Good News
Investors are fleeing from fossil fuels, with the value of share offerings in coal, oil and gas companies plummeting by $123 billion in the last decade. Clean energy IPOs also overtook carbon-heavy flotations for the first time in 2020 with renewables raising a record $11 billion from public equity offerings. Carbon Tracker
Big news from Europe: Poland, the continent's last major holdout on coal, has announced an agreement between the government and unions to phase out coal production by 2049. That's the first time the country's powerful mining sector has agreed to reduce its presence, finally admitting that the writing is now on the wall. DW
Last week's announcement by the US government that it will halve its emissions by 2030 is a much bigger deal than most people realise. To pull it off, the country would be looking at a fundamental transformation of its industrial base. Think about what it means for all of this to happen in one decade. NYT
⚡ >50% of electricity from renewable energy (+20% from today).
💨 CO2 released from new natural gas plants to be captured and buried.
🛑 All 200 remaining coal plants shut down.
🚙 2/3 of new cars and SUVs sold to be battery-powered (+97% from today).
🏢 All new buildings heated by electricity instead of natural gas.
🏗 Cement, steel, and chemical industries adopting strict new energy-efficiency targets.
🛢 Oil and gas producers slashing methane emissions by 60%.
🌲 Expanding regenerative forestry and agricultural practices to pull 20% more CO2 from the air than today.
The Gambia has become the third African country to eliminate trachoma. It's an extraordinary achievement: in the mid-1980s, trachoma was responsible for almost 1 out of 5 cases of blindness. Behind it lies three decades of hard work by community volunteers, who played a crucial role in raising awareness and promoting behaviour change. Read their stories here.
After nearly a century, an effective malaria vaccine may finally be within reach after trials of a vaccine from Oxford recorded 77% efficacy in 450 children in Burkina Faso. Larger trials are now underway; if the vaccine gets through those, it will represent one of the biggest public health breakthroughs of all time. Guardian
The participation of women in the labour force in Saudi Arabia has surged by 64% in the last two years, thanks to recent reforms allowing women to drive, and changes to labour laws. Reminder - equal access to employment opportunities is one of the most important drivers for progress in human rights. Brookings
Prostitution will no longer be prosecuted in Manhattan and thousands of cases, dating back decades, may also be dismissed. The reform is part of a growing national movement to change how the criminal justice system deals with sex workers. NYT
Conservationists have banded together to save one of the world’s most pristine rainforests from deforestation, purchasing a 950 km2 biodiversity hotspot and wildlife corridor at the intersection of Mexico, Belize and Guatemala. The corridor secures the largest contiguous block of forest in Central America, home to five species of wild cat (jaguars, margay, ocelot, jaguarundi and puma), spider monkeys, howler monkeys and hundreds of bird species. The Nature Conservancy
The Australian government has committed $100 million to ocean conservation, in an effort to protect ‘blue carbon’ environments. The funding will go towards ocean management and methods to draw down carbon with seagrass and mangroves. An additional $11.6m will be spent to establish nine Indigenous protected areas in sea country. West Australian
A four-year seagrass restoration project in the UK has kicked off, hoping to turn the tide for local ecosystems impacted by pollution and dredging. The scheme aims to plant eight hectares of biodiverse-rich seagrass meadows off the south coast: the restoration will provide safe habitat for 160,000 fish, including seahorses, and 200 million invertebrates. Positive News
Lehua Island in Hawaii and Redonda Isle in the Caribbean are both rodent-free after years of conservation efforts. Rats threatened wildlife and endangered species on both islands, but since their removal, signs of recovery to ecosystems, vegetation and wildlife populations have been almost immediate.
Indistinguishable from magic
In a truly sci-fi PR marketing stunt, a gaming company created a Blade Runner-like experience for fans of their game Princess Connect Re:Dive. In Shanghai,1,500 drones took to the sky to create a massive illuminated QR-code, effectively a billboard advertisement in the air, that you could scan on your phone, taking you to their homepage. Vice
As the moon's gravity pulls at the Earth's surface, it heaves vast quantities of ocean water around the globe in predictable patterns. Where this mass of water is forced through narrow gaps or around headlands, it speeds up, and it's possible to harvest that kinetic energy to drive turbines under the ocean's surface. Orbital's O2, the most powerful tidal turbine in the world, is on it's way to Orkney Islands, an archipelago in the Northern Isles of Scotland. NewAtlas
Instead of going to war and enslaving humanity, artificial intelligence is helping to broker peacekeeping deals in war-torn countries. Over the past year, the UN has worked with the AI start-up Remesh on an algorithm that helped negotiate peace agreements across Yemen and Libya as the two nations grappled with ongoing civil wars and the coronavirus pandemic. Washington Post
Carbon Robotics has unveiled the third-generation of its Autonomous Weeder, a smart farming robot that ‘smokes’ weeds with high-power lasers. The helpful fieldhand can eliminate more than 100,000 weeds per hour and weed 20 acres of crops in one day. By comparison, a human laborer can weed about one acre per day. Freethink
Scientists have figured out how to modify CRISPR to extend its reach to the epigenome – the collection of proteins and small molecules that latch on to DNA and control how genes are switched on or off. The epigenome plays a central role in many diseases, from viral infection to cancer, so this exciting new technology may one day lead to powerful therapies to tackle our deadliest foes. UCSF
In what is being described as a ‘Moon landing’ for genomics, scientists have sequenced the DNA of Upper Paleolithic bears from a cave in Mexico that they used as their toilet 16,000 years ago. Getting viable DNA from the dirt scat-tered floor is a major breakthrough, because it means fossilized remains are no longer the only way of obtaining ancient DNA. Science Alert
Information superhighway
What does a movie about a pot-smoking, trash-talking teddy bear have to do with a revolutionary scientific discovery in Italy? According to Sean B Carroll, the answer is 30 minutes. He investigates the fine line that changes everything- from missing an American Airlines flight on September 11 to the asteroid hit that sealed the fate of humanity 100 million years ago. It’s all a game of chance. Nautilus
When governments talk about essential infrastructure they usually mean bridges and roads, but Anne-Marie Slaughter challenges them to acknowledge the fundamental requirement of a functioning society - the caregivers. This is less a pipe-dream and more a remembering, as during WW2 it was the care economy that allowed men and women to fight and work. NYT
Ariana Remmel’s personal essay explores how chemistry lessons helped them understand and find their truth as a bi-racial and non-binary human. In a world that constantly demands us to navigate our identity around tick-a-boxes, this essay is a refreshing reminder that we are as complex and intricate as the universe around us, “a single whole with multiple truths”. Catapult
This is so satisfying. Police organisations around the world have been using software called Cellebrite to crack private messages sent via Signal, an encrypted messaging app. In a "truly unbelievable coincidence" Signal's founder got hold of a Cellebrite kit and added a file to the app that allows it to take total control of Cellebrite in reverse if it's ever used on Signal again.
