Note that if you purchase something via one of our links, including Amazon, we may earn a small commission.
Introducing Bluedot’s new podcast!
Dear Reader,
Ready for some Feel-Good stories? Then fire up your podcast app and give a listen to Bluedot Living’s new podcast, Imagine If? Hosted by Bluedot founder Vicki Riskin, alongside three co-hosts, Imagine If invites some of the most interesting thinkers in the climate space to share the change they’re creating. Hear what Adam Leipzig, producer of The March of the Penguins, has to say about that film’s impact (and learn more about his upcoming film); learn from When It All Burns author Jordan Thomas about how firefighters are already battling a different kind of blaze, and what needs to change in our relationship to fire; consider what Eric Garcetti learned about climate policy during his time as Los Angeles mayor; and more! Find Imagine If on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.
And now … today’s Feel-Good news includes a massive conservation initiative by the governments of Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize that will protect a Mayan rain forest encompassing more than 14 million acres (5.7 million hectares). It creates the second biggest nature reserve in Latin America, after the Amazon rain forest.
And get a load of this: “Renewable energy will overtake coal to become the world’s top source of electricity by 2026 at the latest, according to new forecasts from the International Energy Agency (IEA),” CarbonBrief tells us. That’s an astonishing rise, even in the face of certain political headwinds pushing hard against wind and solar.
The electrified horse seems well out of the barn with this news: the aptly named Reasons to Be Cheerful reports that, in 2024, energy-efficient heat pumps outsold gas furnaces in the U.S. for the third year in a row — by 27 percent. The same publication tells us, as well, that more than 129 cities and local governments across the country have adopted policies to encourage or require all-electric buildings.
And finally, let’s consider what the folks at Our World in Data call “one of humanity’s most extraordinary achievements.” Six decades ago, Earth was home to three billion people. But 2022 took us to a population of more than eight billion, the fastest population growth in human history. If we had been able to produce enough food to match that growth, that would have been impressive. But not only have we kept pace, food supplies grew faster, they tell us. “On every continent, food supplies — measured by calories — grew faster than the population. This rise in food production per person was a major reason for the decline of extreme poverty and hunger.”
Positively,
Dot
For more Bluedot Climate Quick Tips, click here.
