164: Spider Talk

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 new data on humanity's efforts to eliminate one of the world's leading causes of death for newborns, maternal and neonatal tetanus. It's quite the dataset. Between 2000 and 2020, 52 out of the WHO's 59 priority countries achieved elimination, global cases decreased by 88%, and deaths decreased by 92%, from 170,829 in 2000 to just 14,230 in 2019.

Three of Americas biggest credit companies will wipe credit stains from repaid medical debts. The change will eliminate up to 70% of medical debt on credit reports, and from 2023 unpaid debts under $500 will be excluded. It’s huge news for consumers who currently carry debt records for up to seven years, impacting their ability to obtain mortgages, car loans and rental agreements. NYT

South Africa has stepped up its protection for women and children, passing three new laws on gender-based violence. Under the new legislation, all sexual offenders will be listed on a national register and survivors will be able to access protection orders online. The new laws have also significantly expanded the definition of ‘domestic violence’. Global Citizen

Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott had donated $436 million to Habitat for Humanity, and $275 million to Planned Parenthood, the largest gift from a single donor in the organization's more than 100-year history. Since last June, Scott has donated more than $3.8 billion to 465 non-profit organizations. Reuters

One of China’s biggest coal-producing regions, the Shaanxi Province, achieved national air quality standards for the first time in 2021, with a 14.3% reduction of PM2.5 from 2020. The region logged a total of 295.4 ‘good air quality’ days, 10.3 days more than the goal set by China after making a targeted effort to reduce coal consumption and penalise environmental offences. Xinhua

The Nigerian state of Zamfara is close to eliminating lead poisoning cases among children linked to hazardous gold mining in the region. In 2010, over 600 children died and hundreds were left with brain damage and physical disabilities. Thanks to screening programs, chelation therapy and safer mining practices however, there have been no child deaths from lead poisoning since October 2021. Guardian

South Africa's High Court has ruled that air pollution that exceeds national air quality standards constitutes a breach of residents’ constitutional right to a healthy environment. The country's Minister for the Environment now has 12 months to start enforcing clean air standards. M&G

Arnold Schwarzenegger has posted a 9 minute video appeal to the Russian people, warning them they are being fed misinformation about their country's assault on Ukraine. It's a masterpiece of storytelling, cutting through in a way no other politician or public figure has been able to. The video has been viewed more than 55 million times in Russia. BBC

The only home we've ever known *

Panama has enacted a Rights of Nature law as part of a growing global movement to give nature unique legal rights to fight ecological harm. It joins Bolivia, New Zealand, Bangladesh, Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico as countries that have also enacted similar legislation in the last few years. Inside Climate News

A rewilding project in Argentina has returned jaguars to the Iberá wetlands for the first time in 70 years and the macaw for the first time since the 1800s. The project, founded in 1998, turns private land into national parks and has successfully reintroduced regionally extinct species like the pampas deer, giant anteaters, collared peccaries and coypus. Getaway

The Biden administration has protected three million acres of critical habitat for the northern spotted owl, after striking down a Trump-era plan to open the area to logging. The owl’s population has been in serious decline for decades and with 70% of its habitat already lost, biologists feared further reduction would lead to extinction. Guardian

Sustainable fishing practices in Abu Dhabi have surged from 8.9 % in 2018 to 62.3% in 2021, putting the Emirates on track to recover 70% of stocks by 2030. A report in 2019 revealed the populations of over 200 species had rapidly declined due to unregulated fishing but authorities swung into action, establishing marine reserves, seasonal fishing bans and regulating minimum catch sizes. NUAE

China has extended fishing bans on the Yellow River, with a total fishing ban on the upper reaches of the river until the end of 2025. The previous three-month moratorium helped restore some of the river’s ecosystem and it’s hoped the extension will further enhance biodiversity conservation. SCMP

An indigenous community in the Brazilian Amazon have boosted the population of pirarucu, a giant freshwater fish, by 425% in 11 years. The Deni community regained control of their 1.5 million ha territory in 2003 and divided their lakes into the three categories: for community use, for managed pirarucu fishing, and lakes where no fishing is allowed. Climate Change News

Saving the world is cheaper than ruining it

Will Russia's invasion of Ukraine accelerate Europe's energy transition? You bet. We've previously reported on Germany's plans, but they're not alone. Here's a running tally of announcements from other countries in the past two weeks:

