How did the monkey cross the road?
Hey fam,
You blink, and February is over!
Yes, it's a shorter month, and I'm excited for March (my birth month!), but it still feels like we just started.
This week, we cover France's crackdown on harmful forever chemicals called PFAs, volunteer scuba divers cleaning up the ocean, fog collectors generating drinking water with just some mesh, tree-dwelling monkeys safely crossing the road in the Amazon thanks to one woman's ingenuity, a new law in Wales that would remove politicians from office for deliberately lying, and so much more!
Enjoy, and as always, let us know if you have any other stories of progress to share.
Friday, February 21 (watch here)
☀️ A greenhouse with 153 solar windows embedded with power-generating cells grew 18 different crops while reducing energy consumption by 57% and water usage by 29%, with simulations showing fully glazed solar greenhouses could basically be self-sustaining by offsetting 100% of energy consumption (Lior Kahan|PV Magazine)
🚫 France just voted to mostly end products containing harmful forever chemicals called PFAs that essentially never go away, approving a bill that prevents the production, import, or sale of non-essential products containing PFAs if an alternative exists starting next year (France24)
🥽 A new incubator aimed at turning scientific research into real solutions at UC Berkeley has its first tenant working on a biomass based plastic alternative that matches the performance of petroleum plastics but is made of sources like corn starch, residues, and vegetable oils and is drastically cheaper to recycle (Niki Borghei|Bakar Labs)
📞 And Mika (from our community) overcame their phone anxiety to call elected officials and make their voice heard using an app called 5calls that provides numbers and scripts for different causes.
Monday, February 24 (watch here)
Don't give up on humanity yet:
🤿 Fred Nunn is one of hundreds of volunteer scuba divers removing ocean ghost fishing gear, which is abandoned nets and lines that are one of the most commonly littered items in the ocean, with volunteers from Ghost Fish UK usually self-funding their trips to clean up their waters and free marine life caught within the gear (Sam Haddad|Positive News)
🏡 Nina Woodcroft created one of the best icebreakers by renovating her home with a cork exterior which looks awesome, is surprisingly good at insulation, and is harvested from the bark of living cork oak trees without chopping them down and it regenerates over time, lowering their energy bill to below average and being better for the planet (Olivia Lee|The Guardian)
🐄 Leonie Cornips is a sociolinguist studying the language and culture of cows, spending years learning about their sounds, body language, behaviors, and connection, finding they communicate through complex movements in using their surroundings, and challenging our understanding of language (Christopher J Preston|BBC)
🗣️ swim_bike_theater (from our community) stood up to their local zoning administration speaking against the development of an untouched coast line.
Tuesday, February 25 (watch here)
🐟 For the first time in nearly 100 years, threatened Chinook salmon are swimming freely in the North Yuba River thanks to a pilot egg hatching program returning these big fish to their historical spawning habitats, with the first group of fish just hatched who will continue their migration to the Pacific Ocean (California Department of Fish and Wildlife)
😶🌫️ Fog collectors, which are contraptions of mesh stretched across poles, are becoming a way to collect water without needing any electricity in dry regions with water scarcity, since fog is just a bunch of tiny water droplets, which is helping boost drinking water and hydroponic farming (Matt Simon|Grist)
🌞 A Free Store is giving out solar panels, batteries, and other pieces of tech to communities in need in North Carolina, which was created by the nonprofit Footprint Project after Hurricane Helene to help with repair and recovery efforts (Elizabeth Ouzts|Canary Media)
🧑🔬 kersting_michael77 (from our community) is working as an environmental scientist cleaning up gas spills from underground tanks across Kentucky.
Wednesday, February 26 (watch here)
Monkeys are safely crossing the road deep in the Amazon Rainforest thanks to one woman’s genius bridge building plan.
In the 1970s, a highway was built right through the Indigenous Waimiri-Atroari’s land, assaulting this community, and adding a stretch of speeding metal death traps right in the middle of the 2 million animal species that call the Amazon home.
But when Brazilian biologist Fernanda Abra saw an endangered primate on the side of the road, she realized how vulnerable they had become and started the Reconecta Project.
In full collaboration with the Waimiri-Atroari people who fought for decades to reconnect their forest home, they’re building and implementing bridges together while lending local knowledge.
Brazil now has the 4th longest road network in the world, but by creating 32 bridges so far with plans to expand around the country, the project is not only preventing collisions and saving lives, but also giving these tree dwelling species access to food, water, and resources that had been cut off.
After connecting the forest canopy, the team watches camera traps to see how animals are crossing to understand how they can improve the designs, and Abra has a vision to pair every infrastructure project with a conservation plan to work together on protecting biodiversity.
Thursday February 26 (watch here)
🤫 Politicians that deliberately lie could be removed from office in a new law that’s going into effect next year in Wales which would make intentionally misleading statements from elected officials illegal, forcing a retraction, suspension, and in extreme cases removal, to radically improve transparency and trust (Steven Morris|The Guardian)
🛠️ All 50 US states have now introduced a version of a right to repair law, which requires manufacturers to provide documentation, tools, and parts to fix our tech at home or independent shops, with seven states implementing and another 20 formally considering bills now (Jason Koebler|404)
🔥 An area of land in England was set to become a fracking site until the country banned the practice in 2019, leaving the site abandoned until a new plan was hatched to turn it into a geothermal energy site, using the wells already created to access naturally occurring heat in the ground and send it to nearby buildings (Chris Baraniuk|BBC)
📚 Iz (from our community) is making and giving out free bookmarks for the young adult section of their library.
Bonus!
🚧 Low-carbon concrete is right around the corner.
🌳 Ancient towns hidden in the Amazon are being revealed.
🐢 Watch thousands of baby turtles get released into the ocean.
🧑⚖️ A Nigerian king is bringing Shell to court after a decade of delays, while a bunch of environmental groups are suing to stop new offshore gas drilling.
Spread this breath of fresh air🪴
By supporting Climativity, you're helping these good stories reach more people around the world.
Support good news & independent publishingThis newsletter was written by Jacob Simon. 800,000+ people are in our community across Instagram, TikTok, Threads, YouTube, and Bluesky. You can say hi on LinkedIn, or by emailing jacob@jacobsimonsays.com.
Member discussion