Good News | More people surviving cancer than ever and positive feedback on the four-day work week

This week’s positive headlines bring good news about the ozone layer, which has made substantial recovery in what is being hailed as a ‘significant milestone’; there is – quite literally – light at the end of the tunnel for the energy crises in Europe with an underwater cable that will stretch over 1,000km to bring 'green energy' from Egypt; good news from the huge four-day working week trial that started in the UK earlier this year; more people are surviving cancer than ever before, and the fishing of sea turtles has sharply dropped in the last decade.

1. The ozone layer is recovering

It was back in the 1980s that scientists first discovered that man-made chemicals were damaging the ozone layer with disastrous effects. We were then warned that a vast hole was opening up over Antarctica every year, from August to December, thanks to complex meteorological and chemical processes.

Seven years later, the Montreal Protocol was signed to try and curb the number of harmful chemicals in the atmosphere.

A few decades have passed, and new research from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the US has found that concentrations of harmful chemicals that damage the ozone layer have dropped. Concentrations of these chemicals over Antarctica are also dropping – at a slower rate – but still dropping.

Scientists at the NOAA say it is a “significant milestone” on the path to recovery. And they think the hole in the Antarctic ozone layer could eventually recover sometime around 2070.

My colleague Rosie Frost has the whole story. Read it here.

2. An underwater cable will bring 'green energy' from Egypt to Europe's electricity grid

A 1,373km underwater cable will bring 'green energy' from Egypt to Europe's electricity grid,