We are very proud and a little bit sad to announce our 100th, and final, Humankind profile, which appears at the end of this edition (of course, how could it be anyone else)? We will be wrapping up the entire thing with an editorial next week, so keep an eye out for that; we'll also be announcing what comes next to replace it!
Good news you probably didn't hear about
Indonesia, the fourth most populous nation in the world, has made spectacular progress in helping its citizens escape the worst forms of destitution. Over the past two decades, it has essentially eliminated extreme poverty and reduced the number of those living on less than $3.20 a day from 61% in 2002 to 16% in 2022. World Bank
The pandemic resulted in significant setbacks for childhood vaccination in Africa, but multiple countries are now closing the gap. Vaccines for pneumonia, rotavirus and measles-rubella are being either introduced or ramped up in Chad, Guinea, Somalia and South Sudan, and many countries are also strengthening access to pulse oximetry and oxygen. Health Policy Watch
Uganda has made notable progress in its fight against AIDS. Between 2010 and 2021, new HIV infections declined by 39%, and AIDS-related deaths fell from 51,000 a year to 17,000 a year, a decline of 67%. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been saved, and mother-to-child infections have plummeted too. New Vision
Police in the Philippines have rescued over 1,000 trafficking victims from a compound two hours outside Manila. It comes off the back of an agreement by member countries of ASEAN to boost law enforcement and strengthen cooperation and coordination to catch traffickers and identify victims. Straits Times
Two decades ago, Ethiopia introduced a public health program of household visits delivered by young women. It's been an incredible success, associated with a 70% reduction in the probability of child marriage, a 75% reduction in the probability of early pregnancy, and a 63% increase in the probability of being enrolled in education. Gavi
There's been a big breakthrough on postpartum haemorrhage (the leading cause of maternal mortality) in the form of a low-cost device called a 'drape.' A study involving 200,000 women in four countries has shown that it reduces severe bleeding by 60%. 'This new approach could radically improve women’s chances of surviving childbirth globally.' WHO
Gender norms and roles are still highly unequal in the United States, but things are changing. Among married opposite-sex couples, the share of women who earn as much as or more than their husband has tripled over the past 50 years. In 29% of marriages today, both spouses earn the same amount of money, and wives are the main breadwinners in 16% of marriages. Pew
This is a pretty amazing story about people known as professional medical tactile examiners, a new and emerging profession for blind and visually impaired women in India and Europe, who are helping diagnose breast cancer (try replacing that with a robot). From the always excellent BBC Future.
Some big medical breakthroughs for two of the most devastating diseases in existence. A second drug has been shown to slow the pace of Alzheimer's by up to a third, and the Michael J. Fox Foundation has found clear evidence that the presence of a specific protein can be used to determine if people have Parkinson’s. STAT
Fox, who was diagnosed with a very early case of Parkinson’s at age 29, said that he keeps going back to documentary footage of his childhood. At the time, there was no way to know he would develop the disease; soon, he said, a child like that might be able to simply get a nasal swab at 2 or 3 or 4. “It’s all changed. It can be known and treated early on. It’s huge.”
Last month Fiji's new democratically-elected government repealed the Media Industry Development Act, enacted in 2010 by the former government that assumed power through a coup in 2006. 'The MIDA experiment is over and the draconian legislation now belongs in the dustbins of history.' Fiji Times
A World Bank project in Malawi has brought clean water and sanitation to nearly 350,000 people in Lilongwe City. Around 370 km of new pipes have been installed, including 187 km in previously unserved areas, not only improving the health and well-being of residents but also contributing to economic development.
And finally, we know healthcare is supposed to be un-American, but we thought we might just leave you with this...
