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
In 2020, India approved Pneumosil, a vaccine for pneumococcal disease. It's a been a huge success story, produced in India, by an Indian company, and now being distributed globally to other low- and middle-income countries for S$2 per dose. Gavi, the international vaccine alliance, estimates it will prevent the deaths of around 50,000 Indian children each year.
Nearly half a million Kenyans were lifted out of extreme poverty last year as the country bounced back from the pandemic. The World Bank says the number of people living on less than $1.90 a day fell from 19.2 million or 35.7% of the population in 2020, to 18.8 million or 34.3% in 2021, and will fall further to 18.7 million by the end of 2022. Business Daily Africa
Vietnam has made significant progress on poverty in the last decade. The poverty rate fell from 16.8% to 5% between 2010 and 2020, lifting over 10 million people out of poverty. Although progress was stalled during the pandemic, it did not reverse, and the poverty rate is now falling again. World Bank
Cancer is the leading cause of death in Canada, with estimates showing that 43% of the population will receive a diagnosis in their lifetime. Good news then - even though overall numbers are up, due to an ageing population - the age related mortality rate has dropped to its lowest level ever recorded. CMJ
The reduction in motor vehicle deaths in the United States is one of the country's most substantial public health acheivements. In 2000, car accidents were responsible for 13,049 deaths among young people (13.62 per 100,000 persons). Twenty years later, there has been a nearly 40% decrease, with 8,234 deaths (8.31 per 100,000 persons) recorded in 2020. NEJM
New Mexico recently established the most extensive tuition-free scholarship program in the US, and Maine has proposed making two years of community college free for high school graduates. This would bring the total number of states with free-college programs to 30, i.e 60% of all US states would have free tuition opportunities. CNBC
Spain is finalizing a draft law that guarantees the right to abortion, and scraps a requirement for 16 and 17-year-olds to obtain parental consent for the procedure. The new government is also introducing up to five days of medical leave for women suffering from severe period pain, and has made it a criminal offence for anyone to harass women attending clinics to voluntarily terminate pregnancies.
Since 1994, 59 countries around the world have expanded the rights of women to choose what to do with their bodies. Only four countries, Poland, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and the United States, have tightened abortion laws during that period. The moral arc of history does bend towards progress - even if it's not always a straight line. NYT
Saving the world is cheaper than ruining it
Allianz, one of the world’s biggest oil and gas insurers, just committed to stop insuring and investing in new oil and gas fields, new oil power plants, projects in the Arctic, and new midstream oil infrastructure as of January 2023, and will not renew existing contracts as of July 1, 2023. In case it wasn't obvious, this is a really big one. Insure Our Future
We've been saying this for a while - wait until the Germans get going on electric vehicles. Mercedes is now taking the fight to Tesla with their EQXX prototype, which has a 1,000 km range, well above the range of any petrol or diesel-powered vehicle, and 40% more energy efficient than a Tesla Model 3.
Slowly, and then all at once. 96% of all new electricity capacity added in the US in the first two months of this year was either wind or solar, and in April 2022 the country reached a major milestone, with wind and solar accounting for 20% of all electricity production. Ember
The change is being predominantly driven by a wind boom across Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas. "I love the sound of wind turbines in the morning - it's the sound of money." And California just set an extraordinary new record: on the 30th April, 99.87% of the state's electricity load was served by renewables. Desert Sun
The US Bureau of Land Management is planning 39 utility scale solar projects totalling 29GW of capacity on federal lands within the next three years. That’s China-scale stuff, more than twice France’s entire installed solar capacity, and five times larger than the record-breaking US wind power auction held earlier this year. Recharge News
China's momentous 2021 pledge to end support for new overseas coal power plants has led to 15 projects being shelved or cancelled, with another 32 on the chopping block. Meanwhile, Inner Mongolia, the country's second largest coal-producing region, is planning to add 135GW of renewables by 2025 in an effort to meet Beijing’s goal of peak emissions by 2030. Bloomberg
The Chinese Academy of Engineering has joined a chorus of researchers who think the country will hit peak emissions before 2030. The state-linked think tank is is projecting that emissions will top out in 2027, and that more than 80% of China's power will come from non-fossil fuel sources by around 2045. Bloomberg
Chinese funds with a climate focus more than doubled their assets last year, passing the US as the second-largest global market. 53 new funds launched in 2021, and assets grew to $47 billion, a 149% increase from the previous year, sparked by record inflows from the domestic clean energy sector. Bloomberg
The only home we've ever known *
After a monumental effort to rid Lord Howe of an estimated 210,000 rats, the island’s ecosystem is thriving. “What is unfolding is an ecological renaissance, since the rodents have gone, the catchphrase is: ‘I’ve never seen that before’.” Among the animals bouncing back is one of Australia’s rarest birds, the flightless Woodhen, whose population has doubled to 565 in the past three years. SMH
Greyhound racing is essentially dead in the United States. By the end of this year, there will only be two tracks left in the country. To put this in perspective - in the 1980s there were more than 50 tracks, but concerns about how dogs were treated have now nearly eliminated a sport that gained widespread appeal a century ago. Nat Geo
The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund is adding an additional 796 km2 to its community led conservation programs in the DRC, in an effort to repeat its success with mountain gorillas for lowland dwelling Grauer gorillas. The move means that 2,379 km2 are now being watched over by about 20 families. AP
Construction has begun on the world’s largest wildlife crossing for animals caught in Southern California’s urban sprawl. The bridge will stretch 61 meters over the US 101, giving big cats, coyotes, deer and other wildlife a safe path to the nearby Santa Monica Mountains. “This crossing could not have come at a better time. It is truly a game changer.” AP
The Biden administration has just signed an executive order strengthening the protection of the country’s old-growth forests, conservation organizations in Maine say they now have more than 20,000 acres under management, and a remote wilderness in Michigan is expanding after been gifted 1,300 acres of neighbouring property.
