Goodbye frankenchickens + Americans live longer + India electrifies + plastic cleanup
Optimists Club Newsletter #1
Welcome to the Optimists Club Newsletter, part of Granite Goodness. We share optimistic stories of progress, innovation, and problem solving from across New England— and in this edition, from around the world!
HAPPY SUNDAY EVERYONE!
So excited to bring you the very first OPTIMISTS CLUB newsletter.
First, I cannot thank each and every one of you enough. Many of you are friends of mine, colleagues, former coworkers or professors, or just great people— all of whom have gone out of their way to materially support Granite Goodness, or gifted that capacity to someone else special in your life. I hope to make you proud, and maybe even a little more optimistic.
Lots going on in Granite Goodness land but above all I hope to see you all at our next LIVE SHOW on Feb 20, at 3S Artspace in Portsmouth. Use code GRANITE for a discount!
Also save the date— there is going to be a meetup on Tues March 17 at Treeline Outfitters in collaboration with our friends at Give and Gather.
If you haven’t already, please fill out the Optimists Club intake info so I can show you off to the world and send you a print newsletter if you like. Reply to me here with any questions!
Now onto the news.
It’s rough out there. We all see it. The news is always dark by nature, but maybe it’s a bit extra dark lately. It even prompted me to write something this past week if you’re curious.
My vision for this newsletter is less a thorough recitation of global progress (done better by others), and more of an inside window on what personally is giving me the most hope and optimism lately. I read a lot of progress journalism, so I’ll share some of my favorite stories here, along with highlighting some of you great people.
This community is very wonderful and organic, if you have any ideas don’t hesitate to reach out. I am already scheming with some of you ; )
Since this is the very first edition of this newsletter, I thought I’d open by echoing my favorite mantra from the very smart people at Our World in Data, who publish world-class freely accessible research on all the biggest problems. It goes like this:
#1 The world is awful.
#2 The world is better than it used to be (in a lot of ways we can measure).
#3 The world can be better than it is now. Way better.
These three statements are true at the same time— they don’t contradict each other!
We’re constantly surrounded by examples of #1. It dominates our feeds and headlines. What we encounter far less often are stories of #2 and #3.
A core insight of solutions journalism is that when our attention is monopolized by #1, we unintentionally reinforce it.
Similarly, giving more space to #2 and #3 helps create more of #2 and #3.
In a nutshell, that’s what we’re trying to do here at Granite Goodness. So here is a nice dose of #2 and #3 from around the world.