The only home we've ever known
Ecuador just announced the biggest debt-for-nature swap in history, a $1.6-billion deal that will reduce its debt burden and free up hundreds of millions of dollars to fund marine conservation around the Galápagos Islands. 'Ecuador is as wealthy as any of the richest countries in the world, but our currency is biodiversity.' NYT
A federal court in Brazil (the world's fifth largest exporter of live cattle) has banned the export of live animals from all the country's ports, a ruling hailed as historic by animal welfare activists. 'Animals are not things. They are sentient living beings, that is, individuals who feel hunger, thirst, pain, cold, anguish, fear.' Reuters
Last year, the Kitasoo/Xai’xais people of Canada created a new MPA called the Gitdisdzu Lugyeks, closing the waters of Kitasu Bay to commercial and sport fishing. It was a landmark moment–the first MPA to be declared under Indigenous law, without government approval, and an unexpected success story. Guardian
Horse racing is dying in the United States. In 1989 there were more than 74,000 races. Last year there were only 33,453. It is unusual to see anyone under the age of 60 at the track, and most Americans now only hear about the sport when the news is bad (recently, there's been a lot of that). Economist
India's Kuttamperoor River, declared biologically dead in 2005, has been brought back to life in the last five years thanks to the work of over 7,000 people, mostly women. It's part of a wider effort: last year the government released $19 million to restore 13 rivers across the country. Nspirement
Environmental groups have just won a big victory in South Carolina, stopping horseshoe crab harvesting on all critical stopover beaches for endangered red knot birds, and on the Mississippi, a pioneering initiative has incentivized fishers to remove almost 3,000 crab traps, meaning wildlife is safer, and the water is cleaner.
If you live in an American city, get ready to see a lot more trees. As part of the Inflation Reduction Act, $1.5 billion will be spent on funding urban tree-planting over the next decade, concentrating on communities that have historically been ignored. That's up from the $36 million/year under previous administrations. AP
A non-profit is reconnecting islands of Brazil’s original Atlantic Forest, currently fragmented by farms, ranches, and housing. It recently purchased a 250-acre cattle pasture to connect to the 6,200-acre União Biological Reserve, bringing the total area of protected space to 49,400 acres of contiguous forest. Mongabay
Last year, China committed to plant and conserve 70 billion trees by 2030, the African Union committed to restoring 100 million hectares, and more than 80 companies pledged to conserve, restore and grow 7 billion trees in over 65 countries. In 2023, we're starting to see the results, as forestry teams begin turning those pledges into real forests. 1t.org
Did you know that Indonesia, home to the third-highest amount of original forest in the world, is slowly winning its war on deforestation? Its rate of primary forest loss has declined every year since 2016 and is now at its lowest level since at least 2002. Washington Post
The rhino population in Zimbabwe has surpassed 1,000 animals for the first time in over 30 years, a sign that efforts to preserve the species are working. Dedicated conservationists continue to persevere 'with great success' despite soaring costs for food and fuel. ABC
A world-first breeding program in New South Wales, Australia, has brought the stocky galaxias fish population back from the brink of extinction, allowing them to be released back into their natural habitat last month. 'Saving threatened species from extinction is one of the reasons we become scientists.' CSU
Saving the world is cheaper than ruining it
Remember last week's Rocky Mountain Institute report with the five graphs showing how quickly the energy revolution is accelerating? Well, they decided to turn it into a series of memes and we're reproducing all of them because we're energy nerds and couldn't resist. Indulge us...
1. The energy transition is a technology revolution (i.e., technologies > commodities)
2. The renewables revolution is exponential, not linear
3. The renewables revolution is led by China
4. This is the decade of change
5. By 2030, the debate will be very different
AES, one of the biggest power companies in America, just announced it's planning to triple its renewables capacity by 2030 and will exit coal altogether by 2025; and in New Mexico, the largest wind project in the Western Hemisphere just started construction, a 3.5-GW monster attached to an 800-km-long high voltage line.
