Episode Description:

Greece just launched the world’s first satellite constellation built specifically for wildfire detection. It can spot a fire measuring only a few feet across, a huge improvement on conventional satellites, which start flagging fires when they’re already the size of a cruise ship.

Ten solutions this week with Arielle and Karissa, including the first gallery in history dedicated entirely to women artists and five French food principles that have nothing to do with tracking macros.

If you have questions, comments, feedback, suggestions, or just want to say hi, send a message to: podcast@optimistdaily.com.

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Theme and all original music by Marvin Lanes

Transcript:

Karissa: 

Hi, everyone. I’m Karissa. 

Arielle: 

I’m Arielle, and welcome back to The Optimist Daily’s weekly roundup. 

Karissa: 

How are you doing, Arielle? 

Arielle: 

Honestly, I’m sore and I’m tired. Um, it’s morning for you in California, but it’s late afternoon for me, and I had my personal trainer come. 

Karissa: 

Ooh, exciting.

Arielle: 

Um, yeah. I’ve been taking the advice on all of these fitness articles that we have on The Optimist Daily that says especially women need to focus on strength.

So… I’m doing it, and it’s, it’s, it’s good.

Karissa: 

Hesitant.

Arielle: 

I know. But- Yeah, I mean, I know that it’s so good for my health, and I think I mentioned on the podcast maybe that I need to get knee surgery. So, part of this is also building up strength so that I can bounce back from getting my kneecap screwed on properly.

Um- Yeah … yeah, so it’s good, but I am definitely feeling it. 

Karissa: 

I totally feel that. Speaking of fitness, I’ve been investing in a summer challenge called Don’t Drop, uh, Stay Hot at my yoga and Pilates studio. Oh. If you do over 50 classes in the span from the beginning of June to the end of August, so we’re about halfway through, um, you get entered in some really cool prize drawings.

So, I’m really trying to get past the 50 class mark. So I feel the soreness, and I also feel the strength training, because I really need to invest in strength training more. And last night I was just using… I mean, I don’t wanna, like, undersell myself, because I know using the five-pound weights is still good.

But it’s kind of intimidating seeing people carrying the 15-pound weights in the Pilates classes, and I’m like, “Eek.” 

Arielle: 

Oh. 

Karissa: 

The five pound, I’m, like, over my head. So, that is my goal, is to go up in weight at some point. 

Arielle: 

By the time you are finished with 50 classes, I’m sure your weight would have gone up as well.

That’s the great thing about working out. If you just do it right and you do it safely and you’re committed, then the muscle gets stronger. 

Karissa: 

Yeah, exactly. So, summer resolution, go up in weights, maybe to the eight-pound ones. So we’ll see. I’ll report back. 

Arielle: 

Yeah. Stay tuned for our fitness journeys. 

Karissa: 

Yeah, exactly. 

Arielle: 

And of course, also all of the solutions news and the positive news that we put out. Before we jump into the solutions that we featured this week, let me remind everyone really quickly that we have a daily newsletter that is free for everyone, and that way you get all of these solutions into your inbox.

If five emails a week is too much, then you can get our weekly newsletter, and that comes in on Fridays with all the solutions that we featured that week. 

Karissa: 

We’re also on all social media channels, basically, even Pinterest, if you wanna pin some stuff to your boards. But you can follow us @optimistdaily on just about everything, except X, where we’re @odetooptimism.

Arielle: 

We love to hear from you, so you can reach us on those social channels, or you can send us comments, questions, feedback, all of that, to podcast@optimistdaily.com. 

Karissa: 

And we also wanted to mention that on some platforms like Apple, the clickable links in the episode descriptions are not available. So if you’re listening on Apple and you wanna click these links on how to, you know, sign up for the newsletter, follow us on socials, email us, those links can be found in the transcript as well, and it’ll be easier to click it.

Or you could just listen on another platform, too. But on Apple, we know it’s a problem. 

