Good morning! Here are today’s stories of progress.

🛫 A cheap way to cut aviation’s emissions

The vapours that trail behind planes – known as contrails – essentially double the climate impact of flying because they act as artificial clouds, capturing heat. A huge 80% of the warming effects produced by contrails are generated by 3% of flights, largely due to their timing and geography. A new study has shown that by making minor alterations to flight paths, we could halve their impact by 2040 – and best of all, this powerful change would only cost £4 per flight.

🐋 The scientists making fake poop

Whale waste is pivotal for ocean ecosystems, providing essential nutrients like iron, nitrogen and phosphorus. Whales poop near the surface of the ocean, creating a bloom of phytoplankton, the microorganisms at the bottom of the marine food chain – which are a huge consumer of carbon dioxide.

Because whale populations are much lower than they used to be, scientists are now creating synthetic whale waste to emulate this natural process and speed the absorption of carbon dioxide to the ocean’s depths. The team behind the experiment believes it has the potential to remove up to 1.5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year.

🚛 Powering up trucks

While electric cars for the average consumer have hit the mainstream, solutions for big rigs – tractors attached to trailers – are lagging behind, despite making up 30% of vehicle emissions. Now, a startup has created an electrified trailer which can propel itself along the highway, making itself essentially weightless. A fleet of 3,000 trailers electrified in this way could take 100 million pounds of CO2 off the road every year.