Therese Redaelli (World Economic Forum)

Although the media is plagued with negativity, there will always be good things occurring in the world.

Watching the news, reading the news, or just happening upon the news on social media, is widely regarded as one of the most detestable, depressing, and demoralizing acts a person can partake in. All of us have, at one point or another, wondered if it would simply be easier to choose ignorance over the misery of discovering whatever new event has taken place in the six hours since we last opened our phones. As strongly as I will eternally advocate for staying informed, no matter how upsetting it can become, even I have considered deleting all my subscriptions to news sites and eliminating all my access to world news beyond Forest Hills. 

However, the problem with the news is that the most popular stories—those of violence and greed, those of isolation, of prejudice, of all the worst horrors of humanity—are not all there is. It is so easy to become sucked into the doomsday content forced onto us by the media. As tensions rise internationally and panic builds throughout the country, and the world, it is so easy to tumble down rabbit holes of terror and insistence that the world is ending—but that’s simply not the case.

I am a steadfast believer in the inherent goodness of humanity, and I so desperately long to prove that we are not half as evil, that the world is not crumbling to half as many ashes, as the media is making it out to seem. So, I will always be looking for good news stories. Those about goals met and lives being changed for the better, those about people working hard to create a more beautiful world for us all.

So, in case you’ve been blinded by the gargantuan amounts of negativity closing in on you in the past few months, here are just a few of the good things that have been happening in the world recently.

Wildlife Preservation

In January, the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s parliament passed legislation to upscale the Virunga National Park—one of the oldest national parks in Africa—into an area covering 540,000 km² (around the size of France) of protected land through partnerships with communities that focus on restoration and conservation in Africa (World Economic Forum).

Called the Virunga Alliance, the plan will create the world’s largest area of protected forests. The alliance aims to create 500,000 new jobs, and transfer millions of tonnes of food annually to Kinshasa, Africa’s largest city. The alliance is supported by the European Union—with €60 million of funding—the Grameen Bank, the Schmidt Family Foundation, and the World Economic Forum.

In a similar vein, at a meeting of the United Nations (UN) Convention on Biodiversity (COB) in Rome last week, member states agreed to raise $200 billion a year by 2030 to support the effort of developing countries to conserve biodiversity. The plan aims to protect 30% of the planet’s lands, freshwater, and oceans by 2030 (Health Policy Watch). 

There is also considerable work being done in regards to wildlife welfare and the conservation of endangered species. For example, India has doubled its tiger population in the last decade alone, rising to house 3,600 tigers, more than 75% of the world’s tiger population. Similarly in the US in January, through an indigenous-led movement, 540 buffalo were returned to their ancestral land across the nation (The Nature Conservancy); furthermore, the UK government passed a complete ban on the production and use of a bee-killing pesticide that threatens the populations of pollinators vital to the nation. 

Finally, from Joshua Tree to Acadia, thousands of Americans have gathered at National Parks in the past few weeks to protest the Trump Administration’s firing of thousands of National Park workers in the past month. A group of off-duty park rangers—named the Resistance Rangers—organized a protest at each of the nation’s 433 National Parks to stand up to the job cuts and impending threats to protected land (The New York Times).

Climate Activism

In an immensely inspiring act of philanthropy, Michael Bloomberg—businessman and former mayor of New York City—stated that his philanthropic foundation will cover the US’s funding gap in the Paris Climate Agreement after President Trump announced the country’s withdrawal. Bloomberg’s announcement did not specify a dollar amount, but the US usually supports one fifth of the agreement’s expenses, adding up to roughly $7.5 million in 2024 (The Hill).

Additionally, for the first time in history, in 2024, Europe produced more electricity from solar energy than coal burning. Last year, coal accounted for 10% of the EU’s power supply, with solar energy surpassing it at 11%. Coal and gas generation continued their long-term decline for the fifth year in a row, and since peaking in 2007, fossil fuel emissions in Europe have dropped by more than 50% (Yale Environment 360).

Science and Education 

This week marks the planned launch of NASA’s SPHEREx, a telescope that aims to answer some of the most prevalent questions about the formation of the universe. It’s widely accepted that the Big Bang caused the rapid expansion of the Universe, but what astronomers don’t know is what caused the Big Bang in the first place. SPHEREx is paving the way to a clearer, broader understanding of the very beginnings of our universe (NPR).

Finally, literacy rates among women are rising in Nepal as older Nepalese women are taught to read and write. As young girls, this older generation of women were not sent to school, instead, they were taught to run a household; however, due to places like Ujyalo Community Learning Center, a free school catering to older women in the community, these women are finally gaining the ability to read and write in English and Nepalese. The Ujyalo Community Learning Center has taught over 200 women in the past three years, and the empowerment given to the women who can now read books, understand letters, and sign their own names is beautiful (AP News).

With tensions running so high throughout the nation and beyond, it is easy to unwittingly collapse under the weight of all the terrible news being thrust upon us each day. Therefore, it is indescribably important to both recognize that the awful news is not all there is, and purposefully search for the good things humanity is offering up with every new day.