Looking Around My Anxieties

Since the November election I have felt like a dust storm of anxieties has been hovering all about me.

Then, the time arrived to write a review of our past year, and that’s when I thought of Pig-Pen, the famous Peanuts character, who carries on despite the cloud of debris hanging about him. No matter where he goes the cloud goes with him. Still, he goes on.

I decided to seek out some of the good things that have happened over the past 12 months – and just ignore that cloud of anxieties surrounding me – mostly summed up as the incoming Trump administration, and carry on just like my hero, Pig-Pen.

By looking around the cloud I discovered that a whole lot of great things happened in 2016.

Just to boost your spirits, and mine too, here are 99 of them from qz.com.

The 99 best things that happened in 2016, from Ebola’s eradication in West Africa to saving the manatees

Our media feeds are echo chambers. And those echo chambers don’t just reflect our political beliefs: they reflect our feelings about human progress. Bad news can be a bubble too, so here’s some good stuff that also happened in 2016.

Some of the biggest conservation successes in generation
1. British Columbia protected 85% of one of the world’s largest temperate rainforests, home to the wonderfully named ‘Spirit Bear.’ Reuters
2. In February, Peru and Bolivia signed a $500 million deal to preserve Lake Titicaca. HNGN
3. In March, the US government abandoned its plan for oil and gas drilling in Atlantic waters, reversing its decision from a year ago. Guardian
4. After nearly 13 years of difficult negotiations, Malaysia established a 1 million hectare marine park that pioneers a mixed-use approach to marine conservation. Guardian
5. In 2016, more than 20 countries pledged more than $5.3 billion for ocean conservation and created 40 new marine sanctuaries covering an area of 3.4 million square km. Reuters
6. That included a new record holder for the world’s biggest marine reserve, off the coast of Antarctica. National Geographic
7. New research showed that acid pollution in the atmosphere is now almost back to the level that it was before it started with industrialisation in the 1930s. Science Bulletin
8. In 2012, the US and Mexico embarked on an unprecedented binational project to revive the Colorado River. By 2016, the results had astonished everyone. Audubon
9. In November, the Obama administration followed up its March announcements by banning offshore exploration and drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic until 2022. Politico

Huge strides forward for global health
10. The World Health Organisation released a report showing that, since the year 2000, global malaria deaths have declined by 60%. WHO
11. In 2016, some of the world’s biggest diseases, like colon cancer, dementia, and heart disease, started declining in wealthy countries. New York Times
12. A new study from the world’s leading health journal reported that the number of women dying from pregnancy and childbirth has almost halved since 1990. Guardian
13. Fresh evidence showed that public smoking bans have improved health in 21 nations. Wiley Blackwell
14. Uruguay won a major case against Philip Morris in a World Bank ruling, setting a precedent for other small countries that want to deter tobacco use. CS Monitor
15. Malawi achieved a 67% reduction in the number of children acquiring HIV, the biggest success story across all sub-Saharan nations. Since 2006, they’ve saved 260,000 lives. Al Jazeera
16. Child mortality rates came down by 12% in Russia. Article

Please go here for the rest of 99.