Positive Corner

➡️↗️⬆️TOWARDS THE ω -DIMENSION OF LEADERSHIP Uruguay demonstrates that a small nation can have a major impact and thus serve as a model for the development of other countries: In around two decades, the country has almost entirely switched its electricity supply to renewable energy. In a recent post, the World Economic Forum (WEF) highlights that Uruguay has transitioned its grid to clean energy in 20 years (ref. https://www.weforum.org/videos/uruguay-switched-its-grid-to-cle

➡️↗️⬆️TOWARDS THE ω -DIMENSION OF LEADERSHIP Over the past two decades, billions of people worldwide have gained access to electricity for the first time – a quiet but significant advance that is fundamentally changing our understanding of global development. ref. https://ourworldindata.org/number-without-electricity A different perspective on energy and development Twenty-five years ago, depending on the source, approximately 1.5 to 2 billion people lived without electricity

➡️↗️⬆️TOWARDS THE ω-DIMENSION OF LEADERSHIP The data from the Human Rights Index show that, despite setbacks, the protection of fundamental human rights worldwide has improved significantly in recent decades – an encouraging finding for all those working towards humane forms of coexistence and governance. A worthwhile look at 50 years of progress Those who only follow the daily headlines could easily overlook how much the living conditions of many people have improved since t

➡️↗️⬆️TOWARDS THE ω-DIMENSION OF LEADERSHIP A large-scale, scientific research in Austria, Switzerland, Italy, and Germany: Through their local schools, young people in these countries were offered the opportunity to voluntarily abstain from using their mobile phones completely or partially for three weeks and, if they wished, to participate in a scientific study that aimed to measure the effects on their physical and mental health. The high participation rate among the young

➡️↗️⬆️TOWARDS THE ω-DIMENSION OF LEADERSHIP A number of previous posts in the POSITIVE CORNER have already highlighted the far-reaching successes of cooperation between countries and internationally networked actors for the global common good. These successes do not happen by chance. The ability and willingness to cooperate is a profoundly human and social phenomenon. If scientific evidence is required to support this, a very well-founded study has recently been published in

Following the POSITIVE CORNER #14 report that the tropical rainforest is recovering significantly better than expected, there are also other signs that the efforts to protect the global ecosphere, some of which have been ongoing for decades, are coming into effect. Further, more recent, hopeful examples: A recent study from the renowned Tulane University shows that after decades of global decline in mangrove forests, the trend has reversed since the 2010s, and the area lost s

How can we make the right decisions to solve global problems when even highly educated people often get their assessments of the situation very far and systematically wrong? This was one of the core ideas of the Swedish researcher Hans Rosling, who began conducting scientific research over 20 years ago into the extent of our systematic misconceptions about the state of the world. The regular studies he initiated repeatedly show that even monkeys, when making a random selectio

...than we thought - luckily for us! The renowned science journal Nature reports on the promising results of an international research team. For the first time, researchers have demonstrated in a large-scale study that once-cleared rainforest recovers significantly more robustly and effectively than we may have feared. If previously agricultural land within the rainforest is left to its own devices, flora and fauna recover remarkably well – even without costly interventions.

It is a widely used claim the chinese word for crisis is a combination of the chinese sign for danger and the sign for chance. While this does not seem to be exactly the case (ref. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_word_for_crisis) it seems appropriate to interpret the chinese word as associated with "turning point". The current increases in fossil fuel prices are but one indicator of the crisis our respective energy supply systems are suffering from, However, there are s

We may think plastic waste in our oceans is mainly floating at the surface. A much bigger problem, however, seems to be the waste that sinks down to the ocean floor. If not removed, it stays there for a long time, gradually becoming microplastic that invades our food chain and that can hardly be removed at this state any more. The EU has launched the "Restore our Oceans & Water" mission which has brought together 13 highly renowned universities and tech leaders from 9 countri

Three 16-year-olds from India are among the 7 winners of The Earth Prize 2026 representing the regions of North America, Africa, Asia, Central and South America, Oceania and Southeast Asia, Europe and the Middle East, one of the being announced each day of this week. The Asian Winners invented “Plas-Stick,” a simple, low-cost powder made from waste tamarind seeds that pulls invisible microplastics out of drinking water so they can be removed with a small magnet. Designed for

In the 1980s, the ozone hole came to symbolise an environmental problem that had spiralled out of control: satellite images showed a dramatically thinned ozone layer over Antarctica, the media ran headlines such as ‘Mortal danger in a can’, and the term CFCs became a global warning signal. Today, four decades later, the same monitoring programmes tell a different story: the ozone layer is recovering – slowly, but measurably. This positive news is no coincidence, but the resul

This 10th POSITIVE CORNER post (#0 - #9) is dedicated to 10 emerging technologies which have great potential in preserving or even restoring planetary health. While the massive distribution of certain technologies throughout the process of global industrialization (e.g. car mobility and energy supply based on fossil fuels) has led to mankind facing severe future challenges, smart and joint application of new technologies might as well be part of the remedy. Explore the recent

There is much to explore on the positive side of the news! So in today's POSITIVE CORNER post I provide a curated list of a dozen of such current news. Please help yourself: Renewables overtake fossil fuels as global energy source in 2025 https://www.euronews.com/2026/04/21/important-threshold-crossed-as-renewables-meet-worlds-energy-demands-and-fossil-power-drop Battery costs have declined by 99% in the last three decades, making electrified transport a reality - Batteries

The international community has reached an important global milestone, with 10.01 per cent of the ocean now officially designated within protected and conserved areas. [...] In 2024, current records show that 8.6 per cent of ocean and coastal areas globally were within documented protected and conserved areas. Over the past two years the world has protected about 5 million square kilometres of ocean, an area bigger than the European Union. Source: https://www.unep-wcmc.org/en

​More people than ever are held by an invisible safety net of social protection. Over the last decade, low- and middle-income countries have expanded cash transfers, pensions, and labor programs to reach 4.7 billion people – a historic high. These systems help families weather crises, escape poverty, and seize new opportunities, turning short-term support into long-term resilience. ​ source: https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/socialprotection/publication/state-of-social-prote

In recent years, large global studies have confirmed that even sizeable changes in GDP and life expectancy would only shift average life satisfaction of people in many countries by up to about 10%. In contrast, realistic changes in social factors such as freedom, mutual social support, meaningful work and giving could improve global well-being by 30 %. For human-felt wealth and well-being the greatest opportunities and risks lie in the domain of "social fabric” rather than in

For a long time, it was taken for granted that a nation's economic development and prosperity were inextricably linked to an increase in climate-damaging emissions. The simple formula seemed to be: growth = emissions. At the beginning of the 1990s, however, a number of countries began to reverse this traditional economic logic. A number of highly industrialised countries, which were among those with the highest per capita emissions precisely because of this, have since achiev

Did you know of Europeade? It is a five day celebration of 5,000 people involved in folk dance and music from 30+ countries in Europe. Since more than 60 years every summer several hundred folk dance and music groups meet for 5 days in a new city in Europe, old friends and new groups together - groups from Finland to Cyprus and from Portugal to Armenia. They show their dances in displays in large arenas and in the streets of the city, and hold a ball, a parade, and an oecumen

Policy making is an art. And it seems a key to this art is to strengthen self-regulation rather than using external force. Renowned systems thinkers have often pointed to this. Buckminster Fuller, for instance, phrased it as "Don't fight forces, use them." With regard to the management of corporate culture Peter Drucker put it as "Don't change culture, use it!". Frederic Vester, pioneer of systems methodology and author of the well acclaimed report to the Club of Rome "The Ar