Good morning, Gnusies! It seems like many of us have been weighed down into gloom and even despair by relentless bad news lately. Atrocities in Ukraine, bad poll numbers for Biden, scary predictions by the punditry that Dems will lose the House and Senate, even scarier predictions that it’s too late to save the planet. To this I have just one question: where are you sourcing your news?
Let’s start with the news from Ukraine. I admit that I’ve clicked on too many stories about carnage and rape, and my mental health has suffered. But having seen clearly the direction I was heading, I decided to back off the clickbait war porn (which is unfortunately ubiquitous), and the result is that my emotional equilibrium has mostly returned. If you want to keep up with what’s going on in Ukraine without wrecking yourself, I recommend the brilliant coverage that kos and Hunter have provided since the invasion started (click on their name links here and look for their stories if you missed them). And I also recommend the commentary on Ukraine that Beau of the Fifth Column posts on YouTube. And just force yourself to avoid clicking on war horror stories.
How about all those “Biden’s numbers plummet” and “Dems on track to lose the House and Senate” stories? Mostly MSM, right? Although individual commentators and reporters may occasionally produce pieces that support Democratic/Progressive ideas and programs, their bosses — the MSM oligarchs of print media and television and radio — have a clearly observable bias against most of what Biden and the Dems are accomplishing and trying to accomplish, which is shown in the preponderance of Dem-bashing stories on MSM. They don’t like regulation or taxes on the super-rich or universal health care that would hurt the bottom lines of HMOs and Big Pharma, because they’re beholden to major corporate advertisers and because they’re rich assholes themselves. So take those incessant bad news stories about Biden and the Dems with a heap of salt. Or better yet, don’t listen to them at all.
And who’s telling us that it’s too late to save the planet? Fossil fuel interests, that’s who. Here’s just one article on the subject: Climate Deniers Shift Tactics to ‘Inactivism’. If we believe that trying to fight climate change is hopeless, we’ll give up. However, it’s definitely not hopeless, especially if we insist on regulating those fossil fuel interests. Again, when you see dire pronouncements about the climate, look at the source.
So where can you find genuine good news that isn’t simply feel-good fluff? Here are my favorites in no particular order, some of which overlap with the excellent list that Mokurai recently posted.
Good News Sources
And two more from Mokurai:
Remember the recent story about how watching CNN instead of Fox for a few hours a week changed the outlook of some conservative viewers? We can use the same magic on ourselves by replacing at least some MSM media with the sources above, replacing gloom and doom with hope and energy. Please make the effort!
Opening music
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Good news in politics
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Donate to increase our majorities in the House and Senate in 2022. Your donation will be evenly divided between the closest races. We can do this and the optimists can lead the way!!
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Biden names veteran career diplomat Brink as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine
This nomination comes at the perfect time to underline the message that the visit by Blinken and Austin gave about our commitment to Ukraine.
From Reuters:
Joe Biden named veteran diplomat Bridget Brink as the new U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, ... moving to fill a crucial position that was vacant for nearly three years and at a time when Washington is ramping up its support to help Ukraine fend off a Russian invasion.
Brink, who is currently serving as the U.S. ambassador to Slovakia, has been a career diplomat for 25 years and has worked in Uzbekistan and Georgia as well as at several senior positions across the State Department and White House National Security Council. ✂️
The announcement on the nomination of Brink came during a trip over the weekend by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to Ukrainian capital Kyiv, where they met President Volodomyr Zelenskiy and other top Ukrainian officials.
The visit was designed to show Western support for Ukraine and the cabinet secretaries also pledged new aid worth $713 million for Zelenskiy's government and countries in the region, where Russia's invasion has raised fears of further aggression by Moscow.
During the trip, Washington also announced that U.S. diplomats will be returning to Ukraine this week -- initially resuming "day trips" from Poland where they are currently stationed to the Western Ukrainian city of Lviv across the border.
Biden signs order that goes to the heart of Oregon’s forest politics
A political story that has important repercussions for my state, placing our internal squabbles over logging into the much more important context of global warming and carbon storage. The Forest Service and BLM have been quietly continuing to log mature and old growth trees, and hopefully this executive order will begin to put a stop to that. I also hope that this will finally be the wake-up call to the state to get serious about finding alternative ways to fund schools and other services that have traditionally been funded by timber revenues.
From The Oregonian:
President Joe Biden signed an executive order during his visit to Seattle Friday that aims to safeguard mature and old growth forests on federal land, step up forest maintenance and tree planting projects across the country, and combat global climate change by increasing diplomatic efforts to fight aggressive logging in the Amazon, Africa and Southeast Asia.
Among other things, the order directs the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to define and inventory mature and old growth forests within a year and develop policies to protect them from climate change and wildfire risks. ✂️
Major appropriations for forest restoration in the federal infrastructure bill will almost certainly bring new jobs into [rural timber] communities and more logs into local mills. But Friday’s executive order was clearly focused on protecting trees, increasing carbon storage in forests and delivering on the administration’s climate agenda. ✂️
“It’s not enough to just protect the remnant ancient forests,” said Steve Pedery, conservation director at Oregon Wild. “It’s the trees that are growing, these 80-plus year-old stands, that are a big deal. We’re thrilled to see them include these mature forests in the order.”
