Author name: Peter Schulte

I’m the founder & Executive Director of 501c3 nonprofit Spark of Genius. In this role, I edit the weekly Good News For Humankind newsletter, write about personal transformation and social change, and serve as a purpose coach supporting anyone looking to make their contribution to the greater good.

Man holding on to prison bars

The global prison population drops below 1 million

As of 2024, over 11 million people globally lived in prisons, often in miserable conditions, frequently exposed to violence and sexual abuse, and without meaningful attempts to rehabilitate and reintegrate them into society. However, after decades of concerted effort to address the circumstances that push people into crime and to radically transform the prison toward a truly rehabilitative model, the global prison population begins dropping precipitously, finally reaching the milestone of less than one million prisoners globally for the first time in centuries.

Elephant

Human-caused extinction rate drops below 0.001%

Through aggressive conservation and sustainable development efforts, humanity succeeds in significantly slowing biodiversity loss and perhaps even ending Earth’s “sixth mass extinction” event. Combined with extensive climate mitigation and adaptation, these conservation efforts help restore the world’s ecosystems to their former vibrancy and health, supporting both the innate value of natural life and the human economies that rely on that life.