hope-for-the-planet

[hope-for-the-planet]

From the article:

“We really kind of refer to this as our third aqueduct,” says John Bednarski, an interim assistant general manager at the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California — a powerful agency, as the largest wholesale provider of water in the nation and owner of the Colorado River Aqueduct. The “third aqueduct” Bednarski is referring to is not another man-made appendage stretching to the Colorado River Basin or into Northern California but rather a project that’s designed to stay local — and sustainable: Pure Water Southern California would recycle wastewater, treat it and produce 150 million gallons of water each day, accounting for about 10 percent of the agency’s local water demands, according to Bednarski. “So it’s going to be a major contributor,” he says. [...] The L.A. Department of Water and Power is pursuing a similar recycling project. And in 2022, 26 cities and wholesale water providers that pull from the Colorado River wrote a memorandum of understanding committing to focusing on water recycling and reuse. The signatories, including Metropolitan, often point to Las Vegas as a model for recycling wastewater to reduce its total Colorado River use and increase the amount of water available for use. Nevada has long faced scarcity; of all the states, it receives the smallest share of the river: just 1.8 percent of all the water rights. By treating and reusing nearly all of its indoor water, the Las Vegas water purveyor effectively uses the same water over and over, expanding its supply. Now Las Vegas officials, along with Arizona water managers, are looking to the Pure Water project to further shore up supplies on the Colorado River. Their thinking: If Metropolitan can reduce its Colorado River use, its unused water could flow to Nevada and Arizona, providing a needed boost in an era when there is little to spare.  In that way, water recycling projects in one area can have consequences across watersheds."

[hope-for-the-planet]

I'm scared for the future. The year starts with WTF, trump is in the Whitehouse. They're are 3...no 4...Idfk how many wars and humanitarian crises. We're are 90s seconds (probably lower in 2025) to midnight on the doomsday clock. And the earth is getting hotter by the half-hour. I'm scared of dying and I'm pretty sure we're alone in the universe. So how in the flibity flabuty F**k! Do you stay so positive? (Genuinely I want to know)

Hi Anon!

This may not be the most satisfying answer, but a lot of it is practice.

Pivoting away from negative thought spirals, knowing when the despair is welling up and it's time to put the news down for a bit, being aware of the human tendency for negativity bias that feeds the media bias towards catastrophizing, seeking out stories of progress and people helping each other even if it's not glamorous or flashy or immediate. These get easier the longer you practice.

Truly, I have never been aware of how much this hope practice has paid off until this year. I won't say that I don't have bad days, but the strategies I have to deal with them and keep the bad news from driving me to disengagement feel like muscle-memory now.

I know this may not feel terribly helpful to you, but I say this to express that it is not some unique element of my personality that allows me to stay hopeful in the face of bad news--it is a skill that you can get better at too.

One really big part of this is to combat the bombardment of negative information by looking for positive information. News of progress, resistance, and people coming together to make a difference are a great place to start--but also hopeful and inspiring art (books, movies, TV shows, visual art, theater, etc.), research into human goodness and altruism, reading not just about the dark times in human history but also the times that people worked together to make things better. I just finished reading Hope for Cynics by positive psychologist Jamil Zaki, which I highly recommend if you feel like delving into the good side of human nature.

The more you train your brain to look for hope the more you will notice--one day you'll hear bad news and your knee-jerk reaction will be to turn towards possible solutions and wonder who is already working to make those solutions a reality.

I understand living in that place of fear and hopelessness--I have spent time there too and some days I still do. But hope is something worth working towards, even slowly and imperfectly. It doesn't just feel better to live in a world where you can see the possibility for things to be better than they are right now--it is the first step in being engaged in helping to make them better.

There are so many kind, brave, talented, imperfect, regular people pushing back against the bad things. None of us are alone. None of us have to save the world by ourselves. We only have to hope enough to be one small part of the process of making the world better than it would have been otherwise, in whatever ways we can.

