by: Sydney Mathews
Let’s start with the obvious: 2020 was a massively disappointing year. As the ball dropped at midnight on December 31st in New York City, we all welcomed in the new decade with open arms, having no idea what we were getting ourselves into.
As the year bore on, it seemed to be getting harder and harder to find any redeeming events. However, 2020 hasn’t been all bad. Yes, a terrible plague struck all humankind, but finding silver linings is how we all made it through the year. Through our struggles, while it might be buried under all the underlying political news coverage, 2020 actually had some pretty amazing stories.
In March, just when 2020 was really beginning to take off, a group of dogs saved 45 Rhinos from poachers in South Africa. These dogs had been trained from birth to track down poachers alongside humans. The project is run by Southern African Wildlife College and Ivan Carter Wildlife Conservation Alliance.
Rhinos are an endangered species, with only a dwindling population of about 27,000 still alive today. Rhinos are a popular target for poachers because of their ivory tusks, which retail at a very high value. In the last decade, 9,442 African Rhinos have been lost to poaching. But thanks to the heroic efforts of these dogs and their humans, the Rhino population has begun an upward curve.
It isn’t always a bad thing when businesses run out of stock. With retail sales plummeting by 16.4% in the first month of the pandemic, this was beginning to become a rarity. However, there was one business that couldn’t manage to keep their inventory stocked: Animal shelters.
Due to all of us staying at home with little to no social interaction, more and more people are beginning to opt for animals for company. For the duration of this pandemic, animal shelters have been more empty than ever.
In a survey taken across New York Animal Shelters, adoption rates have skyrocketed 24% from this year over the same time last year. It turns out that the stay-at-home order wasn’t such a bad thing for our animals.
With animal endangerment more serious than ever, approximately 1.5 million animals out on the streets, and carbon emissions becoming more serious than ever, the stay-at-home order might have been just what the environment needed.
Carbon emission dropped nearly 2.4% billion tons, or roughly 7% in 2020, due to fewer people driving. Those emissions are expected to drop even further with continued experiments and restrictions on eco friendly and low emission transportation research.
Five months and 30 days into the year, efforts between American space agencies launched the first reusable, low emission American-made rocket into space since 2011, after years of dependency on Russian technology.
With life on Earth leaving a lot to be desired, American Space Exploration companies banded together in a historic project to construct a reusable rocket to carry two astronauts to the stars.
The reusable rocket sent two astronauts on a trip to the International Space Station, and returned safely. New reusable rockets have the potential to open many new opportunities for more cost-efficient space travel.
One thing that we can all try to do is to see the good even in the worst times, even though 2020 might have been a little harder to do that then most years. It’s always OK not to be OK, but even in our darkest times, there is always something positive to find.
Out of quarantine came more bonus time with family, more time to be creative, and more time to explore our inner selves. We can all say that we successfully conquered 2020 together.