Together, the Forest Service and BLM manage about 30 million acres of land in Oregon, making them the largest land managers in the state. Most of Oregon’s true old growth has already been logged, but its wet forests west of the Cascades are some of the fastest growing and most carbon-dense in the world. ✂️
...environmentalists say federal agencies [under the umbrella of wildfire prevention] offer up older trees to make [timber] sales more economically attractive to timber companies. “That’s Oregon’s dirty little secret,” said Pedery, pointing to timber sales on BLM land west of the Cascades “where we enthusiastically log old growth. We just don’t tell anybody.”
🍿 Repellent Republicans Risking Irrelevance 🍿
Democrats field test how to make Rick Scott’s agenda backfire on GOP
It was always obvious that this bonehead “plan” would be a disaster for the GQP, and now we have some research to back it up. BTW, the NBC headline here is also boneheaded — it should read “Democrats’ field test shows that Rick Scott’s agenda will backfire on GOP.” We don’t need to make it backfire, except by bringing attention to it.
From NBC News:
When Sen. Rick Scott released his “Plan to Rescue America,” he wanted it to be a blueprint for the GOP to take back the upper chamber of Congress in November. But that proposal from the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee appears to be helping Democrats, or at least that's what recent messaging testing found, according to documents obtained by NBC News.
One key aspect of Scott's plan bashed by fellow Republicans calls for requiring poor people to start paying income tax …as well as the idea of sunsetting all federally funded programs in five years, which would mean ending Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. ✂️
When voters were asked about ending Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, according to the survey conducted by Blue Rose Research, a Democratic messaging and research firm...the field test showed that 65 percent of respondents said they would be less likely to support the GOP, 16 percent said it made no difference and 19 percent — all conservatives — said it would make them more likely to back Republicans.
“This message drives the largest drop in Republican vote share among voters over 65+, Latino voters, and white voters without a college degree,” according to Blue Rose Research, which interviewed 2,777 voters in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin via online web panels March 25-30. ✂️
The survey also isolated the opinion of self-described Trump voters and found that, by 46-34 percent, they would be less likely to support candidates who favored cutting Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. As for imposing an income tax on poorer Americans, 41 percent of Trump voters said they’d be less likely to back Republicans in 2022, while 30 percent — nearly all conservatives — said it would make them more likely to support the GOP.
Big majorities reject book bans - CBS News poll
CRT and book banning appears to be the hill the GQP is choosing to die on. You go, guys!
From CBS News:
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Good news from my corner of the world
Can beavers save salmon in Oregon’s high desert?
The answer is an unequivocal “Yes!”
How 3D printing could turn an Eastern Oregon town into a high-tech housing hub
From Oregon Public Broadcasting:
Many builders don’t want to take on construction projects in a small high-desert town like John Day because, for similar effort, they can build homes in Bend or Portland that sell for two or three times the price.
But after eight years in the military, [Josh] Walker wanted to return to his hometown, raise a family and run a construction business. Initially, he planned to build traditional wood-framed homes on his new land. But then he talked to city leaders, who suggested trying something different — using 3D technology to print homes using a computer, a high-tech pump and quick-setting concrete.
“The thought is that you can come in a single day and get a structure completely printed,” Walker said. ✂️
To mitigate the logistical challenges, the City of John Day applied for and won a grant from the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development. Now Walker and the City of John Day have $60,000 to develop plans for a practical 3D-printed home. ✂️
If the 3D homes do work out, John Day city manager Nick Green said the state can use the plans to print inexpensive 3D homes across small-town Oregon, boosting the housing supply. They could even be used to quickly replace homes burned in something like a catastrophic wildfire. Green’s big hope, of course, is that John Day will become a center for 3D home printing — attracting high-paying jobs and boosting the population.
Portland record store helped launch a vinyl renaissance
Terry Currier is one of Portland’s unique heroes. He’s the founder and owner of Portland’s iconic Music Millennium record store and can claim to be almost single-handedly responsible for the renaissance of vinyl records and the survival of independent brick-and-mortar record stores around the world. Here’s the story.
From Oregon Public Broadcasting:
There are a lot of ways to listen to music today. But for many who know and love music, vinyl remains the gold standard. ...
Record Store Day is a celebration of the brick-and-mortar stores that still sell old-fashioned vinyl. The event happens one Saturday every April. … A selection of limited edition records are specifically released on the day and exclusively distributed in independent record stores participating in the event.
Terry Currier owns and operates Music Millennium in Northeast Portland. The iconic record store opened more than fifty years ago. Currier says he started the Coalition of Independent Music Stores in 1995 to promote locally-owned record stores. In 2007, the organization joined two other coalitions to found Record Store Day. The idea was not only to promote the lagging record industry but also to celebrate the culture of independent stores.
