Here we are. Edition 200. A milestone like this tends to make you look in two directions: reflecting on where you’ve come from and thinking about where you’re heading next. Like checking the rear-view mirror and Google Maps at the same time (and hopefully avoiding a crash).
In case you’ve joined us recently: the first edition of this newsletter went out in May 2015, to 150 email addresses scraped together from friends, family and a few work contacts. The early editions were embarrassingly peppy and the design was a crime-scene, but we stuck to it and through a process of trial and error, got better over time.
We launched the paid version in edition 101 in August 2020, deep in the first wave of lockdowns, and now here we are at number 200 and still going strong. Over the past 100 editions not only have we uncovered some extraordinary stories of progress, we’ve met incredible individuals like Shabana Basij-Rasikh, who founded Afghanistan’s only school for girls, Alex Lucitante and Alexandra Narvaez, who used drone technology to win a historic legal battle for their tribe in Ecuador, and James Harrison, the Australian railway administrator whose donations of blood over six decades saved the lives of 2.4 million babies.
Most importantly, thanks to you, we’ve helped 41 charities from every corner of the planet, making an average donation of US$5,000. As a reader, you are not only consuming good news but actively participating in making it happen. That circular, energetic flow lies at the heart of this newsletter and informs everything we do.
As a member of this community, our hope is that the information you consume here changes the way step through the world, that you perhaps embody it enough to become a vector of hope yourself. We want these stories to be shared, so the message spreads beyond the confines of your inbox. If there’s one that grabs your attention, please bring it up the next time someone at the dinner table says, “we’re all doomed.”
This is an invitation, not a request. This is your newsletter and you can use it any way you want! However you choose to engage, and in whatever way you read this, we hope it's useful. Thank you for sticking with us, for keeping this project alive and for being part of the journey. We’re looking forward to the next hundred editions.
Much love,
Amy, Gus & Tane
Good news you probably didn't hear about
Have you heard about India's Ayushman Bharat scheme? It's the world’s largest free healthcare program, covering 1,300 illnesses including cancer and heart disease. Since 2018 it has provided free treatment to over 500 million people via 154,000 health and wellness centres, and the government just increased its funding by 12% in the latest budget.
Indonesia has made remarkable progress in reducing stunting (when a child does not have sufficient nutrition to grow and develop). Between 2018 and 2022, the national stunting rate saw an unprecedented decline, from 30.8% to 21.6%, benefiting 3.9 million mothers and 10.6 million children. Peru, Senegal, Thailand and Brazil have also all dramatically reduced stunting to below 20%. World Bank
Uganda's recently released poverty report shows that between 2017 and 2020, at least 1.52 million Ugandans joined the middle class, meaning "they secured better livelihoods compared to the previous period." The report also shows that poverty is on a long-running decrease, having fallen from 56% in 1993 to 20.3% in 2021. UNDP
One of the big worries during the pandemic was that a fall in cancer screenings in the United States would lead to a rise in diagnoses. Good news. It didn't happen. Around two million Americans are expected to be diagnosed with cancer this year, and about 600,000 will die of the disease, an overall reduction of 33% since 1991. WaPo
More than 33 million children in Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe have been vaccinated against polio since March 2022, thanks to an emergency response organised by the WHO. Vaccinations will continue “so that every child receives the protection they need." AP
The World Bank is launching a project in Vietnam to distribute 300,000 water purifiers to 8,000 schools and institutions across the country. It's expected to make clean water available to around two million children and to reduce carbon emissions by almost 3 million tons over the next five years (no more burning wood to boil water).
