180: Pepper Shepherd
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.
Give a damn
Six months ago, you helped us send $5,000 to a charity in Nigeria called Safe Child Africa. They used the funds to create a play space at their emergency children's centre in Calabar. Here's a letter and a video from the organization that runs the centre. Thank you to all of you, our paying subscribers, for making this possible.
Good news you probably didn't hear about
Children are leading the fight against dengue in Rio de Janeiro by breeding mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia - a bacteria that blocks the transmission of dengue to humans. Cases have fallen by 95% since 2015, similar efforts in Indonesia and Colombia have reduced cases by up to 89%, and programs are now being rolled out across Mexico, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Fiji, Kiribati, New Caledonia, and Vanuatu.
Cervical cancer is the most common cancer affecting women in Rwanda. Thanks to rapidly expanding testing facilities, the deployment of tens of thousands of community health workers, and a successful HPV vaccination programme for 12 year old girls, officials believe it is on track to become the first country in the world to eliminate the disease. Guardian
A non-profit group, RIP Medical Debts, has relieved 3.6 million low-income patients in the United States of their healthcare debts. The initiative, developed by two former debt collectors, involves the company buying bundles of delinquent hospital bills but instead of profiting from customers, clearing their debt. NPR
An epic 18-day health campaign carried out in Somalia in May 2022 distributed preventative worm medicine to around 2.48 million school-aged children and adults. Officials say that country is on track to eliminate schistosomiasis and soil-transmitted helminth infections as public health problems by 2025. WHO
Zambia has become the latest country to commit to abolishing the death penalty. While a moratorium has been in place since 1997, this is the first time the measure has been approved by its legislature. It joins a growing list of African nations to have abolished the practice - Guinea in 2016, followed by Chad in 2020, Sierra Leone in 2021, and the Central African Republic earlier this year. UN
A victory for LGBTQ+ rights, with Pennsylvania banning conversion therapy. Steady progress has been made across America with 20 states completely banning the practice and five others enforcing partial bans. LGBTQ+ youth who experience conversion therapy are more than twice as likely to attempt suicide than youth who don’t. NBC
Scotland has become the first country to offer tampons and pads for free nationally. Thanks to legislation approved in 2020, free menstrual products will be available in pharmacies and community centres for anyone who needs them. New Zealand, Kenya and the states of New York, Virginia and Oregon currently distribute products for free in public schools. NPR
Providing access to free period products is fundamental to equality and dignity and removes the financial barriers to accessing them.
Shona Robison, Social Justice Secretary, Scotland
Schoolchildren across California will be eligible for free breakfast and lunch when they return to class in September, regardless of their family’s immigration status or income level. It's the first state in the US to implement the program for any student requesting a meal. Several cities including New York, Boston, and Chicago, also have free meal initiatives in place. USA Today
Leuven, a city of 150,000 people in Belgium, has officially banned cars from its centre. Cycling is now the preferred mode of transit, with public transport coming in second and cars third. Similar trends are accelerating across the continent, and across the Channel too - cycling in London is up by 25% from pre-pandemic levels.
