The Progress Network

We are currently living in a time filled with negativity. With constant exposure to grim news and the challenges of a post-COVID world, it’s easy to feel like we are on the brink of disaster. The narrative of chaos and failure is well-supported by information that’s widely available, and it doesn’t take much to find evidence for this viewpoint. However, what if that narrative isn’t the whole truth? There are equally valid ideas and evidence that suggest a more hopeful outcome, though they often go unheard. The Progress Network seeks to elevate and share these optimistic perspectives, offering a vision for a stable and sustainable future. Our contributors come from various sectors, including business, technology, journalism, and politics, but they all share a common belief: that human creativity and our ability to work together for the greater good are ultimately stronger than the negative forces at play.

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What Could Go Right?

1 week ago | theprogressnetwork.org | Emma Varvaloucas

This is our weekly newsletter, What Could Go Right? Sign up here to receive it in your inbox every Thursday at 5am ET. You can read past issues here. Dear WCGR? readers: Our newsletter team is off today in recognition of Juneteenth. Below, we reprint an article by science journalist Nicola Jones, originally published by Yale Environment 360, about how AI is transforming weather prediction systems.
The First Treaty to Protect International Waters

2 weeks ago | theprogressnetwork.org | Emma Varvaloucas

This is our weekly newsletter, What Could Go Right? Sign up here to receive it in your inbox every Thursday at 5am ET. You can read past issues here. In a satirical social media video, an alien spaceship parks above the Earth. It sits there, hovering, for six months, while the planet below devolves into World War III—a fight over which country will send an ambassador to meet with the aliens.
How to End Extreme Poverty

3 weeks ago | theprogressnetwork.org | Emma Varvaloucas

This is our weekly newsletter, What Could Go Right? Sign up here to receive it in your inbox every Thursday at 5am ET. You can read past issues here. One of the first facts you learn when you get into the progress “movement” or “community” is just how much extreme poverty, generally considered as living on less than $2.15 per day, has fallen in recent history: from 44 percent of the global population in 1981 to 9 percent in 2019. Cool, fantastic, great. But how does that actually occur?
What Could Go Right?

1 month ago | theprogressnetwork.org | Emma Varvaloucas

This is our weekly newsletter, What Could Go Right? Sign up here to receive it in your inbox every Thursday at 5am ET. You can read past issues here. When I say that child marriage is still legal in most American states, do you ask whether that means a minor marrying an adult, or two star-crossed 17-year-olds marrying each other? It means both, and that’s the rub.
2025’s Big Crime Drop

1 month ago | theprogressnetwork.org | Emma Varvaloucas

This is our weekly newsletter, What Could Go Right? Sign up here to receive it in your inbox every Thursday at 5am ET. You can read past issues here. That the media covers crime’s ascent but not its descent is at this point a truism. It does bring with it a real risk, however—that the bubble of public fear, once it has swelled, will never pop. Let me pop it for you now. So far, 2025 is shaping up to be the most nonviolent year in recent memory, and in some cases, on record, in the United States.
What Could Go Right? - The Pope Effect

1 month ago | theprogressnetwork.org | Emma Varvaloucas

This is our weekly newsletter, What Could Go Right? Sign up here to receive it in your inbox every Thursday at 5am ET. You can read past issues here. On Monday, Dylan Page, who with over 15 million followers runs TikTok’s second-largest news account (the British tabloid The Daily Mail runs the largest) posted a video covering the “pope effect.” Following the election of Cardinal Robert Prevost to Pope Leo XIV, conflict hotspots all over the world took some surprising steps toward peace.
Buried by a Volcano, Read by AI

1 month ago | theprogressnetwork.org | Emma Varvaloucas

This is our weekly newsletter, What Could Go Right? Sign up here to receive it in your inbox every Thursday at 5am ET. You can read past issues here. About 2,000 years ago, the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus sat down to record his thoughts on a group of vices that are no less pertinent today: flattery, arrogance, greed, and slander. These musings eventually became a multi-volume set of at least ten books together referred to as On Vices.
The Electric Bus Revolution

2 months ago | theprogressnetwork.org | Emma Varvaloucas

This is our weekly newsletter, What Could Go Right? Sign up here to receive it in your inbox every Thursday at 5am ET. You can read past issues here. There is nothing like experiencing climate solutions firsthand to convince you that the transition is worth it. I’m currently spending a few months in the Netherlands, one of the European leaders for bus electrification. Here, along with Finland and Iceland, all new urban buses are electric.
Is Donald Trump Serious About a Third Term?

2 months ago | theprogressnetwork.org | Emma Varvaloucas

This is our weekly newsletter, What Could Go Right? Sign up here to receive it in your inbox every Thursday at 5am ET. You can read past issues here. Dear WCGR? readers: Today we are republishing a piece from our friends at The Dispatch, by senior editor Michael Warren, previously a reporter for CNN. Is Donald Trump serious about running for a third term? Trump himself may not even know.
What Could Go Right? - Ghost Gun Kits Will Still Be Regulated—for Now

2 months ago | theprogressnetwork.org | Emma Varvaloucas

This is our weekly newsletter, What Could Go Right? Sign up here to receive it in your inbox every Thursday at 5am ET. You can read past issues here. Last week, the Supreme Court found a gun regulation they could get behind: a Biden-era rule that subjected ghost gun kits to the same purchasing requirements as ordinary firearms, such as a serial number, background check, age verification, and sales tracking. The 7-2 decision in Bondi v.