Last week, more than $6.2 billion was raised by Turkish citizens for earthquake relief efforts, thanks to a joint broadcast called Türkiye, One Heart that ran on more than 200 TV channels and over 500 radio stations. Support came from people in all walks of life, from the CEOs of huge corporations to children who donated the money in their piggy banks. Daily Sabah
Gabon, Jamaica and Sri Lanka have joined forces to fight back against damaging beauty practices, launching a project to eliminate the centuries-old practice of using mercury to lighten the skin. “We are all beautiful, not in spite of our skin but because of it. We need a new ideal to follow, one which is equated with humanity and not the fairness of one’s skin.” WHO
A new report says that primary school completion in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has increased from 47% in 2010 to 58% in 2020. Since 2016, the country has enacted ambitious reforms, including the introduction of free basic education, and the share of the budget allocated to education has increased considerably, from 11.5% in 2017 to 22.1% in 2021. UNESCO
A big leap forward for LGBTQI rights in South Korea: in a landmark ruling, the Seoul High Court has ruled that a government health insurer owes coverage to the spouse of a customer after the firm withdrew it when it found out the pair were gay. The court also found that denying benefits to same-sex couples amounted to discrimination. "This ruling offers hope that prejudice can be overcome." BBC
Utah's State Legislature has unanimously approved a bill that enshrines into law a ban on conversion therapy. “This is an extraordinary moment in Utah’s LGBTQ history. It is the first conversion therapy ban in the country to pass through both chambers unanimously.” Deseret
Saving the world is cheaper than ruining it
Most people still don't understand the speed and scale with which clean energy is changing the global power mix. In 2022, wind and solar added between 600 and 700 TWh of new generation, about as much as Canada or Brazil generate in a year. That's more than fossil gas has ever added in a year, and twice as much as nuclear added at its peak in the mid-1980s. EV
China is leading the charge. Amidst all the hand-wringing about its coal boom (which turns out to be running on fumes), far less attention is focused on the fact that China invested 11 times as much into renewables last year as it did into coal. The country added 600 football fields of solar panels every day in 2022 - enough to cover the total electricity use of entire countries. Hannah Ritchie
Those numbers can be difficult to wrap your head around - this might bring it home. Solar isn't just cleaner, it means electricity for those who have never had it before, like the Boluo Temple mountain monastery, which after more than a thousand years has power for an electric stove and space heater. “This is a great improvement of convenience for our lives here.” Bloomberg
The EU’s carbon price has climbed above €100/tonne for the first time, after rules were tightened to make the system more onerous for polluters. It's a key moment for one of the bloc’s key tools to fight pollution, a psychologically important threshold at which companies may start looking more seriously at investing in serious carbon drawdown technologies. FT
The Welsh government has scrapped or scaled back all its major road building projects after they failed tough new climate standards. Going forward, Wales will only back projects that cut emissions and encourage a shift to public transport or active travel. “We will still invest in roads. We are also investing in real alternatives, including rail, bus, walking and cycling projects." BBC
Europe saw its largest ever absolute increase in solar generation in 2022, up 39 TWh in total on the back of a record 41 GW increase in new installations (47% more than was added in 2021). At this rate, wind and solar will deliver 80% of Europe's electricity by 2035. Ember
We can't get enough of these Vladimir Putin, Climate Hero headlines (are we allowed to say told you so yet?). Here's Bloomberg, on How Europe Ditched Russian Fossil Fuels With Spectacular Speed; here's Vox, on What Europe Showed The World About Renewable Energy; and our favourite from the Associated Press; Putin’s War Accelerated Green Transition.
A few choice quotes:
The European Union now understands that if we want to increase our energy sovereignty, it can only go through renewables because we have very little gas left, we have almost no coal left, and we have no oil.
Putin thought he could use that [oil and gas] as a weapon. But the weapon turned against him.
Our citizens did have to bear the brunt of his manipulations. But he didn’t get us. He didn’t divide us and he certainly didn’t get us on our knees.
British bank NatWest will stop offering loans to new customers hoping to fund oil and gas exploration, extraction or production projects. Similar steps will be taken to phase out the same funding for existing customers, meaning the bank will refuse to renew, refinance or extend loans for upstream gas projects from the start of 2026. Guardian
The energy transition is well underway in the United States. Nationwide, there is more than 25.4 GW of capacity under construction, adding to the 107.5 GW of existing solar on the US grid that exists today. It's just the beginning too - solar is now centre stage in plans for a decarbonized economy, representing 70% of power capacity planned through 2025. PV Magazine
On top of all that, the EPA just outlined the rules for its national green bank, which expects to award $20 billion towards projects that reduce pollution and lower energy costs, and another $7 billion to states, tribes and municipalities to deploy a range of solar energy projects. The first grants will be awarded this summer. Associated Press
Seemingly overnight, China has become the world's leader in making and buying EVs. In just the past two years, annual sales grew from 1.3 million to a whopping 6.8 million, and the country also exported 679,000 EVs in 2022. For comparison, the US only sold about 800,000 EVs in 2022. Even the most experienced observers are amazed. “The forecasts are always too low.” MIT Tech Review
Meet Sinje Gottwald, who just finished riding an anti-poaching electric motorbike for wildlife rangers from Spain to South Africa in 124 days, a 13,000 kilometre trip with fewer than 140 charges and no technical or medical support. She carried two batteries, two chargers, tools, and some spare parts for her CAKE Kalk AP bike. Clean Technica
The Kalk was amazing! Maintenance was almost zero, adjusting and lubing the chain was basically it. Some minor issues that could be fixed, and I didn’t have a single flat tire. It drew so much attention, wherever I stopped people would come and ask about it, many said it was the first time for them to see an electric motorcycle.
