For those who are curious here are the results from the survey we sent out a few weeks ago. The top level takeaway is that most of you like the newsletter just as it is! A significant majority feel they are getting good value and the length and frequency is just right, and we also received some valuable feedback on your favourite and least favourite sections. We're going to use that information to experiment a little with our format, but don't expect any major shakeups.
It was also interesting to hear that the majority of our readers don't follow us on social media, and most of you aren't interested in a community forum. Many people do however, want the ability to nominate charities on our website, so watch out for that feature very soon. Last but certainly not least, more than half of you would like to see us create a standalone news site (as long as it doesn't come at the expense of the newsletter). We hear you. All we have to do now is find someone with deep pockets :)
Thanks again to everyone who filled out the survey, and in particular to all of those who left us such nice reviews. Your words are much appreciated and should come in handy in our efforts to reach a wider audience. On that note, and without further ado:
Good news you probably didn't hear about
Between 2000 and 2020, the global population with access to safely managed drinking water services has increased from 3.8 billion to 5.8 billion people. That means 90% of human beings now have access to either basic or safely managed drinking water services - the highest proportion in our species history. WHO
A new dengue vaccine that cuts the risk of fever by 61% and hospitalisation by 84% is on the cusp of being approved by the European Medicines Agency. Big news. Global dengue cases have almost doubled over the last three decades, and the only other vaccine we've tried wasn't safe. This new one is.
In the decade before the pandemic, 72 countries reduced poverty. One of those was Nepal, which reduced the proportion of people living in multi-dimensional poverty from 39.1% in 2010 to 17.7% in 2019. This was accompanied by the country's largest ever reduction in the proportion of people deprived of sanitation —from 60.6% in 2011 to 21.4% in 2019. Kathmandu Post
Fewer teenage girls as a proportion of the global population are giving birth today than at any point in human history. Global adolescent birth rates have decreased from 64.5 births per 1,000 women at the beginning of the 21st century, to 42.5 births per 1,000 women in 2021. Every single region of the world has seen declines during this period. WHO
In September, India's Supreme Court delivered a landmark decision, giving the country's 73 million single women the right to choose. It's a human rights victory on a monumental scale - the first time a legal question about abortion in India has been approached from a women's perspective, and setting an example that could echo far beyond the sub-continent. Al Jazeera
The Mexican state of Quintana Roo has voted to decriminalise abortion, becoming the latest state in the country to ease restrictions, and joining the 'green wave' of reproductive rights victories across Latin America. Al Jazeera
Did you know Sri Lanka has a network of more than 7,000 midwives? They're the backbone of the country's public health system, bringing health and education to every front door, vaccinating 99.1% of the country's children, and helping maintain one of the lowest maternal and child mortality rates in Asia. Gavi
Oman has become the first country in the Eastern Mediterranean to successfully eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis. It's thanks to investments in primary health care, a high quality network of laboratories across the country, and a new electronic health system. Next milestone? Elimination of mother-to-child transmission of hepatitis B. WHO
Pakistan has reduced malaria cases by approximately 45% since 2015, thanks to the provision of free-of-cost treatment and related facilities in the public and private health sectors, and nationwide efforts to distribute bed nets. The number of estimated cases fell from 992,605 in 2015 to 542,960 in 2020. Gavi
