If you don’t already know, here’s the goal: to prove that planet Earth isn’t all that bad in 500 words or less.

Big goal, potentially hard to achieve (although I could possibly do it in 3 words: Twitter user @weratedogs), but we’re going to give it a shot.

Here are some reasons that humanity is perhaps not entirely terrible and being alive on this planet, in fact, could actually be pretty okay despite, you know, everything – but specifically limited to things that happened during the month of November 2022:

• This article about start ups that are creating alternatives to oil-based plastics
• A Scottish community has successfully secured 10,000 acres of land for Britain’s biggest rewilding project and nature reserved
• Brazil’s Amazon Fund has been revived by the country’s supreme court, with the goal of eliminating deforestation
• Carbon Brief has discovered that EU emissions have dropped 5% in 3 months after the pandemic’s 16-month emission surge
• Rewilding Europe has secured funding to restore habitats across the Iberian Highlands in Spain
• A record label is resurrecting the music of forgotten female composers
• French senators have approved the motion to install solar panels above parking spaces in car parks
• Plumber-led support network in the UK provides free and discounted plumbing and heating services to those in need
• A film studio in Bristol has launched one of the largest community-powered rooftop solar arrays in the UK
• Tokyo is now formally recognising same-sex relationships, allowing them the same access to housing, health and welfare as heterosexual couples
• The National Trust is turning 120 football pitches-worth of land in North Devon into a wildflower savannah
• Jeff Bezo’s ex-wife Mackenzie Scott donates $84.5 million to Girl Scouts
• Jeff Bezos has pledged most of his $100 billion fortune to charity (which is good news, even though it’s about Jeff Bezos and the article is actually saying he’s being rather slow on the uptake – so let’s instead think about Mackenzie Scott again, who donated £3.8 billion of her divorce settlement to 465 charities in less than a year)
• Researchers develop plastic-free takeaway packaging
• Chile is creating a national park in their driest desert
• California has banned natural gas heaters and furnaces to lower carbon emissions
• Use of cars in Paris has dropped by 45% since 1990, while use of public transportation has increased by 30%
• Germany is the newest country to announce they will be leaving the energy charter treaty, which allows energy companies to sue governments for a loss of profits as a result of policy changes
• Malta has pledged to end its blanket ban on abortion
• 54 shark species are now protected and almost 200 countries voted to regulate the global trade of shark fins
• British Paralympic sprinter John McFall has been unveiled as the world’s first disabled astronaut
• Developing nations will be compensated for climate catastrophes after COP27 delegates struck a historic deal to create a ‘loss and damage’ fund.

There. 500 words exactly and your faith in humanity is restored.

By Bethany Climpson, Sustainability Engagement Assistant