[hope-for-the-planet]

From the article:

The [green hydrogen] facility has become an example of how oil-rich states like Texas — which leads the nation in annual wind power production and is behind only California in annual solar power production — are buying into the renewable energy boom. Much of this investment was spurred by former President Joe Biden’s administration and his legislative goals, such as the roughly $500 billion that Congress set aside through its approval of the bipartisan Inflation Reduction Act in 2022.   This eagerness to invest in renewable energy has come at a time when climate change has driven average global temperatures to roughly 1.1 degrees Celsius (and steadily climbing) above pre-industrial levels. To stave off the worst of the ongoing climate crisis’s effects, domestically and abroad, renewable sources like green hydrogen bear promise, scientists say. And that promise is already being fulfilled in nations like China, Saudi Arabia, and Sweden, all of whom are global leaders in green hydrogen production facilities that are in final planning or financing phases, according to a hydrogen projects data tracker published by the International Energy Agency last year.  Meanwhile, in the U.S., some 67 green hydrogen projects are planned through at least 2029, according to an energy transition paper published by the workforce solutions company Airswift.  The alternative fuel has always had promise, says Dr. Alan Lloyd, a renewable energy researcher at the University of Texas. It’s not a future pipe dream, he adds. But rather, now, “it’s happening.”

[hope-for-the-planet]

From the article:

From Europe to North America, an energy revolution is breathing new life into empty, long-forgotten coal mine shafts — by repurposing them into places to store renewable energy. Using “gravity batteries,” these underground facilities aim to tackle one of renewable energy’s greatest challenges: storage. The method is simple: Excess renewable energy is used to power winches that lift heavy weights — such as containers filled with sand or rock — up the mine shaft. When additional energy is needed, these weights are released, generating power as they descend. This approach not only gives these disused mines a second life but also offers economic and environmental benefits to communities once reliant on coal. Hundreds of thousands of abandoned mines — about 550,000 in the U.S. alone — pose economic, environmental and safety risks. In some areas, these old shafts have caused collapses or polluted groundwater, while in others, the loss of mining jobs has hit local economies hard. Meanwhile, as renewable energy scales up, storage limitations become a pressing issue, especially with solar and wind, which are naturally intermittent. This year, solar is expected to surpass coal as a leading global power source, according to the International Energy Agency, highlighting the need for reliable storage to balance supply and demand. During the U.K.’s 2020 lockdown, for example, National Grid warned of potential blackouts when energy demand dropped by 20 percent, leading to excess renewable power that went unused.

Gravity batteries offer a straightforward but powerful — and cost-effective — way to address both of these problems at once. Their potential is already being realized. In Rudong, near Shanghai, the first commercial grid-scale gravity battery was connected to the grid in December 2023. Capable of storing up to 100 megawatt hours of energy, it can power nine homes for an entire year using only stored electricity. Across China, nine additional projects are in development, while in Switzerland, a commercial demonstration unit has been connected to the national grid for testing since 2019, showcasing the technology’s promise on a global scale. And now, other countries, from Finland to Australia, are getting on board.

[hope-for-the-planet]

"In a major move for rivers up and down the land, last week it was announced that Sussex’s River Ouse is set to be granted its own rights. 

A new charter that has just been approved by Lewes district council officially recognises the Ouse as a living entity. Based on the Universal Declaration of River Rights, the charter gives the waterway eight rights, including the right to flow, to be pollution-free, to have native biodiversity and to undergo regeneration and restoration. 

The decision to give the Ouse legal personhood was actually made two years ago when the council passed a rights of river motion. In the two years since, the likes of Lewes district council, Environmental Law Foundation, Ouse and Adur Rivers Trust and Southwood Foundation have all worked together to create the charter. 

Matthew Bird, director of the Love Our Ouse campaign, said: ‘This is a momentous moment for the river and goes some way towards recognising that the river is an entity in its own right and that its voice needs to be represented in decisions which affect it. The river faces numerous challenges including pollution, climate change, over use and development.

‘The Charter provides a common framework through which to address these challenges which we hope the other major stakeholders on the Ouse will feel able to endorse. We hope Lewes District Council’s decision to support the Ouse Charter will encourage communities throughout the UK to pursue charters for their local rivers.’

Emma Montlake, co-director of the Environmental Law Foundation, added: ‘By supporting the Rights of Rivers, Lewes District Council has set a precedent that could transform the way we safeguard our rivers. The River Ouse is an essential part of the region’s ecosystem and cultural heritage—this decision ensures a better future for the River’s health and protection.’

The charter isn’t actually legally binding just yet. The next stage will involve working with statutory agencies, communities and landowners along the river to make sure that that the new rights are implemented."

-via TimeOut, March 3, 2025

Note: This is part of the broader Rights of Nature movement, and I believe the first natural body to be granted personhood/rights in the West. (Let me know in the comments if there have been others!) It's a whole new paradigm for how to view nature - and grants us a new set of powerful tools for legally defending nature from degradation and pollution. In other words, this is pretty exciting. Read more about the Rights of Nature movement here and here.