Britain’s wind farms generated more electricity in the first quarter of 2023 than gas. Renewables now provide almost 42% of Britain’s electricity, and 33% comes from gas and coal (the remainder is nuclear and imports). This has happened incredibly quickly. Reuters
Germany is increasing its ambition on renewables again, announcing a new goal to reach 215 GW of solar capacity by 2030, up from 63 GW in 2022. The first three months of this year marked the busiest ever for the country's solar industry: it's on track to deploy more than 10 GW by the end of 2023. Clean Energy Wire
India has a new power plan, and has surprised everyone (except regular readers of this newsletter) by saying it will not build any new coal plants except the ones already under construction. Many of those are unlikely to go ahead either, after a recent collapse of financing. Money talks. Reuters
South Korea is planning a massive expansion of solar on industrial rooftops and parking lots. 4 GW of solar will be deployed in the city of Daegu and north Gyeongsang province, almost quadruple the amount of solar currently in factory areas around the country. Bloomberg
Major financial institutions around the world are accelerating their move away from coal. It took almost six years for the first 100 to adopt coal exclusion policies, but since then the number has doubled in just over three years. It's not just a Western phenomenon anymore either–41 Asian companies now have coal exclusion policies. IEEFA
After years of dragging its feet, Thailand is ramping up its shift to renewables thanks to the fallout from the global energy crisis. Last month the government announced 5 GW of renewables, essentially doubling wind and solar by 2030, and announcements representing another 3.6 GW are planned for later this year. Bangkok Post
80% of new cars sold in Norway are now battery-powered. The streets are quieter, the grid hasn’t collapsed, and the air is cleaner, as levels of nitrogen oxides (byproducts of burning gasoline and diesel) have fallen sharply. "We are on the verge of solving the NOx problem.' NYT
Did you know that the Tesla Model Y is now the best-selling car in Europe? CT
We know we bang on a lot about EVs here, but that's because they really matter in the fight against climate change! If you're looking for some an explanation on why that's the case, and some fantastic data about how fast the revolution is moving, it's the topic of the latest post from the indispensable Hannah Ritchie.
It's not just cars. The electric bus revolution is going even faster. Canada just announced the largest electric bus project in North America, the United States has more than 5,500 committed electric school buses, over a quarter of all buses in the Netherlands are electric, and a Chinese company just signed a deal to supply 12,000 electric buses to Nigeria.
Actually, it's everything that moves now, from massive earth-moving equipment in South Korea, to tiny, dinky little cars in India.
Indistinguishable from magic
22 years after the unveiling of the human genome, a second milestone has been reached with the first 'pangenome', representing genomes collected from 47 individuals from every continent except Antarctica. It's an incredible new medical resource which makes the picture of human genetic variation more accurate and more complete. Big moment. Science
Apparently Waymo didn't get the memo about the death of driverless cars. The company is doubling the area it covers with robotaxis in Phoenix, and in San Francisco, it now covers the entire peninsula, operating a free, 24/7 service. 'We’re already serving 10,000 fully autonomous trips with public riders every week.' The Verge
Ok, this is incredible. Google just used reinforcement learning to teach robots to play soccer in a simulation, and then when they transferred the skills directly into real life robots, they performed amazingly well, 'exhibiting robust and dynamic movement skills such as rapid fall recovery, walking, turning, kicking and more.'
