Today’s good news story comes from the Good News Network.

The Number of Fish on US Overfishing List Reaches an All-Time Low Led by Mackerel and Snapper

According to a recent federal report, the US seafood industry has never been more sustainable, with the fewest overharvested fish stocks ever recorded.

The report, ‘Status of the Stocks,’ was published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It also shows the strength of an industry worth $8 billion a year.

According to the report, 94% of fish stocks in US oceanic and Gulf waters are not being overfished, an all-time high after the number climbed slightly from last year.

NOAA keeps a list of all the fisheries in the country that are subject to overfishing, and the agency said it has recently removed several species: the Gulf of Maine and Cape Hatteras stocks of Atlantic mackerel and the Gulf of Mexico stocks of Cubera snapper.

2022 saw the removal of the Atlantic Coast bluefish and a Washington Coast stock of coho salmon.

“By ending overfishing and rebuilding stocks, we are strengthening the value of U.S. fisheries to the economy, our communities, and marine ecosystems,” said Rick Spinrad, NOAA’s administrator.

GNN recently reported that after decades of overfishing in the northwest Atlantic Ocean, hake fisheries off the coast of Spain are as large as ever thanks to timely and targeted conservation measures.

Additionally, Maine’s Penobscot River recently saw record numbers of Atlantic salmon returning to spawn, but the real trendsetters that far north have been blueback river herring and alewives, which entered the Penobscot in numbers that more than double the previous record.

The good news in this story is that by working together the fishing industry is helping to sustain itself for many years to come. Today’s JohnKu talks about human endeavor. I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Hard Work by John W. Howell © 2024

Building back resource,

Is very hard work indeed . . .

Conservation – easy.

Today’s good news story comes from the Good News Network.

To be a drug-sniffing dog, you have to be impassionate, which is exactly what this golden retriever was not.

Though Roger flunked out of the Kaohsiung City police academy in Taiwan, his career in public service was not over. He has now captured the hearts of his people with his rescue efforts during Taiwan’s recent earthquake.

Striking the northern part of the island with a magnitude of 7.4, it caused a landslide in a popular national park that destroyed several buildings and claimed a dozen victims.

8-year-old Roger was quickly deployed to the area, where his exuberance and independent streak put him in good stead for locating the body of a 21-year-old victim who hadn’t been found.

Whether Chen Chih-san, captain of the rescue dog unit of the Kaohsiung Fire Department, has other dogs that assisted in the rescue efforts, only Roger captured the island nation’s hearts because of his earlier career setback and subsequent redemption arc.

“I’m not saying he was not good or that he didn’t get along with others. But the requirement for narcotic detection dogs is that they can’t be too restless and independent,” Chen said. “But (these attributes) are what we want in rescue dogs.”

These attributes were perfectly on show when he lunged for the reporter’s microphone as his handler was being interviewed by Taiwan’s official Central News Agency.

Having participated in 7 rescue organizations throughout his career, which included his being certified by the International Rescue Dog Organization in 2022, an accolade last achieved by a Taiwanese rescue dog in 2019, Roger’s retirement is fast approaching.

CNN reports that he will have a wonderful home suitable for an active, precocious dog like him. However, before he puts his paws up for his golden years, one family will have the closure of laying a loved one to rest because of his excellent nose and personality.

The good news in this story is that just because a body is not best equipped for one job doesn’t mean all jobs are out of reach. Today’s JohnKu talks about careers. I hope you have a great weekend.

Careers by John W. Howell ©2024

One job may not work,

But giving up on the rest . . .

May be a mistake.

Today’s good news comes from the Good News Network.

Two firms in Boston have just laid the foundations of a large building using a zero-carbon cement mixture made in the USA. This represents one of the first real-world real-world adoptions of this technology.

Many companies are testing or subsidizing low- or zero-carbonrbon cement and concrete to reduce their carbon footprint, but few are yet using it liberally to build real structures.

Manufactured by Sublime Systems, which was just named to Fast Company Magazine’s Most Innovative Companies in Sustainability for 2024, the firm uses an electrochemical process to create the cement for ready-mix products.

At the heart of traditional Portland and other kinds of cement is its heating in a kiln, wherein calcium carbonate reacts with silica-bearing minerals to form a mixture of calcium silicates. Over a billion tonnes of cement are made annually, and cement kilns are the heart of this production process. According to The Economist, they heat the mixture to over 1,300°C and produce around 5% of all made-made carbon emissions worldwide.

By eliminating the kiln altogether, Sublime Systems has removed most emissions from the process.

Best of all, it’s currently being used in the Greater Boston Area. Boston Sand & Gravel is supplying Turner Construction Co. with ready-mix cement containing Sublime Systems’ product to form the mud mat of a large building.

“It’s going to be in that building for decades to come,” Sublime Systems’ CEO, Leah Ellis, told Engineering News Record.