• The Netherlands will significantly ramp up the building of offshore wind farms in coming years, doubling the planned capacity by 2030.
• Austria has set the goal of completely converting its electricity generation to renewables by 2030, announced an additional €250 million in funding. "Each solar power plant brings us closer to energy independence"
• Italy says it will cease using Russian gas by 2025, and has approved six new windfarms instead. The country's largest utility Enel, will exit its Russia operations in a “matter of months."
• France will end government subsidies for residential gas heaters and boost support for fossil fuel free heat pumps instead. France wants to end its imports of Russian gas and oil by 2027.
• The UK government says a massive expansion of wind farms is now needed as a matter of national security, rather than a way of fighting climate change. The country's offshore wind pipeline is now 86GW, a 60% increase in the past 12 months, and more than eight times current operational capacity.
• Belgium will extend the lifespan of its nuclear plants by another decade, and plans to spend €1.1 billion to finance its transition to climate neutrality. “This should strengthen our country’s independence from fossil fuels in a chaotic geopolitical context."
• The European Commission has doubled its objective for home-grown biomethane production to 35 billion cubic metres per year by 2030 as part of efforts to bolster the bloc against future energy crises.
• The EU will impose the world's first carbon dioxide emissions tariff on imports of steel, cement, fertilisers, aluminium and electricity from 2026.

Also, Europe has a fair bit of that good ol' freedom energy up and running already.

America's Federal Energy Regulatory Commission says it will now consider environmental impacts like air pollution and threats to groundwater as part of its approval process for natural gas pipeline projects. The guidelines will make approvals for new pipelines 'next to impossible.' Inside Climate News

Just weeks after the EPA began enforcing strict new limits on HFCs, the agency has already blocked imports equal to the emissions from 1.2 million barrels of oil. The new limits will reduce domestic production and consumption of HFCs by 85% over the next 14 years and are expected to prevent up to 0.5°C of warming by 2100. Inside Climate News

The clean energy transition is going to require a LOT of wind turbines, and eventually, those turbine blades have to go somewhere. Good news then from General Electric, which just announced the successful production of its first 100% recyclable wind turbine blade. The 62 metre blade was made using a special resin that can be depolymerized and separate from the fiber, which can be reused again.

Gus here - this one's close to my heart. My alma mater, the University of Cape Town, is divesting from fossil fuels. It's tiny compared to the Harvards of this world, but still, a nice little moment on the long, long road to decarbonization.

This one's a bit bigger. Standard Bank, Africa’s largest lender, has ruled out financing new coal plants or expanding existing coal plants, and will also stop providing financial support to companies that provide critical services to the coal sector, such as construction and operation contractors. News24

Even bigger. HSBC is phasing down its financing of the fossil fuel industry, sending a warning to its oil and gas clients as the bank works toward its target of net-zero emissions. That's a serious shift by one of the world's biggest remaining funders of oil and gas. Among European banks, only Barclays has assisted in underwriting more debt for fossil fuels since 2015. Bloomberg

And biggest of all. Swiss Re, the world's second largest reinsurer, just unveiled its new policy on oil and gas,. From July next year, it will no longer provide cover for companies responsible for the world's 10% most carbon-intensive fossil-fuel production. It will also stop reinsuring any new oil and gas projects that receive the go-ahead from parent companies after 2022. Market Watch

Oh, and check out the search interest in electric cars in the United States this month...

Indistinguishable from magic

This doesn't really fit the bill for 'magic' but we're including it because the technical achievement is just so extraordinary. Engineers have managed to synchronize the power grids of Ukraine and Moldova with Europe, making them independent from Russia. This was supposed to take years - it happened in weeks. “No power system has ever synchronized this quickly before.” Scientific American

It's the little 'copter that could. Ingenuity is still making flights on Mars long after it was supposed to fall apart. Now it's taking on its greatest challenge yet: a former river delta in the Jezero Crater, a land filled with jagged cliffs, angled surfaces, projecting boulders and sand-filled pockets that could stop a rover in its tracks (or upend a helicopter upon landing. Mashable

In 2019, scientists translated the 3D structure of a spider's web into music, creating an interactive musical instrument titled Spider's Canvas. Now they've converted the experience into virtual reality - research they say will not only help them better understand the architecture of a webs, but eventually, perhaps allow them to speak the vibrational language of 'spider'. Science Alert

Researchers conducting follow up tests on participants in phase 3 clinical trials for MDMA with therapy have shown that two months after their final session, around two thirds of participants no longer met the diagnostic criteria for PTSD. By contrast, only one-third of participants in the placebo plus therapy condition saw a significant reduction. Science Alert