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Good news from around the nation
Texas court halts execution of Melissa Lucio with 2 days to spare
This is such great news! Kudos to everyone who worked tirelessly to give Lucio a new trial. Let’s hope that this will put a spotlight on the abusive police questioning that resulted in Lucio’s forced confession and that those abusive techniques will finally be abolished.
From Austin American-Statesman:
With only two days to spare, the state's highest criminal court on Monday blocked the execution of Melissa Lucio and ordered the trial court to examine new evidence that supporters argue established the death row inmate's innocence.
The ruling from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals came amid frantic efforts to halt Wednesday's planned execution by Lucio supporters, including Republican and Democratic members of the state Legislature.
Case details: What we know about case of a Texas woman facing possible execution
Supporters say new evidence shows that Lucio's 2-year-old daughter Mariah was not murdered but instead died two days after an accidental fall down a steep set of stairs, leaving the child with internal injuries that were not immediately apparent.
“I thank God for my life," Lucio said in a statement released by her lawyers. "I am grateful the court has given me the chance to live and prove my innocence. Mariah is in my heart today and always."
Lucio added that she was grateful to all who had prayed for her and spoken out on her behalf.
Mass. will close one of its oldest prisons
This story shows yet again that if incarcerated people are given pathways to more productive lives, they don’t re-offend. So now let’s open those pathways to at-risk kids before they wind up in prison!
From WBUR:
The [MA] Department of Correction said Thursday it will shutter MCI-Cedar Junction at Walpole within two years, citing a reduced incarceration rate and high maintenance costs.
There are 525 men held at MCI-Cedar Junction, the department said, which means the prison is operating at only 68% capacity. The state now has the lowest incarceration rate in 35 years, with almost 6,000 people in custody in 16 correctional facilities, the department said.
In a statement announcing the closure, Public Safety and Security Secretary Terrence Reidy highlighted partnerships with Gov. Charlie Baker and state lawmakers on criminal justice reform.
"The fruit of that work — the lowest level of incarceration in decades — was achieved by providing at-risk individuals with pathways to positive life choices, creating new re-entry services, and empowering returning citizens to rebuild their lives in meaningful ways," Reidy said. "It also allows us to consolidate the number of operational facilities and renew our focus on delivering effective services to women and men in DOC's care.”
Maryland just passed one of the most aggressive climate laws in the US
Never doubt how important it is to have Democratic majorities in state legislatures, especially when the governor is a Rethug. Donating to Goodie’s ActBlue campaign is a good way to help make this happen!
From Canary Media:
Maryland has become the latest state to mandate an end to carbon emissions on a net basis economywide by midcentury, targeting electricity generation, building heating and transportation. The package also incorporates environmental-justice provisions. Backers are calling it one of the country’s most aggressive climate change laws.
The Climate Solutions Now Act of 2022 became law after Maryland Republican Governor Larry Hogan, who had opposed the bill on the grounds that it would increase energy costs in the state, declined to take action on the bill on Friday. The bill was passed by veto-proof majorities in the state’s Democratic-controlled legislature, making it likely that an attempt to veto it would have been overturned. ✂️
A nonpartisan analysis of the bill’s costs and benefits found that it might increase energy costs over the short term but could also yield long-term energy savings.
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Good news from Ukraine
This is such a beautiful story I have to give it its own section. And I apologize for pushing the limits on fair use — I just couldn’t bear to edit it down any further.
‘Love and joy are still alive’ The story of one Kharkiv couple who got married amid their city’s ruins
From Meduza:
Since the war in Ukraine began, more than 30 thousand Ukrainian couples have officially tied the knot. In mid-April, the Ukrainian Justice Ministry simplified the marriage registration process — soldiers can even get married over Zoom now. One wedding — that of dentist Anton Sokolov and nurse Anastasia Gracheva, both from Kharkiv — has become famous far beyond Ukraine’s borders. Photos of the couple in their wedding outfits in front of the wreckage that now makes up Kharkiv have been shared by media outlets around the world, including France24, Euronews, and Africanews. Meduza spoke with Anastasia Gracheva about she and her husband’s decision to get hitched in wartime — and how they used the wedding to help the war effort.
[Note: After the shelling of Kharkiv began, Anton and Anastasia used their medical training to help neighbors.]
We decided we needed to transition from providing individual care to something larger-scale.
