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
World population growth has fallen to 1%, its slowest rate since 1950. The main cause? A decline in fertility. The latest projections suggests a peak around 10.4 billion in the 2080s. That means we have 78 years to figure out how to provide 11 billion people with a good standard of sustainable living. The Week
The WHO says the global child mortality rate has dropped by 60% over the past three decades, with the number of annual under-5 deaths plummeting from 12.6 million in 1990 to five million in 2020. The leading causes of death are birth complications, pneumonia, diarrhoea, and malaria, all of which are now being treated with affordable interventions in health and sanitation.
Healthy life expectancy (the number of years spent in a good state of health) increased in Africa by an average of ten years per person over the last two decades, from 46 years in 2000 to 56 years in 2019. Improved access to health services and progress in the fight against infectious diseases have played a big role. Relief Web
The sharp rise in healthy life expectancy during the past two decades is a testament to the region’s drive for improved health and it means that more people are living healthier, longer lives, with fewer threats of infectious diseases and with better access to care and disease prevention services.
Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa
Global leaders and African heads of state have managed to rally over $4 billion of funding towards the global effort to end malaria and neglected tropical diseases. It's welcome news after years of warnings about a slowdown in funding. Relief Web
Here's one of the least celebrated stories of human progress. Teenage pregnancies are declining across the world, with only a third of all women bearing children in adolescence compared to 50% sixty years ago. The decline is contributing to a positive change in girls' education, and infant and maternal mortality rates. ORF
In the past seven years, India’s digital revolution has increased the number of people connected to the internet from 19% to 60% of its 1.3 billion population. The government launched Digital India in 2015 with a mission to make India a trillion-dollar digital economy by 2025. BBC
New legislation in Colorado will stop sales tax on all diapers and menstrual products, saving consumers around $9.1 million annually. Nationally, one in four American teenagers report missing school due to no access to period products and one in three American families can’t afford diapers. Gazette
After a decade of efforts to reform the juvenile system in Hawaii, for the first time ever, there are no girls at the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility in Kailua. Incarceration rates for girls dropped 42% from 2018 to 2022 due to significant reforms including the decriminalization of prostitution for minors and the addition of trauma-informed care. Hawaii News Now
It’s about how can systems collaborate and work together to position interventions earlier, and to make sure that we’re responding with healing and support instead of punishment.
Hannah Green, Vera Institute of Justice’s Initiative to End Girls’ Incarceration
Saving the world is cheaper than ruining it
A little less than a month ago, we were lamenting the state of US climate politics in this newsletter. Negotiations over Build Back Better were dead in the water, Joe Manchin was the man who'd sold the world for a few pieces of silver, and technology offered our only hope of salvation.
We've never been so delighted to be wrong. In a move that surprised their fellow senators, top congressional staffers, and every energy expert in the world, Joe Manchin and Chuck Schumer unveiled the Inflation Reduction Act, containing $369 billion in climate and energy spending. At some point this afternoon, after three decades of inaction, the elected representatives of the United States Congress will pass the country's first ever economy-wide emissions-reduction bill. It's the most significant climate news since China announced its net zero target in 2020, and maybe even since the adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015.
Politics, it turns out, can give us hope too (and sometimes when we least expect it). As Robinson Meyer says, "history's greatest obstacle to climate progress has finally fallen," and the United States stands poised to take up its mantle once again as 'the indispensable nation' when it comes to solving the world's biggest challenges. That might sound a little grandiose, until you consider that not only does the legislation get the US to within striking distance of its 2030 climate target, it also makes renewables everywhere cheaper, giving China, India and every other country an incentive to decarbonize that has nothing to do with saving the world, and everything to do with saving money.
There's been a ton of coverage, so we're not going to repeat it all here. If you're looking for a good summary, we recommend Jeff Stein, Maxine Joselow and Rachel Roubein's piece in the Washington Post (paywall-free version here). If you prefer a more in-depth, energy nerd version, then this podcast from David Roberts, Leah Stokes and Jesse Jenkins should be your first and last port of call. Those three have been in the climate and energy trenches for as long as we can remember, and their excitement is palpable.
If you couldn't be bothered with any of that, just check out this infographic, courtesy of the team at Bloomberg NEF. It shows the energy spending in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, how it compares to the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, and how together, they tackle almost every source of carbon emissions in the United States. It's very, very good news. Savour the moment.