Arielle: 

The transcript link is just there, so you can copy and paste it, and then that way you can have all the access to the embedded links within the text. So a lot of the times, if there’s an Emissary shout-out, we won’t put the name of the organization or the person that’s getting shouted out just to keep it a surprise.

Um, but then that way you really don’t know that there might be something clickable there. Uh, so yeah, just definitely worth checking out if you are listening on Apple. 

Karissa: 

Speaking of Emissaries, we just wanna thank our Emissaries for financially supporting The Optimist Daily. If you would like to become an Emissary, that link is in the show notes, in the transcript, and also just on our website for easy access.

Arielle: 

And a huge thank you to all the optimists out there who are just here listening to the podcast, reading the articles, sharing with friends, family, liking, reviewing, subscribing, following. All of that is a free way to support us and our work. 

Karissa: 

Yeah. We really appreciate any, any support, any help, and any listens as well.

So thanks for tuning in. Let’s tune in to the new solutions of this week, because we had a lot of great ones as always. The first solution is “Greece launches nano satellite system to catch wildfires early.” So the reason wildfires get so catastrophic so fast is that by the time anyone sees the smoke, it’s already too late to stop it easily.

But Greece just launched a system that changes when the clock starts, and they’re the first country in the world with a satellite constellation built specifically for wildfire response. I think this is pretty cool, especially as someone who lives in California where wildlife, uh, wildfire threats are all too prominent.

So these are really cool little nano satellites. They’re about the size of a carry-on luggage bag, and they went into low Earth orbit in May, and they’re fully operational now. The thing about these satellites is that they can detect a fire measuring four meters or about 13 feet across. But traditionally, conventional satellites can only spot fires the size of a cruise ship, and as you can imagine, that’s a pretty big fire already if that’s when they’re spotting it.

When they gather this information, AI models analyze thermal images at four-by-four meter grid resolution and filter out false signals, so solar panels emitting heat, overheated rooftops, sun-warmed rock, before anything reaches emergency services. So it’s really a fine-tuned system. 

Arielle: 

This is really, really important because Greece has had some of the worst wildfire seasons in Europe over the past decade, so it’s- Mm-hmm

it’s not an abstract problem for them, as it’s not for you in California and in so many other places in the world. Canada has also been experiencing a lot of devastating wildfires. I just love that it solves a really key problem because urban fires, of course, they are horrible, but they get spotted really fast by residents and just- Yeah

by people who are around in the city. But remote and national park fires can go undetected for hours, and, you know, it’s, it’s a lot easier to contain a fire if it’s not the size of a cruise ship. 

Karissa: 

Yeah, I can imagine. This one next solution is the first gallery built exclusively to represent women artists.

A former L’Oreal executive watched his mother set her art career aside for his father’s, not in a dramatic falling out, but just a slow retreat, which he never forgot. So MAG: The Women Gallery was launched in response to that in 2024, and it came from, you know, this executive’s, this person named Jean-Baptiste Bettencourt’s personal experience.

It may be the first gallery in history dedicated entirely to women artists, which was really surprising for me to read. This whole story starts not just with advocacy, but with the market. It’s not just showcasing this art, it’s giving this platform for women artists to actually sell their art online.

The founder of this organization initiative spent nearly 37 years as a senior executive at L’Oreal, but this is his new endeavor, and it’s very noble indeed. Women artists consistently receive less gallery representation. There’s lower auction prices and fewer retrospectives. It’s been well-documented, but rarely acted on by people with the resources to change it.

So now MAG is changing that and showing paintings, sculptures, photographs, and works on paper by women artists from around the world. 

Arielle: 

The article goes into some of the specific artists, so you should definitely check it out, but I thought that his argument was really, um, really insightful. He distinguishes between visibility and market access.

Um, I know that there’s a lot of discussion about women and also other minoritized people getting more representation, so maybe there’s more visibility around, but a think piece about underrepresentation is not the same as having work in front of someone who might actually buy it. This market first approach is a different strategy.