We learned that a humanitarian aid warehouse in Kharkiv needed medical volunteers to sort and distribute medicine and medical equipment. ...Later on, we changed our priorities a little. We're still helping civilians, but our focus is now on treating people from the military and the Territorial Defense Forces. Our volunteer work at the humanitarian warehouse ultimately became not just a part of our lives but our entire lives, our entire routine. ✂️
We decided to get married on April 3, my birthday. Anton said he hadn’t been able to find me a birthday present, so we’d have a wedding instead. ✂️
In Ukraine right now, you can get married on the same day you apply. ... We managed to find the only wedding officiant still in Kharkiv and convinced her to join our adventure — to help us get married right in the middle of Kharkiv, in the ruins. Anton went running all around the city to get the documents. We had three days to do it all. And by some miracle, we did it. ...I was given two wedding dresses. ✂️
We held the photoshoot in places that used to be the most beautiful in the city but have since been destroyed by shelling. I adore my city — I’ve been through every alleyway, and it’s painful, of course, to see ruins where homes used to be. The Palace of Labor, with its big arch, is an especially important place for us — if you go through the arch from the street, you’ll see [the courtyard]. Anton and I would often go there and drink coffee. ...The photo from our wedding that was shown by media all over the world was taken right in front of the Palace of Labor. ✂️
We have no intention of “re-doing” anything after the war; we had the best wedding in the world. We just hope to be able to have a honeymoon after the victory.
Once our marriage was registered, we...went to the humanitarian aid warehouse. ...There, surrounded by boxes of medicine and food, we had our first dance. We hadn’t practiced — we just danced the way we felt.
We wanted to show that despite the war and the destruction — and it wasn’t buildings they destroyed, it was our lives — love and joy are still alive; human life continues on. The sky above the city hasn’t changed — it’s just as clear and blue as ever. And our love hasn’t changed — it’s only gotten stronger. Love will save our city, our country, and the whole world.
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Good news from around the world
Europe to slap new regulations on Big Tech, beating U.S. to the punch
Regulation of Big Tech is desperately needed, especially now that Twitter will be under Elon Musk’s control. I’m glad Europe has taken the vital first step.
From The Washington Post:
European policymakers reached a deal early Saturday in Brussels on a sweeping new law to force the world’s largest tech companies to more aggressively police their platforms for illegal content, paving the way for one of the most expansive regulations to date to address a broad range of harms caused by social networks, shopping websites and search engines.
The legislation, called the Digital Services Act, would impose new transparency obligations on the companies, forcing them to provide information to regulators and outside researchers about how algorithms that control what people see on their sites work. It also creates new regulations around how companies target online ads.
The agreement solidifies a two-bill plan, which also includes the Digital Markets Act, a competition bill that would establish new rules to prevent “gatekeepers” from abusing their power to squash smaller rivals. Both bills await votes from the Parliament and policymakers from the 27 countries in the union, which are widely viewed as a formality. ✂️
The deal on the Digital Services Act is a blow to Google, Facebook and other major tech companies, which have aggressively lobbied against some aspects of the legislation. These companies could face fines of up to 6 percent of global revenue if they break the rules.
Indonesia outlaws sexual abuse and forced marriage
From The Optimist Daily:
Indonesia passed a bill that, for the first time in the country’s history, bans forced marriage and sexual harassment. ✂️
Despite conservative opposition, ... the House of Representatives finally passed the long-awaited bill that specifies nine forms of sexual violence. Among these are physical and verbal assault, harassment, forced sterilization, and exploitation.
The new law outlines severe punishments for perpetrators of these crimes, including 15-year prison sentences for sexual exploitation, nine-year sentences for forced marriage, and four years for circulation of non-consensual sexual content. The legislation takes matters a step further to offer restitution and rehabilitation for victims. The law requires the courts to compel convicted abusers to financially compensate victims, who will also be offered counseling. ✂️
“This is not just about law; this is the beginning of a new civilization that we create together,” states Siti Mazumah, the director of the Jakarta chapter of the Legal Aid Foundation of the Indonesian Women’s Association for Justice. “Indonesia has become a nation that will not tolerate and normalize sexual violence.”
An Abandoned McDonald's Restaurant Is Now Feeding 2,000 Families a Week – For Free
A sweet bit of poetic justice. I love that they even repurposed the sign!
From Vice:
Bolstered heavily by government funding, [this former McDonald’s in the impoverished Sainte-Marthe neighbourhood of north Marseille] opened in 1992 and eventually came to employ 77 locals...The restaurant not only offered some immediate relief to the mass unemployment young people were facing, but gave locals the dignity of having somewhere to eat out. It was, literally, all they had. Once the government withdrew its initiatives, in 2018 McDonald’s decided to close it down, to the despair of the staff and the local community. ✂️
[When the pandemic lockdown started], with the help of a powerful social media campaign, [the former manager] and the other employees...began to raise funds for the building they had taken over for the benefit of those around them.
With the letters from the signage swapped and turned upside down to spell “L’Apres M” (The After M), it became a beacon for good: farmers dropped off fruit and vegetables rather than watch them go to waste; shops offered food, and locals donated funds to bolster this burgeoning movement. In the first five weeks after it opened, no less than 100,000 people were served food parcels. ✂️
“We are on our way to 50,000 people donating €25 (£21.50) each,” says [organizer Fati] Bouarua, proudly. “The local mayor has so far promised that the town hall will make a compulsory purchase of the building and its land, which we then wish to either buy from them or to take on a long-term lease. We have also started a company called Le Part Du Peuple (The People’s Share). Everyone who donates owns a share, no one is the owner. It’s a company run as a non-profit organisation.”