The only home we've ever known
Ecuador has a new reserve - the Tarímiat Pujutaí Nuṉka Reserve, 1,237,395 hectares of cloud forests, sandstone plateaus and floodplains that are home to over a thousand species of birds as well as jaguars, tapirs, and spectacled bears. It will be one of the largest reserves in the region thanks to local communities who campaigned for protections. Mongabay
Brazil's new president has vowed to protect all of Brazil’s biomes, including the Cerrado savannah, Atlantic Forest, Pampas grasslands and the Pantanal wetlands, by implementing the same strategies that reduced deforestation in the Amazon from 27,772 km2 in 2004 to 4,571 km2 in 2012. His efforts will be helped by America’s recent pledge to the Amazon Fund, of around $50 million. Mongabay
In the past six years Ghana has reforested over 628,000 hectares of land, putting the country seven years ahead of its target to restore 2 million hectares of degraded land by 2030. The success is attributed to an agroforestry programme that helps farmers plant trees on their land. Afrik21
British Columbia is changing its forest management approach to include greater participation of Indigenous communities in land-use decisions and accelerate the protection of old-growth forests. The new measures will herald the end of prioritising timber extraction over biodiversity and carbon storage. Narwhal
After decades of short-term and transactional thinking, we’re making significant changes in our approach to forestry in this province. The first step is putting Indigenous Peoples at the centre of land management decisions in their territories. The days of making decisions without Indigenous Peoples are over.
David Eby, Premier of British Columbia
A former railway line Singapore is being converted into a green corridor spanning 24 kilometres, from the Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve in the north, to the city's central business district. The corridor will help preserve mangroves, forests and grassland, provide a safe haven for animals to traverse between green spaces, and will be ten times longer than the High Line in New York. Bloomberg
A water program in Bolivia dreamed up by five people a decade ago has protected over 500,000 hectares of forest. The program helps farmers in upper watersheds provide urban residents with drinking water in exchange for protection of their water-producing forests. 24,000 farmers have joined the program, which will soon be replicated in Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, and Mexico. Mongabay
UN members are meeting in New York this week to forge a treaty to conserve marine life in international waters. It's the third round of negotiations. If adopted, the legally binding treaty would outline measures to protect global ocean health, foster climate resilience as well as safeguard food security for people around the world. Oceanographic
Artisanal fishers in Chile’s Valparaíso region have started creating grassroots marine reserves to save their unprotected coastline. Although more than 40% of Chile’s maritime territory is protected, there is a lack of MPAs along the coast. The fishers have agreed not to harvest any resources in their reserves, and enthusiasm for their initiative has led to a rise in tourism. Mongabay
It’s a solution that comes from the communities, not from a desk in Santiago or an office in Valparaíso. Here, the community made the decision for ourselves, for our children and our grandchildren.
Rodrigo Sánchez, Executive Director of Fundación Capital Azul
California has become the first US state to ban the sale of new animal fur products both online and in-store. The law, which was introduced in 2019, was implemented on 1st January 2023. With fur farms now illegal in Norway, Croatia, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Czechia, activists believe the end of this cruel industry is in sight. Plant Based News
A big milestone for animal conservation in the EU, Iceland, Norway, and Liechtenstein, with a new ban on bird hunting with lead shot in wetlands. An estimated one million waterbirds die of lead poisoning in the EU every year. Hunters will now only be able to use non-toxic ammunition within 100 metres of wetlands. Guardian
Indistinguishable from magic
A 19-month-old girl has become the first person to be cured of a rare and deadly condition called metachromatic leukodystrophy, using a new therapy that inserts functional versions of a faulty gene into the patient's bone marrow. “This is a huge moment of hope for parents and their babies born with this devastating inherited disorder, that can now be treated with a single round of revolutionary treatment."
