no. 114: Another week of great news

Hey friend,

Once again, we made it to Friday, so congratulations.

I'm spending this week in Chicago surrounded by family and pets, and couldn't be happier. Hope you're up to something fun/relaxing/exciting yourself!

Not much else to add in today's intro, but as always, enjoy this week's best stories...

Friday, August 9

Lucky dogs are wearing backpacks filled with 23 varieties of wildflower seeds and let loose to explore a big nature reserve in England in an effort to mimic how wolves used to spread seeds and the initiative is open to dog walkers using the area to help create new colonies of native plants (Gavin Haines|Positive.news)

A family-owned farm in Colorado is using the land beneath solar panels to grow produce and flowers which is called agrivoltaics and helps to add clean energy without needing more land while improving soil health and biodiversity in a big win-win (Duncan Gilchrist|Nature Conservancy)

The Perseid meteor shower is peaking this weekend (which means it has likely passed by the time you're reading this, but you can catch next year's!) when there will be little moonlight making the 100 shooting stars per hour clear in the night sky as the earth passes through rock and ice debris left behind by the Swift-Tuttle comet as a stunning reminder of our place in the universe (Joe Rao|Space)

And today’s community win comes from charlito whose neighbors, volunteers, and FEMA came together to rebuild their town after a flood as things return to normal after a month of hard work.

Monday, August 12

The world’s largest and most famous rainforest that we all know and love has reached its lowest deforestation level since 2016 in Brazil which is home to almost two-thirds of the Amazon as president Lula continues efforts to reach zero deforestation by 2030 (Fabiano Maisonnave|AP)

Churches, synagogues, and mosques are adding solar panels to their roofs and lowering their costs across the US thanks to a grant program from the Inflation Reduction Act which is likely to influence the surrounding community to install their own rooftop solar (Jeff St. John|Canary)

The 1,000th Florida grasshopper sparrow was released back into the wild thanks to a captive breeding program by scientists to protect these critically endangered birds standing just 5 inches who may not be here today without hard working conservationists (Richard Luscombe|The Guardian)

And today’s community win comes from Kyle who proposed a network of multi-use trails in his community, sparking the township’s interest in alternative transportation options beyond cars.

Tuesday August 13

Sea lions are now their own camera crews helping Australian scientists explore previously uncharted areas of the ocean, capturing 90 hours of footage to help map the ocean floor and better understand sea lion habitats and I could seriously watch all 90 hours of this incredible mother doing her thing (Video by Great Southern Reef; Kamrin Baker|GoodGoodGood)

"Paint-on” solar panels that are 150 times thinner than traditional silicon ones have been developed by 40 scientists at Oxford that are now more efficient than traditional solar and the thin perovskite solar cells could coat windows and screens to generate power (Oxford; Tina Casey|Cleantechnica; Renewable Energy Institute)

Old giant trees might be smarter than we thought cause they literally produce more wood when exposed to higher levels of CO2 which locks in extra gas and prevents it from warming the planet per a 7-year study showing another reason to protect our old forests (Esme Stallard|BBC)

And today’s community win comes from Dianne, who saw invasive species on an area of conservation land, wrote a proposal to present to the town, and was awarded $35,000 to rewild the protected area.

Wednesday, August 14

Money in the UK is being created from thrown out phones, laptops, and TVs thanks to a new factory that extracts the gold from circuit boards in a quick and energy efficient “urban mining” process to reduce e-waste and the need for destructive gold mining (Haley Ott|CBS)

A French team is developing a hydrogen-powered plane designed to fly around the entire world in 9 straight days to propel green hydrogen forward as a better fuel source for the planet, which should be ready for testing within 2 years (Aman Tripathi|Interesting Engineering)

A coral reef ecosystem home to 1500 species was set to be damaged by a multibillion dollar gas drilling proposal which was just rejected by Australia’s Environmental Protection Agency who deemed the risk to marine life is unacceptable (Adam Morton|The Guardian)

And today’s community win comes from Gavin who just became 10 years cancer free!

Thursday, August 15

Colombia’s newest National Park is now the stunning Serranía de Manacacías spanning 168,000 acres and home to at least 460 bird species now protected by buying out local ranchers over 5 years to establish the park (Matt Jenkins|Nature Conservancy)

South Korea recycles 98% of their food waste thanks to a cultural system banning food in landfills and composting or turning the remainder into animal feed or fuel (Andrew Jeong & Julie Yoon|WashPo)

UK groups are pushing for a legal maximum temperature at work to protect people from dangerous conditions but also in a strange way this could really motivate companies to take climate action to lessen heat waves to keep productivity and profits (Irina Anghel|Bloomberg)

And today’s community win comes from Ronan who learned in school how to make clay balls filled with native flower seeds, placed them at a bus stop, told people to throw them in areas that need some love, and they were all used within 2 days.

Bonus stories

🏆 For the first time ever, the Olympics awarded sustainability winners!

🧪 Cheap, low-energy, and sustainable methods of breaking down plastic might've been discovered

🔍 Some forever chemicals can now be tracked to the source

⭐️ They grew a starfish in a lab and released it into the wild

One last thing!

Be sure to have an amazing weekend :)