Positive environmental news: It's not all doom and gloom in the climate world, we promise.
Here are our top positive environmental stories from 2022 so far (here’s to many more!).
#1. There are amazing people out there:
A retiree living in the south of France, who won €200m in December 2020 on the EuroMillions lottery has used his winnings to set up an environmental foundation which will protect forests and boost biodiversity.
Their lottery payout is being used to “protect the living and watch over our own future,” a move that’s been called exceptionally generous.
#2. Advances in solar power:
Scientists at The Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden make a breakthrough in the storing of solar power.
Having navigated the ability to store solar energy for up to 18 years, then releasing it as heat when needed, in 2017.
The team are now focusing on self-charging electronics that use stored solar energy on demand.
“This is a radically new way of generating electricity from solar energy. It means that we can use solar energy to produce electricity regardless of weather, time of day, season, or geographical location,” explains research leader Kasper Moth-Poulsen, Professor at the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Chalmers.
#3. A story to sway the generalization of billionaires:
Founder of The North Face, Douglas Tompkins had donated his fortune to protecting Chile’s Patagonia region.
Back in 1990, Tompkins purchased, then donated 8,000km2 of land (roughly the size of Cyprus) to Chile and Argentina to help improve the countries’ biodiversity.
This was fantastic news for land protection but also for the animals that inhabit it. Namely huemuls. On the endangered list, there are less than 1,500 in the world.
A testament to his goodwill, (Tomkins sadly passed in 2015) , the Chilean part of Patagonia National Park, today is a fantastic example of an ecosystem thriving with little interference from man. (EuroNews)
Our fourth environmental news story. Plastic waste factory opens in Nigeria:
Tired of seeing mass amounts of plastic waste in her native Nigeria, Nzambi Matee put her Materials Engineering degree to good.
She founded a factory that turns plastic waste into bricks that are stronger than concrete.
An amazing step considering that in her home city of Nairobi, around 500 metric tons (about 1.1 million pounds) of plastic waste is generated per day
#5. The Empire State is powered by wind:
All 13 buildings owned by the Empire State Realty Trust are now powered by energy sourced from wind power.
Through this switch, they have stopped 450 million pounds of carbon dioxide from being produced. That’s the equivalent of removing all New York City taxis from the road for a year. – Washington Post
#6. Nepal’s rhino population is at its highest in over 20 years:
This is in part, due to a pause on tourism allowing nature to thrive, coupled with more stringent monitoring of poaching.
According to Nepal’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC), since the year 2000, no official count has found more than 650 rhinos.
In their latest count, the population of rhinos across four national parks in Nepal increased to 752 total, up by more than 100 from 645 animals in 2015.
Our last piece of positive environmental news: Electric planes soar:
A British-built aircraft is the latest battery powered plane to complete a test flight.
The test plane: A Sherwood eKub aircraft completed two zero-emissions flights this year lasting a collective 30+ minutes.
The plane was constructed by The Light Aircraft Company and piloted by Dr Guy Gratton, associate professor of aviation and the environment at Cranfield University, England.
“This is a new way of flying,” he said. “We’re at the start of a steep learning curve”.
We hope this rundown from across the globe inspired a little optimism. It’s not all doom and gloom in the climate-sphere; there are positive climate stories out there with like-minded people doing, and achieving great things!
Did you enjoy this read? See our blog post below where we share positive environmental news from our business member community:
5 Success Stories from Our Members
