Michigan is compensating essential workers with free college education
Michigan is recognizing the commitment and sacrifices of their state’s 625,000 essential workers by offering them free education at any community college in the state.
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.
Zero-emission trucks set to make New Zealand a world leader in hydrogen energy
Kiwi company Hiringa and Hyzon Motors—a U.S. manufacturer of hydrogen fuel cells—signed a “heads of agreement” that would allow Hiringa’s hydrogen-powered electric vehicles (HPEVs) to start hauling freight as early as 2022, positioning New Zealand as a world leader in hydrogen vehicle infrastructure.
The startup Running Tide is planting on the seafloor to offset carbon emissions
Running Tide is using seaweed to sequester carbon off the coast of Maine while raising sustainable shellfish. Planting on the seafloor offers even more carbon sequestering capabilities than planting trees on land because kelp that sinks to the seafloor can hold carbon for centuries.
Mexico issues world-first Sustainable Development Goals bond valued at $890 million
The inaugural SDG Bond is centered around goals 2, 3, 4, 8, and 9. Eligible SDG expenditures include training and subsidies for small and medium farmers, educational scholarships, and hospitals and medical equipment.
Monitoring brainwaves during sleep can pinpoint best antidepressant
Currently, in order to see if an antidepressant works, patients have to take the drug for at least a month. New research, however, suggests that by monitoring a patient’s brainwaves as they sleep, the effectiveness of an antidepressant can be gauged in as little as one week.
Nine major countries to collaboratively grow zero-emission commercial vehicle systems
Noting the climate, economic, jobs and health benefits it would bring, Canada, China, Chile, Finland, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden agreed to work collaboratively to grow zero-emission commercial vehicle manufacturing, infrastructure and deployment at home and globally.
California governor signs law to equalize punishments for gay & straight sex offenders
Introduced by gay State Sen. Scott Wiener (D), the law gives judges the ability to keep LGBTQ teenagers off the state’s public sex offender registry if the teens are of similar ages, the same leeway the state already gives straight teens.
UC Berkeley launches new center for psychedelic science and education
With $1.25 million in seed funding from an anonymous donor, the new UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics will conduct research using psychedelics to investigate cognition, perception and emotion and their biological bases in the human brain.
First-ever floating solar power plant in Belgium begins operation
Floating PV NV installed a floating solar power plant on 5 hectares of lake at a cost of €2 million project. It includes 17,250 solar panels that are expected to produce 7 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity per year, which is approximately how much 2,000 homes in the region use.
Google promises to operate using only carbon-free energy by 2030
Google plans to bridge the renewables gap at all its facilities with technological improvements such as overnight solar storage, improved logistics to transport the energy, and new renewable sources like geothermal reservoirs.