It’s tackling the problem from a different angle because recognition is great, but it doesn’t pay rent, and it doesn’t fund studio time, and all of those are really important for women artists to continue being artists. 

Karissa: 

Moving on to another solution, “Using eucalyptus oil to repel household pests: what the experts say.”

If you’ve ever soaked cotton balls in essential oils and tucked them around the house hoping to keep pests out, this one is for you because it turns out that method doesn’t really work, and there’s a specific reason why. So Arielle, have you used any essential oils, maybe particularly eucalyptus oil, to try to repel household pests?

Arielle: 

There, there’s, like, the lemony, um, the lemony scent. 

Karissa: 

Mm-hmm. 

Arielle: 

It’s like s- citrus, citr- do you know what I’m… Citronella? Yes. I think 

Karissa: 

citronella. Yeah. 

Arielle: 

I’ve had, like, candles like that- Mm-hmm … but not the cotton ball, uh, strategy. 

Karissa: 

Yeah. I haven’t actually done that either, so I can’t attest to using… Well, apparently it’s not too much of an effective method.

Arielle: Yeah, maybe there’s a reason why we didn’t, why we, why we haven’t used it. 

Karissa: 

Yeah, but it’s popularly recommended, but the experts say that it doesn’t really hold up because the scent fades too quickly, and once it does, rodents may start using the cotton as nesting material instead. Oh. So yeah, so if you’ve been told that or you’ve been trying to do that, then maybe this article is for you because it recommends using eucalyptus oil, but not just through a cotton ball.

The method that works is a 5% eucalyptus oil solution applied around entry points, gaps, and vulnerable pathways, but not placed where pests are actually hanging out, but where they’re getting in. So this goes into more details into how to effectively use eucalyptus oil. I mean, you have to reapply daily.

It’s kind of a, a big task, and there’s also some safety notes that eucalyptus oil is toxic to pets and young children, so it’s important to dilute it and keep treated areas out of reach. But if you’re looking for something more natural to deter pests from your house, then eucalyptus oil could be something to reach for, and you may already have it in your house.

And a note we talked about in our staff editorial meeting this morning is that peppermint oil actually does a similar thing. So if you have that on hand too, then that could work. 

Arielle: 

Hmm. Yeah, our teammate Paul said that, uh, peppermint oil works specifically for ants, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Um, but yeah, the, there might be other plants or scents with similar properties.

If you know of some of them, then maybe leave a comment in the comment section. If you’re interested in some more natural repellents, then we also have an article titled “These easy to grow plants will help repel mosquitoes from your garden,” another, another really annoying pest to have to deal with.

Karissa: 

Moving on to the next solution, “Illinois found a smarter way to close the menopause care gap.” Juliana Stratton held financial wellness conversation with women across Illinois, expecting to hear about rent and groceries. But what she kept hearing about was menopause. So the bill that just came from those conversations just passed unanimously, and it didn’t add a single new training hour for healthcare providers.

So another surprising thing that I found out this week is that Illinois is the first state to fold menopause care training into existing implicit bias awareness requirements for licensed healthcare professionals. There’s no new hours and no new mandate to include this training, but it’s just going into what already exists.

And I was surpri- well, I guess not surprised, but I mean, the number is always shocking, that 70% of women who seek medical care for menopause symptoms don’t receive treatment, which is really unfortunate because menopause symptoms are very difficult to deal with. I haven’t had to deal with it myself yet, but I know one day I will.

But knowing older women who have, I know it’s a, it’s a difficult, uh, time to go through. I was also intrigued to find out that menopause-related productivity losses cost over $150 billion globally. 

Arielle: 

That is not a small chunk of change. 

Karissa: 

Not at all. Before this bill was passed, Illinois had fewer than 200 physicians certified as menopause health professionals in a state of nearly 13 million people, so that is definitely underserving their population.

Arielle: 

A quote from Stratton that stood out to me in this article was that, “It’s not treated as a public health issue,” and it of course being menopause. “It’s treated as a personal issue, and we need to change that.” I like where this is going, that there’s a visible cultural shift in how menopause is being discussed more publicly.

