2024 might have been a global breakout year for geothermal energy. Next generation technologies make it possible to drill for heat in places where this was previously impossible.

Our World In Data has amazing daily data insights. This one from a couple of days ago is astonishing to me. https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/in-the-last-30-years-almost-everybody-in-bangladesh-gained-access-to-electricity 
 

In the past 30 years, HIV has gone from being a lethal disease to an increasingly treatable chronic illness.

"Why I'm long-term bullish on the Middle East" by Noah Smith has some great good news stories

- Wars in the Middle East are becoming less violent (contrary to many media narratives)
- The Middle East is building a ton of desalination plants to provide fresh drinking water
- Investment in solar energy is booming

"In other words, with solar power rising and oil becoming less important, and with its demographics in a favorable position, the Middle East is primed for an economic and political reinvention."

The number of nuclear warheads has decreased 82.2 % (= 1 - 12.5*10^3/(70.4*10^3)) in the last 37 years, from 1986 to 2023.

Same-sex marriage became legal in Thailand this week.

Games have gotten cheaper over time. Real prices for console video games declined approximately 40% between 1990 and now.

The mean annual deaths per capita from natural disasters from 2010 to 2019 was 2.42 % (= 0.64*10^-5/(26.5*10^-5)) of that from 1920 to 1929.

The age-standardised disease burden per capita from non-optimal temperature has decreased 41.8 % (= 1 - 0.00475/0.00816) in the last 31 years, from 1990 to 2021.

Global production of primary crop commodities reached 9.6 billion tonnes in 2022, increasing by 56 percent since 2000 and just 0.7 percent since 2021. (FAOSTAT)

We are growing more, and better, and now that we have CRISPR in plant selection, my guess is that we are going to start producing much more nutritious and tasty vegetables without sacrificing the yield rates.

Gapminder has a list of 100 positive news during 2023: https://www.gapminder.org/news/100-positive-news-from-2023/

Five new Effective Giving Initiatives have been created in 2024, augmenting the outreach of effective giving accross countries and linguistic communities, some of them already meeting a fruitful giving season!

The cost of transfer fees for remittances (specifically money sent back by migrants to their home country) has fallen from around 8% on average in 2011 to around 6% on average today. That means billions more for people on low incomes around the world. Pretty cool. 

Dual-AI bed nets prevented 13 million malaria cases in pilot program in 17 countries. 

https://www.statnews.com/2024/04/17/malaria-prevention-next-generation-insectidal-nets-saved-lives/

It's great to see a bunch of OWID charts here. For those interested, Nick Kristof does an article reflecting on the year gone by nearly every year. Here is his most recent one!

I really liked the way he ended the article:

I’m a backpacker, and sometimes, on a steep slog uphill through pelting rain or snow, it’s good to rest against a tree for a moment and try to remember that hiking is fun — to recharge myself for the next push uphill. That’s likewise the usefulness of a periodic reminder that the arc of human progress is still evident in metrics that matter most, such as the risk of a child dying, and that we truly can get over the next damn hill.

Thanks for this initiative, Toby!

EAs continue to approach new causes (to us) with beginners mind, and I'm continually motivated by it. Some examples:
- ARMoR's great work on anti-microbial resistance.
- This group of volunteers approaching screwworms from an animal welfare point of view.
-  (the last example in the three has now slipped my mind; this list is incomplete, you can help by expanding it)
These ideas are new, and they could always fail, or encounter some roadblock which causes those involved to switch to other paths to impact. But I love that EA continues to inspire people to look at the world's problems afresh, and find new ways to solve them. Keep going!

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/08/climate/direct-air-capture-plant-iceland-climate-intl/index.html

Even though the Trump presidency denies the consensus on and importance of climate change, there could still be ways to make progress: https://effectiveenvironmentalism.substack.com/p/can-we-make-climate-progress-under 

The internet has massively increased access to art.

Thirty years ago (and prior), if you wanted to hear a song you could hope that it would play on the radio, or you could look for it in your local record store (who may not have it) and buy the record, cassette or CD.  

Now, anyone with an internet connection can listen to any song ever recorded, at any time, at virtually no cost.