The world’s largest database of good news and social change milestones from throughout human history
We are building the world’s largest database of social change milestones, from the first fire to today’s good news. Change is not only possible, it has happened consistently throughout human history. Filter by era, country, topic, actor, source, and more.
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- Tomorrow (2025 C.E. - ???)
- Today (2017 C.E. - 2024 C.E.)
- Post-modernity (1945 - 2016 C.E.)
- Modernity (1500 - 1945 C.E.)
- Post-classical (500 - 1500 C.E.)
- Civilization (3000 B.C.E. - 500 C.E.)
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2020 C.E. October 2
California to produce its own generic drugs to take down big pharma
“Our bill will help inject competition back into the generic drug marketplace—taking pricing power away from big pharmaceutical companies and returning it to consumers,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom.
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2020 C.E. October 2
World’s largest solar plant goes online in China
Huanghe Hydropower Development has connected a 2.2 GW solar plant to the grid in the desert in China’s remote Qinghai province. The project is backed by 202.8 MW/MWh of storage.
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2020 C.E. October 2
Maryland becomes first state in the U.S. to implement a foam container ban
Passed in 2019, but implemented last week, the law prohibits restaurants, schools, stores, and other institutions from serving food in polystyrene containers.
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2020 C.E. October 2
Scientists create a ‘super enzyme’ that breaks down plastic six times faster
The super enzyme could have major benefits for recycling PET, which is the most common thermoplastic used in single-use drinks bottles and clothing. PET takes hundreds of years to degrade in the environment.
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2020 C.E. September 29
Overwhelming number of U.S. voters support climate action
According to The Guardian, “Seven in 10 voters support government action to address climate change, with three-quarters wanting the US to generate all of its electricity from renewable sources such as solar and wind within 15 years.
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2020 C.E. September 29
Australian scientists create seaweed supplement for cows that reduces methane emissions by 80%
If only 10% of global cattle herds consumed the supplement, created by FutureFeed Ltd, it would be the same as taking 50 million cars off the roadways.
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2020 C.E. September 29
Simple blood test predicts patients most likely to die from COVID-19
One standard test that quantifies the variation in size of red blood cells was found to be highly correlated with patient mortality, and the correlation persisted when controlling for other risk factors like patient age, some other lab tests, and some pre-existing illnesses.
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2020 C.E. September 28
Norway kickstarts one of the world’s largest carbon storage projects
The project — named Longship after the vessels built by the Vikings — will store CO2 captured from a cement plant in southern Norway and an incineration plant operating in Oslo. The greenhouse gas will be pumped down in a reservoir built undersea on the west coast of Norway specifically for this purpose.
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2020 C.E. September 28
New Zealand Prime Minister pledges to reach 100% renewable energy across nation by 2030
New Zealand's Labour party has pledged that—if elected in the upcoming October 17 elections—all energy generation in the country will be 100% renewable by 2030. This ups a previous target of phasing out all non-renewable energy by 2035.
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2020 C.E. September 28
Young Republicans push GOP on climate change
A recent Pew Research Center survey shows Republicans 18 to 39 years old are more concerned about the climate than their elders. By a nearly two-to-one margin they are more likely to agree that "the federal government is doing too little to reduce the effects of climate change."
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2020 C.E. November 3
New anti-poaching motion sensor recognizes when wildlife is on the run
Modern sensors have given conservationists a powerful new tool in the fight against poaching. A new research project at the University of Twente could harness this technology in yet another useful way, by mixing motion sensors with machine learning to recognize when wildlife is responding to a nearby threat.
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2020 C.E. November 2
South Korea vows to go carbon neutral by 2050
In a policy speech in the national assembly South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in said that South Korea, one of the world’s most fossil fuel-reliant economies, would “actively respond” to the climate emergency “with the international community and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050”.
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2020 C.E. November 2
2020 voter turnout in the U.S. surpassing 2016 already, especially among young voters
By last Friday, more citizens had already voted in Texas than in the entire 2016 election. These early statistics show that 2020 could be a record-breaking year for early turnout across the entire country. Amidst the throngs of early voters is a dramatic increase in voter turnout among young voters.
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2020 C.E. November 2
Milan slashed its greenhouse gas emissions by reducing meat in school meals
Five years after tweaking the schools’ cafeteria menus, the Italian city managed to achieve a 20 percent reduction in its greenhouse gas emissions — the equivalent of taking around 12,700 cars off the road.
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2020 C.E. October 31
After 45 years the gray wolf has successfully been lifted off the U.S. endangered species list
Numbers of gray wolves have soared over the last four decades—from under a hundred refugees hiding out in northeastern Minnesota and Michigan’s upper peninsula to around 6,000 individuals.
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2020 C.E. October 31
Tuberculosis deaths have fallen by 14% in five years, saving 60 million in the last two decades
In the World Health Organization’s annual global tuberculosis report, the UN agency responsible for international public health forecasts hundreds of thousands of people recovering from, or avoiding the disease of TB altogether. Since 2000, TB treatment has averted the deaths of 60 million people, the disease itself being treatable with the right medicine.
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2020 C.E. October 30
Toxic sulfur dioxide emissions fell across India, Russia, and China last year– dropping 6% globally
In 2019, the levels of anthropogenic SO2 emissions fell worldwide by 6%. In only the second time ever, SO2 emissions fell in all three of the countries most responsible for emitting it: China, India, and Russia.
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2020 C.E. October 29
World’s largest seagrass restoration project grows from 600 to 9,000 acres off coast of Virginia
Marine scientists and volunteers spread more than 70 million eelgrass seeds off Virginia's shores. Led by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science and with help from The Nature Conservancy, the project has grown to over 8,896 acres.
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2020 C.E. October 29
Population of endangered leopard species rebounds in China
Camera footage installed by Bing Xie, a Ph.D. student at the University of Copenhagen and her fellow research colleagues showed an increase of 25 percent in northern China's Loess Plateau's leopard population from 88 in 2016 to 110 in 2017.
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2020 C.E. October 29
Texas reverses rule allowing social workers the “right” to refuse LGBTQ clients
In 2010 and 2012, the Texas State Board of Social Work Examiners passed protections that banned discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Over the past two years, state Republicans have pushed to repeal these measures.