A completely paralyzed man has been able to communicate entire sentences using a device that records his brain activity. The man was able to train his mind to use the device (implanted in his brain) to ask for massages, soup, and beer, and to watch a Disney film with his four year old son. It's the first time a completely locked-in person has been able to communicate in this way. Guardian

Tired of waiting for driverless cars? Head to a farm. Later this year, 14-ton tractors that plow day or night with no one in the cab, or even watching nearby, will come off the John Deere assembly line in Iowa, harkening the age of autonomous farming. Farmers will be able to hook up a plow, start the tractor with a swipe of a smartphone and then leave it to rumble up and down a field on its own. AP

Information superhighway

It's the moon, but wow, you've never heard it described like this before. The moon is Pah, is Wadd, is Losna, is Kalfu, is Gleti, is Máni, is Artume, is Abuk, is Baal-hamon, is Myeongwol, is Tsukuyomi, is Bulan, is Bahloo, is Lona, is Luna. The moon is the month map, the blood march, the menstrual lamp. The moon is silent, is silence, is the inexplicable, the unsayable. Just read it. Paris Review

Bill McKibben has an amazing way with words. If only humanity had more people like him telling the story of climate change. He's on fire here in the New Yorker (or maybe, not on fire) with a blindingly simple message. The era of large-scale combustion has to come to a rapid close. Stop burning stuff.

We haven't always been fans of Audrey Watters, but this keynote is just 😍.
"Hope is work. You have to put energy and time into it. You have to practice, repeatedly. You have to keep at it, keep moving, keep pushing. No one else will free you or fix you — except us, collectively through our power to imagine and build a better future. Hope is not in technology. Hope is in our humanity."

Storytelling, narrative and vibes. What's the difference? Three different answers. The first, from Megan Marz is a very good postmodern take, the second, from our favourite space alien Venkatesh Rao says no, it's all about the lorecraft of extended fictional universes, and the third, from Nadia Eghbal, starts there... and then somehow makes it's way into um, philanthropy?

Better out than in? Actually no. Many of us think venting will make things feel a little better, whether it’s complaining about your boss or airing frustration with your partner or kids. But while blowing off steam may feel like it extinguishes negative emotions, research is now showing it doesn't. In fact, it often makes things worse. Slate

Humankind

Build a hospital, change the world

Meet Edna Adan Ismail, an 84 year old midwife, activist and founder of the Edna Adan Maternity and Teaching Hospital in Hargeisa, Somaliland, who has spent her life fighting for women’s health, and to end the practice of female genital mutilation.

Edna’s father was a doctor. He taught her to wash forceps, make bandages out of old hospital bedsheets and instilled the belief that every human being deserves to be taken care of. Although it was unheard of to educate girls, Edna’s father arranged for her to learn how to read and write with a group of local boys and she continued her education at a mission school.

When she was eight years old, Edna’s mother and grandmother arranged for her to be circumcised while her father was away on a business trip. It was a deeply traumatic experience that angered her father and fuelled Edna’s drive to end FGM. Edna was awarded a scholarship in the UK, where she trained as a nurse and midwife for seven years. It was here she met her first husband, who became President of Somaliland in 1993. Despite her position as ‘First Lady’, Edna continued working two days a week in the local hospital, with a dream of one day opening her own.

In 2002, after 15 years of working for the UN and the WHO, Edna returned to Hargeisa to open her hospital, which was built on the site of a former rubbish dump. Edna funded the operations with her pension and sold her jewellery to buy the first basins and toilets. While she was building the hospital, Edna also helped rebuild her war-torn country, serving as Somaliland’s first foreign minister and liked to point out she was “the only foreign minister in the world to have delivered triplets while still in office.”

In 2011, the hospital started training doctors, pharmacists, nurses, and midwives and today, Somaliland has the highest per capita number of trained midwives in Africa. At Edna’s insistence, no student can enrol in the training program without agreeing to work towards ending FGM, and she remains a fierce advocate for women’s rights.

"The world needs to know what can be achieved when women are given a chance to become educated and to build, to save and contribute to this world."

Yeeow. We are done! Thanks as always for reading, and hope those heart screams aren't so loud they drown out the good stuff.

We're going to take a break next week because we've got a huge speaking gig on and we aren't even close to being ready, but we'll see you the week after that.

Much love,

Gus, Amy and the rest of the FC team