Bite sized chunks of good news to get the day off to a positive start.
The bearded vulture was hunted to extinction in the Alps in the early 20th century, but it is making a remarkable comeback. This year, a record 35 vulture chicks took to the skies, thanks to a 30 year reintroduction project. Fifty pairs of bearded vultures now
breed in the French Alps. Unlike wolves and bears, the vultures don’t prey on cattle or game. “They act as rubbish collectors, which helps keep the mountain environment healthy,” says a French naturalist helping to re-establish the birds.
Unsung Hero: Uplifting and inspiring video on the joys of giving.
Norway: It's raiding the €900 billion sovereign wealth fund (the largest in the world) to ramp up investment in wind and solar power projects. The intention is to double its existing commitment and spend more than €12.5 billion on schemes developing the clean energy needed to combat climate change.
Upsides to Worrying: Anxiety can be exhausting, but there is often a reason for it - and there are some surprising benefits to certain kinds of worrying.
Estonia: Almost a century after the idea was first mooted, Estonia has established a new national park - the country’s sixth - spanning more than 43,000 hectares and taking in a remarkable diversity of habitats, including the country’s largest area of swamp and dense coniferous forest, its longest sand beach and numerous lakes.
Seagrass Meadows: Seagrass can capture carbon an incredible 35 times faster than rainforests and this mostly 'invisible' seafloor vegetation deserves a lot more attention.
Owners of electric cars on the tiny Atlantic island of Porto Santo, north of Madeira, are able to earn money by supplementing the wind and solar energy that provides most of the Portuguese island’s power. The scheme uses adapted electric vehicles that plug into the island’s electric grid to charge the car with cheap solar power during the day. At night, the energy stored in a parked car’s two-way battery feeds back into the grid via a cable to help provide power for people’s homes. The car retains enough electricity to allow it to be started the following day.
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