Good news you didn't hear about
Bangladesh has become the first country globally to officially eliminate visceral leishmaniasis, a life-threatening neglected tropical disease. The country achieved the WHO's elimination target of less than one case per 10,000 people in 2017 and has sustained it to date, despite disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. TDR
The WHO says that the endemic rubella virus has been eliminated from North Korea. The measles-rubella vaccine was introduced into childhood immunisation programmes in 2019, achieving more than 99.8% coverage in the target population of almost 6 million people. WHO
Onchocerciasis (also known as river blindness) is the world's second-leading infectious cause of blindness. Public health officials have been working for decades to address it, and efforts are starting to pay off. Treatment now reaches 400 million people a year; in 2023, Niger became the first country in Africa to eliminate it; and Senegal is now on track to become the second. WHO
Just gonna leave this one right here.
India is extending its free ration scheme, Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana, for five more years, covering 800 million people. Under the scheme, which was started in April 2020 to help people deal with the pandemic, all poor families receive 5 kg of food grains every month. Reuters
The Ivory Coast has launched the second phase of its water programme, which will see the construction of 2,200 boreholes across the country. The new installations are expected to bring clean drinking water to an additional 900,000 people. Afrik21
In 1999, a cyclone killed more than 10,000 people in the state of Odisha, India. Since then it has built over 800 cyclone shelters and 120 coastal watchtowers; 1,200 coastal villages now receive warnings; more than 100,000 volunteers have been trained; and it has successfully managed through two super cyclones. World Bank
The US government is investing $16.4 billion into rail infrastructure between Boston and Washington, the largest rebuilding investment since the tracks were laid in the mid-19th century. The funding will help rebuild tunnels and bridges; upgrade tracks, station power systems, and signals; and advance projects to increase operating speed. Rail Journal
London is now home to the largest low emissions zone in the world—1,500 km2 and covering nine million people—and it's making a real difference. There are 77,000 fewer higher-polluting cars a day compared to a year ago; NO2 levels have fallen by at least 18.4%; and cleaner air has already contributed to a 4.5% reduction in long-term health problems and an 8% decrease in respiratory issues.
In 2010 Ethiopia made a commitment to ensure that all children had access to pre-primary education, particularly marginalized urban poor and rural children. In 2011 it launched O-Class, a one-year play-based preschool programme, and since then access to pre-primary education has increased from 5.3% to 44%. World Bank
The World Bank just approved $210 million to provide cash transfers and counseling services to improve nutrition and directly benefit about 1.7 million pregnant women and mothers of children under four years of age in vulnerable households in Bangladesh.
Senegal is making great progress in public health. Since 1992, the country has cut its stunting rate in half; since 2000, the number of children who die before their 5th birthday has dropped by 70% percent; and since 2005, the number of women giving birth in healthcare facilities has increased from 62% to 80%. Gates Notes
It’s rare to get a standing ovation at a scientific conference. But on 22 October, cancer researcher Thomas Powles received two, after announcing a new combination of treatments that cuts the risk of death in people with advanced bladder cancer by more than half—an unprecedented result in a cancer for which survival rates have been almost unchanged since the 1980s. Nature
The only home we've ever known
To reverse the crisis requires reciprocity, giving more than we take. When reciprocity prevails, everyone benefits. When absent, injustice prevails. Regeneration means stitching together the broken strands that separate us from life and one another. The way to heal a system is to connect more of it to itself. This is true of an immune system, ecosystem, or social system.
~ Paul Hawken
If you're going to spend time with any piece of internet content this week, can we recommend Paul Hawken's just-released TED talk? The legendary environmentalist explains why regeneration matters, and why it's at the heart of our efforts to undo the damage we've done.