[hope-for-the-planet]

From the article:

“Today’s ruling by Judge (William) Alsup is an important win for National Park Service employees who were wrongfully terminated,” said Phil Francis, chair of the executive council of the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks. “These probationary employees must now be reinstated immediately and can return to the important business of protecting the irreplaceable resources and stories found at over 430 units of the National Park System. We know there are more fights ahead and we are grateful for the continued dedication and passion of our NPS employees who continue to protect our parks for future generations.”

[hope-for-the-planet]

From the article:

Across mainland Europe, bear, wolf, lynx and wolverine numbers have risen dramatically as conservation measures introduced several decades ago have begun to make an impact. There are now about 20,500 brown bears in Europe, a rise of 17% since 2016, while there are 9,400 Eurasian lynx, a 12% increase. The continent now has 1,300 wolverines, an increase of 16%, while, remarkably, Europe’s population of wild wolves has jumped by 35% to 23,000. Only the golden jackal has done better. Its population – which is concentrated in southern Europe – now stands at 150,000, a rise of 46% since 2016. Animals that were once hunted as vermin while their habitats were turned to farmland are returning. The howl of the wolf, the grunt of the bear and the noise of their padding through forests and plains is being heard again across Europe.

[hope-for-the-planet]

The green belt completely encircling the city of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso serves multiple purposes of preventing desertification, providing food for residents, and buffering the city from extreme heat waves.

The project began in the 1970s and now spans 2,000 hectares and counting--made up of trees and garden plots.

[hope-for-the-planet]

Unprecedented Fuel Plateau in China

Image and text from this article:

A slowdown in the growth of China’s fuel use is without precedent for a country at its stage of economic development, the International Energy Agency said. Rapid uptake of alternative transport, coupled with shifts in the Asian nation’s economy, mean fuel use is close to plateauing and may already have done so. There may be a small drop in fuel use this year, the Paris-based adviser said. “For China’s fuel growth trajectory to be leveling off at this early stage of development is without historical precedent,” the IEA said. “This slide is likely to accelerate over the medium-term, which would be sufficient to generate a plateau in total China oil demand this decade.”

[hope-for-the-planet]

Conservationists in Brazil have released 4,900 yellow-spotted river turtles. After years of work, more than 70,000 of these threatened turtles have been released into the wild. con

[hope-for-the-planet]

From the article:

If you had asked us last year who was deploying renewables faster — the Global South or the Global North — we would have thought it safe to say the Global North. But a recent RMI report finds a different reality. When it comes to the share of electricity from solar and wind, the Global South is growing twice as fast as the Global North. And beyond every number, there is a story. From the recent Mission 300 Africa Energy Summit to the upcoming SEforAll Global Forum, global leaders are coming together to make pathbreaking progress on clean energy — and then getting to work on implementation. First, let us set the scene. The Global South — which we define as Latin America, Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia — needs much more energy, and it needs it as fast and as cheaply as possible. The Global South uses five times less energy per person than the Global North. Yet, on aggregate, the region has already become a net importer of fossil fuels. Given low domestic reserves on average, the cost and risk of fossil fuel imports could rise to painful heights. In stark contrast, these countries are endowed with 70 percent of the world’s renewable energy potential. This renewable resource keeps getting cheaper and cheaper, outcompeting fossil fuels on price. When incentives are clear, markets move — and cleantech is moving.

[hope-for-the-planet]

From the article:

Global emissions of local air pollutants have probably passed their peak. The chart shows estimates of global emissions of pollutants such as sulphur dioxide (which causes acid rain), nitrogen oxides, and black and organic carbon. These pollutants are harmful to human health and can also damage ecosystems. It looks like emissions have peaked for almost all of these pollutants. Global air pollution is now falling, and we can save many lives by accelerating this decline.

While air pollution hasn't peaked everywhere, things will only get better from here if trends in cleaner energy and manufacturing continue.

This is one of those examples of slow progress in solving a big problem that doesn't get celebrated, even though it represents a huge step for human health and well-being.

[hope-for-the-planet]

From the article:

Here in Davos, where the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) wrapped up on Friday, the world’s biggest companies are singing a different tune about climate change. Big banks talked about new opportunities for financing clean energy in emerging markets. Manufacturers warned of the climate risks facing their supply chains. And energy companies touted investments in renewables. The takeaway from these conversations to me is that companies will continue to pursue profitable climate initiatives in face of Trump, even if some of them no longer frame them as climate initiatives. “The leading companies of the world are going through a couple of transformations—the tech transformation and the climate transformation,” says Jesper Brodin, the CEO of the Ingka Group (IKEA). “The train has left the station. The benefits are clear.”

