest power development plan to take account of its COP26 commitment to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. Vietnam currently has the world’s third largest fleet of proposed new coal units, so that's a decision withg global consequences. Expect plenty more of this kind of thing in the weeks and months to come.
We also, crucially, now have an agreement on Article 6, which is all about the rules on global carbon markets and how to properly account for carbon offsets. For years, this has been the Achilles Heel of climate talks, holding back agreement on the wider rulebook from Paris (two years ago it effectively scuppered COP25 in Madrid). At Glasgow, they finally managed to pull it off. The final result isn't ideal; there are still too many loopholes, and reductions from before 2020 were allowed to be carried over, diluting the impact. Nevertheless, we now have the foundations of a robust, transparent and accountable carbon market, bringing an end to the interminable rows over rulebooks and technicalities and shifting the focus to real world decarbonisation, unlocking billions of dollars of investment in carbon reduction projects around the world.
The world came to Glasgow following a path to Catastrophe. We leave Glasgow on a path to Disaster. The road from here is more action, more ambition, on finance, equity, 50% targets for 2030 and net-zero by 2050, and nature climate solutions. That's all still to come. Try not to get too upset about a global agreement that is not and was never going to be binding, signed by world leaders who have already failed to keep their previous non-binding pledges. The climate movement needs to keep the pressure on, and continually call for more. But movements also die if they don't think they achieve anything, and Glasgow, despite its disappointments, achieved so much.
There’s still a mountain to climb, and it’s scarily steep. But to dismiss it all as 'blah blah blah' is to dismiss a lot of hard work by a lot of really good people, pushing for the best possible progress in an imperfect world. As Rachel Kyte says, “You put an ice axe above you, and that’s COP. Then everyone pulls themselves up.” That's an unfathomably large task, but the heavy lifting won't be done at climate conferences. It'll happen in the labs and the factories, up high among the pylons, submerged in the ocean depths, buried in the forests, scattered wide across the fields, on windswept plains and distant roadsides, on the rooftops, on the streets, in the boardrooms, at dinner tables and in the classroom.
We'll be here, doing our best to bring it all to you.
Indistinguishable from magic
Astronomers at the Atacama Cosmology Telescope in Chile have, for the first time, photographed a disc around an exoplanet, shedding new light on how moons and planets form in young star systems. “Our ALMA observations were obtained at such exquisite resolution that we could clearly identify the disc associated with the planet and determine its size for the first time.” ESO
In China, every week is Infrastructure Week. Check out this insane piece of engineering, a 640 ton machine 'that builds bridges in days that would otherwise take decades.' The SLJ900/32, known locally as the Iron Monster, has 64 fully rotating wheels, and lifts, carries, and sets prefabricated full-length bridge sections while moving at an average speed of 5 km/h. Interesting Engineering
Researchers from Illinois have invented a new high resolution camera that can see around corners and through skin and fog. Using something called synthetic wavelength holography, the camera scatteris coherent light onto hidden objects, then uses an algorithm to reconstruct the returned signal. Kinda like radar, but for light not sound. Amazing. Phys.org
Biotechnologists have developed an incredible new therapy that reverses paralysis after severe spinal cord injuries. It uses something known as a 'bioactive therapeutic scaffold' which sends signals to trigger cells to repair and regenerate. Four weeks after a single injection to tissues surrounding the spinal cords of paralyzed mice, the animals regained the ability to walk. Sci-Tech
"We are going straight to the FDA to start the process of getting this therapy approved for use in human patients, who currently have very few treatment options."
The Human Organ Atlas just released a live 3D scan of the brain of a 69 year old woman using a technique called Hierarchical Phase-Contrast Tomography. Current state of the art CT and MRI scans have a resolution that only goes down to a millimetre. Using this technique, they can get down to the width of a human hair for a whole organ, and down to microns for more local areas. HiP-CT
The best bits of the information superhighway
Heard of hopepunk yet? It's a storytelling genre which highlights the good sides of human nature (teamwork, honesty, resilience) while rejecting purity narratives, allowing partial victories, unfinished projects, and not-character-defining failures and mistakes. "Building better among the garbage of the bad." Think Becky Chambers, Cory Doctorow, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Katherine Addison.
James Fallows has written one of those rare essays that reveals a pattern in journalism that, once seen, cannot be unseen. This is such an excellent piece, showing how the reporting of politics now emulates the reporting of sport, focusing on the how - the operational details, the personalities, the dramas, the sausage-making, rather than the what, to all of our detriment. Breaking The News
We have no idea why this article on the making of Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette is so compelling, there's just something about it. Everything seems so improbable, a high-fashion arthouse drama costumed as a big-budget period piece, life imitating art imitating history imitating life... or perhaps it's just because it feels like something from a more innocent, indie age? Vogue
If you're not Australian you've probably never heard of the cartoonist Leunig, who's been a national treasure for decades. The pandemic, however, has changed all that. This story does a great job at capturing both the cultural angst over wokeness in English-speaking countries and the strange new coming together of the wellness/far right movements. It's getting weird out there. Meanjin
Atlantic columnist Caitlan Flanagan turned 60 recently, and was shocked to realise that she had suddenly become old. Fortunately, she put her thoughts down on paper and the result is short, sweet and strangely comforting.
Humankind
Mama Elephant
Meet Dame Daphne Sheldrick, a conservationist in Kenya known as 'Mama Elephant' who rescued and rehabilitated over 230 orphaned baby elephants during her life, and changed the fate of elephant populations around the world with a special milk formula she pioneered to keep orphaned elephants alive.
Born on a dairy farm in Kenya in 1934, Daphne graduated at the top of her class and was offered a medical scholarship but turned it down to move to Tsavo National Park with her first husband, who worked as an assistant warden. It was here she met her second husband David Sheldrick, the founding warden of the park and together they forged 22,000 km2 of wilderness into a protected space for Kenya’s largest elephant population and other wild species.
Daphne focused on rescuing young elephants whose mothers had killed by ivory hunters, but despite all her attempts to feed baby elephants different milk sources, they remained malnourished and died. Determined to find a solution, Daphne experimented with pantry items like baby formula and coconut milk to find the right mix. After 28 years of testing, she created a formula that used coconut oil to mimic a mother elephant's milk and became the first person in the world to keep a newborn elephant alive.
In 1977, Daphne’s husband died from a heart attack, leaving her to raise their two daughters and continue his conservation work. After his death, Daphne founded the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust and over the next 40 years, Daphne rescued and reintegrated hundreds of orphaned elephants into the wild and became one of the earliest advocates for a global ban on ivory.
Daphne broke the mould when it came to conservation work, trading khaki pant suits for flowing floral dresses as she tended to baby elephants in the muddy wilds of Kenya. After a long battle with breast cancer, Daphne died in 2018 at 83 years old. She leaves a legacy of ground-breaking conservation work and is responsible for shaping our understanding of elephants, who she described as “a very human animal.”
In the acknowledgments of her memoir, “Love, Life, and Elephants: An African Love Story,” Daphne thanked “the elephants themselves, who by example have demonstrated how to cope with adversity. . . .They, who have suffered so much at the hands of humans, never lose the ability to forgive, even though, being elephants, they will never be able to forget.”
That's it for this edition, thanks for reading!
Much love,
Gus, Amy and the rest of the FC team
PS. It's come to our attention (gasp) that there are people reading this newsletter who weren’t on the internet in 2012 and therefore never saw the magical gif that you can actually hear.