The Conkouati-Douli National Park in the Congo will be extended to include an ocean area off the Congolese coast. The marine extension will add 2,900 km2 to the existing land reserve, safeguarding marine turtles, dolphins, and humpback whales, and help reduce illegal fishing. Afrik21
Did you know that the UK has the fifth-largest protected marine estate in the world? Thanks to its Blue Belt Programme, over 4 million km2 of waters are protected, and the UK has also recently supported a moratorium on deep sea mining projects until sufficient scientific evidence is available to assess the impact of these activities. Prospect
Efforts by California, Arizona, and Nevada to reduce water use over the past year have improved conditions on the Colorado River. Arizona is on track to use about one-third less water, and California will be responsible for more than half of the total cuts. 'This is a victory for collaboration as an approach rather than conflict.' AP
The Klamath River is now flowing freely through Wards Canyon in Northern California, after crews finished removing the first of four dams this week as part of the world’s largest dam removal project. The other three dams slated for removal will come down next year. Politico
The return of 12,500 hectares of tribal land to the Penobscot Nation in Maine marks the largest contiguous tract that the tribe has acquired in more than four decades. It contains 85 km of streams in the watershed of the Penobscot River, which has been a traditional source of food and water. WBur
Good news for endangered plants! Conservation efforts on California’s Channel Islands have resulted in the Santa Cruz Island Dudleya and island bedstraw being declared fully recovered. And in the Northwest prairie, the Nelson’s checker-mallow has also made a comeback following a string of plant recoveries, including the Golden paintbrush and Bradshaw’s lomatium.
Cape Town is planning to extend 9 of its 19 nature reserves and create 6 new ones. Among the areas flagged for protection are the seaside resort of Soetwater, home to chacma baboons, and the Symphony Way Reserve near Cape Town airport. Cape Talk
Conservation financing is a gamechanger for halting ecosystem destruction. A $1 billion 'nature agreement' between British Columbia and Ottawa will protect the province’s old growth forests and serve as a model of collaboration with First Nations. Funding will also boost alternative economic opportunities for communities that rely on forestry for income. CBC
The ‘triumphant’ restoration of Wullar Lake, one of Asia’s largest freshwater lakes, has resulted in the return of over 50,000 migratory birds last year. Among the sightings were black-headed gulls and long-tailed ducks, not spotted in the region since 1939. Kashmir Convenor
A growing movement of guerrilla rewilders across the UK is secretly breeding butterflies, birds, and beavers and releasing them across the country. Outraged by the government’s lack of action, the group takes credit for returning wild boars to southern Scotland and pine martens to the outskirts of London, after decades on the brink of extinction. Positive News
Bhutan has become the first country in the world to completely sterilise and vaccinate its entire stray dog population. A global animal charity, the Humane Society International, helped implement the programme, which has treated over 150,000 strays and microchipped 32,000 pet dogs since 2009, in an effort to control rabies and eliminate the suffering of abandoned dogs. Down To Earth
For the past two decades, a sea turtle rehabilitation project in Dubai has safely returned over 2,100 turtles to the Arabian Gulf. Annual figures have averaged over 100 rescues, mostly of critically-endangered Hawksbills and Green turtles. The centre also uses satellite technology to track rehabilitated turtles in order to support global research efforts. Media Centre
A massive initiative is underway to combine generations of Inuit knowledge and cutting-edge technology to protect and map 15,000 km2 of marine area off the coast of Torngat Mountains National Park. The area is a transition zone between Arctic and Atlantic habitats as well as a habitat for migrating ringed seals, narwhals, and minke whales. Narwhal
Saving the world is cheaper than ruining it
We post a lot of stories about China and the United States in this section, for the simple reason that these are by far the two most important countries in the world in determining whether the global clean energy transition happens fast enough. Their willingness to cut emissions is key to any hope of preventing catastrophic climate change.
