Electrify the world! + less trachoma + more equal economies + crime drops + LIVE SHOW
Optimists Club July 2026
Happy July Optimists Club!
Excited to share our next live show is coming up on Wednesday August 12 in Concord, NH. I’ll be sharing again this week to our full list of 2,000+, but you all (114 and counting!) are the inner circle of optimists : )
Get your tickets here, use code SAVE50 for a discount!
Come watch me somersault (literally) into a conversation with 4 local business leaders about how they do well while doing good.
The panel will feature:
Ben Conniff: Co-founder, Luke’s Lobster
Julianna Dodson: Executive Director, Hannah Grimes Center for Entrepreneurship (and past Granite Goodness guest!)
Emily Warren: Director of People & Culture, W.S. Badger Company
Cody Whelan: Co-founder, Treeline Outfitters (and past Granite Goodness guest!)
We’ll be collaborating with our friends at NH Businesses for Social Responsibility for this event, showcasing how these people and their organizations are changing the game on:
Creating real “third spaces”
Environmental stewardship & sustainability
Reimagining rural economies
Youth career paths
…and more, brought to you in classic Granite Goodness fashion. As always we’ll also be joined by acclaimed local indie-folk rockstars Sneaky Miles, whose music we use for the podcast.
Check out our first two live shows if you want to get a sense of what they’re like:
3S Artspace Local Podcasters Night
Hope to see you there!
Now please enjoy some fresh good news from around the globe. Here are seven of my favorite stories lately:
Almost everyone in the world now has access to electricity. Since 2010, access to electricity expanded from 84% to 92% of people worldwide, even as global population swelled by over a billion. The share of humanity still without power dropped from 1.1 billion to 655 million.
El Salvador conquered a tropical eye disease. In just three years, the country eliminated trachoma through improved sanitation, vision screenings, and clean water initiatives, becoming Central America’s first to do so and joining 64 nations that have vanquished this neglected tropical disease.
This story sticks out to me because the elimination of trachoma is one of these really underappreciated progress stories. Last year, seven countries accomplished this, meaning millions of people are no longer at risk of a debilitating eye infection, yet the story is largely absent from the media because it happened slowly and gradually.
The UN’s development agenda delivered tangible progress. While 2030 sustainability targets won’t all be met, the world has achieved remarkable milestones: internet connectivity surged from 40% to 74%, a billion more people gained safe drinking water, 1.5 billion more accessed proper sanitation, and disease and hunger have declined substantially.
Note how the dominant media narrative will be around the “failure” to achieve the goals, rather than the extraordinary progress that has been made.
India’s children are surviving at higher rates. Infant mortality has dropped sharply across the country over the past decade, with several states now achieving child survival rates comparable to wealthy nations.
Global wealth has expanded while inequality has shrunk. Only 11% of countries remain classified as low-income today, and the proportion of economies plagued by high inequality fell by 40% over three decades, suggesting more balanced income distribution worldwide.
South Asia reversed its vulture crisis. In the late 1990s, vultures across the region were collapsing toward extinction. Scientists identified the culprit: diclofenac, a livestock painkiller toxic to vultures feeding on carcasses. After India, Nepal, and Pakistan banned veterinary diclofenac in 2006, they built breeding centers, developed safer drugs, and established Vulture Safe Zones. Two decades later, populations are recovering and three species on the brink are bouncing back.
The world is in the midst of an unprecedented drop in crime.
From our friends at Fix the News
OPTIMIST FEATURE!
In this edition, our featured optimist (selected at random from club members) is…
Jayson Seaman!
“I support any initiative that helps make NH a place where young people want and are able to stay and build lives for themselves.”
Jayson is a professor at the University of New Hampshire.
For those of you who have opted into a mailed-print version (which combines our favorite good news from around New England + the world), we just mailed them today!
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Hope to see you all at the live show!
-Andy