(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . From the GNR Newsroom: Its the Monday Good News Roundup [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-10-16 Welcome back to the Monday Good News Roundup, that time of the week when the GNR newsroom (Myself, Killer300 and Bhu) bring you the good news stories to start your week off right. So lets get right into it shall we? The biggest source of carbon emissions in the world is electricity production, but a new report suggests the grid’s dirtiest days will soon be behind it. Data from clean-energy think tank Ember shows that in the first half of this year, global power-sector emissions rose by just 0.2 percent, thanks largely to the planet-spanning embrace of wind and solar. The world is reaching a tipping point, luckily the damage we are doing to the earth is also peaking. On the far eastern edge of Paris, along the outer rim of the infamously traffic-clogged périphérique ring road, a radical method for reforestation has begun to show green shoots of hope in the most unexpected circumstances. There’s a dense, green thicket of more than 30 species of trees and plants — willows, elms, oaks, limes, poplars and more — towering above what is an otherwise unloved, concrete-filled corner of the French capital. “Look at it, it’s like a jungle,” says Damien Saraceni, co-founder of Boomforest, the French nonprofit behind the project. “This has all grown in just a few years. It brings so many different benefits. And we don’t do anything to maintain it.” This is really neat. I wish we had micro forests here in the states. California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed a landmark law aimed at banning red dye No. 3 and other potentially harmful food additives in consumer goods. On Saturday, the Golden State became the first in the country to forbid the use of the ingredients found in many popular candies, drinks and more, according to the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit environmental health organization that cosponsored the law with Consumer Reports. Not the biggest fan of Newsom at the moment but he does do some good stuff, like this. On September 6, Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled against the federal criminal code that prohibited abortions, decriminalizing the procedure across the country. “The legal system that penalizes abortion in the Federal Criminal Code is unconstitutional since it violates the human rights of women and people with the ability to carry a fetus,” the Supreme Court announced on social media. Despite the efforts of the right to hold us back the world moves ever forward. Great job Mexico. Toronto tenants have been on strike for months. With new tenants joining in the fight, the strike appears to be gaining momentum as it seeks to put landlords on notice and redress the balance of power between property owners and renters. Great news out of Toronto. Housing should not be a commodity. By taking collective action, we step out of our sense of helplessness into a realm of working to change the conditions giving rise to those emotions. This was true in politics as well. A lot of people felt anxiety after Trump won (myself included) and so we organized and created groups like Indivisible and the GNR, and look at us now. The Conflict - Both Iran and Russia have urgent reasons to have attempted to change the trajectory of global politics right now by encouraging/enabling Hamas’ barbaric attack on Israel: Putin is losing in Ukraine, the West is revitalized and stronger. Putin’s hope is that war in the Middle East distracts the US and Europe, lessens their resolve to keep funding and fighting in Ukraine. On cue, we are already seeing calls from Russian-aligned Republicans to shift funding from Ukraine to Israel. The US-Saudi-Israeli peace deal the three countries have been negotiating is an enormous threat to the Russian-Iranian axis in the Middle East. More on this in coming days. Gas prices and inflation are coming down in the West. Middle East conflicts raise gas prices and fuel global inflation. Higher gas prices means more money for both countries, and Russians are counting on high inflation to weaken the resolve of the West. Putin has been using the global inflation he’s brought about through higher oil prices and his attacking of food supplies as a means of advancing his geopolitical aims. Democrats here in the US keep winning elections, Trump is degraded and not likely to win next year. Putin cannot count on Trump winning next year to change the course of the war in Ukraine. Both Putin and Trump are the biggest losers right now. Lets keep it that way. Against widespread perceptions, the authors argue that democracy has proven remarkably resilient in the twenty-first century. Fears of a “reverse wave” or a global “authoritarian resurgence” have yet to be borne out. The vast majority of “third wave” democracies—those that adopted democratic institutions between 1975 and 2000—have long outlived the favorable global conditions that enabled their creation. The authors attribute the resilience of third-wave democracies after the demise of the liberal West’s post–Cold War hegemony to economic development and urbanization, and also to the difficulty of consolidating and sustaining an emergent authoritarian regime under competitive political conditions. Democracy is still going strong despite the efforts to destroy it, lets make sure it stays that way, Desalination is the process of removing salt from seawater or brackish water to produce fresh water. Costs have fallen dramatically in recent years, thanks to technological innovations and economies of scale. This can help address global water scarcity, especially in regions that face severe droughts and water shortages. Great news to help fight water scarcity. he Inevitable Policy Response’s (IPR)[1] latest forecast of global climate policies, expected to be put in place in major economies[2] between now and 2050, concludes that the world will likely achieve the Paris Agreement goal of limiting temperature increase