The number of homicides in Scotland in 2021 reached their lowest point since records began in 1976. This is in line with a significant downward trend in other categories - overall crime has fallen by a total of 43% since 2007. "There are thousands fewer victims in Scotland than there were 15 years ago." BBC
Basic income works. Pilot programs launched across the US and the rest of the world in the last few years have repeatedly shown that it pulls people out of poverty, improves health outcomes, and makes it easier for people to find jobs and take care of their children. The economic evidence is overwhelming. The political battle however, is only just beginning. WaPo
Presented without comment
Average yearly sentiment of headlines in 47 popular media outlets in the United States
The only home we've ever known
A community-led initiative to expand the Tarras Valley Nature Reserve in Scotland has "achieved the impossible," securing enough funding to more than double the size of the reserve, which was created last year, to over 10,000 acres. “This is about a grassroots fightback against the climate emergency and biodiversity crisis, and helping to create a better future." The National
Beachgoers in Gaza enjoyed sewage-free swimming for the first time in years this summer, following years of lobbying by environmental campaigners. 65% of the coastline is now clean enough for swimming – and the UN is now funding the restoration of the nearby Wadi Gaza, one of the most important coastal wetlands in the Mediterranean. Positive News
US air quality is improving. Since 1990, fine particulate matter pollution has declined by 41% and concentrations of O3, a precursor to smog, have declined by 22%. The result? 370,000 avoided premature deaths, 189,000 fewer hospital admissions for cardiac and respiratory illnesses, 147 million fewer acute respiratory symptoms, and 8.3 million fewer lost school days... every year. NRDC
Kenya is planning on growing five billion trees in five years and an additional ten billion by 2032, with the hope of restoring 10.6 million hectares of degraded lands. The government plans to immediately recruit an additional 2,700 forest rangers and 600 forest officers to support the program. Bloomberg
Six years ago, the US government created the world’s largest fully protected ocean reserve, the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in Hawaii. Now scientists have found that the vast reserve, which spans 1.5 million km2, is helping restore fish populations. Nearby catches of yellowfin tuna rose by 54% between 2016 and 2019, and bigeye tuna by 12%. Inside Climate News
Norway is planning to create ten new national parks along its western edge. Four of them will be brand new, while six will see currently designated conservation areas upgraded into full-blown national parks. It’s part of an effort to protect 30% of Norwegian land by 2030. Afar
Chile’s Atacama Desert, renowned for its clear skies and spectacular desert blooms, is set to be made into a national park. Earlier this month, Chilean president Gabriel Boric announced plans to protect the area from development and fund research into its ecosystems. Timeout
The Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado is expanding after the transfer of 9,362 acres from the neighbouring Medano-Zapata Ranch. The park boasts the tallest dunes in North America along with a diverse landscape of grasslands, wetlands, forests, alpine lakes and tundra. KDVR
California has completed the cleanup of contaminated soil and groundwater in Mission Valley, the site of one of the state's biggest ever toxic fuel spills in the 1980s. Over $70 million gas been spent on the clean-up since 2005, removing almost a million kilograms of petroleum contamination. San Diego Union Tribune
The nature documentary we all need right now.
Better than the original https://t.co/R3RAlTYL42
— David Attenborough (@AttenboroughSir) October 27, 2022
Saving the world is cheaper than ruining it
You can never really see the future, only imagine it, then try to make sense of the new world when it arrives.
In 2019, science journalist David Wallace Wells wrote a best-selling book called The Uninhabitable Earth. Three years later, he's in the New York Times with a piece entitled: "Beyond Catastrophe: A New Climate Reality Is Coming Into View." It's well worth a read. Things can (and do) change.
