A MetaFilter thread discusses several year-end posts on news to be happy about (here, here and here). While some are more exciting than others (and some downright debatable), they touch on:
- Asteroid redirection (Proof of concept of planetary defense)
- Kigali agreement to phase out HFCs
- Animal species comebacks as roadmap to biodiversity (e.g European bison)
- Malaria vaccine
- Progress on Lyme disease vaccine
- free universal school-based lunches in a number of US states
- Universal USB-C charging port requirement
- Electric vehicle adoption tipping point
- location and capping of orphaned oil and gas wells (In infrastructure bill)
- Increasing recognition of value of access to nature for mental wellbeing (Canada: free national park admissionif prescribed by MD)
- Military suicide prevention programs
- Potential HIV vaccination using MRNA technology
- Deaccession of art from museums
- Electric motorized two-wheelers in Asia (Swappable batteries)
- Reduced energy consumption in blockchain transaction verification
- Klamath river restoration through dam demolition (Salmon spawning)
- Techniques for detection of deepfake videos
- successful degradation process for fluorinated petrochemicals (“forever chemicals”)
- Ballot measures repealing slavery for incarcerated prisoners
- Breakthrough in fusion power
- Increasing crop yields allowed net decline in total agricultural land
- The James Webb telescope
- Large-scale use of genetically engineered “golden rice” to combat vitamin A deficiency
- Breakthroughs in CRISPR use in cancer treatment
- Other medical advances against Parkinsonism, diabetes, heart disease etc
- Advances against racial hatred, gender bias, ageism
- Justice Dept shifting into gear against Trump
- School choice legislation
- Democrats’ Senate majority
- Worldwide developments in anti-authoritarianism
- Supreme Court decisions that went ‘the wrong way’ (Justice Ketanji Brown as a ‘force to be reckoned with’)
- Growing exhaustion with the virtue-signaling and rage-seeking of social media
- Improving battery technology to sustain renewable energy use
Most of the Metafilter discussion centers around the pros and cons of lab-grown meat, but there is plenty more to be grateful for and hopeful about.
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