In other news you might have missed, global investment in renewable energy in the first half of 2022 rose 11% year on year, to $226 billion, a new record for the first six months of any year. That's despite significant supply chain challenges and economic headwinds, showing that investor appetite is stronger than ever. BNEF
The Chinese government has issued a new plan proposing that emissions from the steel sector (the country's second largest emitter after the power sector) must peak before 2025 and fall by 30% by 2030. Steel production from electric arc furnaces must increase to over 15% of capacity by 2025 and 20% by 2030. Yicai Global
India has officially updated its climate change pledges. In 2015 it committed to 40% of electricity from non-fossil sources by 2030, and to reducing emissions intensity by 35% compared to 2005. Those targets have now been increased to 50% clean electricity and a 45% reduction in emissions intensity by 2030. Reuters
The Phillipines has confirmed that the moratorium on new coal power plants announced in October 2020 by the Duterte administration will remain in place under the new Marcos administration. Apparently insurers do not want to support new coal projects, and investors are “finding it difficult.” Indeed. Manila Bulletin
Transmission, transmission, transmission. The three sexiest words in energy. State Grid Corp. of China, the world's largest utility, just announced $22 billion in funding for new power lines for clean energy, and MISO, the operator of the US Midwest's electrical grid, has approved a $10.3 billion upgrade across nine states.
Not sure anyone realizes quite how much renewable capacity is coming down the track in the United Kingdom over the next five years. By 2027, enough is going to be built to meet nearly a third of overall energy demand, most of it via offshore wind that costs less than £50/MWh. Carbon Brief
Spain just switched on Europe's largest ever solar plant - big enough to produce enough power for 334,000 homes. The country is now aiming for three-quarters of electricity from renewables by the end of the decade, up from about 47% last year. Bloomberg
The levelized cost of wind and solar is now well below fossil gas in China and South Korea, the two countries with the largest pipelines of gas projects in the world. Did someone just say, "saving the world is cheaper than ruining it?" Carbon Brief
Sounds like it. IRENA has released a new report showing that the cost of renewable energy has slid for the third year in a row.
This is something that is unstoppable. It is clear that we are moving to a new energy system. There is no doubt. The direction of travel is clear.
Francesco La Camera, Director-General, International Renewable Energy Agency IRENA
The only home we've ever known
Pakistan has increased mangrove coverage in the past three decades from 476 km2 in 1990 to an impressive 1,463 km2 in 2020. What began as a series of small,
piecemeal efforts has grown into one of the most ambitious reforestation campaigns in the world. The success is credited to a scientific approach, government commitment, and strong support from local communities. RTBC
Bolivia’s decision to open an alternate route to its historic ‘Death Road’- a serpentine dirt path across deadly cliffs in the Andes - has saved human lives and revitalized wildlife. The area is now flourishing, with 16 species of mammals and 94 species of wild birds including the return of hummingbirds, toucans, and parrots. Reuters
Conservation goals in Cuba! Almost 19% of the country’s wilderness is now officially protected. The country had a huge boom in the number of protected areas in 2021 with the addition of 26 new sites, bringing the national tally to 144. Cuba News
Single-use plastic bag use in England has fallen by 20% after an increase in price from 5p to 10p last year. The average person now buys around three single-use carrier bags a year compared with 140 bags in 2014. Since charges were first introduced in 2015, total usage in England has decreased by 97%. BBC
Conservation efforts in Scotland are turning the tide on land ownership, with a group of villagers in Langholm fundraising enough to buy 2,100 hectares to add to an existing nature reserve the same size they purchased last year. The grassroots effort aims to restore local wildlife and peatland while creating a flourishing nature-based economy. Euro News
The number of wolf packs in the Alps has jumped more than 25% in just one year, from 250 in 2021 to over 300. Wolves were nearly eradicated in Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries and activists have worked for decades to revive populations. "The wolf is here to stay." DW
A landmark legal battle has saved Tasmania’s Tarkine rainforest from the construction of a dam to store toxic mining waste. Forest defenders fought against the proposal, blocking the road to the site for 550 days - and for good reason. The forest is crucial habitat for 60 rare and endangered species including the Tasmanian devil and the masked owl. Euro News
Georgia's endangered loggerhead sea turtles are multiplying in record numbers, with conservationists counting 3,966 nests this year, a new record. Biologists and volunteers have worked since the 1990s to boost the population, which has increased by 4% every year. CNN
Indistinguishable from magic
Want to 'travel' to the Southern Ring Nebula? For anyone still not convinced about the incredible potential of the James Webb Space Telescope, check this out. 2,000 light-years in 60 seconds. It took 33 years for some of humanity's brightest minds in science and engineering to build this machine, Behold, a new era of astronomy.