to ‘well below 2°C’ and continue to make efforts towards 1.5°C once temperatures peak. The forecast is informed by live tracking of over 300 climate policies over the past two years, as well as input from over 100 climate policy experts across 12 countries. It sounds like we are staring to get a handle on Climate change. Its a start but more needs to be done. And now please enjoy this short intermission with the latest edition of GNR theater! here’s a concept in psychotherapy called supporting self-efficacy. It’s a core strategy to help people reach their goals: You find something positive the person did, no matter how big or small, and you call attention to it, enabling them to see that they can indeed make progress. You catch them doing something right. Too often in civic life, especially in the realm of criminal justice and public safety, we do the opposite, focusing on failures and setbacks. There are plenty to choose from. When deadly instances of police use of force and mass shootings at schools and malls have become weekly tragedies, it’s easy to feel a sense of futility. But the data tell a more hopeful story. As a new dashboard of crime and justice trends from the Council on Criminal Justice shows, amid the agony, there is also headway. We are not alone. There are hundreds of people right now working to make things better for everyone. We can't give in to despair when we’ve come so far already. Hilariously, polling shows that the anti-science, anti-abortion, and antisemitic Kennedy pulls more votes from Donald Trump than from Biden. A worried Trump campaign is reportedly gearing up to unleash on Kennedy. Here is an interesting question: Will all the conservative media outlets that propped up Kennedy over the summer continue to do so? Or will they unceremoniously ditch him now that their chaos gambit has backfired? So Bannon’s plan to use Kennedy as a spoiler against Biden has backfired so bad that its gonna hurt Trump. Honestly, let me just say I’m amazed Bannon is even a thing at this point. And also HA. News of Jordan's latest threat to the U.S. government and American taxpayers comes right as new polling shows that two-thirds of voters never want to see a shutdown for any reason. In polling released Wednesday by the progressive consortium Navigator Research, 67% of voters agreed "it's never right to shut down the federal government," no matter what the cause—a notable net uptick of 12 points since July. That view garnered majority support across all party lines, including 80% of Democrats, 71% of independents, and even 53% of Republicans. Makes you wonder why anyone ever votes for these idiots. Like seriously. And now dear friends, its time for a GNR Lightning round! COP28 Host UAW opens its first wind farm Surprising biodiversity of abandoned coal mines Wind generation outstrips need in Ireland Bio-engineering breakthrough improves DNA detection Egypt to be first country to eliminate Hepatitis C New access to tuberculosis medicine could save millions Mauritius repeals anti same sex law US adds 336K jobs in September 1000 Minnesota Teens have pre registered to vote under new law Newsom signs new bill requiring big business to disclose emissions Treasury lays out rules for instant EV rebate That’s a good Lightning round, now back to normal good news. After more than a year of evaluating competing proposals, the Biden administration has picked the parts of the country where it hopes to turn billions of dollars of federal investment into the seeds of a clean hydrogen economy. On Friday, the Department of Energy announced the selection of seven ​“clean hydrogen hubs” — sets of projects that promise to combine big investments in low-carbon hydrogen production with big investments in preparing industries to use that hydrogen to reduce their carbon emissions. Money well spent. ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A ruling prohibiting the enforcement of a new Florida law targeting drag shows will stay in place for the time being, according to a federal appeals court decision. A panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday upheld a lower court's granting of a preliminary injunction stopping the law from being enforced until a trial is held in Orlando, Florida to determine its constitutionality. In their appeal, attorneys for the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation had asked that the injunction only apply to the business that had challenged the law, saying that the judge’s injunction “sweeps beyond Plaintiff to nonparties who may wish to expose children to live obscene performances in violation of the statute.” But a majority on the appeals court panel ruled against that request, saying the Florida agency hadn't shown that the lower court had erred by prohibiting the law's enforcement. Looks like DeSantis loses again. Welcome to BIG, a newsletter on the politics of monopoly power. If you’re already signed up, great! If you’d like to sign up and receive issues over email, you can do so here. Last week, I wrote up the problem of inflation, noting that people aren’t just mad at high prices, but at unfair prices. I brought up one of the most annoying features of American commerce, which is known as the junk fee. We’ve all experienced these in one form or another. You go to a hotel, and instead of being given the price quoted to you online, they add a $25 “amenity” fee, or “resort” fee, or something like that. It’s not just hotels who charge undisclosed fees, but banks, rental car companies, landlords, live event firms, auto dealers, restaurants, phone companies, internet service firms, universities, private airports, prisons, movie theaters, credit card companies, etc. Junk fees are indeed everywhere - aircraft owners have to deal with hidden charges by Fixed Base Operators, and independent pharmacists have to put up with endless fees from pharmacy benefit managers. So the FTC plans on killing junk fees. Good for them. And now its time to end this weeks GNR, see you all next week. 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