“What we want to do is to create a fast-social-food here, a restaurant where you are handed your menu and the prices are determined from what you earn...— a restaurant on a sliding scale.”
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Good news in medicine
Scientists Use Sound to Destroy Half of Liver Tumors – and Boosted Immune Systems Cleared Away the Rest
This is excellent news for cancer patients with inoperable tumors.
From Good News Network:
Noninvasive sound technology developed at the University of Michigan breaks down liver tumors in rats, kills cancer cells, and spurs the immune system to prevent further spread—an advance that could lead to improved cancer outcomes in humans.
By destroying only 50% to 75% of liver tumor volume, the rats’ immune systems were able to clear away the rest, with no evidence of recurrence or metastases in more than 80% of animals. ✂️
Results also showed the treatment stimulated the rats’ immune responses, possibly contributing to the eventual regression of the untargeted portion of the tumor and preventing further spread of the cancer.
The treatment, called histotripsy, noninvasively focuses ultrasound waves to mechanically destroy target tissue with millimeter precision. The relatively new technique is currently being used in a human liver cancer trial in the United States and Europe. ✂️
[The] technique works without the harmful side effects of current approaches such as radiation and chemotherapy.
Can Produce Prescription Programs Turn the Tide on Diet-Related Disease?
Having spent many years as a professional cook and food equity activist, I’ve been interested in produce prescription programs for a long time. So I’m delighted to see that now, following the Biden administration’s significant investments in food assistance, there’s more interest in PPPs and in getting health insurers to cover program costs. It shouldn’t be a hard sell, since improving American diets will improve health and reduce the huge costs of treating chronic illness.
From Civil Eats:
It seems like a straightforward proposition that Americans should eat more fruits and vegetables. Millions of us experience diet-related diseases such as obesity (78 million), hypertension (67 million), and diabetes (29 million), and 85 percent of U.S. healthcare spending now goes to these types of “chronic, progressive, and preventable health conditions.” But making this connection is easier said than done, especially since limited access to produce is often tied to food insecurity, which means low-income folks take the hardest hit. ✂️
Why aren’t [existing food assistance] programs making enough health headway? To those with limited resources, “healthy foods [are perceived] as luxury items. That has downstream implications for obesity, diabetes, and other chronic diseases,” says Hilary Seligman, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). And she, like many others, believe it’s time for the healthcare sector to step up.
One response to this call has been produce prescription programs (PPRs in USDA parlance). ...In simplest terms, PPRs—which may alternatively be referred to as PPPs or Produce Rx, and which Civil Eats has reported on since they first began to emerge—allow clinicians to prescribe fresh produce to low-income patients with diet-related health risks or conditions.
A person with diabetes might walk into a community health center, meet with a doctor or nurse practitioner who ask a series of targeted questions, receive a prescription and a voucher for, say, $10 worth of produce for the week, and then redeem the voucher at a participating grocery store or farmers’ market. ... Ideally, a person’s health insurance provider pays for it all.
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Good news in science
Muons spill secrets about Earth’s hidden structures
Some amazing science I knew nothing about.
From Science News:
Inside Egypt’s Great Pyramid of Giza lies a mysterious cavity, its void unseen by any living human, its surface untouched by modern hands. But luckily, scientists are no longer limited by human senses.
To feel out the contours of the pyramid’s unexplored interior, scientists followed the paths of tiny subatomic particles called muons. Those particles, born high in Earth’s atmosphere, hurtled toward the surface and burrowed through the pyramid. Some of the particles imprinted hints of what they encountered on sensitive detectors in and around the pyramid. The particles’ paths revealed the surprising presence of the hidden chamber, announced in 2017 (SN: 11/25/17, p. 6).
That stunning discovery sparked plans among physicists to use muons to explore other archaeological structures. And some researchers are using the technique, called muography, to map out volcanoes’ plumbing. “You can see inside the volcano, really,” says geophysicist Giovanni Leone of Universidad de Atacama in Copiapó, Chile. That internal view could give scientists more information about how and when a volcano is likely to erupt. ✂️
...muons turn out to be ideal for making images of the interiors of large objects. A muon’s mass is about 207 times as large as an electron’s. That extra bulk means muons can traverse hundreds of meters of rock or more. ...Muons are plentiful, so there’s no need to create artificial beams of radiation, as required for taking X-ray images of broken bones in the doctor’s office, for example.
If we can farm metal from plants, what else can we learn from life on Earth?
More amazing science! And an intriguing perspective that one researcher has drawn from it.
I encourage you to click the link and read the whole piece. It’s really beautifully stated.