Fantastic news from our home state, Victoria. Our government just jacked up our clean energy targets to a 95% share of renewables in the electricity grid by 2035 and a 75-80% reduction in emissions by the same date. “The coal generation companies are leaving. They have made their money and they are going." Renew Economy
Decarbonisation continues to speed up in Europe. The bloc as a whole is now aiming to reach 82% clean energy by 2030, and a handful of nations - Portugal, Austria, the Netherlands and Denmark - are aiming even higher, looking to reach 100% clean power by the end of this decade. Euro News
Common misperceptions about the energy transition in Germany. No, it has not increased carbon emissions, no it has not replaced nuclear with coal, the Energiewende has not increased the country's reliance on Russia and no, renewable energy has not increased the risk of blackouts. Chad Vestor
US households are installing record numbers of solar panels on their rooftops, loosening ties to the power grid and the utilities that run it. About 5.3 GW will be installed this year, the most ever, and roughly equivalent to all the country's rooftop capacity in 2015. FT
Think solar is booming now? Wait until you see what's coming. China’s solar cell production capacity doubled in 2021, is projected to double again in 2022, and again in 2023. Total manufacturing capacity could break 1 terawatt per year by 2024, most of it high efficiency n-type cell technologies. Buckle up. PV Magazine
The city of Chaozhou in China is building a wind farm in the Taiwan Strait so large it will be able to power 13 million homes, or more than all the power plants in Norway combined. Construction on the 43.3 GW offshore wind farm (can't even believe we're writing that number) will begin before 2025. Offshore Wind
The next time someone tells you lithium is bad for the environment, you might want to remind them that we extracted 4.2 billion tons of oil in 2021, or 1.6x as much as the world's most mined metal (iron ore) and 40,000 times more than all the lithium. EVs and renewables don't just stop global warming and air pollution - they reduce material extraction. Visual Capitalist
Deutsche Bank, Germany's largest financial institution, has committed to reducing the emissions tied to its upstream corporate oil and gas sector loans by 23% by 2030, and by 90% by 2050. The bank also announced new targets for three other high-emitting sectors: power generation, automotive and steel. Reuters
Coal has gone off a cliff in India. More than 606 GW of coal-fired power projects has been cancelled or shelved since 2010. The world's third largest energy-consuming country is now adding 4o GW of clean energy a year, on track to surpass its target of 50% of electricity from non-fossil fuel sources by the end of the decade. AP
If you'd like to have all your hydrogen beliefs exploded then we recommend you spend 20 minutes watching Michael Liebreich lay it out at the World Hydrogen Congress. A very brave presentation given the audience, and one which might prove pivotal. A welcome voice of sanity.
Here's a summary:
1. In almost every use case, hydrogen gets beaten by electrification
2. We do need clean hydrogen - to decarbonize our 94 megatonnes of existing dirty hydrogen
3. The rest is hot air
Whenever you see the words 'West Virginia' in the news, the word 'coal' isn't far behind. Now though, something new is on the horizon. Coal country is becoming wind country, opening up a once in a generation opportunity to replace a disintegrating industry and grow a new, more sustainable regional economy. RTBC
China's year old ban on overseas coal plants has put a significant dent in the global pipeline. Cancellations since the ban was announced account for around a fifth of the 104 coal plants either planned or under construction. Half of those plants have not yet started construction either, making them prime candidates for cancellation. SCMP
Germany will spend €6.3 billion over the next three years to expand its charging network for electric cars, with the eventual goal of a million public charge points by 2030. “We are not just any automotive location, but a leading one in the world. And that’s why it’s important to us that what we’re preparing succeeds.” Reuters
Indistinguishable from magic
53 species of reptiles and amphibians previously assumed to be silent have had their voices added to a family tree of vocalizations. The discovery suggests that acoustic communication might be a once-off evolutionary adaptation, rather than a fundamental trait that has arisen multiple times across the tree of life. Science Alert
A new simulation by NASA and researchers at Durham University has put forth a new theory of the Moon’s origin – that it may have formed in a matter of hours after Earth collided with a Mars sized-body called Theia. This is the highest resolution simulation ever to study the Moon’s origins, and we'll let it speak for itself. NASA
Unless you've been sleeping under a rock, you'll know that AI is creating a once in a generation shakeup to the creative industries. AI-generated art isn't going to take creative jobs away - but is is going to change them. Tech journalist Kevin Roose spoke to five creators who already use it in their work, and they all agree on one thing. A new tool has arrived. NYT
