Give a damn
Aavaa is a sex education initiative for Persian-speaking children and teenagers that uses book readings, videos and social media to provide age-appropriate information on bodies, sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. It also provides resources for people who are in contact with children, such as parents and teachers. We're sending them US$3,000 to fund ten new videos.
If you live in an English-speaking country, it's easy to take access to this kind of information for granted, but for millions of young people in northern Africa and the Middle East, these conversations are only just getting started. Thanks to all of you for making this possible, a little bit will go a long way here, helping this content reach hundreds of thousands of people.
Also... an update from Green Pedal in Mozambique, who you sent US$2,900 a year ago, to buy ten new water irrigation bikes. The bikes have arrived!
Good news you probably didn't hear about
The number of leprosy cases around the world plummeted last year, with new cases falling by 37% and total cases by 27% compared to 2019. While this is partially due to less reporting as a result of COVID-19, it's in line with longer term trends, especially for children. The proportion of child cases has decreased from 9.2% in 2011 to 7.4% in 2019 and to just 6.8% in 2020. WHO
There are some amazing stories hidden in the new Gates Foundation report. Last year Benin, where malaria is the leading cause of death, created a new, digitized system for bed nets, distributing 7.6 million across the country in just 20 days. In Pakistan, an emergency cash program provided assistance to over 40% of the population, two-thirds of whom were women, bringing 10 million of them into the formal financial system for the first time (h/t to our friends at The Progress Network for this one).
US poverty fell to 9.1% last year, the lowest level ever recorded and a significant decline from 11.8% in 2019. Thanks to federal relief enacted at the start of the pandemic, nearly 8.5 million people were lifted out of poverty, and childhood poverty experienced its largest ever one year decrease, dropping from 15.8% to 11.9%. WaPo
Barcelona is giving citizens free, unlimited public transport for three years when they give up their private vehicles. Since the program began in 2017, more than 12,000 ‘T-green tickets’ have been awarded, reducing the city’s traffic by 10,613 cars and 1,735 motorcycles. Eltis
In the past six years, Paris has done more than almost any city in the world to take space back from cars, opening linear parks on old highways along the Seine, phasing out diesel cars, opening bus lanes, raising parking meter prices and plowing bike lanes down hundreds of streets. It's working.
Parisian public space is rare, precious, and very useful. It belongs to everyone and it can’t be captured by one unique usage, which is the automobile.
Malaysian women have won a landmark ruling for the right to pass citizenship onto their children born overseas, a privilege previously only granted to men. It’s part of a global movement to amend discriminatory citizenship laws that trap women in abusive relationships and deny children access to education and healthcare. CS Monitor
From next year, France will offer free birth control for all women aged 25 and under to target a decline in contraceptive use among young women due to cost. Contraceptive methods are already free in Britain, and Spain offers free birth control pills and subsidizes other forms of contraception. NPR
The UN has passed a historic resolution to stamp out ritualistic killings in Africa that target children, women, and people with disabilities and albinism. Member states will now be required to develop specific measures to tackle the issue. “This resolution is an important step to stop the horrific, human rights abuses that take place due to beliefs in witchcraft.” East African
Saving the world is cheaper than ruining it
In the six years since the Paris Agreement was signed, the global pipeline of new coal plants has shrunk dramatically. More than three quarters of planned projects have been shelved, 44 governments have committed to ending coal, and a further 33 have cancelled their pipelines. The remaining pipeline is now spread across just 37 countries, 16 of which have only one project. Carbon Brief
Think what this is going to look like in another six years.
