Five Good Things That Happened for the Environment in 2019
The fires in Australia may have already killed HALF-A-BILLION animals. Thankfully, some much-needed rain just arrived, which should help. But let’s take a second to look at some of the GOOD stories about the planet we saw last year.
Here are five positive things for the environment that happened in 2019 . . .
1. A bunch of countries planted a whole lot of trees. India planted 220 million in one day . . . Ethiopia topped that with 350 million . . . Canada promised to plant 2 BILLION by 2030 . . . and a tech company will plant another 1 billion using drones. (A climate study in July found we need to plant about a TRILLION. So it’s a start.)
2. The humpback whale population boomed. A century ago, there were only 450 left because of whaling. But a new study found it’s back up over 25,000 again.
3. A teenager came up with a new way to remove microplastics from the water supply. 18-year-old Fionn Ferreira won Google’s 2019 science fair after tests showed his method was 87% effective. He got $50,000 to keep working on it.
4. Scientists in Mexico created a new type of plastic that’s biodegradable. It’s made from cactus and breaks down in the soil after about a month.
5. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch clean-up got underway. And again, a teenager was involved. Back in 2012, a 19-year-old engineering student came up with a way to collect it. Now they’ve started recycling it.