This is the best metaphor we've come across yet for Chat GPT. It's not a 'calculator for writing' and it's not a blurry JPEG of the internet either (with all due respect to the great Ted Chiang). It's a mirror test - a reflection of humanity’s wealth of language and writing, strained into models and reflected back to us - and a lot of very smart people are failing it.
Does the Earth hold vast stores of hydrogen? This story is wild. A small but growing group of scientists believe that contrary to received wisdom, there may be up to a trillion tons of 'gold' hydrogen deep underground. The evidence is in the hundreds of hydrogen seeps and 'fairy circles' discovered around the world, and prospectors aren't far behind... Science
Last week, workers in southern Georgia started planting poplars that have been genetically modified to grow faster to absorb more carbon dioxide from the air. The tweaked poplars grow more than 50% faster than non-modified ones and are the first genetically modified trees planted in the United States outside of a research trial or a commercial fruit orchard. NYT
20 years ago, scientists identified the possible presence of smaller core inside the Earth's core, the imaginatively named 'innermost inner core.' Earlier this week, two seismologists in Canberra confirmed its existence, after figuring out a new way to squeeze data from recordings of the nearly-imperceptible shuddering of the planet beneath our feet. Science Alert
Combine two of our favourite technologies and you get this: a startup in Silicon Valley making 3D-printed batteries using thin layers of powder. Imagine an e-bike battery that fits the frame of a bike, or a smartphone battery shaped to fill every gap around the circuit board. The batteries use 40% less material, charge to 80% in 15 minutes, and can be more easily recycled. Fast Company
Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon have, for the first time, successfully used spinal cord stimulation to allow stroke survivors to regain mobility in their upper limbs. “On the first day of testing, [subject 1], for the first time in the nine years since her stroke, immediately reacquired the capacity to fully and volitionally open her hand.” Freethink
A Swiss-based food tech company has become the first in the world to create a tenderloin steak grown from cells. The steak was made in five days in a bioreactor, combining muscle fibres with enzymes, supplemented with cultivated fat tissue. "A tenderloin centrepiece is then complete, from which steaks of almost any thickness can be cut.” Mirai
The information highway is still super
This will take you a solid 30 minutes, but it's a pretty satisfying read. It’s about the world's most mysterious whale, 52 Blue. Blue whales’ song typically clocks in between 15 and 20 hertz, but this whale sings at 52 hertz and nobody knows why. 52 Blue has inspired a cult-like following, with a lot of anthropomorphizing going on in terms of loneliness, not being heard, doing your own thing, etc. The essay weaves together human stories revolving around 52 Blue too – members of Facebook forums, naval researchers who followed the whale’s sound across the world, and a woman from New York for whom 52 Blue offers a chance at rebirth. Atavist
Could the five-day workweek soon be a thing of the past? If the data from this UK trial is anything to go by, then maybe so. 61 companies participated in a six-month trial, reducing their workweek to four days. 92% have opted to continue the experiment, with 18 companies making it permanent. “Surveys of staff taken before and after found that 39% said they were less stressed, 40% were sleeping better and 54% said it was easier to balance work and home responsibilities. The number of sick days taken during the trial fell by about two-thirds and 57% fewer staff left the firms taking part compared with the same period a year earlier.” The Guardian
An ode to East Africa's Great Rift Valley. Here, among seemingly unending geological strata, we can gaze into ‘the abyss of time’. The Rift is a place, but ‘rift’ is also a word. It’s a noun for splits in things or relationships, a geological term for the result of a process in which Earth shifts. The Rift humbles us, it "punctures the transcendent grandiosity of human exceptionalism by returning us to a specific time and a particular place: to the birth of our species. Here, we are confronted with a kind of homecoming as we discern our origins among rock, bones and dust." Aeon
That's it for this edition, we're taking a break next week because it's Gus's birthday, we'll be back in action in a fortnight.
Much love,
FC HQ