Two years after shocking the world with the discovery of a material capable of room-temperature superconductivity, physicists in Nevada have upped the ante by reproducing the feat at one third of the pressure. This could have major implications for energy storage and transmission, supporting everything from better cell phone batteries to a more efficient energy grid. UNLV
Scientists in China have developed rice crops that can thrive with less nitrogen, and produce a yield 40-70% higher than that of regular rice. Instead of altering individual genes, they focused on what's known as a 'transcription factor' - a protein that controlled the rate of transcription of genetic information from 345 separate genes into messenger RNA. Ars Technica
More than 1.2 million kilometres of undersea cable crisscross our planet's ocean floor. They're about as thick as garden hoses, and contain strands of glass so pure a kilometre-thick block would appear as clear as a freshly washed windshield. Scientists say they've now figured out how to use them to detect earthquakes and tsunamis - the beginnings of what might eventually be a planetary nervous system. New Yorker
Genetic editing is moving out of the lab, and into medicine. An international team from the UK, the US and Singapore is designing a jab in the arm for patients suffering from inherited heart muscle diseases, which works by silencing their faulty genes. Animal studies have already shown the technique works.“This is a defining moment for cardiovascular medicine.” Guardian
After 14 years of development, the Samson Switchblade – a fast, street-legal three wheeler that converts at the touch of a button into a 322-km/h airplane – has been approved for airworthiness by US federal aviation authorities. When your childhood Lego games become reality... New Atlas
Information superhighway
What does God smell like? Humans have been searching for the scent of sanctity for millenia, and it hasn't always been pretty. “We speak of retarded nutrition … of perspiration, of coma; they speak of the victory of eternal life over corruption and death. But it is the inevitable fate of all scientific explanations to appear dull and ugly beside the poetic imaginations of hagiography.” Neoma
Maybe the best attempt we've ever seen at explaining why we should all try to make the world more optimistic. "The first steps towards broader optimism are soft: greater education about the historical facts and trendlines, better understanding of what optimism actually is, and a shift to focusing on the benefits of progress in place of fear." Not Boring
The Kusunda are a tiny indigenous group scattered across central western Nepal. Their language, also called Kusunda, is unique: it is believed by linguists to be unrelated to any other language in the world, with no known origin, and a n'um'ber of quirks, including no standard way of negating a sentence, no words for 'yes' or 'no', nor any words for direction. BBC
Effective altruism has a lot of weird stuff grafted onto it, but many of its core ideas (give money directly to the global poor / public health is really important / do good with some rigour) are sound, and not necessarily common sense. As the philosopher Amia Srinivasan says,“effective altruism is essentially just collective decency with better branding and organization." Time
This essay's been doing the rounds, and for good reason. Ezra Klein says that after years of denial, he thinks McLuhan may have been right after all. The medium really is the message; it's an abdication of responsibility to pretend the technologies we make have no say in who we become. As McLuhan’s colleague John M. Culkin put it, “we shape our tools, and thereafter, they shape us.” NYT
Humankind
Lions and Tigers and War
Meet Natalia Popova, a 50-year old economist in Kyiv, Ukraine, who has risked close encounters with tanks and rockets to save and rehabilitate more than 300 animals from the frontline of the Russian invasion.
Natalia always loved animals; she was the kid who built houses for worms and talked to birds. Although an economist by education, in 1999 she followed her passion and opened the first private horse club in Ukraine, which was her primary business until four years ago, when she unexpectedly saved a lion!
In 2018 an organisation asked for Natalia’s help with a lioness suffering from a broken spine. Although her expertise was horses, Natalia took one look at the big cat and went to work building an enclosure and raising funds on social media to cover rehabilitation. Word spread and soon Natalia was receiving rescue requests from all over Ukraine. Her mission steadily grew from a single lion enclosure into an animal shelter, which she bankrolled herself.
When Russia invaded in February, animals began roaming Kyiv’s streets. Lions, tigers, and other wild animals appeared in the crossfire; many who had been kept as pets were deserted when their owners fled the country. Ukrainian soldiers would alert Natalia when they sighted an animal and she’d drive to the hot spots alone, trembling in the car on the way there. It wasn’t just the war that scared her. With no formal veterinary experience, she had to learn how to anaesthetise, transport, and care for animals.
Today Natalia’s shelter is home to a menagerie of animals, from lions and leopards to goats and dogs. Once an animal is rehabilitated Natalia finds them new homes outside the warzone. To date, 100 of her rescues have been relocated to Western Ukraine and 200 sent safely abroad to zoos and reserves in Poland, Spain, France, and South Africa.
Despite being $200,000 in debt for medical expenses and feed, and with no end to the war in sight, Natalia is determined to keep on going. “I will still borrow money and go to hot spots, because I can imagine the stress animals are under because of the war, especially if there’s no one there to help them. ”
A long one this week (we blame Joe Manchin). Thanks for hanging in there, hope you enjoyed reading it. We'll see you in seven days.
Much love,
Gus, Amy and the rest of the team
