skryDec 26, 2023
66 Good News Stories You Didn't Hear About in 2023 https://futurecrunch.com/goodnews2023/
66 Good News Stories You Didn't Hear About in 2023

A lot of things went right this year. Almost none of them made the news.

Future Crunch
Show threadskryDec 26, 2023

China's carbon emissions are likely to start falling next year

“China is the world's largest carbon polluter, and was supposed to still be six years away from peak emissions. The reason for this epochal shift? The country's unprecedented buildout of 300 GW of solar and wind in 2023, almost double its 2022 total. It's the largest ever single year deployment of energy in our species' history. “There’s nothing you can benchmark this against.”

Show threadskryDec 26, 2023
“Humanity will install an astonishing 413 GW of solar this year, 58% more than in 2022, which itself marked an almost 42% increase from 2021. That means the world's solar capacity has doubled in the last 18 months, and that solar is now the fastest-growing energy technology in history. In September, the IEA announced that solar photovoltaic installations are now ahead of the trajectory required to reach net zero by 2050...”
Show threadskryDec 26, 2023

“Inflation Reduction Act resulted in the largest mfgr drive in the US since WW2…commitments of more than $300 B in new battery, solar and hydrogen plants, with GA, MI, TX, TN and KY in the lead.

33 GW of solar was installed, US carbon emissions are set to fall by around 3%, Texas has the fastest pace of clean energy expansion outside China, California's storage capacity has surged tenfold in just 3 years, and 12 states have passed laws requiring a shift to 100% clean electricity.” #climate

Show threadskryDec 26, 2023

2 years ago, 1 in 25 cars sold globally was an electric vehicle. This year it will be 1 in 5, and by 2025, 1 in 2. The IEA now says that electric vehicle sales, like solar installations, are tracking ahead of its net zero scenarios.

In the US, sales were up 50%, and growth in China was even more explosive; 2 in every 5 new cars sold was electric, and gasoline demand peaked 2 years earlier than expected. Oh, and the Tesla Model Y became the best-selling car in the world in 2023.

Show threadskryDec 26, 2023
UNICEF reported that there are 50 million more girls in school today than there were in 2015. During this period, completion rates for girls have increased from 86% to 89% in primary school, and from 54% to 61% in high school. There are five million more girls completing all levels of education every year now compared to seven years ago.
Show threadskry
US 2023 murder rates are down by -13% and every major category of crime except auto theft has declined, violent crime falling to one of the lowest rates in >50 years and property crime falling to its lowest level since the 1960s. Also, the country's prison population is now 25% lower than its peak in 2009, and a majority of states have reduced their prison populations by more than that, including New Jersey and New York who have reduced prison populations by more than half in the last decade.
Dec 26, 2023 at 6:05amWeb
Show threadskryDec 26, 2023
The US pulled off an economic miracle. In 2022 economists predicted with 100% certainty that the US was going to enter a recession within a year. It didn't happen. GDP growth is now the fastest of all advanced economies, 14 million jobs have been created under the current administration, unemployment is at its lowest since WW2, and new business formation rates are at record highs. Inflation is almost back down to pre-pandemic levels, wages are above pre-pandemic levels…
Show threadskryDec 26, 2023

“…(accounting for inflation), and more than a third of the rise in economic inequality between 1979 and 2019 has been reversed. Average wealth has climbed by over $50,000 per household since 2020, and doubled for Americans aged 18-34, home ownership for GenZ is higher than it was for Millennials and GenX at this point in their lives, and the annual deficit is trillions of dollars lower than it was in 2020.

Everyone's still pissed off though.”

Show threadskryDec 26, 2023
The restoration of Wullar Lake in Pakistan brought back thousands of migratory birds, Chilika Lake, the second biggest lake in India, bounced back after two decades of work, in the Netherlands, a project kicked off to restore one of Europe's largest freshwater lakes, in Florida, nearly half of the Kissimmee River has been restored, in Toronto, the Don River has roared back to life half a century after being declared dead, the Mersey River in England was labelled “the best environmental news…
Show threadskryDec 26, 2023
… story in Europe,” Paris continued its $1.5-billion-dollar effort to clean up the Seine, in Washington, the Potomac is almost safe for swimming, and the waters around New York are teeming with life again.
Show threadskryDec 26, 2023
Deforestation across the 9 Amazonian countries was 55.8% lower than 2022, in a major turnaround. Brazil's deforestation rate fell by over 50%, the largest single year decline since records began, and over a million hectares of forest were protected across South America, including the Cuchilla del San Juan Reserve, linking together two of the world’s greatest biodiversity hotspots, and the Camino del Jaguar Reserve, part of a global biodiversity hotspot that extends from Panama to northern Peru.
Show threadskryDec 26, 2023
Indonesia said it would restore -500k acres of palm oil plantations…Algeria to reforest a million hectares, 6000 acres were regreened in West Bengal, India, Mali kicked off a program to reforest 400k hectares, Fiji said it has planted over 18 million trees since 2019, and Malawi said it has restored about 1.7 million hectares since 2015. Also…small-scale restoration efforts across Africa have contributed to the greening of around 400,000 km2, an area the size of Zimbabwe.
Show threadskryDec 26, 2023

Dutch researchers released a report that looked at over 20,000 measurements worldwide, and found the extent of plastic soup in the world's oceans is closer to 3.2 million tons, far smaller than the commonly accepted estimates of 50-300 million tons.

Japanese scientists discovered a plastic-eating bacteria that could help solve global waste, and the EU announced further plans to crack down on microplastics with the aim of cutting plastic pellet pollution by 74% by the end of the decade.

Show threadskryDec 26, 2023
In March, 10,000 participants at the UN Water Conference pledged billions of dollars and made over 700 commitments to ensure a water secure future. The biggest commitment of all was the Freshwater Challenge, an incredibly ambitious project to restore the world's waterways. Driven by Colombia, the DRC, Ecuador, Gabon, Mexico and Zambia, the project aims to restore 300,000 kilometres of rivers and 350 million hectares of wetlands (an area larger than India) by 2030.
Show threadskryDec 26, 2023
More on indigenous good news and recovering endangered species on the big list of 2023 good news stories: https://futurecrunch.com/goodnews2023/
66 Good News Stories You Didn't Hear About in 2023

A lot of things went right this year. Almost none of them made the news.

Future Crunch
Show threadLot⁴⁹Dec 26, 2023
@skry But Joe Biden is old so I'm not going to vote.