Isn't it nice to hear ...

Something positive about the environment for a change. National Geographic on the revival of life in the Thames which was declared biologically dead in the 1950s after centuries of dumping sewage and rubbish had led to it being uninhabitable.

Dolphins, Seals at Home in London's Reborn River: "More than 130 seals have been spotted in the Thames since last August, according to the Zoological Society of London. Bottlenose dolphins have been seen upstream of London Bridge. And last summer the first sea horse was recorded in the Thames estuary in 30 years ...

... The condition of the Thames—which rises and falls with the tides as far inland as London—was very different 150 years ago. 1858 saw the "Great Stink," when the stench of raw sewage got so bad Parliament, which meets in a riverside building, had to be dissolved.

In 1878 the pleasure steamship Princess Alice sunk in a river collision. Most of the 600 or so passengers who died did so because they were overpowered by a noxious cocktail of human and industrial filth before they could reach safety.