Astronaut Chris Hadfield's guide to optimism
He has written the bestseller An Astronauts Guide to Life on Earth, and here now is his guide to optimism.
📅 The best decade in human history
Poverty declined, wealth increased, new science breakthroughs and bigger opportunities for more people than ever before. 2010 to 2020 has been the best decade in human history.
🏭 Goldman Sachs will no longer fund new coal projects
Goldman Sachs announces that it will no longer fund new coal projects. They will also not fund any extraction projects in the Arctic.
☢️ A new generation of nuclear reactors is coming. They are safer - and tiny.
Most likely nuclear energy will be an essential part of decarbonizing the world’s electricity. But new plants are expensive and the technology much criticized. Enter the small modular reactor, designed to allow several reactors to be combined into one unit.
🐯 AI could be a gamechanger for the conservation of animals
Automated cameras that snap a picture whenever an animal walks by, have become an indispensable tool for wildlife biologists. But going through and looking at all the pictures is long and tedious work. Now an AI will do that work instead.
⛓️ Volvo will use blockchain to make sure its cobalt wasn’t mined by children
The data in the blockchain will include the cobalt's origin, attributes like weight and size, as well as the chain of custody.
🧬 The first person in the U.S. to have genes edited with CRISPR
Last week, a woman named Victoria Gray became the first person in the U.S. to have her cells edited with CRISPR to help with her sickle cell anemia.
🐒 Economic growth does not need to hurt wildlife
A study compared bird and mammal populations in 33 countries and found consistently positive relationships between economic growth, gender-parity in governments, and abundance of wildlife
🏭 European coal power output in steep decline
The European Union has seen an unprecedented 19% year-on-year decline in coal-fired power generation in the first half of 2019.