Three cheers for millennial dads + Scottish seas + many museums + Colombian poverty + West African energy
Optimists Club Newsletter - June 2026
Happy June Optimists Club!
I cannot believe there are now over 100 of you. If you haven’t shared your info yet and would like to be displayed on our page, please let me know!
If you missed it, the recording from our last live show is now out.
Kicking off the new month with some fresh good news from around the globe. Here are seven of my favorite stories lately:
American fathers aged ~30-45 now spend as much time taking care of their kids as the average American mother in 1985. New research has found that since the pandemic, fathers have been voluntarily trading work hours for more time cooking, cleaning, and raising their kids.
There is a massive, underappreciated boom happening in both the number of museums worldwide and their willingness to engage in the return of looted artifacts to formerly colonized states. The world has gone from 22,000 museums in 1975 to over 104,000 today.
Colombia’s multidimensional poverty rate has dropped from nearly 30% in 2010 to under 10% today, a measure that captures not just income but access to education, healthcare, and infrastructure.
Brazil’s deforestation rate fell by 42% last year, helping forests recover from a record year of loss. Additionally, deforestation in the country’s most threatened biome fell to its lowest level in 40 years.
West Africa is making major progress toward a power grid capable of powering the region. A World Bank-financed program has connected 15 West African countries through more than 4,000 kilometers of transmission lines.
Scottish sea creatures are doing well, a decade after Scotland banned bottom trawling in a protected coastal area, scientists found protected seabeds supporting twice as many species and three times the marine life of nearby fished zones.
Our friends at Fix The News also just launched a podcast network. Very cool to see optimistic solutions journalism gaining momentum!
They also shared a particularly interesting study on climate change messaging across 63 countries, showing that while that doom-and-gloom is great for social media shares, it’s bad for actually motivating behavior change. People exposed to catastrophic framing were less likely to act than those who read nothing at all.
Instead, what tended to work better was moral framing that makes people feel capable and part of something bigger, but that kind of message doesn’t go viral (or does it?)
OPTIMIST FEATURE!
In this edition, our featured optimist (selected at random from club members) is…
Anna Wells!
"I support Granite Goodness because Andy is 100%+ the vibe we need right now. I desperately need the good stories and good energy - uplifting the goodness keeps me motivated to keep working for a better world."
Anna is a Program Coordinator at PLAN NH, based in Contoocook, NH.
For those of you who have opted into a mailed-print version (which combines our favorite good news from around New England + the world), you can expect a mailing this week!
If you’d like to receive the mail newsletter but haven’t shared your address with me yet, please fill out this form.
For anyone who had been anticipating a live show on June 10 with NHBSR, know that that is being rescheduled for later in the summer.
We will be doing a very casual show in celebration of Pride month on Tues evening June 30 at Auspicious Brew.
Expect a full New England newsletter soon + an exciting announcement (we’re growing!)
-Andy
Thanks for the good news! Speaking as a Dad who loved spending time with my children (and always will), I am thrilled to see more Dads spending more time with their children! As for the quote from Ann Wells, well said Ann! I couldn't agree more!