What went right this week: the day the UK quit coal, plus more

Coal. It powered the Industrial Revolution, which began in Britain. So it was hugely symbolic this week when the UK became the first advanced economy to quit the black stuff. 

Ratcliffe-on-Soar, the country’s last remaining coal-fired power station (pictured), closed for good on Monday, with many employees staying on to decommission the Nottinghamshire plant – a job expected to take two years. 

Coal’s demise in the UK was rapid. In 2012, it generated 40% of the nation’s electricity, but climate policy quickly changed that. First came the EU’s carbon trading scheme, which forced power companies to buy credits if they wanted to emit carbon. Then came the UK’s carbon tax, introduced in 2013 and ruinous for coal. 

“Because coal is so polluting it became much more expensive to generate [electricity with] and just couldn’t compete with renewables,” Frankie Mayo, lead UK analyst at the energy thinktank Ember, told Positive News. “Interestingly, coal was replaced by wind and solar, not gas. It shows the speed at which this transition can happen.” 

The resultant falls in emissions have been massive, added Mayo. “Since 2012, UK power sector emissions have fallen by three quarters – that’s a huge reduction.”  

Image: Alan Murray-Rust

An Indigenous tribe that long campaigned for the right to their ancestral land scored an “historic” victory this week, as the Brazilian government recognised their territory.  

Sawré Muybu sits deep in the Amazon and is the ancestral land of the Munduruku people. The area has long been threatened by mining, logging, and infrastructure projects, but now looks safe after Brazil’s government finally recognised their claim to Sawré Muybu.  

Greenpeace described the move as an “historic and profoundly symbolic victory not only for the Munduruku, but for all Indigenous peoples of the Amazon and Brazil”.

The Munduruku self-demarcated their territory in 2014, placing signs at the borders and pushing invaders out. This inspired other Indigenous groups to do the same. 

In a statement, Indigenous leader Alessandra Munduruku (pictured), former winner of the Goldman environmental prize, said: “I am grateful to those who believed in our people’s struggle and our shamans’ power, who always told us to listen to the forest and our ancestors.”

Image: Goldman environmental prize

Clothing brands will have to “take responsibility for the entire lifecycle of their products” in California, US, thanks to new legislation signed into law at the weekend.

The Responsible Textile Recovery Act will oblige producers of clothing and fabric goods to fund programmes that collect, sort, redirect and recycle used textiles. Used clothes are the fastest growing waste stream in the country.

“By 2030, convenient drop-off locations for used textiles across the state will provide everyone with a free and simple way to be part of the solution,” said state senator Josh Newman, who introduced the bill. “[It] isn’t just about recycling; it’s about transforming the way we think about textile waste.”

Ikea is among the brands that have expressed support for the bill, which is the first of its kind in the US. 

Image: Cottonbro Studio

A turtle once on the verge of extinction has had a record breeding season on the Greek island Zakynthos, amid a wider resurgence across the Mediterranean. 

Some 2,350 Caretta caretta loggerhead turtle nests were recorded this summer in Zakynthos marine park, Greece’s first protected area. Similar increases have been recorded elsewhere in the Mediterranean, as well as in Cape Verde, where numbers have “soared”, according to researchers at Queen Mary University of London, England.  

Loggerhead turtles have been the subject of long-term conservation efforts, which include habitat protection, anti-poaching campaigns and improved monitoring.  

“There’s no doubt that… the increase in the Caretta caretta population is a nature-based reaction to all the conservation efforts of NGOs over the last few decades,” ecologist Nadia Andreanidou told the Guardian. “But now, more than ever, we need the support of the government to implement the laws we have pushed for if we are to build on the momentum and keep this extraordinary animal out of danger.”

Image: Dionysisa303

The world’s first ‘University of Dyslexic Thinking’ has launched online, offering participants the opportunity to understand how dyslexic thinking could help them. 

People with dyslexia have been found to have above average scores when it comes to communicating, connecting and imagining. The free online university aims to hone those skills – for both dyslexic and non-dyslexics. Hosted by Open University, it was launched by the charity Made By Dyslexia and Virgin, whose owner Richard Branson (pictured, right) is dyslexic. 

