Every day the Good Good Good team collects the best good news in the world and shares it with our community. Here are the highlights for this week!
If you want to get good news in your inbox every day, join the Goodnewsletter — the free daily newsletter designed to leave you feeling hopeful.
The Best Positive News We’re Celebrating This Week —
To help fight world hunger, scientists created a new protein product using easy-to-source ingredients
A research team at Germany’s University of Tübingen recently created a new protein product using some easy-to-source ingredients — a few you can even get from thin air.
Using just carbon dioxide, hydrogen, oxygen, and a little electricity, added to microbes and some baker’s yeast, the team created a sustainable, nutrient-rich protein substitute full of vitamin B9.
And the protein content in their yeast product not only met that of sources like beef, pork, fish, or lentils — but surpassed it (by a lot).
Why is this good news? The bacterium deployed in this research could lead food scientists to create a vegan meat substitute, or even offer a long-term, climate-friendly solution to ending the global hunger crisis.
As part of a project to increase forest cover in northern England, more than 1.9 million trees were planted in 2023
In 2023 alone, more than 1.9 million trees were planted across northern England — the most in a single year as part of a reforestation project to boost woodland cover in the region.
When complete, the Northern Forest project will have planted 50 million trees from coast to coast. Since 2018, nearly 8 million trees total have been planted.
At the time the project started tree cover was just 7.6% — much lower than the 13% national average. In all of England, tree-planting rates grew by 52% in the past year, with 5,529 hectares of new forest planted.
One of the project’s leaders reiterated the benefits of more tree cover, including improving air quality, reducing flooding, and creating green jobs.
Residents of Springfield, Ohio packed a Haitian restaurant to show their support
After a (debunked) rumor that Haitian immigrants who have relocated to Springfield, Ohio, are stealing and eating local pets was put in the national spotlight, the community has navigated bomb threats, school and city building closures, and more.
Romane Pierre, a Haitian immigrant living in Dayton, Ohio, is the manager of Rose Goute Creole Restaurant, where he has been fielding prank calls. Fortunately, his neighbors responded very differently and weren’t dissuaded by the claims.
Quite the opposite: they showed up to the restaurant in droves over the weekend, with social media posts documenting lines out the door.
→ Read more
More people helping support immigrants:
- A doctor and a former patient are working together to provide care at an immigration shelter in Arizona.
- A teacher in New Orleans created a special school to help meet the particular needs of newly arrived immigrant youth.
- A Czech city is modeling for the world how a community can support migrant populations.
- A mother-daughter duo is helping Indigenous migrants by providing translation services, meeting cultural needs, and more.
The World Health Organization just approved the first mpox vaccine for adults
Helping ramp up disease response, the World Health Organization just gave authorization for the first mpox vaccine to be used in adults. It’s also working on an “access and allocation” method to respond to outbreaks and get the limited vaccines where they’re most needed.
The WHO director called it an “important step” in the fight against the disease — both for current outbreaks and in the future.
Right now, over 120 countries have confirmed more than 103,000 cases since the mpox outbreak began two years ago, and heartbreakingly, 723 people have died — primarily children.
→ Read more
More good global health news:
- Responding to pressure from activists, Danaher announced it would reduce the cost of its tuberculosis testing materials, the most helpful diagnostic resource for TB.
- Authors, YouTubers, and global health advocates Hank and John Green launched a charity store to help build a maternal health hospital in Sierra Leone (which has the highest maternal mortality rate in the world).
- Playing a key role in preventing future outbreaks, Ebola survivors in the Democratic Republic of Congo are uniting to combat stigma and misinformation surrounding the deadly disease.
Chile produced 9.4% of its primary energy from solar in 2023 — more than any other country in the world
Last year, Chile led the world in solar energy production: 9.4% of its primary energy production came from solar sources. For electricity alone, it produced 20% of the total.
This progress is remarkable considering that just a decade ago, Chile generated nearly no electricity from solar — but has seen steady growth in the years since.
And it’s largely due to the country being home to the region with the highest level of sunlight exposure in the world: the Atacama Desert. The desert is also home to Latin America’s first solar thermal plant.
For the first time in decades, data shows a sharp decline in the number of drug overdose deaths across the U.S.
Preliminary data collected is showing an unprecedented decline in drug overdose deaths in the U.S. — by roughly 10.6%. It’s a sharp turn from recent years when fatal overdoses had been increasing by double-digit percentages.
In some states, early data is showing declines by as much as 30%. Experts estimate this national decline could mean as many as 20,000 fewer fatalities per year.
While there is still a heartbreakingly high number of deaths annually, experts believe the devastating increases in overdose deaths that the U.S. saw beginning in 2019 are over, at least for now.