From The Guardian:
For the past couple of years, I’ve been working with researchers in northern Greece who are farming metal. In a remote, beautiful field, high in the Pindus mountains in Epirus, they are experimenting with a trio of shrubs known to scientists as “hyperaccumulators”: plants which have evolved the capacity to thrive in naturally metal-rich soils that are toxic to most other kinds of life. They do this by drawing the metal out of the ground and storing it in their leaves and stems, where it can be harvested like any other crop. As well as providing a source for rare metals – in this case nickel, although hyperaccumulators have been found for zinc, aluminium, cadmium and many other metals, including gold – these plants actively benefit the earth by remediating the soil, making it suitable for growing other crops, and by sequestering carbon in their roots. One day, they might supplant more destructive and polluting forms of mining. ✂️
What I have come to understand about these plants is that, by virtue of their evolutionary history and their close association with the soil, climate and wider ecosystem in which they have emerged, they embody a certain kind of knowledge: an understanding and accommodation with the places they have found themselves in. Humans have sought out deposits of rare metals for thousands of years, and developed ever-more violent ways of accessing them, but these plants have been around far longer, and have found more equitable and regenerative ways of doing much the same thing. Perhaps we have something to learn from them. ✂️
In the struggle to mitigate and adapt to climate breakdown – and all the other entangled crises we face – we are starting to recognise that other ways of knowing and acting on the world, from indigenous knowledge systems to changes in our own consumption and patterns of life, are vital to surviving and thriving on a hotter, wetter and more conflicted planet. We know too that this survival is dependent not only on our own abilities and inventions, but on the survival of the other species we share the planet with. The collapse of biodiversity which is already occurring makes it harder for us to hold back the collapse of whole ecosystems on which we too depend: for the pollination of crops, for disease resistance, for safe and sufficient food, for protection from fires and other natural disasters. We will flourish together, or not at all.
Mushrooms Have Their Own Language With Up to 50 “Words”
Weird science at its best!
From My Modern Met:
A new paper published in Royal Society Open Science suggests changes in fungi electrical potential indicate language. Surprisingly, each species seems to have their own lexicon.
Fungi do not have nervous systems, but they do have mycelium networks. This is a web of underground fungal material tying together trees and mushrooms in healthy forests. The network is thought to play a role in distributing the carbon that plants rely on and even in the communication between organisms.
Professor Andrew Adamatzky—author of the recent paper—has studied the trains of spikes (or electric pulses) across mushroom species. He discovered they change with stimuli such as light, touch, and chemical shifts. These spikes can be short or long. ... Adamatzky then turned his attention to a select four species of mushroom. Using intervals between spikes and high and low frequency pulses, he discerned what seemed like a variety of unique words spoken by each species.
These lexicons reached 50 words, but only 15 to 20 were used frequently by the fungi. Some languages featured short words, others long. Cordyceps militaris recorded an average of 8.9 spikes in a word, while Omphalotus nidiformis has just 3.3. These words are yet to be translated, but they may signal rich soil recently discovered or a threat approaching. While the possibility of a mushroom language is new and exciting, some scientists express reservations that the signals replicate a translatable language as we know it.
For now, the property of fungi will be useful for another purpose—cloaking a building in a biological supercomputer. UWE Bristol in the UK is creating a building “capable of adaptively reacting to changes in light, temperature, and air pollutants” out of carbon-free fungi. The fungi will monitor changes in the environment, sending signals to digital computers which can alter the conditions of the building. Adamatzky said in a statement, “This type of building would be ecologically-friendly as it will be made from natural materials, and will be lightweight, waterproof, and recyclable when it reaches the end of its life.”
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Good news for the environment
Cleaner Earth: Healing ozone hole, less smog, more eagles
AP gathered some very good news about the healing of the earth to celebrate Earth Day this year. Click on the link to read in detail about any of the items. Note the dig at today’s dysfunctional Rethugs at the end — another message we should get louder about.
From AP News:
For Earth Day, The Associated Press asked more than 25 environmental scientists and policy experts, including two former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chiefs and the current director of the United Nations Environment Programme, to share their top stories about environmental problems that the world fixed. ✂️
HEALING THE OZONE HOLE
Fixing ozone depletion was by far the top choice of scientists, officials and environmental policy experts.
“It was a moment where countries that usually compete with each other grasped the collective threat and decided to implement a solution,” former EPA chief Carol Browner said in an email. ✂️
CLEANER AIR AND WATER
In the United States and much of the industrialized world, the air is much cleaner and clearer than it was 50 or 60 years ago when major cities like Los Angeles were choked with smog and even more dangerous microscopic particles in the air. And lakes and rivers were dumping grounds, especially around Ohio, Michigan and Canada. ...In the United States the Clean Air Act of 1970 and its follow up in 1990 with EPA regulations “effectively cleaned our air,” UNC’s West said. A similar law passed in the 1972 for water. ✂️
SOLAR AND WIND POWER
The steep fall in price of solar and wind power, which do not produce heat-trapping gases, has surprised experts and given them hope that the world can wean itself from coal, oil and natural gas that are causing global warming.
From 2010 to 2020, the price of residential solar power dropped 64% and the price of large-scale utility solar power generation dropped 82%, according to the National Renewable Energy Lab.
Solar “is becoming a dominant energy technology and it’s becoming cheaper,” Jackson said. “It is cheaper than almost all other forms of electricity generation.” ✂️
ENDANGERED SPECIES
The bald eagle, American alligator, peregrine falcon, Canada geese and humpback whales are each environmental success stories.