Uzbekistan is pinning its hopes on a clean energy future. Its first ever utility scale solar farm is now operational - the first of 19 renewable energy projects, worth $6.5bn, planned for the next five years. "To get into the ranks of upper-middle income countries, we need some leapfrogging. And we see a chance to leap in the green economy, digital economy.” FT
The Phillipines just awarded 928 renewable energy contracts with a combined capacity of 30 GW. This comes off the back of the country's ban on new greenfield coal plants in October last year. “We are proactively pursuing policies and programs that will help us secure a sustainable, competitive energy future for the coming generations." Manila Standard
Chubb, the world’s largest publicly traded property and casualty insurer, is walking away from Canada's Trans Mountain tar sands expansion. It's the 16th insurer to quit the project, a major victory for indigenous communities and environmental activists who've campaigned against it for years. Insurance Business Canada
Illinois, the 18th largest economy in the world, and the fifth largest economy in the US, just passed what it's calling "the most pro-worker, pro-climate legislation in the country." The bill mandates zero emissions from the power sector by 2045, a five fold increase in renewables, and funding for a just transition for communities affected by coal and gas closures. Gizmodo
Speaking of Illinois, the first customer ready trucks from Rivian have rolled off the production line at their headquarters in the Prairie State, in a big moment for EV enthusiasts. Forget the F-150 or the Cybertruck; this is the future of the battery electric pickup. If you haven't heard of this company yet, do yourself a favour and check this out (Also, green cars = green jobs).
The only home we've ever known
A welcome conservation victory in our own backyard, with news that the population of the Eastern Barred Bandicoot has jumped from 150 to 1,500 in the past 30 years. It’s the first time the status of an animal in Australia has changed from 'extinct in the wild' to 'endangered.' BBC
The population of Australia's largest wombat species is back from the brink too, after almost being wiped out in the 1980s. ABC
Conservationists in Austin, Texas have won a legal battle to reclaim protected critical habitat for a rare species of salamander to help bolster their population against proposed developments and climate change. The protected areas include an underground aquifer, spring outlets and spring runs. Biological Diversity
A conservation project to save Yorkshire’s peatlands has carried out restoration work on 5,048 ha of blanket bog, and is delivering huge environmental benefits, having already saved 48 million tonnes of carbon from being released. Peat is an unsung hero of conservation, delivering one of most effective forms of natural carbon capture, flood control and ecosystem recovery. The Guardian
We’ve always called peatlands the Cinderella habitat because they’ve been doing lots of hard work in the background but being generally treated badly and abused. Finally, it feels like this last couple of years Cinderella has come to the ball.
Slovakia has passed a new law banning dog owners from keeping dogs on chains. The legislation, the result of years of campaigning by NGOs, will be effective from 1st January 2022 for young dogs, and will come into full effect in 2024. "Despite big compromises, this is a huge victory for animal rights in this country." Slovak Spectator
One of the world’s largest tyre graveyards, in Kuwait, is being revitalized into a new urban development, thanks to a recycling plant that has started converting the 42 million old tyres into consumer products. The new plant has a capacity of 3 million tyres per year. WEF
The EPA has restored protections to Alaska’s Bristol Bay, blocking construction of a proposed pebble mine near the world’s largest sockeye salmon run. Native communities and commercial fishermen have fought against the mine for decades, which would threaten 200 species of birds, 40 different land animals and all five species of Pacific salmon. Backpacker
Indistinguishable from magic
The first all-civilian space crew is now in orbit around Earth, at the highest altitude since Gemini 11 in 1966. The newly minted astronauts are a 38-year-old billionaire, a 29-year-old physician's assistant, a 42-year-old data engineer, and a 51-year-old community college professor, who is also the first black woman to pilot a spacecraft. The era of space tourism has officially begun.
