Positive News Of The Week

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The Weekend Positive News Roundup:

1. There Was Some Good News For The Amazon

People living in the Brazilian Amazon can breathe a little easier this week after the country’s supreme court ruled to revive the Amazon Fund.

The finance initiative allows rich countries to fund efforts to halt deforestation. It launched in 2008 but was frozen in 2019 after president Jair Bolsonaro changed its structure and diluted environmental protections. Tree loss has soared under his presidency.

Following Bolsonaro’s defeat in last weekend’s election, the country’s supreme court has voted to reactivate the fund. The incoming government, which has pledged to eliminate deforestation, has until January 2023 to return it to its original operating structure.

Unfreezing the fund will provide conservation bodies with access to the estimated $500m (£439m) that is currently sitting in the fund.

2. EU emissions are shrinking again, a study suggested

The EU’s carbon emissions from energy use shrank by 5 percent over the last three months, ending a 16-month emissions surge that began during the pandemic.

That’s according to an analysis by Carbon Brief, a London-based climate reporting website. It suggests that demand for fossil fuels is falling in the bloc, despite some countries temporarily turning to coal during the energy crisis. It said that high oil and gas prices and the rollout of renewables were driving the decline.

“The new analysis shows the energy crisis is already starting to push down EU emissions,” said Carbon Brief. “The response from markets and governments suggests this trend is likely to accelerate.”

It needs to. Emissions cuts of 45 percent are needed by 2030 to keep the Paris agreement alive, says the UN, which recently warned that we are a long way off meeting that target.

3. Mindfulness Program Shown to Be as Effective as Antidepressant Drug for Treating Anxiety Disorders

A guided mindfulness-based stress reduction program was as effective as using ‘the gold-standard antidepressant drug—escitalopram—for patients with anxiety disorders, according to a first-of-its-kind, randomized clinical trial from Georgetown University Medical Center.

The clinicians recruited 276 patients between June 2018 and February 2020 from three hospitals in Boston, New York City, and Washington, D.C., randomly assigned people to either MBSR or the common antidepressant drug escitalopram. MBSR was offered weekly for eight weeks via 2 1/2-hour in-person classes, a daylong retreat weekend class during the 5th or 6th week, and 45-minute daily home practice exercises.

Patients' anxiety symptoms were assessed upon enrollment and again at the completion of the intervention at eight weeks, along with post-treatment assessments at 12 and 24 weeks after enrollment—and the evaluators did not know which group the patients were in.

At the end of the trial, 102 patients had completed MBSR and 106 had completed their medication course. The patients had a mean age of 33 and included 156 women, who comprised 75% of the enrollees, mirroring the disease prevalence in the U.S.

Both groups saw a reduction in their anxiety symptoms (a 1.35 point average reduction for MBSR and 1.43 point reduction for the drug, which is a statistically equivalent outcome), dropping from a mean of about 4.5 for both, which translates to a significant 30% drop in the severity of peoples’ anxiety.

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🪷 WEEKEND MEDITATION

We really wanted to share this natural relaxation music. It's great for your weekend meditation

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