What’s the nuance? While the data isn’t clear what exactly has caused the drop, experts point to the availability and affordability of fentanyl addiction treatment, as well as of naloxone to quickly reverse overdoses. And more resources are needed in Black and Native American communities where overdose deaths are still disproportionately high.
In honor of International Day of Peace, 2,500 olive trees were planted in the West Bank
Since 2020, an estimated 4,000 olive trees have been uprooted from the West Bank by Israeli officials, which adds to the 800,000 total olive trees that have been uprooted since 1967 — equivalent to razing all the trees in New York’s Central Park 33 times.
For this year’s International Day of Peace — in accordance with the theme “Cultivating a Culture of Peace” — Treedom for Palestine is planting its tenth Freedom Farm, adding 2,500 olive trees to the West Bank.
Each Freedom Farm is planted with the support of the Palestinian Farmers Union — a collective of about 20,000 small-scale farmers — and gives families the means to sustain themselves and their land.
Why is this good news? Olive trees play a prominent role in Palestinian culture, symbolizing the attachment Palestinians have to their land. The area is home to some of the world’s oldest olive trees, some dating back as far as 4,000 years. They are also a source of income for thousands of Palestinian families and are excellent at sequestering carbon.
→ Read more
After a career-ending car crash, a former MLB player dedicated his life to helping athletes with disabilities
Tony Vlahovic was hit by a drunk driver traveling at 60 mph, leaving him with serious injuries that ended his Major League Baseball career.
Devastated to see his lifelong dream come to an end, he spent the next 18 months learning to walk. It wasn’t until his son turned seven that he picked up baseball again.
He started coaching, and today is a 5-time Coach of the Year, the Special Olympics North American Coach of the Year, and co-founder of BaseABLE, a nonprofit giving disabled athletes the “coaching, equipment, and opportunities to play and meet other athletes with disabilities.”
→ Read more
More good news of the week —
Chemists developed a simple way to recycle a common type of plastic back into virgin material using iron and alcohol. PET is a common polyester plastic, used widely in textiles and drink containers, but current methods can only recycle it into a lower-quality plastic.
Taiwan banned performances by wild animals held in captivity, like dolphins and tigers. The country’s revised “Animal Performance Management Measures” forbids companies from forcing wild animals to perform or interact with people.
With more than 40 underpasses and three overpasses already built, Colorado is leading the way in wildlife crossing construction. Those crossings, paired with long stretches of wildlife fencing to funnel the animals to the safe passageway have reduced wildlife-involved crashes by around 90%.
New data shows that food banks provided 1.7 billion meals to more than 40 million people in 2023. And since much of the food was recovered from farms or wholesale produce markets, an estimated 1.8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide were prevented.
Raising hopes for the endangered species, a pair of rare Amur tiger cubs just made their debut at the Minnesota Zoo. Near the brink of extinction in the 1930s and 1940s, scientists now estimate the Amur tiger population is just around 400 to 500 in the wild.
To honor the Indigenous Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes, a federal board just voted to rename a mountain in Colorado. The mountain had been named after former territorial governor John Evans, who authorized the Sand Creek Massacre in 1864 that killed over 200 noncombatant Cheyenne and Arapaho people.
New data shows the ozone layer is still well on its way to making a full recovery. If current policies hold, it could recover by 2066 over the Antarctic, 2045 over the Arctic, and 2040 over the rest of the world.
One of the world’s largest exporters of oil, Norway now has more electric than petrol cars on its roads. It’s aiming to become the first nation to end the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2025 — currently, 9 out of 10 cars sold are electric.
Scientists just rediscovered an Ecuadorian frog that had been lost for 100 years. Scientists believe the frog’s rediscovery will be vital to protect the country’s most degraded ecosystem, the southern Andes mountains.
Scientists are saving endangered sea snails by setting them up on “speed dates.” High sea temperatures have kept endangered queen conch sea snails from (literally) coming out of their shells to find mates, so scientists stepped in to help.
To protest their “worst in Europe” parental leave, UK dads tied baby slings to iconic male statues across London. Activists from the Dad Shift tied model babies to statues in an attempt to focus attention on the importance of father-baby bonding.
Patagonia’s nonprofit arm just gave $1 million to help revolutionize California’s farms. The funding will help farmers in Ventura County transition away from conventional agriculture toward regenerative, organic practices.
Kentucky just banned the use of “conversion therapy” on LGBTQ+ minors. The governor said his executive order was a necessary step to protect children from a widely discredited practice that tries to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity through counseling.
Manchester wants to be the first region in the UK to adopt a “housing first” approach to eradicate homelessness. Inspired by the success seen in Finland after taking a trip to see it first-hand, the city’s mayor said the policy also “saves public money.”
The highest peak in Great Smoky Mountains National Park will officially revert to its Cherokee name. Responding to a request from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, the U.S. Board of Geographic Names voted to change the name to Kuwohi, after it’d been named after a Confederate general for over 150 years.