It’s more frank. It’s less whispered. It’s kind of related to period shame and the stigma with that. Um, there’s so many things that we have to deal with as women, and we shouldn’t have to do it privately. It should be something that we can be open about and something that gets government support.

Karissa: 

Juliana Stratton, she is lieutenant governor of Illinois right now, and she’s currently running for the US Senate. But she has been going through perimenopause undiagnosed as a senior elected official, and so it kind of makes this story land a little bit differently than statistics alone because, you know, she’s also going through this and, um, talking to her constituents and finding out that they’re also going through the same thing and want this addressed in policy is super important.

The final solution I have to share today is “How Paris uses the Seine River to cool thousands of buildings without AC.” Most cities facing record heat are buying more air conditioners, which is making the problem worse. But Paris took a different path about 30 years ago, and now it’s about to get a lot bigger, because we know France, Paris, has been very hot.

Arielle: 

Mm-hmm. 

Karissa: 

Basically, every AC unit dumps heat outside, so millions of them collectively raise street temperatures, and that’s the very thing they’re trying to fight, of course, is not having this urban heating. They need to cool it down instead. Paris has 120 kilometers, or 75 miles, of underground pipes that pull cold water from the Seine and distribute it to buildings like a utility.

And the heat exchange system here is really elegant, because there’s two parallel pipes with a metal wall between them, and warm building water gives up its heat to cold river water, and the two fluids never touch. Paris has plans to triple this network in size by 2042, and hopefully reach 3,000-plus buildings across the city.

And the priority is hospitals, schools, retirement homes, and daycare centers. 

Arielle: 

Thank goodness that they started this 30 years ago. Um- Yeah … actually, Stockholm does something similar with the Baltic seawater, and Toronto, where I grew up, uses Lake Ontario. But the model isn’t necessarily, like, copy/paste. There has to be certain environmental factors at play.

So this is a really great solution for Paris and for other cities with similar environmental situations. But yeah, it’s… we’re all gonna have to get creative depending on our situations. I will be moving on to the sixth solution, titled “The 30% parenting rule: how to raise securely attached kids.” Now, most parents have had a moment they’re not proud of.

Maybe their voice gets harsher, and then they say things that they wish that they could take back. But fortunately, the research on raising kids with secure attachments say that these moments aren’t usually the ones that matter most. It’s actually what you decide to do after losing your temper that matters.

So I think we’ve all heard about gentle parenting and this standard on social media that sets an impossible bar of being always regulated, always composed, and always absorbing whatever the day delivers. Um, have you heard of this, Karissa? 

Karissa: 

Oh, yes. I’ve definitely heard of this, but I feel like I’ve– and this article shows this, that there’s kind of a pushback against gentle parenting.

Um, you know, no one is gonna be perfect at being a parent. 

Arielle: 

I mean, I’m not a parent, you’re not a parent, so- Yeah … of course, we don’t, we can’t really speak on that experience. But licensed counselor Tracy Carson says that nervous systems in general were not designed for constant regulation. There’s a reason why we have the fight or flight response, and parents are activating it constantly because having kids can be, um, of, of course beautiful, but also chaotic and triggering probably.

Karissa: 

Yeah. And everyone is a human at the end of the day. 

Arielle: 

Basically, if you lose your temper, that’s to be expected because you’re human. Um, but the most important thing is that you try to, to make amends with your child because every repair builds a neural pathway in a child’s brain that tells them and teaches them that relationships are safe and disturbance is survivable.

And then the person that you love always comes back, and that, that, that creates a sense of security and safety within the child. The absence of repair builds the opposite pathway, and that’s the one that says, “Okay, parental figures are not safe, and they might not come back.” That creates obviously a feeling of insecurity and unsafety.