While the Trump administration may slow down climate progress somewhat, the reality of the economic and social momentum that has built up around climate action means that it will continue to chug ahead.

It's not about altruism anymore--climate-friendly policies and building climate resiliency into supply chains is now a matter of good business. Particularly when companies are well aware that most of the rest of the world and the majority of the American public support climate action.

[hope-for-the-planet]

A new report from Yale found that the majority of registered voters in the United States:

•support climate-friendly policies

•would prefer to vote for a candidate who will take action on climate change

•think that developing clean energy should be a "high" or "very high" priority for the president and Congress

•support policies that support climate justice goals (this one specifically was a "large majority")

No matter how much they try to pretend otherwise, the current administration does not represent how the majority of Americans feel about issues related to climate change. Don't let them convince you that there's no reason to fight because you're the only one who cares.

[hope-for-the-planet]

Good News for Sustainable Rice Cultivation

As you might imagine, rice is a very water-hungry crop and currently uses about a third of global freshwater--the cultivation of rice also produces 12% of global methane emissions.

New breakthroughs from researchers in Chile, Chine, and Sweden have developed one variety of rice that uses 50% less water and another that can reduce methane emissions by 70%.

For a staple crop that is produced in such massive numbers, this is a really huge deal both for preserving resources and for food security.

Source--Fix the News

[hope-for-the-planet]

"Over the past decade, the population of the critically endangered Siberian crane has increased by nearly 50%, according to the International Crane Foundation.

The foundation said the boost in the snowy-white Siberian crane’s (Leucogeranus leucogeranus) numbers is the result of efforts to secure the migratory bird’s stopover sites along its eastern flyway, or migratory route, between Russia and China.

“It is a wonderful feeling to have this Critically Endangered species thriving with such a strong comeback from near extinction,” Rich Beilfuss, president and CEO of the International Crane Foundation, told Mongabay by email.

The Siberian crane, known for its extremely long and arduous annual journeys, is one of the world’s rarest cranes. It’s western and central populations, which once bred in western Russia, then migrated to parts of Central Asia and India, is nearly extinct today.

Most Siberian cranes that remain belong to the eastern population, which migrates between northeastern Russia and China. By 2012, researchers estimated there were around 3,500-4,000 individuals left in this eastern population.

The latest bird counts from Russia and China suggest their numbers have nearly doubled to 7,000 individuals, Beilfuss said.

The recovery of the eastern flyway is heartening, he added, because the western flyway of the species “was lost due to over-hunting and the entire population is now concentrated in this one eastern flyway between Russia and China.”

The eastern population, too, has declined in the past due to the loss and degradation of its summer breeding and wintering grounds, as well as its stopover wetland habitats. The habitat losses are driven largely by climate change and human activities like the construction of dams.

To help the Siberian cranes along this flyway, the International Crane Foundation, with support from the Disney Conservation Fund, has been working with organizations in Russia and China over the past decade to identify and secure the wetlands the bird relies on, Beilfuss said.

In China, for instance, the foundation has collaborated with local partners at Lake Poyang, which supports nearly the entire wintering population of Siberian cranes and several other threatened waterbirds. Beilfuss said they’re managing the lake system in a way that ensures enough feeding areas for the cranes. Additionally, the organizations have been raising awareness about the threatened status of the species along the flyway, including school curriculums about the crane.

The Disney funding ended in late 2024. However, the International Crane Foundation will continue to work on Lake Poyang, Beilfuss said. This includes focusing on “restoring the natural habitat for cranes and managing enough safe agricultural land as refugia, developing a water level control and vegetation restoration plan for two sub-lakes within Poyang, and strengthening community engagement to reduce disturbances to cranes,” he said. “Still much to do to keep this species thriving!”"

-via Mongabay News, January 9, 2025

[hope-for-the-planet]

From the article:

As the climate is continuously changing and the atmosphere is warming, many scientists fear that fresh water from melting polar ice sheets could significantly disrupt—or collapse—the AMOC. While a decline of the AMOC would have grave consequences, a collapse would be truly catastrophic [...] However, studies about the AMOC's long term future are uncertain. Instead of predicting the future, a team of scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) quantified the past to help inform where we could be going. In a new paper published in Nature Communications, scientists found that the AMOC has not declined in the last 60 years [...] "Based on the results, the AMOC is more stable than we thought," Vogt said. "This might mean that the AMOC isn't as close to a tipping point as previously suggested."