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.

Welcome to Oregon sign amidst evergreen trees, for article on psilocybin license

Oregon approves the U.S.’s first legal psilocybin mushroom farms

By / / Good News For Humankind

Legal psilocybin mushrooms are now being grown in Oregon for the first time in over 50 years of U.S. prohibition, with Satori Farms PDX becoming the first licensed producer in the country. Owner Tori Armbrust, a longtime gourmet mushroom grower, plans to supply two service centers within months, where trained facilitators will guide adults through supervised sessions. The framework, approved by Oregon voters in 2020, has already drawn more than 200 license and worker permit applications, and the first cohort of state-trained facilitators has graduated. Cost and federal scheduling remain real hurdles, but Oregon is quietly turning a decade of promising mental health research into the country’s first working model — one that other states, and people struggling with treatment-resistant depression, will be watching closely.

Narcan nasal spray, for article on OTC naloxone

U.S. FDA approves over-the-counter sale of overdose reversal drug Narcan

By / / Good News For Humankind

Over-the-counter Narcan is now a reality: the FDA cleared the 4 mg naloxone nasal spray for sale at pharmacies, convenience stores, and other retailers without a prescription — the first opioid overdose reversal drug ever to earn that status in the U.S. The medication works within minutes to restore breathing, and it’s safe enough that any bystander can use it, no medical training required. For years, harm reduction workers quietly distributed naloxone in their communities, knowing how much it mattered; this decision finally meets them where they’ve been standing. Putting a life-saving tool on the same shelf as aspirin won’t end the overdose crisis on its own, but it’s a powerful reminder that expanding access — trusting ordinary people to help each other — is how public health movements actually save lives.

Vjosa River in Albania, for article on Vjosa wild river national park

Europe establishes its first wild river national park in Albania

By / / Good News For Humankind

Albania’s Vjosa River is now Europe’s first wild river national park, locking in permanent protection across 118 miles of one of the continent’s last large free-flowing rivers. The designation blocks 45 proposed hydropower dams that would have fragmented habitat for otters, Egyptian vultures, and the critically endangered Balkan lynx. It’s the result of nearly a decade of organizing by the Save the Blue Heart of Europe campaign, working alongside the Albanian government, the IUCN, and Patagonia, whose non-profit arm contributed $4.6 million. In a Europe crisscrossed by more than a million dams and weirs, the Vjosa offers a glimpse of what rivers once were — and a model other countries can follow as the world works toward protecting 30 percent of the planet by 2030.