An international team of researchers has discovered ancient prints made by children near a spring in Tibet. The paintings were made between 169,000 and 226,000 BC, making them the oldest known rock art, and providing the earliest evidence for humans on the Tibetan plateau. Conversation
The Dutch city of Nijmegen has unveiled the world’s longest 3D printed concrete pedestrian bridge, spanning a length of 29 metres. The project saved up to 50% in materials, because the printer only needed to deposit concrete where it was needed for structural strength. 3D Printing Industry
The race to develop an artificial kidney that frees people from dialysis and transplants has just taken a big step forward, with the demonstration of a functional prototype. The device, which is powered by blood pressure alone, combines a hemofilter, which removes waste products from the blood, and a bioreactor, which replicates other functions like balancing electrolytes. UCSF
This is a big one: scientists at MIT and the Pasteur Institute have developed a technique for reconstructing whole genomes, including human ones, on personal computers. The new software is a hundred times faster than current state-of-the-art approaches and uses one-fifth the resources, busting the field of genetic sequencing wide open. Science Daily
Meet Rozy, a virtual influencer from South Korea, who will forever be 22, and will never get sick, or be embroiled in a scandal. To date, she's landed over 100 sponsorships and her creators expect her to earn close to a million dollars this year. "We didn't use a specific person as the model to her look, and we didn't take western beauty as the standard either." All KPop
Information superhighway
Long time readers will be familiar with our ongoing obsession with starling murmurations. In this essay, Kathryn Cooper, a physicist-turned-photographer, uses a 19th century technique called chronophotography to capture some of the best images we've ever seen, of one of the most astonishing natural phenomena on planet Earth. Biographic
Big chunks of words - speeches, features, TED talks, op-eds - helped create and preserve meaning and normalcy on the internet up to around the middle of the last decade, programming people by the millions, even billions. Since then, things have gotten weird. Today, all the important stuff is happening at the bottom of the language stack, using the lowest-abstraction forms of communication. Ribbonfarm
Steve Sinofsky has an excellent take on the whole WFH vs hybrid vs office debate. He says it's a false dichotomy, masking a much bigger, and far more disruptive shift away from a model of the corporation that's been with us for more than 70 years. On a related note - if you think us millennials changed work, wait til you meet the next lot.
Half a century ago, a legion of idealists turned on, tuned in, and dropped out of society, heading back to the land and creating a patchwork of utopian communes across Northern California. Here, at the the tail end of their grand social experiment, the last of the remaining hippies offer some reflections. GQ
“We were kindred spirits forging a world we wanted to live in, connected to the earth organically and spiritually.”
This is pretty special. We've had it on repeat all week - Ben Böhmer's sunrise set last year from a hot air balloon above Cappadocia, in Turkey. Save it until you need an hour or two for deep work, put on a decent pair of headphones, strap in, and don't forget to check out the incredible drone footage every now and again. Cercle
Humankind
Buddhism for Dogs
Meet Zhi Xiang, a 51 year-old Buddhist monk from Shanghai who has turned animal welfare into a spiritual practice, rescuing thousands of stray dogs as China’s booming pet market leaves millions of animals abandoned on the streets each year.
Growing up on a farm, Zhi always had a connection with animals but after a chance encounter with a monk at 19 years old, Zhi knew he had found his calling. In 1993, eight years after he was ordained, Zhi was driving back to the monastery when he noticed a badly injured cat on the side of the highway. After taking the cat back to the monastery to care for it, Zhi kept two cages in the back of the car and found himself driving around the city “with no other purpose than hoping to find animals that needed help.”
In Buddhism all forms of life are regarded as equal and for Zhi, rescuing animals became an opportunity to put his faith into practice. “I can’t sit and pray knowing that another living being is suffering.” While continuing his duties as a monk, Zhi would wake at 4am every morning to care for the animals he rescued, borrowing money from his parents to cover expenses. However, as China’s pet market boomed, the number of abandoned dogs increased, and the monastery ran out of room to house them. In 2019, with the help of a small team of volunteers, he opened a rescue shelter in the city.
As the number of animal rescues continues to grow, so does Zhi’s financial strain. With 8,000 dogs currently in his care and annual costs of about $2.45 million, Zhi funds his mission through donations and personal loans. Thanks to social media, the shelter has started overseas adoption, sending over 300 dogs to loving homes in the USA, Canada and Europe.
Today, Zhi is head monk at the ancient Bao'en Temple and continues to wake at 4am to care for his animals, driven by faith and a determination to change as many lives as possible.
I will do whatever I can do and if I don’t have enough strength, I will motivate others. As long as it’s from the bottom of your heart, people will follow you.
Thanks for joining us this week, and a special shout out to all of you for making the donation to Aavaa possible - we've got another charity announcement coming a fortnight from now.
Much love,
Gus, Amy and the rest of the FC team
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