Climate Action
What is Climate Action? Climate Action is humanity's efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance our planet's resilience against climate change. From adaptation to mitigation, at The Optimist Daily you will learn about the most recent positive news stories and solutions targeting climate change and other environmental issues.
Europe removed a record 602 river barriers last year
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM A dam fell in Iceland last December, the first the country has ever deliberately dismantled. The structure on the River Melsá had long since stopped generating power. Sheep were living in the old powerhouse. “It wasn’t providing any electricity,” said Read More...
California’s first eight-hour grid battery just came online
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM The California grid has a timing problem. Solar runs from mid-morning through early evening. Demand peaks later. Batteries have bridged part of that gap for years, but only about four hours’ worth. On June 1, a project in Kern County doubled that Read More...
How reflective roof paint is cooling homes across Africa
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM The question seemed reasonable enough: what heat adaptation interventions were already working in Africa’s low-income communities? Lara Dugas, an epidemiologist, and climate scientist Mark New had received funding from the Wellcome Trust’s HeatNexus Read More...
11,000 jobs, $1.4 billion in savings: what a decade of green banking built in Philadelphia
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM An impressive $14.7 million from the city. $1.3 billion in economic investment returned. $1.4 billion in energy savings. 11,000 jobs created. Those are the results of the Philadelphia Energy Campaign’s first decade, according to a 10-year economic impact Read More...
WasteBar turns cigarette butt waste into food currency in the Netherlands
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM There is a small mobile cart somewhere in the Netherlands right now, and if you bring it a handful of cigarette butts, it will give you poffertjes. Those are Dutch mini pancakes, in case you were wondering, and yes, the exchange is real. WasteBar is the Read More...
The urban cooling gap: why planting design matters as much as canopy count
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Street trees reduce urban heat. That much is established. What’s less settled is whether they’re enough on their own, or whether the way a city plants matters as much as how much it plants. New field research from Melbourne, Munich, and Hong Kong, led Read More...
How PFAS regulation cut toxic chemical levels in Canadian wildlife
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Levels of some of the most toxic PFAS compounds have fallen sharply in Canadian seabird eggs, and the reason isn’t complicated. Regulation worked. A peer-reviewed study tracked PFAS concentrations in the eggs of northern gannets on Bonaventure Island, in Read More...
How shark tracking data shaped Papua New Guinea’s ocean sanctuary
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Papua New Guinea announced on May 13 that it will protect roughly 214,000 square kilometers (about 82,600 square miles) of the Bismarck Sea from all fishing and extractive activity, an area approaching the size of the United Kingdom. The Western Manus Marine Read More...
Researchers build a hemp plastic that rivals PET
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM PET is in water bottles, food packaging, and flexible electronics. It’s made from fossil fuels, breaks down into microplastics, and carries chemicals linked to inflammation and cell damage. Researchers have been trying to replace it for years. Most Read More...
Amsterdam strips meat and fossil fuel ads from its public spaces
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Since May 1, Amsterdam’s billboards and tram shelters no longer carry ads for burgers, petrol cars, or cheap flights. The Dutch capital is now the first in the world to ban public advertising for both meat and fossil fuel products. Where chicken nuggets Read More...