On daily basis the Good Good Good group collects one of the best excellent news on this planet and shares it with our neighborhood. Listed here are the highlights for this week!
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The Greatest Constructive Information We’re Celebrating This Week —
The European Union simply handed “groundbreaking” first-ever laws to fight violence towards ladies
In a “groundbreaking second” for girls’s rights, the EU’s first legislation to fight violence towards ladies was simply formally adopted by member states. The states now every have three years so as to add them to nationwide legislation.
The laws will assist defend ladies within the EU from gender-based violence, feminine genital mutilation, compelled marriages, and on-line harassment. Victims of home abuse will even be extra simply capable of report crimes.
Whereas some hoped the legislation would go additional — it notably didn’t embody an agreed-upon definition for rape — they acknowledged it was nonetheless “a superb place to begin.”
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Extra excellent news for girls:
A comic’s calls to motion have impressed Lizzo, John and Hank Inexperienced, and others to donate in assist of Gaza reduction
In a current TikTok video, Lizzo shared a couple of GoFundMe web page for Physician Ismail, who lives in Gaza and has been serving to of us there — and now wants assist getting his household safely out.
Lizzo stated that she donated — an inventory confirmed an £8,000 (or just a little over $10,000) donation on the GoFundMe web page — and pled for “fellow wealthy folks with cash” to take action, too.
Physician Ismail’s fundraiser is certainly one of tons of of campaigns amplified by Operation Olive Department, a digital volunteer effort organizing and supporting fundraising campaigns that assist displaced Palestinians.
Lizzo’s video comes amid an ongoing mission on TikTok which goals to get content material creators concerned in these grassroots fundraising efforts.
Led by comic Erin Hattamer, the “Go The Hat” motion matches creators with Palestinian households via Operation Olive Department, encouraging them to donate or unfold the phrase about folks in want.
The fundraiser Lizzo shared has additionally been supported and shared by common authors and creators Hank and John Inexperienced, who pledged to double their efforts by matching each greenback donated to Ismail’s marketing campaign with donations to Save the Youngsters.
Queensland, Australia was simply declared drought-free for the primary time in over a decade
For the primary time in 11 years, all of Queensland, Australia has formally been declared drought-free, with the final two shires’ drought standing revoked.
Current will increase in rainfall and flooding have stuffed the area’s waterways with extra water than regular, and whereas farmers are apprehensive a couple of looming dry season — they’re celebrating the (literal) change of surroundings.
The land has really remodeled from dry and desolate to shiny inexperienced grass peppered with wildflowers, shrubs, and weeds subsequent to waterways, creeks, and rivers stuffed to the brim.
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Extra excellent news like this:
International maternal deaths have halved within the final 35 years
Within the final 35 years, the estimated annual variety of ladies who died from pregnancy-related causes has been halved. In 1985, there have been an estimated 595,000 maternal deaths around the globe — in 2020, that quantity was 301,000.
The world has, and continues to make unbelievable progress in decreasing maternal mortality globally due to enhancements in maternal well being care, safer deliveries, good vitamin, and hygiene and sanitation.
Whereas it’s vital that we have fun and mark this unbelievable progress — it’s equally vital to acknowledge that we could possibly be doing quite a bit higher.
In 2015, the EU had the bottom maternal mortality, with 8 folks dying per 100,000 births — if all international locations shared this degree, solely 11,000 folks would die yearly.
Nonetheless, it’s so considerably higher from the place we’ve been — if situations have been the identical as in 1800, round 1.26 million folks would die from being pregnant yearly.
The most important adjustments in over a decade, new electrical grid guidelines might assist even additional enhance wind and photo voltaic vitality
The U.S. nonetheless has an extremely dated electrical energy community, and only a few high-voltage energy traces are at present being put in. This poses main dangers for extra blackouts throughout excessive climate and makes the clear vitality transition tougher.
And it occurs as a result of grid operators make repairs and upgrades as wanted, fairly than proactively addressing long-term wants to organize for the longer term.
However new guidelines have been simply permitted by regulators that require operators to look 20 years forward, accounting for adjustments within the vitality combine, dangers of maximum climate, rising wind and solar energy, and extra.
Why is that this excellent news? Other than shifting from short-term to long-term pondering in constructing infrastructure, these adjustments are desperately wanted.
Proper now, there are greater than 11,000 permitted wind, photo voltaic, and battery initiatives (to not point out a complete bunch of current buildings to be added to the grid) — however there isn’t sufficient grid capability for them. And we’d like them to meet nationwide and world local weather objectives.
For the primary time in 5 years, overdose deaths dropped within the U.S. in 2023
In 2023, there have been an estimated 107,543 drug overdoses, which was down 3% from 2022 with 111,029. Whereas the figures are preliminary, the decline in deaths is anticipated to carry true. Opioid deaths, notably fentanyl, fell by 3.7 p.c.
And whereas no particular causes got for the drop, one which specialists level to is the broader availability of naloxone, a drug that reverses opioid overdoses. There have been 22 million doses of Narcan, a naloxone nasal spray, distributed within the U.S. and Canada in 2023.
Moreover, fentanyl take a look at strips grew in recognition, and communities began applications handy out sterile syringes.
