no. 125: Oh.

Hey fam,

What a week.

Not all news is good news, but I write this newsletter (and make videos) to remind us that lots of things are going right.

If you're feeling understandably down, doomscrolling won't make anything better. Instead, education, community, and action are some of the best antidotes to anxiety.

We read these stories to learn, we support each other, and we take action together, because the fight is never over.

Take care of yourself, tell your friends and family you love them, and take in a breath of fresh air with these good stories as you head into a restful weekend...

Progress from Monday, November 4

🛰️ 47 years after the launch of the first spacecraft to ever leave our solar system into interstellar space called Voyager 1, a communications glitch was fixed by using a backup radio transmitter that sent a message 15 billion miles back to Earth in a big testament to humanity’s abilities (Samantha Mathewson|Space)

🚫 Starting today, Paris is enacting a limited traffic zone in a 2 square mile area of the city center which is effectively banning cars aside from emergency vehicles, public transportation, or people that live or work in the area, which will increase walkability and clean up the air (Carlton Reid|Forbes)

🚶 Jaywalking, or crossing the street even if the signal says to wait, is now officially legal in New York City which is actually a move of racial justice as if you’ve ever been here you know that literally every single person already jaywalks, yet 92% of tickets last year were given to people of color (Danielle Valente|Secret NYC)

💼 And today’s community win comes from mikhaela_nayide who started a job after 3 months of unemployment at the Global Alzheimer's Platform

Progress from Tuesday, November 5

💦 Geoffrey Hinton just won the Nobel Prize in Physics and then donated half of the 700,000 Canadian dollar prize to an Indigenous nonprofit called Water First which helps train First Nation communities to create and maintain clean and safe drinking water (Chris Young|National Post)

🧑‍🎓 A group of students in Tucson, Arizona ages 13-20 researched and drafted a bold resolution that their school district just passed which will make them track emissions, electrify buses and buildings, offer plant-based meals, and create a climate curriculum for all grade levels by 2027 (Kristin Toussaint|Fast Company)

🌱 30,000 new seed samples were just delivered to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway which is safeguarding the world’s crop diversity and now has over 1.3 million seed samples from 7,000 plant species collected and delivered from all over our planet (Amelia Nierenberg|NYT)

🫵 And today’s community win comes from all of you that are voting and taking action to elect the leaders that care about us and our planet, because together we hold quite a lot of power in creating a better future.

Progress from Wednesday, November 6

🧬 An endangered black-footed ferret clone named Antonia, created from the DNA of a ferret from the 1980s, just gave birth to two adorable kits that are healthy and more genetically diverse than other living ferrets which will help in the species conservation and survival (Michael Booth|Colorado Sun)

🏙️ Cities around the world are becoming more solarpunk with regenerative buildings that aim to restore the environment and protect ecosystems, like this stunning hotel in Singapore, this rooftop garden in New York, and this reclaimed military shipyard in Amsterdam, along with so many others (Kotaro Okada|WIRED)

🛰️ The world’s first wooden satellite was successfully launched into space which will remain in orbit for 6 months while the lack of oxygen should prevent decay or fires on the LignoSat which was developed by Japanese researchers to burn up upon reentry to avoid metal particles that traditional satellites create (Justine Calma|The Verge)

🧶 And today’s community win comes from Ysabella K who has been using donated yarn to make scarves for shelters as well as kits for others to make scarves too.

Progress from Thursday, November 7

🐀 We already knew rats could cook (if you've seen Ratatouille), but now they’re sniffing out illegally trafficked wildlife products like ivory and scales thanks to their strong sense of smell and ability to get into tight places while wearing a vest that they can ring when they find something, which will combat the illegal black market (Laura Simmons|IFL Science)

🌳 The Amazon rainforest in Brazil has reached its lowest deforestation level since 2015, continuing the trend set in motion by President Lula which has decreased by more than 30% over the past year and moves closer to his pledge and goal of completely ending it (Lisandra Paraguassu and Jake Spring|Reuters)

🐋 A family of orcas known as the Southern Resident L pod was seen returning to Penn Cove for the first time since the 1970s, when dozens of them were brutally captured and sent to aquariums, indicating a new beginning for the endangered whales that seemingly feel safe enough to revisit the site (Lauren Wellbank|Greenmatters)

🗓️ And today’s community win comes from Stephanie who’s 6 days sober.

What else?

🐀 NYC is trying to address it's rat problem with tasty birth control (instead of poison),

🐟 Salmon are already swimming up the newly-unblocked Klamath river,

🌱 Five wildlife wins that actually worked.

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This newsletter was written by Jacob Simon. 700,000+ people are in our community replacing dread & fear with hope & action across Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and now YouTube. You can say hi on LinkedIn, or by emailing jacob@jacobsimonsays.com