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.
Denmark is moving forward with an initiative that will take huge quantities of captured carbon out to an oil rig in the North Sea, and pump it down to sequester it in the sandstone formations that once held oil and gas.
In a study published in Pharmaceutics, scientists tested their vaccine on 60 rats. The immunized animals could produce antibodies that stop the deadly drug’s effects.
3M, one of the world’s largest makers of PFAS, will halt all production of these “forever chemicals” by the end of 2025, walking away from a business that brought in roughly $1.3 billion a year. The company expects to absorb up to $2.3 billion in pre-tax charges to exit — a sign it sees long-term liability as the bigger risk than lost revenue. The move follows mounting pressure from regulators, lawsuits, and a coalition of fund managers overseeing $8 trillion in assets who urged dozens of companies to phase PFAS out. Compounds linked to cancer, thyroid disruption, and developmental harm have turned up in drinking water and food supplies worldwide, and 3M’s deadline signals that the era of treating them as ordinary industrial inputs is drawing to a close.
Science has found that biomass burning releases more carbon dioxide emissions per unit of energy produced than coal.
The bill bans hate speech and incitement based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Nearly 200 countries just agreed to protect 30 percent of the planet’s land and oceans by 2030 — a leap from the 16 percent of land and 8 percent of seas currently safeguarded. The deal, struck in the early hours of a December morning in Montreal, also commits wealthy nations to send $30 billion a year to developing countries for nature protection. Crucially, Indigenous communities — who steward an estimated 80 percent of the world’s remaining biodiversity — won language protecting their land rights and traditional knowledge in how these areas are governed. Past pledges have faltered, and enforcement remains the open question. But for a world losing species at rates unseen since the dinosaurs, having nearly every nation in one room agreeing to reverse course is a milestone worth marking.
Gay will be the only Black president currently in the Ivy League and the second Black woman ever, following Ruth Simmons, who led Brown University from 2001 to 2012.
Barbados becomes the third Caribbean nation this year to repeal such laws used to criminalize gay men.
Starting in 2024, shipping companies will have to buy E.U. carbon permits to cover 40% of their emissions, including methane and nitrogen oxides, rising to 70% in 2025 and 100% in 2026.
The bill requires that the federal and state governments to recognize same-sex and interracial marriages performed by other states.
