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.

Przewalski's horse, for article on Przewalski's horse foals

Wild Przewalski’s horses born in Kazakhstan for the first time in 200 years

By / / Good News For Humankind

Przewalski’s horses — the only living wild relatives of domestic horses — have taken a fragile but real step back toward their ancestral home on the Central Asian steppe. Two foals born at Kazakhstan’s Altyn Dala State Nature Reserve show that a herd translocated from European zoos is beginning to reproduce independently, a threshold conservationists consider proof of genuine adaptation. With only 24 horses currently in Kazakhstan against a target of roughly 40, the goal of a self-sustaining population remains ahead — yet this milestone joins a growing pattern of coordinated reintroductions quietly reversing extinctions that once seemed permanent.

Inside a data center, for article on Massachusetts clean energy data centers

Massachusetts requires data centers over 25MW to run on 100% clean energy

By / / Good News For Humankind

Massachusetts is raising the bar for how AI infrastructure plugs into the power grid — requiring large data centers to bring clean energy with them, not just draw from whatever’s available. New facilities exceeding 25 megawatts must generate clean power, fund new clean capacity nearby, or pay into a ratepayer protection fund, and towns gain effective veto power before state agencies weigh in. The key question is whether compliance payments will be set high enough to drive real clean generation rather than checkbook compliance. Massachusetts is the third state in three months to move this way — a sign more may soon follow.

Bhutan town, for article on dog-transmitted rabies

Bhutan becomes first WHO South-East Asia nation to eliminate rabies

By / / Good News For Humankind

Rabies elimination is one of public health’s hardest challenges, and Bhutan just became the first country in the WHO South-East Asia Region to achieve it for dog-transmitted rabies — the source of nearly all human rabies deaths worldwide. The milestone reflects over a decade of mass dog vaccination, free post-exposure treatment, and community volunteers reaching remote villages. Sustaining it remains the real test, since rabies doesn’t respect borders and neighboring areas stay vulnerable. Still, Bhutan’s model shows that political will, community action, and coordinated science can eliminate a disease that kills thousands globally each year.

Repairing laptop, for article on right to repair

Texas right to repair law takes effect, covering phones and laptops

By / / Good News For Humankind

House Bill 2963 requires manufacturers to supply parts, tools, and repair documentation to independent shops and device owners on the same fair terms their authorized service networks already get. Roughly three in four Texans backed it. Consumer group U.S. PIRG estimates the average Texas household could save roughly $382 a year by fixing electronics rather than replacing them, against a $330 national average — and about 8,700 smartphones are discarded in the state every day. But “fair and reasonable” pricing is not yet defined, and manufacturers have complied narrowly with similar laws before.

Plant growing out of coins, representing the green economy, for article on green economy growth

Green economy surpasses $10 trillion, becomes world’s third-largest industry

By / / Good News For Humankind

Clean technology has quietly crossed into the financial mainstream, and the scale of that shift is striking. Green companies now outperform the broader global market, and those earning most of their revenue from environmental products carry profit margins two to four percentage points higher than conventional peers — directly challenging the old assumption that clean business means thinner returns. Much of the momentum is coming from an unexpected place: data centers run by major tech firms drove nearly half of U.S. clean power deals in 2025. Yet canceled projects remain a reminder that permitting and grid access are stubborn obstacles.

Spider monkeys

Costa Rica requires wildlife crossings on all new and existing roads

By / / Good News For Humankind

Costa Rica’s economy depends on the wildlife its own roads have long put at risk — sloths and monkeys struck by cars, habitat split in two, coastal crabs unable to reach the sea to lay their eggs. Lawmakers voted unanimously to make wildlife crossings a legal requirement, built into road planning from the earliest stage rather than added as an afterthought. Citizens can now submit their own evidence to force retrofits on existing highways already causing harm. Conservationists call it a meaningful shift away from decorative warning signs, which do little to slow drivers, toward structures proven to actually save lives.

MRI scan, for article on accessible medical equipment

U.S. now requires medical equipment to be accessible for people with disabilities

By / / Good News For Humankind

Accessible medical equipment rules now give Americans with disabilities a federal guarantee that hospitals and clinics must actually have the tools to examine them — something existing anti-discrimination law never fully delivered. General facilities must meet a 10% accessibility threshold, rising to 20% at practices specializing in mobility conditions. The gap this closes is stark: some patients had to visit a veterinary office just to be weighed, traveling dozens of miles because no doctor’s office nearby could accommodate them. Real change now depends on consistent enforcement, since most exam rooms remain inaccessible today even as the rules take effect.

Solar panels, for article on China solar capacity

China’s solar capacity overtakes coal as its largest power source ever

By / / Good News For Humankind

Coal has been the backbone of China’s electricity grid for decades. This summer, the East Asian nation crossed a pivotal threshold.

China’s installed solar capacity now stands at 1,286 gigawatts against coal’s 1,285 — a margin of just one gigawatt, according to the National Energy Administration. Solar supplies roughly an eighth of the country’s electricity today; coal still generates most of it. But capacity is what gets built first, and the builders have already chosen: solar and wind made up more than 80% of all new power capacity China added last year.

The generation numbers are starting to follow. Coal-fired output fell nearly 2% in 2025 — the first drop in six years, and possibly the first time on record that coal generation fell while overall demand rose.

image for article on Turkmenistan methane leaks

Turkmenistan seals 8 massive methane leaks in climate “breakthrough”

By / / Good News For Humankind

Methane super-emitters — single leaks that can warm the planet more than a million SUVs combined — have long made Turkmenistan one of the worst fossil fuel offenders on Earth. Eight of those leaks are now sealed, confirmed by satellite, after a UN monitoring system sent alerts that drove real repairs. International scrutiny appears to have been the turning point, pushing the secretive government to act where years of outside pressure had struggled. Yet Turkmenistan still holds three of the six worst leaks detected worldwide, meaning eight fixes, however meaningful, are a beginning, not a solution.