So it's really good news that China is installing about as many solar panels and wind turbines as the rest of the world combined, that it's on track to meet its clean energy targets six years early, that it has already built enough solar panel factories to supply the entire world’s needs, as well as enough factories to make every vehicle sold in China, Europe, and the United States. NYT
It's also really good news that coal is having a terrible year in the United States, failing to achieve a 20% market share in any month so far. To put that into perspective, coal’s power market share had never been less than 20% in any month before 2020. The amount of coal used has fallen from about 2.8 million tons a day in 2008 to about 1.1 million tons a day this year—a 62% drop in 15 years. IEEFA
It's not just coal. Check out the IEA's latest predictions on fossil gas. In five years, projected global demand has halved. Wondering why the oil and gas companies have been having such a tantrum about the latest World Energy Outlook? Here's your answer. The fortunes of fossil gas have completely changed since 2019, and the dinosaurs are in deep denial. IEA (WEO, page 77)
New York is investing in a massive 6.4 GW of renewable energy—the largest state investment in clean energy in US history. It's made up of three offshore wind farms and 22 onshore clean energy projects, enough to power 2.6 million New York homes and deliver around 12% of the state’s electricity needs once it’s all online. Electrek
J-Power, a utility company which is Japan's second-biggest generator of coal-fired power, is shutting down two of its big coal plants in southern Japan to help achieve its 2025 target of cutting carbon dioxide emissions. The move comes as utilities step up efforts to decarbonise their facilities to combat global warming. Reuters
Indonesia is aiming to cut carbon emissions to 250 million metric tons for its on-grid power sector by 2030 and increase its share of renewable energy generation to 44% under a Just Energy Transition Partnership plan released on Wednesday. The previous target was 290 million tonnes by 2030 and a 34% share for renewables. Progress. Reuters
'The fuel subsidy is gone.' With that five-word decree in May 2023, the economics of Nigeria’s solar industry changed, putting the cost of electricity from sunshine on par with the cost of electricity from dinosaur juice. The country is now on a path to reach 1.6 GW of solar capacity within a year. 'This could be one of the first markets where off-grid solar begins to really build grid-scale volumes.' Bloomberg Green
Portugal relied solely on renewable energy for an entire weekend at the end of last month. It generated 172.5 GWh of renewable electricity and consumed 131.1 GWh between Friday, 28th October and Monday, 30th October. Wind contributed 56.5% of the mix, hydro supplied 39.4%, and solar 4%. Progress. PV Magazine
In the midst of all the current FUD over electric vehicles, both BMW and Volvo have pulled out yet another round of impressive sales numbers, especially coming from legacy automakers. Volvo's fully electric car sales jumped by 29% in October compared to last year, and BMW's fully electric sales hit 15.1% of total sales in the third quarter, hitting its end-year target three months early.
Speaking of BMW, they've just unveiled a new design for a lithium iron phosphate battery (the same tech that CATL is planning on using) that will increase range by 30%, boost charging speed by 30%, and cut costs by 40%. It will start being installed in production vehicles in 2025. It's the batteries, stupid. Clean Technica
EV sales are booming in the United States. Sales rose by 49% in the third quarter of the year compared to the same period in 2022. That hasn't stopped mainstream media leading with headlines like the one below, despite the fact that EV sales were up 60% and 56% in August and September, respectively, compared to last year. Cox
And then there's BYD. The Chinese EV giant just set another sales record, the sixth consecutive one, exceeding 300,000 units in October—the first time it's crossed that threshold in a single month. The cumulative number of electric cars this company has now sold is more than 5.7 million units. Inside EVs
Bloomberg's head of advanced transport says the electrification of three wheelers is now on track for net zero, and two wheelers are going electric so quickly they could be on track within the next few years. This is a big deal. There are hundreds of millions of rickshaws and scooters, mostly in Asia. If they all go electric, it will transform some of the world's biggest cities. Bloomberg
India’s EV market is taking off because of an abundance of cheap new models. Sales more than doubled in the first nine months of this year, and while the overall share of the market is still small, a closer look at the underlying trends highlights an important insight: some 86% of all electric cars sold this year were priced under $20,000. Euro News
BUTDAMINERALZ! Hannah Ritchie's latest post looks at all the data and comes to a conclusion that should be very familiar by now to our regular readers. All together now, with feeling:
A clean economy needs less stuff than a dirty economy.
