159: Elite Mountain Rescue

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

Female genital mutilation is one of the worst ideas humanity has ever come up with, and we've been practising it for more than a thousand years. In the last generation however, it's started to decline. Progress is uneven, and the pandemic has caused setbacks, but in the 30 countries where it's most prevalent, one in three girls aged 15 -19 today have undergone FGM, versus one in two a generation ago. UNICEF

Human African trypanosomiasis, better known as sleeping sickness, used to be one of Africa's most notorious diseases. In the late 1990s, more than 35,000 cases were reported annually. Today, it's close to being eliminated - only 663 cases were reported in 2020, the lowest number ever recorded and a reduction of 83% since 2000.

MacKenzie Scott has donated $133 million to Communities in School, a non-profit organisation focused on dropout prevention across America. The organization supports 1.6 million kids who are struggling keep up their studies and provides local schools with the resources they need to help more kids finish their education. CNN

The Snoqualmie Indian Tribe has reclaimed ownership of its ancestral lands in Oregon, with the purchase of 12,000 acres of former logging forest. It’s a ‘monumental’ victory for the tribe, who have fought to reclaim the land since the 1930s and will now switch to harvesting sustainable timber as part of a bigger plan to restore local wildlife populations. Oregon Live

In the two decades since Portugal decriminalised the personal possession of all drugs, overdoses, HIV infection and drug-related crime have all dramatically decreased. The ground-breaking reform was part of policy shift to prioritise health over criminalization and its success has inspired the implentation of similar models in Oregon and now, potentially, Norway. Transform Drugs

Mississippi has legalized medical marijuana for people suffering from cancer, AIDS, and sickle cell disease. The new law allows patients to buy up to 3.5g of cannabis per day, up to six days a week. Mississippi is the 37th state in the US to make this kind of medicine legal. NPR

40 years after the first case of HIV was diagnosed in Australia, the country is close to eliminating transmission of the virus, recording just 633 cases last year - the lowest number since 1984. The public health victory is owed to the early response to the virus - the introduction of a needle exchange, the tireless dedication of volunteer carers and an early roll-out of the HIV prevention pill. BBC

Saving the world is cheaper than ruining it

US insurance giant Travelers will no longer underwrite companies that generate more than 30% of their revenue from coal or have more than 30% of their reserves in tar sands. It joins 35 insurers globally that have ended or limited coverage: three Norh American insurers, most Asian insurers, and all major European insurers.

Another insurance company has dumped Adani: Convex, a global reinsurance company, has announced it won't be going anywhere coal or coal-related infrastructure. The company did not specifically name Adani but referred only to “a new coal mine in Australia.” Convex is the 43rd insurer to rule out underwriting the mine. Insurance Business Mag

Duke Energy, a US utility serving customers in six states, has announced plans to cut coal to less than 5% of its total generation by 2030 and to fully exit coal by 2035. The company currently owns about 16 GW of coal plants, and describes this as the “largest planned coal fleet retirement in the industry.” IEEFA

Coal-free steel plans are accelerating in Europe. German producer Salzgitter will convert to hydrogen and electric arc by 2033, aiming to supply low-carbon steel to all BMW’s plants, and the world's second biggest steelmaker ArcelorMittal has announced a €1.7 billion plan to replace three of its five French blast furnaces with electric arc or direct iron reduction plants by 2030. Argus

Big news in the world of vertical farming. America's biggest retailer, Walmart, has bought an equity stake in Plenty, which grows food off tall, modular towers. The move makes Walmart the first major US retailer to make a significant investment into this area, and it will start offering vertically farmed produce to consumers later this year. Reuters

Ford is investing another $20 billion to reorganize its business for the electric future, aiming to convert every one of its factories from gas-powered to electric vehicle production and hiring more engineers. This brings the automaker's total investment into EVs and digital to $50 billion, as it goes all in on a high stakes race for survival against its rivals. The Verge

Now selling in America: an electric school bus that seats 30, has a tailgate that lifts 800 pounds, travels 140 miles on a single charge, and puts energy back into the grid when parked. “School buses can be charged overnight when energy demand is low, and clean energy can be fed back into the classroom during school hours, keeping classrooms well-lit and students and teachers plugged-in.” Sustainable Bus

The only home we've ever known *

Cuba has established a new marine protected area spanning 728 km² of mangrove forests, seagrass beds and coral reefs. The region is an important spawning site for coral reefs and fish and is also home to critically endangered hawksbill turtles, loggerhead turtles and American crocodiles. Mongabay

Indonesia has recorded significant progress in its program to restore its tropical peatlands. In 2021 it rehabilitated 300,000 ha, representing 25% of its four year target. Attention will now turn to mangrove restoration, emulating the same approach. Mongabay

The US EPA has resumed the enforcement of a rule that limits power plant emissions of mercury and other hazardous pollutants. The original rule, created in 2012, helped curb mercury’s devastating neurological damage to children and prevented thousands of premature deaths, but was abandoned during the Trump administration. AP

Big conservation victory in South Africa, after the country's High Court sided with Indigenous communities in the Eastern Cape to stop Shell's efforts to explore shale gas off the country’s eastern coast. The area falls within the Maputaland-Pondoland-Albany biodiversity hotspot, and its pristine waters provide habitat for an exceptional array of endemic and endangered marine species. Hakai

Iceland will officially end all commercial whaling in 2024. Only one license holder remains in the country after a two year suspension on hunts, and even they doubt there is 'any economic advantage' to continuing beyond 2024 when the current quotas expire. Maritime Executive

