We’re starting the week at Squirrel News talking about the big drop in child mortality across Asia, the decline of air traffic accidents over the past two decades, and the hotel in Vienna that shows social impact and economic success can go hand in hand.
Child mortality rates drop in nine Asian countries
Thanks to improvements in and access to nutrition, clean water, sanitation, vaccinations, and general healthcare, nine Asian countries have seen the mortality rates of children under the age of five more than halve since 2000.
Air travel accidents are seeing a decline, despite media attention
Although a number of high-profile disasters might give the impression that planes are crashing more often, the data suggests otherwise: statistics released by the National Transportation Safety Board show a general fall in air accidents between 2005 to 2024.
Canada set to build North America’s largest solar plant
The solar farm is to be built on otherwise useless former industrial site in Medicine Hat, and has the potential to power a city of roughly 65,000 residents. The city has been chosen for a good reason: it experiences more days of sunlight in a year than any other Canadian city.
Denmark raises electric vehicle share to 64% of the new car market
New figures released by Norway suggest that the number of electric cars on Nordic roads is increasing across the region, with both Norway and Denmark reporting high sales figures for January.
Nigerian communities are taking Shell to court over oil spills
Shell and its Nigerian subsidiary SPDC are on the receiving end of a series of lawsuits filed by thousands of members of the Ogale and Bille communities, who see the oil conglomerate as responsible for extensive environmental damage in the Niger Delta.
The “Zucman taxâ€, called so after economist Gabriel Zucman, would impose a minimum tax on the richest 0.01% of France’s citizens. The 2% wealth tax would in theory generate between €15 and €25 billion per year, applying to roughly 4,000 people with assets of more than €100 million.
House prices plummet when council acts on second homes
The local authority in Gwynedd, north-west Wales, introduced a number of measures to tackle the issues of low housing stocks due to wealthy would-be homeowners buying multiple properties. Thanks to these new requirements – such as a 150% council premium and a lot of headache-inducing paperwork – house prices in the region have dropped by 12%.
Vienna’s refugee-run hotel is a model for social integrity
Magdas Hotel is thriving ten years after it opened in 2015, helping refugees integrate into the job market by offering employment and training. Magdas also launched three apprenticeship programmes for cooks, restaurant experts and hotel managers.
Fog harvesting could provide drinking water to the world’s driest cities
Researchers in Chile have been studying the potential of fog harvesting in the northern desert city of Alto Hospicio with promising results: 17,000 square metres of mesh could produce enough water to meet the weekly demand of 300,000 litres currently delivered by truck to urban slums.
From an environmental standpoint, golf courses are relatively detrimental: in the US, roughly 5.7 billion litres of water a day is used to irrigate golf courses, with runoff from pesticides used to maintain grass posing a threat to human health. Now, many sites are being returned to nature.