“It really was the culmination of a lot of effort to see it not just being done for testing’s sake, but actually, replacing cement that would otherwise have been the carbon-intensive variety.”

Along with reducing the carbon emissions budget of that new building, the construction has validated that several critical targets of Sublime Systems’ product have been met: the product was transported to the site in a ready-mix concrete truck like normal, maintained malleability during transit, was poured out of the concrete truck and into a hose, and the hose was able to deliver it to the setting where it stuck and hardened—all exactly like traditional cement.

“In the grand scheme of things, it was, really, very boring for construction,” David Robb, a Turner estimator and the preconstruction manager on the Boston-area project, told ENR. “But a huge step in terms of our embodied carbon reduction goals that we’re striving toward in the future here at Turner.”

Government money, as well as private investment, has been pouring into Sublime Systems’ which seems poised to lead a great revolution in cement by building its first full-scale, dedicated manufacturing facility in Holyoke, Mass.

The good news in this article is that 5% of worldwide carbon emissions have the potential tto be reduced to zero without sacrificing the quality of construction projects. Today’s JohnKu talks about obscure carbon footprints. I hope you have a lovely weekend.

Concrete by John W.Howell © 2024

Who would have thought that,

The concrete process would yield . . .

Large carbon savings

Wishing you all a peaceful Good Friday

Today’s good news comes from the Good News Network

A community on the Loire in France has come up with a solar-powered idea that will clear two hurdles in a single leap.

The town of Saint-Joachim is located near the Brière marsh, a peat bog that becomes easily inundated with water. The local graveyard rests at 0 feet above sea level, and standing water has become a major problem.

The mayor eventually proposed covering the graveyard to divert the rainwater into catch tanks to water the grass around the cemetery and nearby sporting complex in the dry summer months.

Solar panels—clear, see-through ones, were also proposed for the otherwise basic overhead covering, with each resident receiving a letter explaining the proposal and asking for their opinion on the idea.

97% of Saint-Joachim’s residents liked the concept, and a power-sharing scheme was quickly determined whereby each resident would pay €5.00 for a share of the power generated there, which might be enough to supply around 1,000 people with enough solar power to save a couple hundred euro every year on their electric bills.

The power company in charge of the project designed an algorithm that gathers data on energy usage and determines how much each home needs to meet a fixed percentile of its overall consumption. That way, everyone, from a supermarket to the hairdresser to a single-family home, receives the same energy savings from the cemetery solar power.

The municipality will fully finance the €3.35 million ($3.6 million), 1.2-acre installation using a 7% property tax increase.

“I think it is a beautiful idea,” Éric Broquaire, a local resident and president of Brier’energie, told Euronews. “The purpose was to make it simple, to avoid someone saying, ‘Why don’t I have electricity for free?’ Everybody, even companies, will have the same level.”

The good news in this article is that a community has figured out not only a new source of energy but also a way to distribute it to the residents on a fair basis. Today’s JohnKu talks about fairness. I’m wishing you all a peaceful Easter weekend.

Fairness by John W. Howell © 2024

The distribution,

Of a scarce commodity . . .

Needs fairness also.

Today’s good news story comes from the Good News Network.

Ask most people around the country about the number of bookstores in their town over the last twenty years, and the answer will almost inevitably be that it’s gone down. However, the new Barnes & Noble in Papillion, Nebraska, is no anomaly—corporate bookstores are returning.

The new Nebraska location is part of a slate of openings envisioned to reach as high as 50 to 60 this year alone. These openings will follow up on the 31 openings from last year and match the booming book sales born during the pandemic and carried on into the post-pandemic world.

But the great news is that economic reports suggest that more than just corporate bookstores are flourishing; as the US book sales market continues to grow and diversify, the majority of the retail book market is controlled by small stores.

Yet further, this trend isn’t limited to the US but continues around the world, with 50% of all retail book sales, whether in Germany, India, or Nebraska, coming from the proverbial Shop Around the Corner.

“It’s so exciting,” said Janine Flanigan, Senior Director of Store Planning and Design with Barnes & Noble, when interviewed about the Papillion store opening. “We came to a screeching halt in terms of opening stores. We hadn’t opened stores in a very long period of time.”

Flanigan says the same thing about bookstores as Grand View Research, whose data were quoted above—that communities use bookstores as a gathering place to talk, meet, interact, and hold events.

“We opened 31 stores which is actually more stores than we opened in the past 10 years combined,” Flanigan told WOWT News 6, Omaha. “This year we’re looking to open somewhere between 50-60 new stores.”

While digital and technological forms of media such as eBooks, audiobooks, and long-form podcasts continue to grow at the highest paces, the physical book, bought in a physical store, has never lost its luster and continues to represent the largest chunk of book purchases nationwide.