The only home we've ever known
The population of saiga antelopes in Kazakhstan has rebounded 10-fold after a fatal disease killed half the population seven years ago. 1.3 million saiga now roam the grasslands, a huge leap from the 130,000 left in 2015. The huge success is thanks to government protection of nearly 5 million ha to support wildlife rehabilitation. New Scientist
A landmark conservation agreement between Indigenous communities, NGOs, and governments in Pastaza, Ecuador, will protect the country’s largest and most biodiverse forest from mining. The agreement recognises the integral role Indigenous communities play in the fight against climate change Pastaza’s forests capture a whopping 858 million tonnes of carbon annually. Euro News
Thailand’s Maya Bay (made famous by the movie ‘The Beach’) has reopened after four years of extensive rehabilitation. Over 30,000 pieces of coral have since been replanted prompting the return of clownfish, lobsters, and blacktip sharks. Preventative measures are now in place for the bay including tourism caps and a two month closure every year. CNN
The Gitxsan Nation of northwest British Columbia has just declared the entirety of its 1,700 square km2 territory in the upper Skeena River watershed as protected. It's vital habitat for the likes of mountain goats, wolverines, grizzlies and wild salmon."What Gwininitxw did was based on laws that are way older than Canada.” Narwhal
Abundant salmon have returned to the rivers of British Columbia, with the biggest increase in decades recorded this summer. Scientists attribute the rise to various factors, including the implementation of sustainable fishing practices and the elimination of open-net farms. CBC
Australia is phasing out battery eggs, after a lengthy battle between the egg industry and animal welfare groups. The reforms, announced yesterday, state that egg producers must phase out the use of conventional layer hen cages over the next 10 to 15 years, and by 2036 at the latest, depending on the age of their current infrastructure. Guardian
Ten years after an ambitious pest eradication project Macquarie Island, off the coast of Tasmania, has become a shining beacon of grand-scale environmental recovery. Once on the brink of collapse, the island has sprung back to life with giant tussock grass, mega herbs, and orchards and the return of birds like blue and grey petrelsand Antarctic prions. Guardian
Saving the world is cheaper than ruining it
More on the Inflation Reduction Act (how could we resist)? Its $369 billion for climate and energy spending by 2030 is by far the largest such investment in US history. It's a lot of money, except China and Europe are spending even more. China is already spending almost the same as that every year, and Europe will spend almost twice as much by 2027. Bloomberg
Here's the NYT's resident climate doomsayer David Wallace-Wells, sounding surprisingly upbeat. "Not that long ago, the upfront cost of a green transition looked almost incalculably large. Today it seems plausible that quite dramatic emissions gains can be achieved for just $369 billion — with an estimated payoff of nine million new American jobs, to boot."
Although it’s attracted little attention, the bipartisan CHIPS Act, signed into law just a few days before the IRA, contains an estimated $67 billion for clean energy R&D and climate resilience. On its own, that makes it one of the largest climate bills ever passed by Congress. Atlantic
Vibe shift anyone?
Since we are all apparently incapable of feeling good about things, you've probably heard that Joe Manchin shoved in some clauses about oil and gas leases. Thing is, they negate less than 2% of the bill's carbon effectiveness, and even if the government does auction those leases, it doesn't look like the fossil fuel companies want to buy them. Grist
Thanks to a lawsuit brought by environmental activists, a US federal judge has revived a nationwide Obama-era ban on new coal leases that was tossed during the Trump administration, saying a thorough environmental assessment is needed before the moratorium can be lifted. Reuters
Under new regulations, China's steel industry will be required to reach peak CO2 emissions by 2025. Difficult to understate the importance of this (and baffling it hasn't been picked up by global news organizations). China produces more than half of the world's steel, and over 60% of the industry's global carbon emissions. Weixin
Massachusetts has a major new climate law boosting offshore wind and solar, and - in a first for the state - allowing cities and towns to ban fossil fuels in new buildings and renovations. “It really bolsters the offshore wind industry. It sends a signal to the world that Massachusetts will be a significant player in the space.” Boston Globe
Last year, Malaysia's largest electricity provider, TNB, said it would cease all new investments in coal. It's now announced plans to fast track the closure of its existing coal-fired power plants to hasten the transition to renewables. PV Magazine
The world's biggest battery maker, CATL, is investing $7.6 billion into building a factory in Hungary. It's the single largest investment in Hungary's history. As we've said many times: if you thought the digital revolution was a big deal, wait until the clean energy revolution gets going. Bloomberg
Indistinguishable from magic
The latest delivery to the international space station included a miniaturized in vivo robotic assistant that slices into different types of simulated skin and tissue to study how to perform remote surgery for space-based medical emergencies. Or if your prefer: robot surgeon in space. Inverse
Electric vehicles. First there was performance anxiety, but that got solved. Then range anxiety, but that got solved too. The latest worry is charging times, except Chinese car company XPeng now has superchargers that give its G9 sedan 200 km in just 5 minutes. The company will begin deploying stations across 10 cities later this year, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.
