A Swedish company has developed technology to produce a material from old textiles that can be used to manufacture brand new clothing and can help reduce the huge amounts of water and other resources used by the fashion industry. #ShareGoodNewsToo

"Rags to Riches" & "Self-Made Man" stories have long been self-fashioning tools for the ambitious. Historical examples of Rags-to-Riches real and fake show us how to cut through propaganda! New blog post on ExUrbe (preview of "Inventing the Renaissance")

Efforts against poaching and habitat loss as well as raising the living standards of communities near tiger areas, India has grown its tiger population from 1,706 individuals in 2010 to almost 3,700 in 2022. #ShareGoodNewsToo

UK Labour's Renters' Rights Bill has been passed, abolishing landlords' power to evict tenants without cause and capping upfront payments to one month's rent. The landmark reform ends a 35-year era of housing insecurity. #ShareGoodNewsToo

Meet my latest historical obsession: Clarice Orsini de Medici's EXTREMELY ILLEGAL hat! A reflection on the high-stakes politics of fashion in Renaissance Florence (Part of my countdown to the release of "Inventing the Renaissance")

Solar overtakes coal in Europe for the first time in 2024 Renewables supplied 47% of the bloc’s power in 2024, while fossil fuels accounted for 29%. The EU has halved emissions since their peak in 2007. #ShareGoodNewsToo

Two years after President Lula launched a mission to save Brazil's largest Indigenous territory from illegal gold miners, hunger and infant mortality rates among the Yanomami are plummeting. #ShareGoodNewsToo

NASA scientists have found the basic building blocks of life in a pristine sample from asteroid Bennu, including 14 amino acids used by living things and all five genetic code components. #ShareGoodNewsToo

A new municipal conservation area on the border of Bolivia and Brazil will protect 4,581 km2 of biodiverse tropical forests and safeguard 98% of reptiles, 90% of birds and 80% of mammals found in the municipality of Ingavi. #ShareGoodNewsToo

Now in Blog Post form up on ExUrbe (easier to read) the Gonzaga-Sanseverino duel, Renaissance Italy's real life case of the iconic Monty Python "I fart in your general direction..." (Part of my countdown to the release of "Inventing the Renaissance.")

Ecuador's constitutional court has ruled that coastal marine ecosystems have legal rights that must be protected. Ecuador became the first country in the world to enshrine the rights of nature into its constitution. #ShareGoodNewsToo

Ghanaian Parliament passes landmark Environment Protection Bill The bill gives new teeth to the EPA, which will have a mandate to regulate and oversee all matters related to the environment and climate change. #ShareGoodNewsToo

Kazakhstan restores the North Aral Sea water level by 42% The project, in partnership with neighbouring countries, has directed 2.6 billion m3 into the Aral Sea. The sea’s salinity has decreased while annual fish catches have increased. #ShareGoodNewsToo

In 2024, the United States saw a dramatic 71% increase in large-scale battery storage capacity. This growth is replacing the need for fossil fuel-dependent 'peaker plants' which provide backup power when the sun isn’t shining. #ShareGoodNewsToo

The first major Polish city to join the Powering Past Coal Alliance, Katowice has successfully diversified its economy, focusing on services, technology, and culture to help replace jobs lost from coal - reducing its unemployment rate to 1%. #ShareGoodNews

Researchers at the University of Illinois discovered that biologically-fixed nitrogen bacteria can potentially supply the equivalent of 35 pounds of nitrogen during early corn growth, reducing the crop's reliance on nitrogen fertiliser. #ShareGoodNewsToo

Oslo is pioneering the use of battery-powered machinery in construction to reduce noise and pollution. As of this month, a new mandate requires electric machinery on all building sites. #ShareGoodNewsToo

Cheonggyecheon Stream was converted into a pedestrian recreational area 20 years ago. It also cools the surrounding neighbourhoods, reduces air pollution, and helps control monsoon floods. #ShareGoodNewsToo

A decade-long transformation in Ethiopia's Gambella region has revolutionised water access. The shift from emergency water trucking to a solar-powered utility system has slashed water costs more than ten-fold. #ShareGoodNewsToo

Looks fake doesn't it? This reconstruction of Medieval Bologna shows how Italian towns used to be a forest of towers, dense as Manhattan skyscrapers! Here's a stable blog-formatted version of my thread about the lost towers of the Guelph-Ghibelline wars ..