This blog post was reuploaded in August.

We’re halfway through the year already. Which is a lot of days. 181 days to be exact. And in those 181 days, a lot of wack things have happened. A bunch of them probably happened in June. So we’re back to combat that bad feeling. That EVERYTHING SUCKS AND WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE feeling. That NOTHING IS WORTHWHILE feeling. Because it’s unfounded and hopeless and the world is full of a lot of positive people doing extraordinary things.

And extraordinary crocodiles too. (You’ll see.)

So here’s the message of the month, to counteract everything bad: This week I watched that 2019 Brad Pitt space movie Ad Astra. And in space movies, there’s usually a lot of hopelessness. But, subverting expectations, Ad Astra lets Brad Pitt monologue more than once about hope and how he wants to return home, to Earth, because that’s where love is. And love is always worth coming home for.

I’m sorry, here’s the message: There is a lot of love on planet Earth. It is stored in the people.

Here is the good news I found this month:

• Iceland suspends annual whale hunt
• Chipotle tests all new electric restaurant
• Offshore wind farms may be helping boost sea soil animal numbers
• Self-driving trucks to help reduce CO2 emissions
• London has a commune for senior women
• National Express debuts electric bus service at Glastonbury
• A study has found a link between napping and good brain health
• Swiss referendum has passed, pledging £1.7 billion to supporting to renewable energy over the next decade
• Around 60% of Brits now carry a reusable bottle, up from 20% 8 years ago
• Minke whales return to Cardigan Bay in west Wales for the first time in over a decade
• Devon is trialling an AI pollution preventing ‘crystal ball’ for their waters
• Solar power has been harvested in space and transmitted to Earth for the first time
• UK start up has launched a satellite that identifies the least energy efficient buildings
• Researchers believe that long covid could be treated with a pill designed for type 2 diabetes
• Iceland has banned conversion therapy
• Free sunscreen is being given out in redundant hand sanitiser bottles in the Netherlands to combat skin cancer
• Plans are underway to expand the rewilded bison’s conservation site at Wildwood with hoof-friendly bridges
• Highland tigers have been reintroduced to Scotland to combat their extinction rates
• The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority banned oil giant Shell’s “misleading” ad campaign filled with greenwashing
• Four fashion brands are giving their garments a second life
• A subterranean carbon sink made entirely of fungi has been discovered to pull down more than a third of global CO2 emissions each year
• Gillnet fishing to be phased out of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef
• A UK biodiversity survey has discovered that animal and plant life thrives around solar farms – including a few species considered to be in danger
• Netherlands unveils the building work of a vertical forest – 2.5 acres of woodland growing up an office and residential tower block
• The first Arab female astronaut in space went on a 10-day off-planet mission to the International Space Station
• Ukrainian company creates polystyrene from mushrooms
• A drought is bringing a lost US canyon back to life
• Whatever the heck is going on with White Gladis the orca and the yacht attacks (which I consider to be positive because it means the orcas are unionising)
• Blue whales are making a comeback in Californian waters – and today its estimated there are up to 2,200 blue whales in the area – when only 600 in the world were estimated in the 1960s
• Two critically endangered birds hatch at Smithsonian’s National Zoo
• For the first time ever recorded, a female crocodile has had a ‘virgin birth’

Spend some time with a loved one, plant a bee friendly garden and have an excellent weekend.

By Bethany Climpson, Sustainability Engagement Assistant