Meet the world’s first nuclear influencer, Isodope, a Brazilian model and digital fashion designer using eye-catching outfits, vaporwave-y aesthetic flourishes, pitch-shifted vocals, fast cutting, subverted internet tropes and unforgettable analogies to give a tired old technology a body-suited, fission-charged makeover. Brilliant, or a definite sign that we're living in the end times? You decide. MEL
Bob Seawright puts together something called The Better Letter every week, and we've been thoroughly enjoying his smart, yet folksy take on markets, politics, faith, and life. It also includes some excellent article curation and every now and again, a little bit of good ol' fashioned advice. Here he is on grandparenting:
Eight rules for grandparents
- What you do matters (they are always watching). Don’t forget: They are always watching.
- Love them unconditionally (no more and no less). Good parents set boundaries and expectations. Support the parents but let them take all of that on themselves. Their rules may not be yours. We actively try to avoid doing more than loving them for strategic reasons, too. If all you do is love the grands, they’ll come to you when they can’t or won’t go to their parents – and better you than anybody else. Besides, it’s like being able to ignore vegetables and getting double dessert.
- Keep reminding them how wonderful they are. I want my grandchildren to know that Grandy and I are their biggest fans and supporters. One of my grandsons had his Opening Day last Saturday. It was glorious. We all cheered, the right team won, and Will autographed a baseball for us. It’s on display already.
- Be generous (especially with time). Kids care less about what you do as that you do it. I try to do what my grandchildren want as long as they want to and we are allowed. My record is nearly two-and-a-half consecutive hours of catch. I thought my arm might fall off. The societal emphasis on “quality time” is more myth than reality. There is no substitute for (just-plain) time.
- Bend the rules (but don’t break them). Respect the rules, but don’t be afraid to stretch things a bit for the benefit of the grands.
- Tell stories. A good story allows the listener to feel thoughts, allowing us to learn and remember them. Stories are thus the best way to teach family history, values, and other important lessons. And kids love to hear about their parents when they were kids.
- Have fun. Fun is the best activity and crucial to your legacy.
- Offer wisdom (carefully and sparingly). Age brings a modicum of wisdom, if you’ve done things right. Grandchildren are uniquely positioned to hear and absorb it from you.
Humankind
Meet Edgar McGregor, a 20 year old climate activist in LA who singlehandedly cleared almost 7,000 kilograms of rubbish from a popular hiking trail in Southern California and inspired thousands of people to turn their activism into hands-on action.
Edgar’s passion for weather patterns and climate change started when he was young and he was known at school for leaving the classroom on a regular basis to witness a passing storm. Observing the impact that humans were having on the environment, Edgar began striking out the front of California’s Pasadena city hall as a school student but unsatisfied that he was making enough of a difference, decided to take matters into his own hands.
In May 2019 Edgar began cleaning up Eaton Canyon, the closest of the Angeles National Forest parks to where he lives. For 589 days, he made a daily pilgrimage to the park, despite working 12-hour shifts at a warehouse, persisting through heatwaves, snowstorms, and bushfires. He documented the entire process in photos and videos on Twitter and gathered 17,000 followers along the way, many of whom were inspired to grab buckets and share their own clean-up expeditions under the hashtag #EarthCleanUp.
On the 5th of March 2021, Edgar declared Eaton Canyon clean but has committed to return regularly to make sure no new rubbish has appeared. Later this year he’s heading to San Jose State to study meteorology and climate science but until then he’ll continue his clean-up mission around other local parks. Outside Online
“Individual action and systematic climate action are two sides of the same coin. If you don’t have individual action, you won’t have systematic change. And at the same time, when we have systematic change, it makes individual action easier. It’s a positive feedback loop. We see it in nature, too.”
That's it for this edition, thanks for reading. We'll see you next week (when we are very excited to be unveiling a new charity partner).
Much love,
Amy and Tane
