Greta Thunberg has got the Guardian Upside team thinking: how DO we get out of this?

If Greta Thunberg is right, and the house is on fire, then who are the people with the fire extinguishers? Or as Donald Trump might say, the “flying water tankers”.

The Upside team met a few this week. And though the fire is pretty serious, and the extinguishers rather slight, they serve two broad purposes: to show what individuals can actually do, and encourage others to follow suit.

First, there was John Cherry with a new/old method of farming that spares both soil and insects. Dozens of you wrote in about this piece. You can read a selection of the responses below.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest John Cherry. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

Second, there was Dan Harris and his cute method of saving bees via the adroit deployment of something that looks rather like a credit card. Harris is crowdfunding his invention to save bees in bother.

Next: Arnoud van Druten. His company is building the world’s largest archipelago of islands made up of sun-tracking solar panels (they turn towards the sun, like a flower).

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Isle be there

Then there is an entire country – Kenya – which is rapidly ramping up geothermal power operations in order to go beyond fossil fuels. Jonathan Watts, our global environment editor, found out more, with the help of a few giraffes.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Giraffes in the (geothermal) mist. Photograph: Lisa Murray (www.lisamurrayphoto.com)/Lisa Murray / UN Environment 2019

Lucky numbers

There seems to be a lot of strong jobs data around at the moment. It does not reflect the quality of the work on offer, of course, but it does seem that EU employment rates are at a record high.

EU_Eurostat (@EU_Eurostat) 🔹 Employment rate of those aged 55 to 64 at its highest point in the EU 📈



🔹 Over 70% of people aged 55 to 64 have a job in 🇸🇪 Sweden, 🇩🇪 Germany and 🇩🇰 Denmark



➡️ For more information: https://t.co/19zQTUnePN pic.twitter.com/LLk7dCt5Tt

Malaria is a stubborn disease, but becoming less deadly by the year, according to the admirable Max Roser at Our World in Data. The death toll has almost halved in the past 15 years.

Meanwhile, Britain enjoyed its longest spell ever without coal power – getting through almost the entire Easter weekend without so much as even looking at a piece of charcoal, according to PositiveNews.

Oh yes, and New York features more than any other place name in 1960s pop, according to this analysis. Guess which city came second?

What we liked

The Atlantic, a fine publication in our view, is joining the solutions journalism beat with this project. Worth a read.

Also, this excellent piece by a young journalist, Lauren Geall, investigating the pros and cons of “good news”.

What we heard

No-till farming is clearly an important part of how we can respond to soil erosion, soil fertility and climate change. I wonder whether you might go into more depth on this by contacting Richard Perkins who is a British guy now living in Varmland, Sweden who runs a farm utilising aspects of permaculture and keyline systems and demonstrates just how productive a small farm can be.

Dr Jamie Wilson, via email

A house made out of old scrap vehicles. Photograph: Matthew Watkinson

Just read your article about conservation agriculture. We have made a house out of old scrap vehicles and a biodigester that turns our food waste into cooking gas out of old IBC tanks. This is simple tech that should be in every back garden in the UK. There are probably others but ours is the only one we know about at the moment.

Matthew Watkinson, via email – and he even sent a picture.

From 1993 to 2007 I was chief of the gricultural engineering branch of the UN food and agriculture organization. One of our major programmes was conservation agriculture, headed by Dr Theo Friedrich. If readers are interested in more information on CA then do a search on “FAO - Conservation Agriculture” where there are many publications listed.

Lawrence Clarke, via email.

I would be interested to read more about global population, any attempts to curb the growth of our numbers. With all the attention on climate change, I have seen little about this, one of the biggest driving factors. David Attenborough warns us but is anybody doing anything?

Tessa Newman, via email. Well, how about this piece?

I am the founder of a startup focusing on helping those affected by our collective move towards a cashless society, GivingStreets www.givingstreets.com. We are part of a trend towards applying tech for good.

Irene Lopez de Vallejo, by email. If you like Irene’s venture, please vote for her prototype in a funding competition here.



Where was the Upside?

In Ghana, where a fleet of drones took to the skies to deliver vaccines and other medicines to remote areas.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Photograph: Ruth Mcdowall/AFP/Getty Images

Also in a lab in California where scientists have, for the first time, been able to turn brain activity into speech, holding out the promise of restoring the gift to people who have lost their voice.

Thanks for reading. Tell a friend about us. Get in touch with your best ideas, so we can then pretend they are ours. Write to theupside@theguardian.com.