All were once on the brink of extinction, put on the endangered species list for protection. Now they are all of the protected list and in some cases they are so abundant that people consider them a nuisance or they cause problems for other species. ✂️
COOPERATION
In the United States, many of these key successes were spurred by laws and actions taken by Republican administrations of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
“All these major milestones, including the creation of the EPA, were bipartisan, but unfortunately today we can’t seem to get that stuff done,” said Christie Todd Whitman, who was an EPA chief during a Republican presidency. “Sadly, Republicans don’t seem to care about these issues anymore — everything is so hyper partisan now that (the) GOP seem to be Neanderthals on the environment.” ✂️
Hope for Planet Earth: The Citizen’s Guide to Climate Change
An amazing compendium of links to pieces by a wide variety of writers, gathered by Literary Hub, a terrific site I recently discovered. Since it’s all links, I feel comfortable quoting the entire short piece:
19 Writers on Where They Locate Hope Amidst Climate Change
And now for the last and most important word on the environment, in the context of all the Earth Day stories about “What You Can Do to Stop Global Warming,” here’s a bracing argument for putting the responsibility where it really belongs:
Stop blaming yourself for the climate crisis
Op-ed by John Sutter on CNN:
For decades, fossil-fuel companies and politicians have pushed a false narrative that if we change our habits – drive electric cars, fly less, cut beef from our diets – that they won’t need to make wholesale changes to the economy. Individual actions matter in that they can reduce emissions, and they do connect each of us to a massive global crisis. All of that’s good. But, alone, it is nowhere near enough to battle the climate crisis on the scale that’s required.
The narrative must shift from one of individual responsibility – if I turn off this lightbulb, I’m saving the planet – to one of governmental and corporate accountability. In the United States, this means the voting public must force Congress to enact sweeping climate legislation. The Biden administration says it aims to make this country carbon-neutral by 2050, which is in line with what the science requires. Lawmakers will have to get us there, however, and to date they have not shown that they are willing (or able) to make the kinds of changes needed. ✂️
More of us must join this struggle in ways that put institutional accountability ahead of individual behavior. Without more constant pressure from citizens, governments and corporations will continue doing what they have been for decades now – saying they support clean energy while continuing to spew deadly pollutants into the atmosphere. ✂️
Instead, pressure your government to end the fossil fuel era. Depending on your politics, you could do that by joining national or local groups that are pushing for a carbon-neutral future. Read up on solutions like those assessed by the non-profit Project Drawdown. Write to or call your US senators and tell them that you vote on climate and expect them to do so as well.
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Good news for and about animals
Brought to you by Rosy, Nora, and Rascal.
Rosy says, “Look at this good boy who was abandoned by his Russian handlers and found new buddies in the Ukrainian army!” He’s listed by Oryx as a “Russian equipment loss.” That’s the kind of spoils of war we can relate to! [🎩 to Mark Sumner in a diary on Saturday.]
Corvallis [OR] shelter cat competes in national high-five contest
Nora likes this story about Thanos and hopes that he’ll find his forever home soon.
From Oregon Public Broadcasting:
A Corvallis animal shelter is taking a unique approach to helping cats find new homes: teaching them to high-five. That’s how Thanos — an approximately 4-year-old cat at the Heartland Humane Shelter — went from skittish feral cat to friendly high-fiving housecat ready for a new home.
“He used to be a really shy cat that’s now come out of his shell with positive reinforcement with this program,” Courtney Williams explains in a video filmed by the Corvallis Gazette-Times.
The program, called Cat Pawsitive, teaches cats tricks like high fives and provides other positive reinforcements to help make them adoptable. The program was developed by celebrity cat behaviorist, Jackson Galaxy.
In the video, Heartland staff show Thanos performing high fives as they tell a bit more about his story. Thanos is a large white-and-brown tabby cat with puffy cheeks. He has feline immunodeficiency virus — an infection that’s similar to HIV, except FIV doesn’t spread to humans.
Staff entered the video into the National High-Five Day contest for cats. Galaxy announced the winners Friday; unfortunately, Thanos wasn’t among them. Still, Heartland staff say they hope his high-fiving video helps win the hearts of a family looking for a unique cat to welcome into their home.
Study finally proves birds are more colourful near the Equator
Rascal is very proud of his bright green, yellow, and orange feathers. Although he was born and raised in Portland, his ancestors came from tropical Senegal, so he considers himself a good illustration of Darwin’s theories of bird coloration.
From The Independent (UK):
Birds that live near the equator are more colourful than those closer to the poles, a new study suggests.
The findings prove a long-held theory that was first suspected by Charles Darwin and Alexander von Humboldt in the 18th and 19th centuries. It had remained unproven until now because of the large amount of data and advanced imaging technology needed. ...