If you’re wondering what repair looks like in practice, first you have to regulate yourself, so you can always ask for a minute, even from your kid. You can just be like, “Mommy” or “Daddy,” or, you know, “We just need a minute.” Then name your own behavior. So for instance, you can say, “I’m so sorry I lost my temper,” and then offer connection, whether that’s giving a hug or just sitting close.

And family therapist Olivia Pham says that repair can even begin in infancy, even with a, a newborn coming back after a hard moment really matters. The seventh solution is titled “Five French principles for eating that Americans would do well to borrow.” So another solution regarding France. But I think it’s safe to say that Americans have tried pretty much every diet framework, from counting macros, cutting carbs, intermittent fasting, the whole selection.

The French have basically stuck to the same five ideas for centuries, and none of them involve tracking anything. Registered dietician Jane Leverich has a name for each one. And please, please forgive my French, literally. But anyway, the five principles are plaisir, or pleasure, equilibre, balance, qualité, quality, rituel, ritual, and joie de

vivre. Oh my gosh, I feel so- I 

Karissa: 

thought that was great Arielle … 

Arielle: 

…silly. Thank you. Um, so that last one is joy as nourishment. Pleasure, food is a source of joy. I think that was my favorite one because food is a huge source of joy for me and my family. Um, and when we give ourselves permission to enjoy food, then we end up feeling more satisfied and less likely to overdo it later.

Was there something that stood out to you from this article, Karissa? 

Karissa: 

Yeah. Well, as an American, I think that qualité, quality, stood out to me, and that is about less food and more attention to the quality food that is around you. And so incorporating fresh, seasonal, and thoughtfully prepared food into your diet is really important, and it’s worth paying attention to what you’re tasting because it turns out to be kind of its own portion control.

I was thinking about this one, and in America, a lot of people don’t have access to a lot of, like, fresh or in-season food. In California, we’re kind of spoiled because we grow a lot of that here, and so we do have access, but at the same time, it’s just kind of different because we still do just, like, go to the supermarket and stuff to get all of our food.

And, you know, people are so busy in America typically that, you know, we don’t have time and stuff to, like, cook, and it really turns out into eating out or just popping something processed into the microwave or oven. So I think turning to quality is very important, and that’s definitely something I’ve been trying to incorporate a lot more.

But it requires a lot more going to the store and, Yeah … thinking about what I’m gonna prepare, so yeah. 

Arielle: 

Piggybacking on your idea of busyness in the American, um- Lifestyle, I guess. The, the ritual one, making a meal a ritual and giving your full attention to food is-… is definitely something that I think a lot of people struggle with, not just in America, but, you know, we, we all kind of…

Well, I don’t wanna say we all, but a lot of us probably eat lunch while scrolling on our phones or while watching something. And yeah, that divides our attention from the food that we’re eating and makes it a less intentional experience. So yeah, that was another one that stood out to me. Um, but I just like in general how this article calls out the French paradox, so rich food, but lower cardiovascular disease rates, and how that’s been studied for decades.

But this reframes it as a behavioral thing rather than purely nutritional. All right. The eighth solution is titled “Africa secures 900 million in new clean cooking commitments.” So kind of related to the last solution. Yeah. We’re still on cooking and eating. Nearly a billion people in Africa still cook over charcoal or firewood every day, and that is responsible for 850,000 deaths a year from indoor air pollution, and that affects mostly women and children because they spend the most time near the fire.

The funding to change that is starting to move in a serious way, and yeah, that $900 million financial commitment was announced by the IEA, or the International Environment Agency, and that brings total pledges to over $3.1 billion. Nearly one billion people across Africa lack access to clean cooking technologies, and those technologies would be, like, ethanol, biogas, and electric stoves.

And those clean cooking technologies, they cut pollution at the source. Reaching full access will cost far more than 3.1 billion, but the pace is accelerating, and that’s what we like to see. The next solution is titled “Reducing microplastic exposure: the four habits we should all be prioritizing.” So scientists just found microplastics in human brain tissue at higher concentrations than in the liver or kidneys, and that’s a recent finding.

