Eddy's Good News: An underground volcano and the guardian of the worlds smallest penguins!

Virgin Radio

26 May 2023, 10:16

Every day during his show on Virgin Radio, Eddy Temple-Morris brings you Good News stories from around the world, to help inject a bit of positivity into your day!Be sure to listen each day between 10am and 1pm (Monday - Friday) to hear Eddy's Good News stories (amongst the finest music of course), but if you miss any of them you can catch up on the transcripts of Eddy's most recent stories below:

Friday 26th May 2023

Encouraging news from Portugal where scientists have discovered an underground volcano that can store gigatons of CO2!

Say bon dia to “in situ mineral carbonization,” where CO2 is pulled out of the air and pumped deep underground where it’s stored forever. The way it works is that once in the depths of this extinct volcano, the calcium, magnesium, and iron present react to the incoming carbon dioxide to form calcite, dolomite, and magnesite, trapping the CO2 forever in a rocky prison. Simple, brilliant and really effective. This particular inactive volcano could potentially hold onto 1.2-8.6 gigatons of carbon dioxide, that’s the equivalent of 24-125 years of the Portugal’s  industrial emissions. This gives us hope that other extinct volcanoes can be used in a similar way all over the world, so the sequestration potential is a game changer.

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

A news pupdate from down under now as the world’s smallest penguin is saved by one of the world’s bigger dogs!

Say g’day to Middle Island, just off the coast of Warrnambool, the only place in the world that The Little Penguin calls home. As its name suggests, this little cutie is just 35cm tall and this being the only place they breed meant they have been in terrible danger of becoming extinct because of invasive foxes.

So a local man with no conservation experience had a brilliant idea. He raises chickens and knows the best way to protect them is with a guard animal. Some people are using alpacas these days, but it’s more traditional, certainly in Italy, to use the big, goofy, giant labrador retriever looking doggos called Pastori Maremma-Abruzzesi, who have been used for centuries to guard flocks.

They can smell foxes before they’re even close and the resulting huge bassy woof scares the foxes away. So they got a pair of these wonderful woofers to guard the penguins and the results have been immediate. No penguins lost since the doggos have been their guardian angels.

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org