Sinaloa has become the fifth state in Mexico to ban bullfighting. Annual bullfights across Mexico result in the killing of thousands of bulls every year but the tide is turning with 73% of Mexicans supporting a nationwide ban. World Animal News

Good news for cranes in the UK, with 72 pairs recorded last year, the highest number since the 17th century! A small number of birds were reintroduced to Norfolk’s Broads in 1979 after a 400 year absence due to wetland drainage and hunting. Habitat protections and hand-rearing projects have helped boost the population to over 200 birds. BBC

After four decades of controversy and legal battles, Korea will ban all bear farming from 2026. While the meat and fur trade are currently illegal, the trade of bear bile has continued to be sold since 1981 as an ingredient for traditional medicine. Under the new law, bears currently in farms must be relocated to protection shelters by 2025. Korea Herald

Indistinguishable from magic

A 24-year-old nuclear-fusion record has been obliterated. Two days ago, scientists at the Joint European Torus generated the highest-ever sustained energy from fusing together atoms, more than doubling their own record from experiments performed in 1997. “These landmark results have taken us a huge step closer to conquering one of the biggest scientific and engineering challenges of them all.” Nature

The technical gulf between Deepmind and all other machine learning companies continues to widen. Their latest achievement is creating a system called AlphaCode that ranked within the top 54% of participants at a programming competition. To do this, it had to solve problems requiring a combination of critical thinking, logic, algorithms, coding, and natural language understanding. Unbelievable.

Argentine scientists are using microorganisms native to Antarctica to clean up pollution from fuels (and potentially plastics) in the pristine expanses of the white continent. The tiny microbes munch through the waste, creating a naturally occurring cleaning system for pollution caused by the diesel used by research bases. "What for us is a contaminant, for them can be food." Daily Sabah

A European led research project to produce battery grade lithium from geothermal waters has concluded successfully. It builds on a technique first used to extract lithium from salt flats in Argentina - engineers have now managed to make it to work with hot brines at pressure in France. Think Geoenergy

A paralysed man with a severed spinal cord has been able to walk again, thanks to an electrical implant developed by a team of Swiss researchers. It's the first time ever that someone with a complete cut to their spinal cord has been able to walk freely. So far nine people have received the implant and regained the ability to walk. BBC

Information superhighway

Ever heard of a micromort? It's a standardised unit of risk for death. First devised by a Stanf0rd professor decades ago, and now resurrected for the COVID-era, it's a great idea to have in the back of your mind, especially if you're trying to weigh up some difficult decisions right now (Omicron, kids at school, vacation in Ukraine etc.). Adjacent Possible

In lieu of watching the Olympics (just can't bring ourselves to do it) may we prexent the world's most elite helicopter rescue team instead? "Joël Jaccard had been buried for nearly 30 minutes when Gérald Maret whirled his chopper across the ridgeline of Roc d'Orzival and spotted, from high above, the telltale mess of the avalanche zone." GQ

We really like Vitalik Buterin's attempt to map out a different political axis to left versus right. He says a better way of thinking about it is 'bulldozers versus vetocracies.' As he describes it, the physical world has too much vetocracy, but the digital world has too many bulldozers, and nowhere is really protected by them. You can see evidence of both approaches right here in this newsletter...

Remember TED talks? Yep us too. Oscar Schwartz looks back, with the added benefit of hindsight. "Back then, I watched those articulate, audacious, composed people talk about how they were building robots that would eat trash and turn it into oxygen, or whatever, and I felt hopeful about the future. But the trash-eating robots never arrived." Drift

Most stories about human evolution have the hunters of the tribe at their centre. What if they weren't the main act though? Neil Gaiman's beautiful, lyrical journey into the history of our species as a sensemaking animal who hungers for knowledge, and advances by love might just make you think again about what really makes us, us. The Marginalia

Humankind

Eradicating polio in Pakistan

Meet Shumaila Rehmani, a mum of three in Pakistan who works as a polio vaccinator. Every day, Shumaila travels several kilometres on foot, going from house to house to vaccinate the children in her community against the debilitating disease.

Since the global eradication effort began in 1988, the number of polio cases has fallen by 99.9%, and much of this progress is thanks to polio workers, like Shumaila, who have vaccinated more than 3 billion children over the last 33 years. Currently, the disease remains endemic in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which is why Shumaila is on a mission to ensure the future of her community is polio free.

The job of a polio-vaccinator may seem pretty straightforward, however the reality of working on the frontline of a vaccination drive is anything but. Shumaila sets out in the early hours of morning, carrying a cooler filled with vaccines and a detailed plan for the homes she needs to visit. Reaching every child in the community she serves, requires careful planning, constant connection, and a lot of patience.

While an overwhelming number of families support vaccination, Shumaila often faces strong resistance from families who refuse vaccination out of fear or a lack of information. Refusing to give up, Shumaila spends extra time with these families, listening to their concerns and gently correcting any misinformation. She regularly hosts information sessions for parents and engages community and religious leaders to help. Her dedication has paid off: of the 250 families who initially refused vaccinations in her community all but four have vaccinated their children after talking with her.

During the pandemic, Shumaila once again stepped up to serve her community. Drawing on her experience and connections she helped families contain the spread of the virus through handwashing and hygiene lessons.

Thanks to the thousands of dedicated health workers like Shumaila, Pakistan only recorded one wild polio case in 2021, compared with 84 in 2020. For Shumaila, her dream of a polio free future for her three children began with a single question. “If other countries can be polio free, why can’t Pakistan be?”

We're out... thanks for being a part of this, we'll see you next week.

Much love,

Gus, Amy and the rest of the FC team