What if our headlines read "Fantastic New Development for Maybe Saving the Planet" or maybe less negative,"Fantastic New Development in Fertilizer Production". Heck, I`m no headline creator. BUT I can't believe that at least the media can't seem to do anything but spout gloom and doom about our planet's future. Even positive news usually is followed by BUTS. There are mountains of developments that could add good jobs, make money (for some) and help save the planet, or at least some of it.
Of course there's an elephant in the room. Discussing developments leads to discussing money to discussing capitalism to discussing governments possibly on the march to socialism, etc. Well, that shouldn't stop the developments, but clearly this all has to be addressed. I'm not going to get into a long, discursive, argumentative post right now, though I probably will address this stuff as I go along. Here I will say I really really think we have to get out of the capitalism vs government, free markets vs socialism trap. There was no capitalism, no free markets, no socialism, no communism, or at least nothing with those names until the 19th century. For thousand of years! We now live in an era different from the era that gave birth to those systems. Surely we can come up with some new ideas. Current systems are tied to the idea of economic growth as the dominant force. What we need is to start with needs of humans, animals, plants: the planet. Boy, what a world of ideas that opens up!
Anyway, as a baby step. I post here a link to an easy to read if longish article on developments in the use of human pee (yes, urine) for fertilizer, for reduction of some pollutants, including improvement of air quality, etc. etc. This is dramatic, folks: read about it here: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00338-6