Scientists in San Diego have reached a milestone in cloning endangered animals. A Przewalski’s horse, born in February and still unnamed, is the second of its kind, a genetic copy of the world's first cloned Przewalski’s horse, Kurt, born in August 2020. Both were made from cells frozen more than 40 years ago. Up until now, cloning has only produced a single animal of any such species. Wired
Additive manufacturing is growing up. Siemens just contracted with a company in North Carolina to 3D print 59 tons of turbine parts over six years, not because of design advantages, but because it can produce them faster, cheaper and more sustainably than what traditional manufacturers can make with metal casting. Green Biz
Researchers in Venice, Italy, say we need to start thinking differently about cities. Digital twins allow us to stop thinking of cities as socio-economic and physical constructs that happen to contain people. Instead, we should treat them as throbbing, living, mutually-interwoven, self-organizing, nonlinear beasts—which evolve, 'to an extent, like living systems.' Nature
Have you heard of Seabed 2030? It's an international effort to map the entire seabed of our planet. In six years, it's added 90 million km2 of bathymetric data and has now mapped 24.9% of the world’s ocean, up from 6% when it started. Last month alone, it added over 19,000 newly discovered undersea volcanoes. UNESCO
We love a good explanation for Fermi's Paradox. This one's new. And while we're on that subject, here's the first view of Earth from Europe's newest weather satellite, the Meteosat Third Generation Imager. It's the first of a constellation of six that will be in place by 2026. This level of resolution has been unachievable over Europe and Africa until now. ESA
The information highway is still super
Have you heard of Jamie Beard? You really should. We went into this expecting an account of what is arguably the most exciting clean energy project on the planet. 'This is a set of engineering problems? And then energy is solved? Holy shit, we should do this.' What we weren't expecting was a heart-breaking story of ingenuity, perseverance and the power of the human spirit. Wired
Ligaya Mishan celebrates the infinite textures of food: 'What of the coy half-surrender that the Italians venerate in pasta as "al dente" and the Taiwanese in noodles and boba as "Q" (or "QQ," if the food in question is exceptionally springy); the restive yolk threatening to slither off a six-minute egg; the seraphic weight of a chiffon cake; the heavy melt of fat off a slab of pork belly, slowly liquefying itself? What of goo, foam, dust, air? What of the worlds that lie between slime and velvet, collapse and refusal, succulence and desiccation?' NYT
One of the best ways to discover a new place is to immerse yourself in its subcultures. That's what this writer did, and it's wonderful. 'Boxing is more than just a sport in Cuba–it’s a language. Walking back from the gym, people of all ages would greet you in the street before noticing the gloves hanging from your backpack, their eyes immediately lighting up with excitement. Some would start shadowboxing to show off their skills, whilst others would even challenge you to a playful spar as they danced on their toes.' The Fight Site
One of the best talks at this year's TED was Karen Bakker's mindblowing account of how humanity is gaining the ability to eavesdrop on animal communication. She wrote this article about her research in Neoma about two months ago, and it's really worth checking out. Also, keep an eye out for her talk.
The world resonates with nature’s sounds, which human ears cannot detect. But our computers can.
Humankind
Feeding Hope
Meet José Andrés, the 53 year old Spanish chef and philanthropist who founded World Central Kitchen, a non-profit that has dished out 300 million meals over the past 12 years to local communities in the wake of natural disasters, war and the pandemic.
José was born in Mieres, Spain and his parents were nurses at a local hospital. He grew up in the emergency room, witnessing “small gestures of empathy” between staff and patients. His love of cooking came from helping his father prepare paella in the woods along with local tapas which seeded his belief in the power of food to create community.
He left school early for culinary training and moved to America at 21 years old, settling in Washington. As a young immigrant trying to find his place in a new city, José started volunteering at the DC Central Kitchen which, instead of simply preparing meals like other soup kitchens, engaged unemployed people to help cook, giving them an opportunity to trade homelessness and addiction for careers in the food industry.
Over the coming decades, as he rose through the ranks of the culinary world, gaining international recognition for his innovative style and award-winning restaurants, José continued cultivating his vision of chefs and food as agents of social change.
In 2010, he was on a family vacation when the catastrophic earthquake hit Haiti. He describes hearing the news reports as 'receiving the call. Arriving in Haiti he used salvaged ingredients to start cooking black beans for the survivors, but when a volunteer mentioned it was different to the local "velvety and silky" black bean stew, José understood that true aid meant adapting to local food customs, not the other way around.
It was the defining moment for World Central Kitchen, which today provides grassroots, rapid-response to feed people in the wake of crisis. Using local recipes and ingredients, the organisation aims to empower embattled communities to create their own long-term solutions by building kitchens and creating food systems to sustain their independent recovery, long after the aid workers leave.
For José, a free meal should never come at the cost of someone’s dignity. His signature response is “feed first, plan later.”
When you talk about food and water, people don't want a solution one week from now, one month from now. The solution has to be now.
That's all for this edition, thanks for reading. We'll see you next week, when we look forward to sharing the news about the project that's replacing Humankind.
With love,
Gus, Amy and the rest of the FC team