Indistinguishable from magic
People of the Milky Way! Behold, a black hole has just been revealed by a planet-wide array of observatories. Not just any black hole... our black hole. Space.com
China is using artificial intelligence to turn a dam on the Tibetan Plateau into the world’s largest 3D printer. The 180 metre high Yangqu hydropower plant will be built slice by slice, using unmanned excavators, trucks, bulldozers, pavers and rollers controlled by AI, in the same additive manufacturing process used in 3D printing. SCMP
Scientists at MIT have built a desalination unit the size of a suitcase, that produces clean, drinkable water without the need for filters, using electrical power to remove particles instead. You put your sea water into the device, press a button, and you’re done. You can even buy a portable solar panel along with it as a power source.
The Bayraktar TB2 is a cheap, grey, unimpressive military drone - but in the defense of Ukraine, it has become a legend. Its bombs are so accurate they can be delivered into an infantry trench, and songs have been composed in its honour. “It's enabled a fairly significant operational revolution in how wars are being fought right now. This probably happens once every 30 or 40 years.” New Yorker
A group of 160 researchers going by the baroque moniker “Tabula Sapiens Consortium” has unveiled a massive digital map of human cells, detailing gene expression in nearly 500,000 cells from 24 human tissues and organs. It's the largest ever cell atlas and also the first to incorporate details of the microbial communities living alongside and inside us. Science
Meet Ameca, the newest title holder of the world's most realistic robot.
Information superhighway
Science journalist Natalie Wolchover just won Quanta its first ever Pulitzer Prize 'for coverage that revealed the complexities of building the James Webb Space Telescope.' Here's the piece that won the prize. Go on, you know you're going to have to read it now. Quanta
Two of our all time favourites, in one interview. What's not to love here - Noah Smith and Ramez Naam in conversation about energy and biology. These are two of the world's smartest optimists, but we've never seen them in the same room before. Noahpinion
Another one of our heroes, Deb Chachra, in a great essay prompted by Nick Harkaway's invitation to suggest three words to describe a future green society. "We live on a sun-drenched blue marble hanging in space, and for all that we persist in believing it's the other way around, that means we have access to finite resources of matter but unlimited energy. We can learn to act accordingly." Metafoundry
Unless you've been living under a rock you've probably heard about large language models by now - GPT-3 is the most famous, but there's a host of others too. Great deep dive here in the NYT on what they are, why they matter, and why they're probably more than just 'stochastic parrots.'
Music writer David Yaffe's story on fatherhood, non-verbal autism, and the extraordinary power of music and the human spirit. This one left us in a puddle on the floor. Still thinking about it weeks after reading. Trouble Man
Humankind
The Human Library
Meet Ronni Abergel, a 48 year old Danish human rights activist and journalist who created the ‘Human Library,’ a global movement that encourages people to “un-judge each other” by allowing them to “borrow” a human from a marginalised background and listen to their story.
Ronni was born and raised in Denmark. At 19 years old, one of his close friends was stabbed in a nightclub in Copenhagen, prompting Ronni to initiate “Stop the Violence”, a series of concerts and workshops to help youth to resolve conflicts peacefully and find common ground.
In 2000, the organizers of Roskilde, the largest music festival in Northern Europe, invited Ronni to create a series of interactive encounters. The opportunity sparked an idea of creating a safe space where stereotypes could be challenged through conversation. Because libraries are one of the few neutral places where everyone is welcome, Ronni designed a human library where users could loan out stigmatized or unconventional people to ask them questions and challenge assumptions.
The first 'library' event ran for four days straight, resulting in thousands of unlikely pairings and powerful conversations: a feminist and a Muslim woman, a transgender man and a conservative Christian.
Over the past 21 years, Ronni’s idea has become an international bestseller. The Human Library is active in 80 countries and the hands-on learning program is embedded in festivals, high schools and as part of medical training in universities. When in-person events abruptly stopped in 2020, the library went virtual and without geographic restrictions, readership doubled—the plumber from Kenya can now “borrow” the artist from Bangladesh.
Ronni’s library rules are simple: If you treat the books respectfully and return them on time, in the same shape you borrowed them, “they will answer any question you have the courage to ask.” The “books” are trained to set safe boundaries while volunteers around the globe monitor the conversations and a psychologist is always on call.
Ronni is now a book himself. After his 37-year-old wife died unexpectedly, leaving him with two small children, he noticed that people didn’t know what to say to him. He now hopes to break some of the stigma around grief for the people who borrow him.
“My vision is that one day we don’t need the library anymore because we have the courage again to talk to the people around us. But in our daily grind, we don’t have the time and opportunity.”
Thanks for reading, we'll see you next week. No really, we'll see you next week, we promise.
Much love,
Gus, Amy and the rest of the team