That’s from last year. A year before that, so 2024, a single liter of bottled water was found to contain hundreds of thousands of nanoplastic particles. We’ve gone from microplastics are an environmental problem to microplastics are inside our brains, and that’s just really freaky-deaky to me. I, I don’t like thinking about that.

It’s affecting our inner environments, which I guess it will, um, motivate us to act faster in a way. Um- yeah … so I’m sure most listeners will know what microplastics are, but just in case, they are… When, when larger plastics break down under heat, friction, and time, then it sheds microplastics, and those are super, super tiny plastic particles, and they’ve been found in the human body, in the blood, lungs, placentas even, reproductive organs, and now in brain tissue.

This article goes through four really important areas of our life that we should be paying close attention to, and the one that caught my eye, and I’m pretty sure it caught your eye, too, Karissa, because we were just talking about yoga and Pilates in the fitness challenge. Synthetic fabrics are 35% of primary ma- microplastics in oceans, and those come from textiles like polyester, nylon, acrylic And that’s basically what most activewear is made of these days.

It’s just a little bit ironic that- Yeah … the, the wellness culture and the wellness wardrobe, if you will, is one of the biggest sources of synthetic fiber shedding. 

Karissa: 

I mean, I work from home, so, um, I’m kind of just wearing… activewear comfortable clothes, like, all day. But yeah, ugh, I… That makes me sad.

But I feel like there has been a discussion online about, like, kind of turning towards, you know, 100% cotton instead of the synthetic materials for working out. 

Arielle: 

Yeah. I guess we should be on the lookout for more organic brands. Yeah, if you guys have any suggestions for us, then again, hit us up in the comments.

The last solution is called “A cheap, homegrown catnip lotion could replace DEET for millions of Ugandans.” Malaria kills hundreds of thousands of people a year, mostly young children in sub-Saharan Africa. The best repellent we have, DEET, is too expensive for most of the people who need it most. A team from Cardiff University just ran field trials in Uganda with a catnip oil lotion, and it matched DEET.

And the plant grows there, so that’s a great local solution for them. The field trial was in Eastern Uganda, and the 6% catnip oil lotion matched the performance of 15% DEET at repelling mosquitoes. The active compound is nepetalactone, and that’s the same thing that, you know, makes cats go a little crazy.

It’s also a potent insect repellent, and that’s been known for years, but it has never been turned into a usable product. 

Karissa: 

Yeah, exactly. And we were just talking about mosquitoes and malaria kind of recently on The Optimist Daily, ’cause we were talking about what mosquitoes are attracted to. And we mentioned how malaria cases are rising across the world because of rising temperatures.

So this is an important solution indeed. 

Arielle: 

Those were all the solutions that we featured this week on The Optimist Daily. We don’t have an Emissary shout-out this week, but if you are an Emissary, then feel free to shout anyone out, um, that makes you happy, positive, optimistic. You could even plug your friend’s budding business, um

or, yeah, bring awareness to a loved one’s passion project. Anything like that, we are super happy to share. 

Karissa: 

Yeah. And if you can’t find the link for that, please feel free to email us. 

Arielle: 

And maybe we’ll just send out the form again sometime soon. 

Karissa: 

Yes, we will be sending that out again. So keep an eye out for that.

Arielle: 

And as usual, we finish with an inspiring quote. So Karissa, take it away. 

Karissa: 

We have a quote from Faith Ringgold, who was an American painter, author, mixed media sculptor, performance artist, and intersectional activist, perhaps best known for her narrative quilts, which are very fascinating. I’ve seen a couple of them in person

and they’re really cool. “You can’t sit around and wait for somebody to say who you are. You need to write it and paint it and do it.” 

Arielle: 

Thank you so much, Karissa, for sharing the solutions with me this week. It was a pleasure as always. 

Karissa: 

I’m looking forward to being back next time with more.

Arielle: 

We wish you all a very happy weekend.

Karissa: 

Bye, everybody. 

Arielle: 

Bye.