We have ignition. Scientists have confirmed that an experiment conducted in 2021 created a self-sustaining fusion reaction. 192 lasers hit a 1 mm2 capsule filled with hydrogen, collapsing it into a tiny sphere 100 million times more pressurised than our atmosphere, in which hydrogen atoms underwent fusion and released 10 quadrillion watts for 100 trillionths of a second. Now they just need to figure out how they did it. Nature
Scientists from the University of Cambridge have successfully managed to change the blood type of three deceased kidneys to the universal O blood type. They used a normothermic perfusion machine (sound familiar?) to flush an enzyme through the kidneys to perform the conversion. Could be a major breakthrough that increases the supply of kidneys for transplants. Euro News
The state of Victoria, Australia, has a digital twin that combines 2D, 3D and live data into a single model, allowing for better planning, monitoring and evaluation across the entire built and natural environments. If you've never heard of the concept of digital twins can we humbly suggest you give that rabbit hole a go? It's pretty amazing.
Information superhighway
After years of looking for something like this, we've finally found the definitive, step-by-step roadmap to making a hot sauce of your choosing. Or as the author says, everything you need to know to become your own pepper shepherd. "You put it together, you kind of forget about it, and it happens." We're off to the kitchen immediately. Serious Eats
Tim O' Reilly is one of our great communicators on digital technologies. Here he is with very good question: what if, instead of thinking of the Metaverse as a set of interconnected virtual spaces, we think of it as a new kind of communications medium? If that's true, then we're all already using some version of it. The occasion is more the point than the place.
Humans, killer whales and pilot whales are the only mammals that experience menopause. From an evolutionary point of view, it doesn't seem to make sense. Unless that is, it's actually a better way to ensure your genes are passed on? Enter the grandmother hypothesis, an idea we first introduced readers to in 2020, and which has now been backed up by two new studies. Nautilus
Engineering tends to valorize the lofty ideals of grand projects, but it's in the daily grind that the deeper pact between engineering and society plays out. Put another way, we celebrate the light bulb but not the vast electric utility system that makes illumination possible, and that means we often miss out. When reaching for the sublime, the quotidian may be what sparks the revelation. Issues
One year on from FC charity partner, SOLA, fleeing Afghanistan - a beautiful piece from their founder urging us to see the power of Afghan girls and women. WaPo
We're straying into pop culture territory here, which is unusual for us, but we just couldn't help ourselves. You might have already seen this one in your feeds or on television, but in case you haven't, check out this astonishing set of synchronized illusions by Lebanese dance troupe Mayyas for the latest edition of America's Got Talent. Extraordinary. My Modern Met
Humankind
The forest underground
Meet Tony Rinaudo, a 65-year old Australian agronomist who helped transform millions of hectares of desert in Niger into abundant forest – without planting a single tree.
Tony grew up in the agricultural region of Northern Victoria and from a young age carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. He struggled to make sense of starving African children on the evening news, or the destructive impact of his family’s farming on the land. After getting a degree in agricultural science, Tony moved to Niger in 1981 with the dream of solving at least one of the world’s problems.
Nothing prepared him for what he found. Niger was a moonscape, on the verge of ecological collapse, leaving food and water in scarce supply. Tony put his knowledge to work, opening a nursery and collaborating with local communities to plant trees and protect seedlings, but nothing survived the desert heat. After two years of expensive failures, Tony was ready to give up when he had 'a divine intervention.'
He’d stopped his car in between villages to let some air out of the tyres, and as he looked around the unforgiving landscape, prayed for guidance. Moments later, a patch of green caught his eye. He assumed it was a bush, but when he looked closely, it was a tree that had been cut down and was re-sprouting from its stump. The root systems were still intact, just hidden underground. With millions of stumps across the country, Tony realised the trees had been there all along. The 'underground forest' just needed cultivating.
Growing trees from stumps is a centuries-old technique, but Tony had to convince farmers to stop burning the bushes on their land and allow them to become trees again. Eventually he rallied ten volunteers and after a few setbacks, the team gained momentum as forests grew and crops started thriving. Over the past 20 years Tony's underground forests have restored six million hectares of land across Niger, one the largest environmental transformations on planet Earth.
Improved harvests have significantly reduced the annual hungry period from six months to less than a month each year, and Tony’s approach has been introduced into another 23 countries. Despite the scale of our environmental challenges, Tony is optimistic about the future. "If the poorest people in the world, the ones with the least resources, can forge such a transformation, imagine what can we do with a problem of our own making?"
That's it for this edition, thanks for reading, and thank you again for your support, which makes projects like that play space for Safe Child Africa possible. We're so grateful.
We'll see you next week.
Much love,
Gus, Amy and the rest of the FC team.