Human Progress Logo Human Progress

01 / 05
1,000 Bits of Good News You May Have Missed in 2023

Blog Post | Human Development

1,000 Bits of Good News You May Have Missed in 2023

A necessary balance to the torrent of negativity.

Malcolm Cochran —

Reading the news can leave you depressed and misinformed. It’s partisan, shallow, and, above all, hopelessly negative. As Steven Pinker from Harvard University quipped, “The news is a nonrandom sample of the worst events happening on the planet on a given day.”

So, why does Human Progress feature so many news items? And why did I compile them in this giant list? Here are a few reasons:

  • Negative headlines get more clicks. Promoting positive stories provides a necessary balance to the torrent of negativity.
  • Statistics are vital to a proper understanding of the world, but many find anecdotes more compelling.
  • Many people acknowledge humanity’s progress compared to the past but remain unreasonably pessimistic about the present—not to mention the future. Positive news can help improve their state of mind.
  • We have agency to make the world better. It is appropriate to recognize and be grateful for those who do.

Below is a nonrandom sample (n = ~1000) of positive news we collected this year, separated by topic area. Please scroll, skim, and click. Or—to be even more enlightened—read this blog post and then look through our collection of long-term trends and datasets.

Agriculture

Aquaculture

Farming robots and drones

Food abundance

Genetic modification

Indoor farming

Lab-grown produce

Pollination

Other innovations

Conservation and Biodiversity

Big cats

Birds

Turtles

Whales

Other comebacks

Forests

Reefs

Rivers and lakes

Surveillance and discovery

Rewilding and conservation

De-extinction

Culture and tolerance

Gender equality

General wellbeing

LGBT

Treatment of animals

Energy and natural Resources

Fission

Fusion

Fossil fuels

Other energy

Recycling and resource efficiency

Resource abundance

Environment and pollution

Climate change

Disaster resilience

Air pollution

Water pollution

Growth and development

Education

Economic growth

Housing and urbanization

Labor and employment

Health

Cancer

Disability and assistive technology

Dementia and Alzheimer’s

Diabetes

Heart disease and stroke

Other non-communicable diseases

HIV/AIDS

Malaria

Other communicable diseases

Maternal care

Fertility and birth control

Mental health and addiction

Weight and nutrition

Longevity and mortality 

Surgery and emergency medicine

Measurement and imaging

Health systems

Other innovations

Freedom

    Technology 

    Artificial intelligence

    Communications

    Computing

    Construction and manufacturing

    Drones

    Robotics and automation

    Autonomous vehicles

    Transportation

    Other innovations

    Science

    AI in science

    Biology

    Chemistry and materials

      Physics

      Space

      Violence

      Crime

      War

      New York Times | Conservation & Biodiversity

      Bogong Moth Population Rebounds

      “Decades ago, spring in Australia meant lifting a towel or opening a curtain to a surprised moth or two fluttering out, as billions of bogong moths migrated across vast swaths of the country’s southeast.

      But since the 1980s, the bogong moth population has declined drastically because of the increased use of insecticides, habitat destruction and the proliferation of artificial lighting. Bad droughts in 2017 and 2018 reduced the insect’s population by about 99.5 percent. Many Australians were left wondering whether the moths would ever return.

      This year, the swarms are back and scientists are rejoicing…

      Since the start of September, the Moth Tracker team has received 4,000 submissions. They have analyzed more than 1,850 of those, confirming more than 1,600 as bogong moths.

      In 2024, which Dr. Parrott said was the previous best year on record, there were more than 1,950 submissions with 1,089 verified bogong moths.”

      From New York Times.

      The Economist | Conservation & Biodiversity

      India’s Tiger, Lion and Rhino Populations Are Growing

      “In just the past few weeks Indians have been mauled by tigers (in the west), attacked by leopards (in the north) and trampled by elephants (in the east). Like so many tragedies that occur with depressing frequency in the country—stampedes and bridge collapses are other good examples—these deaths highlight the failures of the state. Yet, in an odd way, they also reflect its successes. Indians are running into wild animals more often because India has become remarkably good at protecting them.

      Consider the tiger. In the 1970s India’s national animal seemed to be heading towards extinction. Today the big stripey cat is thriving. Over the past two decades numbers have more than doubled to nearly 3,700, even as populations collapsed in richer and less crowded parts of Asia, such as Malaysia. So effective has India been in boosting the beast that it agreed to export tigers to Cambodia, where they had gone extinct. “Project Tiger”, as the conservation effort is known, has been a roaring success.

      It is not the only one. A few years ago the western state of Gujarat opened a reserve to accommodate its expanding population of Asiatic lions. The chief minister of Assam, in the east, recently said that his state had in the previous year recorded zero cases of poaching related to its large and growing population of rhinos. Such triumphs have unleashed animal spirits. Since 2022 India has been importing cheetahs from Africa in the hope of re-establishing a species that went extinct within its borders in 1952.”

      From The Economist.

      The Guardian | Conservation & Biodiversity

      New Zealand’s Giant Wētāpunga Population Is Growing in the Wild

      “The population of New Zealand’s endemic wētāpunga – believed to be the world’s heaviest insect – is officially 'increasing' thanks to a groundbreaking breeding programme that has overseen the release of 11,000 insects into the wild.

      A female wētāpunga can weigh as much as a mouse. Its body can grow up to 10cm long (nearly 4in) and its leg span can be as wide as 20cm.

      It is the largest of 70 wētā species and was once found across parts of the North Island before predation from introduced species and habitat loss contributed to their decline. By the 1990s, they were considered 'endangered' and are now presumed extinct in the wild on New Zealand’s mainland. The insects reside primarily on a smattering of predator-free islands in Auckland’s Hauraki Gulf and off the coast of Northland.

      But their fortune is starting to change. Over the past 15 years, tens of thousands of wētāpunga have been bred at Butterfly Creek, a wildlife facility, and Auckland zoo, enabling the release of wētāpunga across new predator-free islands and some mainland reserves north of Auckland.

      Butterfly Creek and Auckland zoo established husbandry techniques that, over time, have been scaled up to rear large numbers of wētāpunga in communal creches…

      Once big enough to protect themselves, the insects are transferred to their new habitat. The efforts have led to 45 separate translocations to wild habitats.”

      From The Guardian.

      Mongabay | Conservation & Biodiversity

      New Tool Maps Where Nature Remains to Guide Conservation

      “Where are ecosystems still left standing? Where should conservation be focused?

      A new tool is attempting to answer these questions and serve as a watchdog for conservation and land protection initiatives around the world. Global Safety Net v3 (GSN3) is a geospatial data platform that uses satellite imagery, artificial intelligence, and mapping techniques to understand the extent of landscapes around the world, and how they’re faring…

      Karl Burkart: For GSN3, we actually started from scratch and went down to a 90-meter [300-ft] resolution, which is essentially 100 times more accurate and higher resolution than the original version. That was in partnership with the science team at The Nature Conservancy, who had looked at the history of human modification and used that as a proxy to deductively remove areas that we are pretty sure have been converted to human use.

      On a satellite image, sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference. But by going underneath the canopy and looking at the chronology of roads, mining, urban development, and agricultural development and expansion, you’re able to put a picture together from the other way down. So we were looking at the ecology from up; they’re looking at human history. We met in the middle.

      It’s a novel method, and it’s higher resolution and much more accurate. What it does is it attempts to estimate this in a consistent way globally. It is very hard to do, but we need to do that for the biodiversity convention. So it creates that estimate of an area that’s very likely to be important for biodiversity and ecosystem services.”

      From Mongabay.