The Upside salutes the changing of the clocks this weekend, and explores other energy-saving ideas

What will you do with your bonus hour this weekend?

One of the best weekends of the year has to be the one that is an hour longer than all the others.

Yes, it’s time to put the clocks back on Sunday – at least in Europe. We had a little look at all the knock-on effects of changing the clocks and found some subtle benefits, as well as a drawback or two.

In short: great for a lie-in and possibly good as an energy-saving measure. But not fun if you’re a shift worker, and have to do that extra hour unpaid.

Leah Hazard (@hazard_leah) Fun #NHS fact: did you know that if a midwife works on the night when the clocks go back, her shift lasts 13.25 hours but she only gets paid for 12.25? 😭 #wheredidmyhourgohttps://t.co/gRW3PpJCXc

Saving energy is a very 2019 idea, from flight abstainers to #FridaysForFuture school strikers. This week, Nicola Cutcher reported for the Upside on the innovators determined to cut back on the huge volumes of dirty fuel consumed by the multibillion-dollar shipping industry ever year.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sail and return Photograph: Handout

Otherwise, in no particular order, we also found time for:

Lucky numbers

Donald Trump may have confirmed the US will definitely leave the Paris climate agreement. But as this rather pretty chart from Beautiful News demonstrates, he is very much in a minority.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Signed, sealed, delivered. Photograph: Beautiful News

Meanwhile, Statista, a data research outfit, has come up with some numbers that show for all its current convulsions, people power is steadily taking over the world: more than half of all governments are now democracies.

What we liked

The UN has launched plans to mark its 75th birthday next year, asking people to come up with three things that can save the world. Natalie Samarasinghe, a driving force behind the initiative, says: “We are asking people to film themselves and upload to social media (Insta, Twitter, FB) tagging @JoinUN75 and using #UN75.” Alternatively, write to us at theupside@theguardian.com, with a subject line ‘Three Ideas’.

Kudos to Positive News for a long read on co-housing: sort of like an estate where everyone has to talk to each other.

And this was illuminating: the rise and rise of biochar.

What we heard

Lots of you wrote in about cargo sailing ships. Robert Melotti said:

I really like the piece on sail cargo: we did something similar a while ago. I think an interesting commercial venture in the making is taking place in Australia right now. Government funding is just around the corner apparently, and plans for much larger sailing container vessels as well.

Zdravko Podolski got in touch from Croatia:

I really enjoyed your article on sail-driven transport. Can I draw your attention to the fact there is a shipyard in Europe, in Croatia in fact, that is capable of building clipper-sized sailing ships. One was just recently launched. It may warrant an article.

And John Lucas sent an idea from Toronto

Sailing vessels may well have a useful role but won’t scale to anything like the volume needed. Just look at a photo of London docks in the age of sail – then multiply by a few hundred! Has any organisation considered building undersea gliders for cargo?

Steve Kirby is frustrated:

I’ve just enjoyed your Winds Of Change article about sailing ships once again being used to deliver goods across the oceans. I would be interested if you would be able to investigate why many thousands of new homes are being built without solar thermal or PV panels on their roofs. Constant frustration to see new estates being constructed without a solar panel in sight. Surely it would be very easy and cost-effective to install solar as part of a new-build project of multiples of homes. Installing electric boilers would also make sense, especially as the use of gas is to be phased out in the coming years.

Where was the Upside?

In Northern Ireland, which became a little more tolerant this week.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Amanda Milnes, left, with her partner Christina Conlon. Photograph: Amanda Milnes

And in the new Asterix comic book, which for the first time centres on a female hero.

Thanks for reading. Why not forward this to a friend who needs a bit of a lift? The sign-up page to get the newsletter every Friday is here. Get in touch with your best jokes, observations, uptrends and optimistic news items by writing to us at theupside@theguardian.com.