Meet 3 "sister" high tech drone pilots
Hey fam,
Happy Friday! Hope your week was fruitful, restful, and satisfying. And if it wasn't, at least it's the weekend!
This week we're talking about an amazing 90-year-old animal rescuer, 3 Drone Sisters, free school meals, a new National Park, the end of hidden "junk fees" and much more...
🤝
Enjoying this content? I'm a fully independent creator doing every step of this process myself to cover real stories of progress that replace dread & fear with hope & action.
This includes researching, fact-checking, writing, recording, editing, posting, interacting with all of you, and always aiming to improve.
I genuinely couldn't keep this going without your support.
If you're getting value out of this newsletter, the videos I create, and the community we're building: please become a supporter or leave a tip!
Let's keep building a better world, together.
Thank you,
Jacob
Friday, May 9
🐶 A 90-year-old woman named Barby Keel has rescued 10,000 animals over the course of her 54 years running an animal sanctuary in the UK, and she’s not planning on stopping any time soon having survived cancer three times, choosing her animals over her ex-partner, and currently protecting over 600 animals (Andy Corbley|Good News Network)
⛴️ The world’s largest battery-powered ship has launched which is 420 feet long carrying 2,100 passengers across a regular ferry route on the River Plate between Argentina and Uruguay, with the Hull 096 ship being entirely electric and potentially a big step towards cleaning up shipping (Lisa Cox|The Guardian)
🔋 56,000 homes with rooftop solar installed have become the US’s biggest “virtual power plant”, essentially using their battery systems as backup electricity powering up to 280,000 homes either when demand is spiking or in the case of blackouts, and best of all each home lending their power gets paid for participating (Christopher McFadden|Interesting Engineering)
🐦 iluv_samm (from our community) lifted a sewer grate so their sister could rescue a trapped bird who safely flew off.
DO SOME GOOD: Learn more about & support Barby's sanctuary 🐐
Monday, May 12
👩🌾 Three "Drone Didis" named Sangita, Sumintra, and Kajol are real life heroes we should all know about…
Ignoring calls to stay at home and let their husbands work, they're instead zipping high tech drones through the air to dispense liquid fertilizer on the crops below.
Nicknamed the "Drone Sisters" in Hindi, they’re part of a program for thousands of rural women in India to boost incomes and improve farming, training them to fly these highly advanced drones that help crops thrive.
Better for the environment by using less fertilizer and water, their efforts are also much more efficient, single handedly fertilizing five acres in the same amount of time it used to take 5 people to cover just half an acre.
Also part of a self-help group to uplift other women out of poverty, they’ve become entrepreneurs selling seeds, support each other financially, and are changing social perceptions of what women in their area can achieve.
In the words of these women, “Others say “she’s flying too high” and I tell them, “this is just the beginning”.
DO SOME GOOD: watch this episode 👀
🗑️ community win: climatecheng is organizing monthly trash pickups with their apartment!
Tuesday, May 13
🔬 A record-breaking 3.3 million wildlife observations by community scientists were recorded over 4 days thanks to 103,000 people across 6 continents using an app called iNaturalist to document our planet’s stunning plants, animals, and fungi for the annual census which tracks real-time biodiversity changes (California Academy of Sciences)
🥗 New York just became the 10th US state to offer free meals to all schoolchildren, with over 2.7 million kids set to get free breakfast and lunch at school starting in the fall to help families save money while ensuring that no kid goes hungry at school (Benita Gingerella|FSD)
🚄 Africa’s only high-speed rail is getting extended in Morocco, with a new 270-mile corridor significantly cutting travel times between big cities with 168 new clean and fast trains improving transportation while also creating thousands of new jobs (BI Africa, Connor Sturges|Condé Nast Traveler)
🌼 elena (from our community) has been secretly planting native plants around her city which has increased greenery while attracting a dozen species of butterflies.
DO SOME GOOD: Learn how to make your own seed bomb 🌸
Wednesday, May 14
🏝️ Fiji launched an initiative called “Loloma Hour” to encourage all visitors to the 333 islands to spend at least an hour making a positive impact on the land and culture by helping with wildlife conservation, giving back to the community, and safeguarding the coastline and reef (Johanna Read|Forbes)
🇦🇺 Endangered mountain pygmy possums have recovered from droughts and fires in Australia nearly back to their average numbers, with students and park staff helping these tiny possums, that weigh less than 2 AA batteries, survive by feeding them while vegetation recovered (Adriane Reardon|ABC)
🏞️ A new National Park the size of Yosemite has been created in Argentina called Patagonia Azul Provincial Park, which will protect important waters that are key breeding, feeding, and migration sites for all sorts of amazing species including whales, penguins, and at least 50 species of seabirds (Tompkins Conservation Press Release)
📚 And beaux_the_arrow (from our community) is connecting marginalized groups to free library resources like sewing machines and production equipment.
DO SOME GOOD: Wanna travel and give back? Check out places like Workaway ✈️
Thursday, May 15
💰 Hidden “junk fees” are now illegal in the US which are those confusing charges for things like cleaning and processing fees, thanks to a law passed last December which just went into effect that requires hotels, rentals, and event platforms to display the full price up front (Dee-Ann Durbin|AP)
🍎 A new study found that planting strips of wildflowers in between apple trees is a more effective and cheaper way to control common pests, letting nature do the work which reduces about $4,000 of fruit damage per acre since the flowers attract insects that eat the pests (Paige Bennett|Ecowatch)
🚙 Despite a lot of haters, data from New York City’s congestion pricing shows it’s a huge success, reducing traffic by 76,000 cars per day in the zone and surprisingly reducing outside the zone too, with less car crashes, injuries, and noise complaints while ridership on every method of public transportation and bike sharing increased (Emily Badger, Stefanos Chen, Asmaa Elkeurti, Winnie Hu, Francesca Paris and Ethan Singer|NYT)
🐦 And xeniyck (from our community) bought 5 acres of land and is leaving it alone for the cranes that live there to flourish.
DO SOME GOOD: Have extra land? Learn how to conserve it 🌄
Bonus!
🔋 The world's largest liquid battery is being built in Switzerland.
🌞 Get your sunscreen out because sun won't set before 8pm in NYC for the next 3 months!
🎥 David Attenborough's latest documentary might be his greatest... (I'm trying to see it asap and will report back with my review!)
🐶 This good pup saved a 2-year-old lost in the forest.
🎤 This new Off-Broadway climate-themed play is having its world premiere in NYC! (They invited me to watch next week, so I'll report back with my review, but I wanted to let y'all know about it if you're in the area.)
Spread this breath of fresh air🪴
By supporting Climativity, you're helping these good stories reach more people around the world.
Support good news & independent publishing
This newsletter was written by Jacob Simon. 900,000+ people are in our community across Instagram, TikTok, Threads, YouTube, and Bluesky. You can say hi on LinkedIn, or by emailing jacob@jacobsimonsays.com.