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.
The bill that brings green hydrogen into California’s clean energy grid
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM California just closed a gap that’s been undermining its clean energy numbers for years. Governor Newsom signed SB 1350 into law, qualifying green hydrogen electricity as a renewable source under the state’s Renewables Portfolio Standard. Power plants Read More...
California canal solar project reduces evaporation and generates power
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Shade from solar panels installed above two California irrigation canals reduced water evaporation by up to 70 percent and cut aquatic weed and algae growth by up to 85 percent over a full irrigation season, according to data from Project Nexus, a Read More...
Air pollution deaths in London fall 40 percent over five years
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Deaths linked to air pollution in London fell an estimated 40 percent between 2019 and 2024, according to a new Imperial College London study. That’s the good news. The more complicated part: the same research revised the original death estimates sharply Read More...
Scientists find 64,000 sq miles of climate-resilient coral reef
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM For years, the conversation around coral reefs has been threaded with grief. Bleaching events, rising ocean temperatures, one crisis folding into the next. The reefs have become a kind of shorthand for what we stand to lose. A new global analysis is pushing Read More...
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...