Indistinguishable from magic
We generally try to stay away from 'tech news,' but this is worth a mention because of the sheer technical wizardry involved. Apple just released its new M3 chips, and they are insane. The transistors are down to 3 nanometres (any smaller and quantum effects start coming into play), and a single M3 Max has got 92 billion of them inside, more than the number of stars in the Milky Way. Um, what? IE
Here's a new one: rooftop agrivoltaics. 'Just as the shade of towering trees protects the undergrowth from sun-stress, so too can solar panels encourage the growth of plants—the overall goal being to grow more food for ballooning urban populations, all while saving water, generating clean energy, and making buildings more energy efficient.' Wired
It's been a while since we posted anything from the JWST, so here's a picture of a star being born! Near the centre of this object, denoted HH212 (it's close to Orion's Belt) is a star that's only 50,000 years old. You can't actually see the protostar itself because it's hidden within a dense, spinning disc of gas and dust. All we can see are the pinky-red jets, indicating the presence of molecular hydrogen. BBC
British scientists say that AI is around twice as accurate as a biopsy at grading the aggressiveness of some sarcomas - cancers that arise in the bones and connective tissue. Their new study suggests that AI could help tailor treatments more accurately than standard invasive procedures, and could eventually apply to other cancer types too, potentially benefitting thousands of patients every year. ICR
Researchers in Hungary might have just made a big breakthrough in ageing. They managed to silence transposons ('jumping genes' whose erroneous insertions can cause cancers, disease, and cell death) in roundworms and showed a significant boost in lifespan. 'It was a huge intervention. It shows that ageing is regulated by genetic factors, not just by chance.' Popular Mechanics
We're one step closer to the first FDA-approved CRISPR therapy, after a panel concluded that a groundbreaking treatment for sickle cell disease was safe enough for clinical use, setting the stage for likely federal approval by the 8th December of a potential cure for an illness that afflicts more than 20 million people worldwide. NYT
Nothing to see here—just an apple-picking mothership and its drones at work in an orchard in Chile. The robot is from Tevel, an Israeli robotics startup, and every single apple picked gets logged, with data on individual fruit size, weight, timestamp, ripeness level, and disease detection.
The information highway is still super
The Egyptian Book of the Dead, long relegated to a dark vault, is being brought out into the light of the day for a new viewing. Compiled and refined over millenniums since about 1,550 BC, the Book of the Dead provided a sort of visual map that allowed the newly disembodied soul to navigate the duat, a maze-like netherworld of caverns, hills and burning lakes. It's full of spells, each one intended for a specific situation that the dead might encounter along the way. In a hellscape primed with booby traps and populated by some of antiquity’s most fearful imaginings, magic mattered. NYT
MIT Tech Review asked dozens of scientists, journalists, politicians, entrepreneurs, activists, and CEOs the following question: 'what are the hardest problems at the intersection of technology and society that deserve more attention?' Here are their answers.
When you're stuck, it's probably worth asking yourself, 'What Would Herzog Do?'
Read. Don’t get distracted by meaningless tripe. Don’t fight for prizes not worth winning. Follow through, get it done, persist, learn to pick locks and walk long distances. Be strong, be smart, bring your toothbrush, be kind, work hard, be loving, be you, be beautiful.
Author Katherine May has written a manifesto for winter light for all of our subscribers from the northern hemisphere who are making the transition into the darker months. Our favourite recommendations are to use more candles, and to revel in apricity, the juicy warmth of the winter sun, even if you only feel it through a car windscreen.
Kotaku reviews the top ten anime of 2023. Apparently it was a much harder list to curate this year than last year, because 'this one was full of bangers.'
That's all for this edition, thanks for reading! We'll see you back here again, in the same place, next week.
With love,
Gus and Amy
