Today (2017 C.E. - 2025 C.E.)

This archive spans the years 2017 through 2025, a period marked by rapid advances in clean energy, medicine, technology, and social equity. It collects documented breakthroughs, policy wins, and scientific achievements from the present era. If you want evidence that progress is real and ongoing, this is where to look.

Forest, for article on Italy forest coverage, for article on Italian forest cover, for article on Italy forest cover

For the first time since the Middle Ages, forests cover more of Italy than farmland

By / / Good News For Humankind

Italy’s forests have quietly crossed a threshold that reshapes how we understand the country’s relationship with its land — woodland now covers more of the peninsula than farmland, a shift centuries in the making. Returning wolves, bears, and deer are gaining connected habitat across the Alps and Apennines, while the ecological services those trees provide — carbon storage, water filtration — carry striking economic value. The recovery is driven partly by rural depopulation, a real cultural loss even as nature wins. Still, it signals something hopeful: that land cleared over millennia can quietly, stubbornly come back.

Infant foot, for article on infant mortality rate

India cuts infant mortality by 20% in five years to its lowest rate on record

By / / Good News For Humankind

Over the past five years, medically attended births rose from below 83% to more than 95%, driving the national infant mortality rate down to 24 deaths per 1,000 live births — the lowest on record — as researchers link the shift directly to better newborn survival. States like Kerala now post rates comparable to wealthier nations. India’s infant mortality milestone reflects something deeper than a single statistic — it shows what happens when a country systematically brings healthcare closer to its most vulnerable people. India’s progress offers a replicable model for lower-income countries working to protect the lives of their youngest citizens.

Dhaka traffic at night, for article on Bangladesh EV taxes, for article on Bangladesh EV tax reform

Bangladesh cuts EV taxes and raises fossil-fuel car taxes in sweeping green push

By / / Good News For Humankind

Electric vehicle policy in the world’s eighth-most-populous nation has just shifted in a way that could reshape daily life for tens of millions of people. The government has zeroed out taxes on electric buses, trucks, and charging infrastructure while raising costs on diesel and petrol vehicles — making the price gap between old and new technology impossible to ignore. The goal is 25% electric buses and trucks on the road by 2035, in a country where air pollution claims more than 235,000 lives annually. It’s a meaningful signal that diesel’s unquestioned dominance on Asian roads may finally be ending.

Mendocino coast, for article on Indigenous land return

California returns 136 acres of coastline to Indigenous tribes in a state first

By / / Good News For Humankind

Indigenous land return in California just reached a milestone that could open doors for tribes across the state. Three Pomo nations will now steward Blues Beach and its surrounding bluffs in Mendocino County — a stretch of coastline their ancestors lived on, gathered from, and held as sacred. A new state law made this possible, creating the legal pathway for Caltrans to transfer land to tribal governments for the first time. The tribes plan cultural camps, ecological surveys, and careful stewardship on their own terms. This is what land justice can look like when policy catches up with principle.

Boudhanath Stupa, for article on same-sex marriage Nepal

Nepal becomes 40th country to recognize same-sex marriage, a South Asian first

By / / Good News For Humankind

Same-sex marriage in Nepal is now fully legal — a breakthrough that places the country among just 40 nations worldwide to grant this recognition, and the first in a region where several neighbors still criminalize same-sex relationships entirely. Nepal’s Supreme Court issued a binding order converting provisional registrations into full legal standing, meaning couples can now access inheritance rights, spousal benefits, and hospital visitation protections. This win came through decades of sustained activist work, not a single dramatic moment. It joins a growing pattern of courts advancing equality where legislatures have hesitated, from South Africa to Taiwan.

Wind turbines, for article on SunZia wind project

Largest-ever U.S. renewable energy project comes online, supplying power to 1 million homes

By / / Good News For Humankind

SunZia is now the largest wind energy project in U.S. history, and its scale changes what Americans can imagine building. Its 916 turbines generate more power than the Hoover Dam, delivered through one of the first major long-distance HVDC transmission lines completed in the country in decades. Over 30 years, the project will send $1.3 billion directly to local governments, schools, and landowners in New Mexico and Arizona — communities that have long watched energy wealth flow elsewhere. It’s proof that transformational clean energy infrastructure can actually get built, and a model other regions will be watching closely.

Bike delivery person, for article on gig worker convention

ILO adopts first global standard for gig workers, covering 435 million people

By / / Good News For Humankind

Gig workers around the world now have something they’ve never had before: a binding international standard that says their rights matter, regardless of how platforms classify them. The ILO’s new Convention C193 extends protections — fair pay, collective bargaining, safety, and freedom from discrimination — to an estimated 435 million platform workers globally. Crucially, it also requires transparency around the algorithms that hire, manage, and sometimes silence workers without explanation.
Winning support across 187 member states makes this more than a symbolic gesture. It’s a foundation that labor movements everywhere can build on.

Abstract visual, for article on LSD-based drug

Single dose of LSD-based drug shows significant depression relief in key Phase 3 trial

By / / Good News For Humankind

A single-dose LSD-based drug has just cleared one of medicine’s highest evidentiary bars — offering meaningful, durable relief from major depressive disorder in a rigorous Phase 3 trial. DT120 ODT, a pharmaceutically refined lysergide compound, produced an 8.1-point improvement on the standard depression scale compared to placebo, with nearly all side effects mild and resolving the same day. For the millions who cycle through daily antidepressants without real relief, a single-dose model represents a genuinely different kind of hope — and a signal that psychedelic-assisted medicine is maturing into a serious contender in mainstream psychiatric care.

image for article on French Polynesia marine protection

French Polynesia protects 540,000 sq mi of ocean, hitting the global 30% target

By / / Good News For Humankind

French Polynesia has now fully protected an ocean territory more than twice the size of continental France — a milestone that took over 12 years of community-led science, cultural expeditions, and hundreds of public meetings to reach. The newly protected zones shelter sharks, whales, and species found nowhere else on Earth, while still allowing local communities to fish using traditional methods. The model here — indigenous stewardship paired with international partnership — is already being watched as a potential blueprint for island nations working toward the global 30 by 30 goal.

Satellite image of Africa at night with sparse lights, for article on Mission 300 electricity access

50 million Africans have gained electricity since a continental push began in 2025

By / / Good News For Humankind

Mission 300 is proving that coordinated global action can electrify a continent faster than anyone thought possible. Fifty million people across 40 African countries now have power they lacked just 18 months ago — and the initiative is delivering connections at nearly double its original pace. In Tanzania alone, electrification is happening five times faster than before Mission 300 launched. The $15 billion committed by the World Bank and African Development Bank, amplified by private capital, shows what alignment between governments, funders, and communities can unlock. This is a working model for what determined, coordinated investment can do.