Zurich begins to turn off natural gas networks
The current shutdown in Switzerland’s biggest city is due to be completed in 2024 with more areas of Zurich set to see the end of natural gas between now and 2040.
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.
Colorado passes bill offering 10 hours per week of free universal preschool
By the fall of 2023, all 4-year-old children in Colorado will be able to attend preschool at no cost to their families.
Landmark DNA study finds 58 new mutations that cause cancer
The landmark findings from a massive study of more than 12,000 cancer patients offer researchers a trove of new resources to guide future studies on tailored cancer treatments.
Denmark announces aggressive carbon tax
Companies that do not pay for their pollution in the EU quota system now must pay DKK 750 per ton of CO2 they emit.
Formerly warring factions in Burundi have now planted over 150 million trees together since 2018
In 2018, Burundi launched a vast national reforestation program to boost the country’s dwindling forest cover, which will run until 2025.
First COVID-19 breath test authorized for use in U.S.
A COVID-19 breath test just cleared a major hurdle: the FDA has authorized the first device that can detect the virus from a single exhale, returning results in about three minutes. Made by InspectIR, the device picks up a signature pattern of five compounds the body releases during infection, and in a study of nearly 2,500 people it correctly flagged 91 percent of positive cases. No swabs, no lab. Beyond this moment, the authorization is a real proof of concept for breath-based diagnostics — a field researchers have long hoped could one day help detect cancers, kidney disease, and other conditions, especially in communities where traditional testing is hardest to reach.
Spain bans harassment of women entering abortion clinics
The legal changes mean that anyone harassing a woman going into an abortion clinic will be committing a crime that can be punished with up to one year in prison.
U.S. forgives 40,000 student loans, provides aid to 3.6 million more
Student loan relief reached a milestone in April 2022, when the U.S. Department of Education wiped out balances for roughly 40,000 public service workers — teachers, nurses, social workers, and public defenders whose forgiveness applications had long been tangled in technicalities. Another 3.6 million borrowers got at least three years of credit toward eventual cancellation, after the department fixed income-driven repayment rules that servicers had applied inconsistently for years. Behind the numbers are people who chose lower-paying careers partly because forgiveness made the math work, and finally saw that promise honored. It’s a reminder that even imperfect systems can be repaired when advocates, researchers, and policymakers push in the same direction — and that economic justice often arrives quietly, one fixed rule at a time.
India’s extreme poverty down by 12% in last decade, according to World Bank
The global bank’s policy research team said the poverty headcount in the country has dropped from 22.5% in 2011 to 10.2% in 2019 with rural areas showing better results.
Quebec became the first jurisdiction in the world to explicitly ban oil and gas development in its territory
For two decades, citizens have mobilized against different oil and gas projects in Quebec, including shale gas in the St. Lawrence Valley and oil projects in Gaspésie.