Dr Chris Cooney, lead investigator from the University of Sheffield’s school of biosciences, said: “This work reveals the broad pattern that bird species tend to be 30% more colourful towards the equator and identifies some general explanations for why this pattern might occur. “This is exciting because it helps us to better understand the factors promoting and maintaining biodiversity at global scales.”
“However, these broad-scale associations with species’ habitat and dietary differences can only tell us so much and there is much more to be learnt about the precise ecological and evolutionary factors promoting increased colourfulness in tropical species.”
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Art break
Monumental Animal Sculptures Made From 35 Tons of Plastic Collected on Oregon Coast by Volunteers
From Good News Network:
Gorgeous sculptures of colorful marine animals are traveling across America—and every bit of the body of the artwork was once trash along the Oregon seashore.
All the Pacific Ocean plastic was picked up and sorted by volunteers, and, finally, formed by artists into charming installations that are currently touring in Tennessee, Michigan, and elsewhere.
The Washed Ashore Project is trying to communicate the message of ocean conservation through art—saving beauty by creating beauty.
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Hot lynx
www.theatlantic.com/… How to Make Change, Slowly. Eight books that show that “social and political shifts are usually the result of sustained, unseen work.”
hechingerreport.org/… A school created a homeless shelter in the gym and it paid off in the classroom. “Every night, a K-8 public school in San Francisco converts its gym into a shelter for local families experiencing homelessness — and it’s helping kids.”
timothyburke.substack.com/… How Not to Sell Public Goods. [Confusing title: it’s about bad messaging re: policies for universal public good] “Public goods are for all… They have to be.”
www.motherjones.com/… The 10,000 Ukrainians Just Processed at the Border Show the US Government Can Do Better. “...just like the Department of Homeland Security managed to process 10,000 asylum seekers from Ukraine in the last two months, it should also make more humane pathways to process asylum seekers from the rest of the world.”
reasonstobecheerful.world/… What Birth Control for Men Will Change, and What It Might Not. “We need to move away from these rigid, antiquated gender roles and from the idea that men’s sexuality and libido is something to be protected and for women it is a price to be paid.”
www.vanityfair.com/… How Brittney Spencer, Joy Oladokun, and Other Black Women Musicians Are Reframing Country Music. An introduction to some musical game-changers.
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Wherever is herd…
A tip of the hat to 2thanks for creating this handy info sheet for all Gnusies new and old!
Morning Good News Roundups at 7 x 7: These Gnusies lead the herd at 7 a.m. ET, 7 days a week:
- The Monday GNR Newsroom (Jessiestaf, Killer300, and Bhu). With their five, we survive and thrive.
- Alternating Tuesdays: NotNowNotEver and arhpdx.
- Wednesdays: niftywriter.
- Thursdays: Mokurai the 1st and 2nd Thursdays, WineRev the 3rd, MCUBernieFan the 4th, and Mokurai the 5th (when there is one).
- Fridays: chloris creator. Regular links to the White House Briefing Room.
- Saturdays: GoodNewsRoundup. Heart-stirring and soul-healing introduction and sometimes memes to succumb to.
- Sundays: 2thanks. A brief roundup of Roundups, a retrospective, a smorgasbord, a bulletin board, an oasis, a watering hole, a thunder of hooves, a wellness, a place for beginners to learn the rules of the veldt.
hpg posts Evening Shade diaries at 7:30 p.m. ET every day! After a long day, Gnusies meet in the evening shade and continue sharing Good News, good community, and good actions. In the words of NotNowNotEver: “hpg ably continues the tradition of Evening Shade.” Find Evening Shades here.
oldhippiedude posts Tweets of the Week on Sundays at 6:00 p.m. Central Time — New time! Our second evening Gnusie hangout zone! In search of a TOTW diary? Look here or here.
For more information about the Good News group, please see our detailed Welcoming comment, one of the first comments in our morning diaries.
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How to Resist: Do Something …
The following invaluable list was put together by chloris creator:
Indivisible has created a Truth Brigade to push back against the lies.
Propaganda, false characterizations, intentionally misleading messages, and outright lies threaten our democracy and even our lives. We can effectively combat disinformation, despite the well-funded machines that drive it. They may have money, but we have truth and we have people.People believe sources they trust.When we share and amplify unified, factual messages to those who trust us, we shift the narrative. When we do this by the thousands--we’re part of the Indivisible Truth Brigade, and we get our country back. Join us.️
Our own Mokurai is a member. You can see all of the diaries in the Truth Brigade group on DK here.
From GoodNewsRoundup (aka Goodie):
-
From GoodNewsRoundup (aka Goodie):
Most important: DON'T LOSE HOPE. This is a giant and important fight for us but, win or lose, we keep fighting and voting and organizing and spreading truth and light. We never give up.
And I’ll add a recommendation for you to check out Activate America (formerly Flip the West), which is recruiting people to send postcards to Dem voters.
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Closing music
Hold hope in your heart for peace.
❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
Thanks to all of you for your smarts, your hearts, and
your faithful attendance at our daily Gathering of the Herd.
❤️💙 RESIST, PERSIST, REBUILD, REJOICE! 💙❤️