What’s the nuance? Specialists are cautiously optimistic about these figures as a result of whereas there was an encouraging decline within the variety of opioid overdoses, there was a rise in overdose deaths from cocaine and meth. Plus, even one overdose loss of life is simply too many.
Nonetheless, this vital progress is price celebrating — and it ought to gasoline our continued work to stop much more overdose deaths (like this!) and see this decline grow to be an ongoing development.
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A brand new examine discovered {that a} single bison herd may also help retailer the CO2 equal of two million automobiles
The world’s soil, oceans, and forests are the largest identified carbon sinks, and scientists have lengthy acknowledged the function that they play in slowing the consequences of local weather change.
However a brand new examine exhibits how instrumental animals could possibly be in tamping down on carbon emissions, too.
The examine, backed by the International Rewilding Alliance, calculated {that a} herd of 170 European bison — roaming on 30 sq. miles of grasslands — captured the yearly equal of carbon dioxide emissions from 1.88 million automobiles.
Extra excellent news about carbon sinks:
A big milestone within the clear vitality transition, the U.S. simply surpassed 5 million photo voltaic panel installations
In line with new knowledge, the U.S. has formally surpassed 5 million photo voltaic installations throughout the nation — 4 million of them have been put in within the final eight years.
Previous to that, it took 4 many years for the U.S. to cross the 1 million set up mark in 2016, with the primary grid-connected photo voltaic mission put in in 1973.
Greater than half of all photo voltaic installations within the nation have come on-line for the reason that begin of 2020. Much more considerably, one-quarter of them have been put in within the final 20 months for the reason that Inflation Discount Act (the biggest federal local weather coverage in U.S. historical past the nation has ever seen) turned legislation.
The information accounts for dwelling, enterprise, and utility-scale photo voltaic installations, with houses making up 97% of the whole put in.
And this good progress is displaying no indicators of slowing down: the variety of installations is projected to double to 10 million by 2030, and triple to fifteen million by 2034.
Extra excellent news of the week —
A rising motion of photo voltaic cooperatives helps lower-income households entry renewable vitality. Whereas costs are declining, rooftop photo voltaic nonetheless stays out of attain for individuals who wrestle to afford the excessive up-front prices.
The primary all-electric, zero-emission hospital within the U.S. is now below building in California. Since hospitals run 24/7, their operations are historically very carbon-intensive, however at UCI Well being’s new facility, electrical boilers and chillers are doing the work.
A UK firm is utilizing AI to assist folks with bodily demanding jobs keep in them for longer. AI already helps staff in different professions like docs, farmers, software program builders, and extra.
Ms. Rachel is making Cameos for “little ones” to lift cash for youngsters in Gaza, Congo, Ukraine, and extra. The favored youngsters’s educator introduced her “to youngsters, for youngsters” marketing campaign to assist Save the Youngsters’s work with youngsters dwelling amidst battle around the globe.
[Good update: The Cameos sold out within hours, raising $50,000!]
Libraries throughout U.S. are putting in “cubicles” for fogeys who want to review however cannot discover childcare. Public libraries are introducing desks with built-in play areas for younger youngsters, aiming to supply a supportive setting for fogeys who want to review.
In a groundbreaking 16-minute surgical procedure, a British toddler simply had their listening to restored. Opal Sandy was the primary individual on this planet to participate in a pioneering gene remedy trial, in a improvement that docs say marks a brand new period in treating deafness.
New wind turbine “methods” are serving to defend threatened chook species from collisions. Wind vitality is important within the clear vitality transition, but it surely poses a reliable threat for migratory birds particularly — however researchers and engineers have created options.
A serious battery plant close to Los Angeles can be among the many largest on this planet when it comes on-line later this 12 months. The storage facility will assist defend California’s energy grid in the course of the peak summer time season and assist the state meet its bold local weather objectives.
A Belgian city takes a centuries-old method to psychiatric care, internet hosting of us with psychological well being diseases in household houses. Altruistic psychiatric care treats these with psychological sickness not as sufferers with a prognosis to be institutionalized, however as people deserving of dignity and inclusion.
New York simply turned the primary state to mandate paid day without work for folks receiving prenatal care. The brand new legislation goes into impact in 2025, giving workers 20 hours of paid prenatal care depart with out chopping into their current 12 weeks of paid household depart.
Because of a 2022 reform, unhoused folks in Eire will be capable to vote within the upcoming election for the primary time. The nation is setting a new voting entry normal in Europe, the place the final rule applies: “no deal with, no vote.”
After builders provided a Texas household thousands and thousands for his or her land, they made it a public park as a substitute. The 1,500-acre RGK Ranch will grow to be a park the place hikers can soak up Hill Nation vistas and discover a tributary of Bee Creek that spills over a collection of limestone ledges.
Illinois simply gave $1.6 million to “justice-focused” neighborhood photo voltaic initiatives. The funding will profit three initiatives in historically under-resourced Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities within the better Chicago space.
Because of heavy rains, Los Angeles captured greater than 96 billion gallons of stormwater from October to April. The quantity of stormwater captured is sufficient to meet the water calls for of about 2.4 million folks, or one-quarter of the county.
One in three People say they’ve diminished how a lot plastic they’re utilizing. Girls, folks in households making greater than $50,000 yearly, and faculty graduates have been extra more likely to report a lower in how typically they used single-use plastics.