The speed record for data transmission has been shattered once again. Danish engineers have built a chip that transmits data at a blistering rate of 1.84 petabits per second, almost twice the entire internet's traffic per second. Even more impressive is the fact this record was set using a single light source and a single optical chip. New Atlas
An international team of scientists has designed a spectrometer small enough to fit on a microchip, and that works in the spectrum of visible light, something never before accomplished on such a small scale. Big breakthrough - the analysis of spectroscopic information is one of the most important tools in science, used in everything from cancer imaging to the James Webb Telescope. Hackster
Scientists at the University of Texas have, for the first time ever, used MRI brain scans to reconstruct continuous language. Using a decoding device, they were able to accurately interpret the higher-level meanings of sentences or thoughts during the scan, the first non-invasive method to do so. In effect, it means scientists can now 'decode' people's thoughts without touching their heads. The Scientist
Researchers in North Carolina have uncovered the molecular means by which TRPM8 - the protein shared by humans and other mammals that serves as the primary sensor of cold temperatures and chemicals like menthol - induces cold sensations, and how those sensations are signalled to the brain. IFL Science
Number of the week
The information highway is still super
The indispensable Rebecca Solnit on why climate despair is a luxury. Drawing on examples from her own activism and the resilience and accomplishments of indigenous people and other climate activists, Solnit shows that hope is not naïve, that change can come from situations that once seemed hopeless, that the prophets of doom are taking the lazy way out, and that “we must come to terms with uncertainty, because it is the essential nature of the future.” New Statesman
Meet nature's apex regenerator, the mighty Baobab tree. These extraordinary living beings live for thousands of years, heal over wounds that kill other trees, and in addition to shade, shelter and storage, provide food, medicine and clothing. "You, trusty baobab, confidant, home, fort, water source, medicine chest, honey holder, my refuge, my last resort... you protect me. I revere you.” Lit Hub
This is for all the Formula One fans - us veterans, and all you new Drive to Survive ones. A profile of Ferrari, the great enemy, and dangerously competitive once again. "In world soccer, think Liverpool. In the NFL, the Cowboys. These franchises are the same, in that the intensity of their self-reverence brings on a vicarious reverence from the rest of us. Don’t laugh. Revere the red. Bite a rosary and whiz along for the ride." GQ
Humankind
The things you find in your backyard
Meet Donald Varela Soto, a farmer and eco-tour guide in Costa Rica whose decades long mission to rewild a desolated cattle ranch led to the discovery of a new species of frog.
Growing up in Bijagua de Upala surrounded by rainforest, Donald trained himself to pick out specific animal sounds from nature’s chorus. His deep connection with the forest prompted him as an adult to purchase a cattle ranch in the early 2000s, with the vision of rewilding the clear cut fields back into lush forests.
Over 18 years, Donald and his community have transformed the property into the 220-hectare Tapir Valley Nature Reserve, encouraging native plants and wildlife like jaguars and the Baird’s tapir back to the area, creating a thriving hub for eco-tourism.
Four years ago, while working in the wetlands of the reserve, Donald heard a frog song he’d never heard before. Not everyone would be able to discern a specific sound from the 155 frogs in the area but trusting his ears, Donald spent months searching for the source. On a rainy day in 2018 he sighted a tiny frog, the size of a bottle cap, with a distinctive yellow line running halfway around its body.
Eager to find out what the frog could be, Donald checked local field guides and species identification websites, and when there were no matches, shared a video with the Costa Rica Wildlife Foundation and invited their resident herpetologist to visit the reserve.
Turns out, Donald’s tree frog was new to science. After rigorous investigation it was given the name Tlalocohyla Celeste in tribute to the famous turquoise waterfall, Río Celeste, which is a tourism icon for the local community. Despite researchers searching other regions, the frog has so far only been found in Donald’s wetland.
Without his mission to restore nature, the frog species would likely have been wiped completely from existence.
There might be something hiding in your property, in your lands, in your forests, that is an important addition to science. The more we know about what we have, the more we can do to protect it.
That's all for this edition. We'll see you next week, with a new charity partner.
Much love,
Gus, Amy and the rest of the team