The good news in this article is that we who write books should be glad to hear about the expansion of bookstores and that independent stores still hold the majority of book sales. Today’s JohnKu discusses readers. I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Readers by John W. Howell © 2024

Chain stores expanding,

Is excellent news for us . . .

It means more readers.

Today’s good news story is from the Good News Network.

Full Recovery for Coral Reef Within 4 Years–The Speed of Restoration They Saw was ‘Incredible’

In a truly monumental discovery, scientists studying coral restoration in Indonesia found that artificially restored coral reefs can regrow as fast as naturally occurring reefs just 4 years after the initial transplantation.

With many reefs around the world believed to be threatened by stronger storms and acidic seas, the finding shows that as long as corals can survive in the water, humans can quickly rebuild reefs that are damaged.

The study was conducted at the Mars Coral Reef Restoration Program in South Sulawesi, Indonesia, one of the largest restoration projects in the world, and included an international team of marine biologists. The site was turned from a colorful reef to rubble 30 to 40 years ago from dynamite fishing.

At the project site, “reef stars” are first affixed to the seafloor. These small, recycled metal scaffolds provide a foundation for the coral larvae to glom onto and begin building their hard bodies.

“Corals constantly add calcium carbonate to the reef framework while some fishes and sea urchins erode it away, so calculating the overall carbonate budget basically tells you if the reef as a whole is growing or shrinking,” says Ines Lange of the University of Exeter, UK.

“Positive reef growth is important to keep up with sea-level rise, protect coastlines from storms and erosion, and provide habitat for reef animals.”

Four years after coral transplantation onto the metal reef stars, net carbonate budgets have tripled and are indistinguishable from healthy control sites. The only drawback is that because branching coral is preferred for reef restoration, the overall species diversity is lower in restored reefs than in natural ones.

“The speed of recovery that we saw was incredible,” said Lange. “We did not expect a full recovery of reef framework production after only four years.”

The carbonate budget method of calculating reef restoration has never been used before, and the team believes it offers a simple, surefire way to assess whether a reef is growing, static, or in decline.

Tim Lamont, a study co-author at the Lancaster University Environment Center, UK, said that while a longer-term assessment of restored reefs is needed to fully understand its capability, the success at Mars shows that if humanity can stabilize the climate, we have the tools to undo some of the damage that climate change has wrought on coral reefs.

The good news in Today’s story is that even fully destroyed coral reefs can be regrown. Today’s JohnKu talks about humankind’s responsibility to repair damage caused by human behavior. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Step Up by John W. Howell © 2024

Humans devastate,

Fixing the devastation . . .

Is human duty.

Today’s good news comes from the Good News Network.

NASA’s Crew-8 spacecraft recently docked with the International Space Station on its mission to deposit three US astronauts for a sixth-month stay. Their arrival was recorded with a video of a pile-on group hug in microgravity.

Yet there was another passenger on board—Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin.

It isn’t editorializing to say that US-Russia relations are the worst they’ve been since the worst days of the Cold War. Yet despite their differences, there’s one long and grand tradition they have always shared: peaceful cooperation and coexistence in space.

In the video, thrilled that their colleagues made it to the ISS safely, and thrilled, one would imagine, with the mere presence of new faces, Crew-8 mission commander Matthew Dominic is mobbed by NASA Crew-7 mission commander Jasmin Moghbeli and Soyuz-24 mission flight engineer Marina Vasilevskaya.

The three astronauts’ group hug begins to float toward the ceiling when Dominic realizes just in time that they will all get a nasty bump on their heads if he doesn’t stop them.

Dominic then moves to greet Soyuz-24 mission commander Oleg Kononenko while the rest of his crew follow behind, hugging those wearing the red, white, and blue and the white, blue, and red.

NASA astronauts Dominick, Michael Barratt, and Jeanette Epps arrived in the Crew capsule Endeavor with Grebenkin for a six-month stay to relieve the Crew-7 mission team that arrived in the Crew Dragon spacecraft Endurance. 

The mission was the fifth flight for the Endurance, and is the first SpaceX Crew Dragon to reach that milestone. Currently, the craft is rated for a maximum of five flights, but Space News reports that the company has sat down with NASA to study extending that certification to as many as 15 flights based on performance.

Astronauts have a unique way of seeing the world, figuratively and literally. Looking down on our home from low-Earth orbit day after day, they realize (and they all say they do) that space is an incredibly harsh environment, and everything we humans have and need is concentrated on this single planet with no alternative.

The video shows what they think of the current tensions in US-Russia relations, and perhaps we should all take a leaf out of their book.©

The good news in this article is that humans with a common goal can accomplish much, regardless of their differences.  Today’s John Ku talks about cooperation. I hope you have a beautiful weekend.

Together by John W. Howell © 2024

Separately, work’s hard,

But together makes a job . . .

Easier to do.

WATCH the micrograv group hug below…