Ways the world is getting better - discussion thread

2024 might have been a global breakout year for geothermal energy. Next generation technologies make it possible to drill for heat in places where this was previously impossible.

Our World In Data has amazing daily data insights. This one from a couple of days ago is astonishing to me. https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/in-the-last-30-years-almost-everybody-in-bangladesh-gained-access-to-electricity 
 

NickLaing @ 2025-01-20T16:39 (+8)

This is actually crazy and encouraging in Uganda where this feels a long way off, amazing to see!

Lorenzo Buonanno🔸 @ 2025-01-21T00:50 (+12)

OWID says that ~45% of the population in Uganda has access to electricity, and that it more than doubled in the past 10 years. Does this match your experience?

NickLaing @ 2025-01-21T01:50 (+6)

Yep that matches perfectly. Much of that though will be  very very tiny solar lamp only though. 98 percent in Bangladesh is completely insane and super cool.

In the past 30 years, HIV has gone from being a lethal disease to an increasingly treatable chronic illness.

"Why I'm long-term bullish on the Middle East" by Noah Smith has some great good news stories

- Wars in the Middle East are becoming less violent (contrary to many media narratives)
- The Middle East is building a ton of desalination plants to provide fresh drinking water
- Investment in solar energy is booming

"In other words, with solar power rising and oil becoming less important, and with its demographics in a favorable position, the Middle East is primed for an economic and political reinvention."

The age-standardised disease burden per capita from non-optimal temperature has decreased 41.8 % (= 1 - 0.00475/0.00816) in the last 31 years, from 1990 to 2021.

The number of nuclear warheads has decreased 82.2 % (= 1 - 12.5*10^3/(70.4*10^3)) in the last 37 years, from 1986 to 2023.

Five new Effective Giving Initiatives have been created in 2024, augmenting the outreach of effective giving accross countries and linguistic communities, some of them already meeting a fruitful giving season!

Gapminder has a list of 100 positive news during 2023: https://www.gapminder.org/news/100-positive-news-from-2023/

Global production of primary crop commodities reached 9.6 billion tonnes in 2022, increasing by 56 percent since 2000 and just 0.7 percent since 2021. (FAOSTAT)

We are growing more, and better, and now that we have CRISPR in plant selection, my guess is that we are going to start producing much more nutritious and tasty vegetables without sacrificing the yield rates.

The mean annual deaths per capita from natural disasters from 2010 to 2019 was 2.42 % (= 0.64*10^-5/(26.5*10^-5)) of that from 1920 to 1929.

Thanks for this initiative, Toby!

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/08/climate/direct-air-capture-plant-iceland-climate-intl/index.html