Citing research, Branson said that “the skills inherent to dyslexics are the most sought-after in every job, in every sector, globally”, and made the case for them becoming more in-demand in an increasingly AI-driven world. 

“The online course features many of the world’s greatest dyslexics talking about how dyslexic thinking skills have fuelled innovation and success, and the lessons we can gain from their experiences,” he said. “They’re the kind of lessons I wish I was taught in the classroom.”

Image: Virgin Media

Flies – they’re hardly close relatives of ours. But scientists behind research into their brains reckon it could shed new light on human thought. 

Despite being the size of a pinhead, fly brains have for the first time been comprehensively mapped by scientists, who explored more than 50m connections in their grey matter. It’s the most detailed analysis of an animal brain ever.

“The mapping of the fly brain is really remarkable and will help us get a real grasp of how our own brains work,” Dr Gregory Jefferis, of the Medical Research Council’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England, told the BBC. 

Dr Mala Murthy, another of the project’s co-leads, from Princeton University, US, said the research would be “transformative for neuroscientists”.

“It will help researchers trying to better understand how a healthy brain works. In the future we hope that it will be possible to compare what happens when things go wrong in our brains,” she said. 

Image: Robert Kresse

A London property where influential black thinkers – including Malcolm X (pictured) and Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya’s first president – lived has been commemorated with a blue plaque. 

The UK’s blue plaques identify properties where influential figures stayed. However, the scheme has faced criticism because less than 5% of London’s blue plaques celebrate people from minority backgrounds.

The plaque unveiled at 57 Castletown Road in Kensington, London, on Tuesday marked the launch of UK Black History Month, the theme of which this year is ‘reclaiming narratives’.

Jamaican activists Marcus and Amy Garvey, and Nigerian civil rights lawyer Ladipo Solanke also lived there. “Each of these individuals played a pivotal role in the fight for black civil rights, not only in their own countries but across the world,” Dr Jak Beula, founder of the Nubian Jak Community Trust, which organised the ceremony, told The Voice. 

Black History Month launched in the UK 1987. Events and discussions explore black history are set to take place across the country throughout October.

Image: Ed Ford

A charismatic weasel has returned to southern England for the first time in more than a century. 

Pine martens went extinct in the region due to poaching. Now they’re back after conservationists released 15 of the animals in Dartmoor national park, Devon. 

The reintroduction of the pine marten to southwest England was led by Devon Wildlife Trust, which will release more of the animals to Exmoor national park in 2025.

“These rare mammals need our help to return to their former homes in the southwest, but we also need their help to bring back the natural balance of wildlife to our woodlands,” said the trust’s Ed Parr Ferris.

Image: Devon Wildlife Trust

A sky-scraping financial centre might seem like an unlikely location for a rewilding project. But this week, London’s Canary Wharf was transformed into an “urban oasis”, with the aim of boosting biodiversity and worker wellbeing.

Constructed during the ‘greed is good eighties’, when deregulation unshackled London’s financial industry, Canary Wharf is the natural habitat of investment bankers, but also supports a range of wildlife, including wading birds, waterfowl and eels. 

The wharf’s biodiversity and location along the River Thames made it ripe for the Eden Dock initiative (pictured), which features floating islands and humanoid mossy sculptures.

“The iconic Canary Wharf is a great location in which to ground the lightning of innovation around enhancing biodiversity in an archetypal urban landscape,” said Sir Tim Smit, co-founder of the Eden Project, which led the initiative, 

“It is our belief that the varied surfaces, textures and environments found at Eden Dock will encourage a greater diversity of life than much of the open farmland in this country.”

Read more: Sir Tim Smit on what life has taught him

Image: Eden Dock

A new ‘poetry pharmacy’ is prescribing literary first aid along England’s most famous shopping street.  

The Poetry Pharmacy bookshop on London’s Oxford Street opened recently amid renewed interest in poetry, particularly among younger readers. 

To mark the UK’s national poetry day on Thursday, Positive News visited the shop, where readers flicked through verse over coffee and a dispensary dispatched “poetical remedies for the restoration of the self”. 

Read the full story here.

Image: Jonny Keeley
Main image: Ratcliffe on Soar power station. Credit: Chunyip Wong/iStock