Monday's Uplifting News
- Editor OGN Daily
- Feb 13, 2023
- 3 min read
Updated: Mar 1, 2023
Kick-starting the week with a global round up of uplifting news nuggets.
Climate Win
Australia has blocked a proposal for a new coal mine near the Great Barrier Reef. The good news comes after public outcry over potential risks to the UNCECO World Heritage-listed reef. The government's refusal to grant permission marks the first time a coal mine has been rejected under federal environmental laws.
Tintin in America
An artwork by Tintin creator Hergé has set the world record for the most valuable original black and white drawing by the artist after selling at auction for €2,158,000 (£1.9m / $23m). The drawing, Tintin in America - created in 1942 - was used for the colour edition of the Belgian cartoonist’s 1946 book of the same name. The book is the third instalment in Hergé’s The Adventures Of Tintin series about the young Belgian reporter and his dog Snowy. It features the pair as they travel to the US, where Tintin reports on organised crime in Chicago.
Reality v Perception
If it bleeds, it leads: Americans are more likely now than at any time in the past five decades to say there is more crime in their local area. 56% of of adults believe local crime has risen, and nearly 80% believe it’s up nationally. That’s the highest opinion in three decades, reports CBS. And yet, the violent crime rate today is about half of what it was 30 years ago, and the number of minors arrested for violent crimes has fallen nearly 80% since 1994. A vast gulf exists between actual crime and what people believe about crime in the United States. No prizes for guessing why.
Favourite Weekend Headline
One-legged British crime boss arrested in Thailand after five years on the run.
Telegraph
Wearable Algae
There are many uses of algae for climate solutions including its role in blue carbon ecosystems, dissolving carbon in seawater, neutralizing cow burps, terrestrial carbon farms, and concrete. Now we can add clothing to the list. According to Bloomberg, researchers and start-up companies are employing bioplastic derived from algae, a nature-based material that could do for fashion what electrification is doing for vehicles. For example, Algaeing is an Israeli company specializing in algae-based dyes and inks for textiles. They are developing a yarn as well. The need is huge. The clothing industry produces 100 billion garments a year and is responsible for a whopping 10 percent of annual global carbon emissions.
Right to Disconnect
Kenya is the first African nation to formally discuss the right to disconnect. This month the Kenyan Parliament will consider a new bill that would bar employers from contacting workers after hours or on weekends. If passed, Kenya would join France, Italy, Belgium, Spain, Ireland, and parts of Canada and Australia that have enacted rules around when your boss can bother you.
Right to Termination
The words no woman may be deprived of the right to termination of pregnancy have taken a step closer to being added to France’s constitution after being approved by the country's Senate. “At a time when so many women are still deprived of this right, when countries are taking it away from them or challenging it, France will continue to tirelessly defend it,” says a statement from President Macron's office.
Car-Free Experiment
Many visitors to Gräfekiez, a lively cobbled-road neighbourhood just south of the centre of the German city of Berlin, come in search of something new: a tattoo from an authentic Japanese parlour, a rare print from an off-grid gallery, a dive-bar encounter over a 4am beer. This summer, they can brace themselves for another novelty: for at least three months, local authorities are planning to scrap almost all of the neighbourhood’s parking spaces as part of a social experiment designed to chart the waters of the German capital’s car-free future.
“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.”
Audrey Hepburn
On this Day
13 February 1633: Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei arrived in Rome for trial before Inquisition for professing belief that earth revolves around the Sun.
Lunaz has debuted an all-electric version of a 1961 Bentley S2 Continental – one of the rarest classic luxury cars on the planet. Read on...
Archaeologists have confirmed that a papyrus scroll does indeed contain texts from an Egyptian Book of the Dead. Read on...
Mood Booster
Evolution of girl groups' songs 1954 to 2014.
