Environment
Need some good news about the environment? The Optimist Daily is your go-to herald of positive environmental news, highlighting eco-friendly solutions and scientific progress around climate action, circularity, conservation, and more. Learn about everything eco in our Environment section.
Geohacking: Could “green sand” beaches help us fight climate change?
On a beach in the Caribbean, a nonprofit called Project Vesta will soon begin testing a radical new way to fight climate change that involves spreading ground-up olivine—a cheap green mineral—over the sand, where ocean waves will break down the mineral, which in turn will pull CO2 from the Read More...
Australian wildlife park celebrates first koala birth since bushfires
The wildfires in Australia took a devastating toll on native wildlife, specifically koalas. In a sign of hope for the future of these species, the Australian Reptile Park has reported the first birth of a baby koala, also called a joey, since the fires in early 2020. The park made the Read More...
Here are America’s 10 best sustainable buildings of 2020
Buildings generate nearly 40% of the world’s CO2 emissions—and since two-thirds of the buildings that exist today will still be around by the middle of the century, architects need to rethink their design now to have a chance of meeting goals for a net-zero economy. The industry is shifting, Read More...
Marine biologists capture rare audio of narwhal buzzes, clicks, and whistles
Narwhals, the so-called unicorns of the sea, may be among the most recognizable marine animals, but they are also notoriously difficult to study due to their skittish nature and uncongenial habits. These characteristics, plus the fact that they live in one of the noisiest environments in the ocean, Read More...
Americans are finally starting to embrace the bidet
Bidet sales are up in America! Editorial confession: We’ve been hoping to write something like that for a long time. If you don’t know what a bidet is, it’s typically a small bathtub-like fixture situated next to the toilet, with taps on one end. Its tub is filled with water, and the user Read More...
Scientists created a rubber material that can be recycled over and over
Big news from the building industry. Scientists in Australia have created a new kind of rubber material that can be recycled in an almost endless loop, which could lead to a whole array of new sustainable building materials. The rubber polymer is made of sulfur and canola oil, and it has a unique Read More...
Millions of healthcare workers urge G20 leaders for a green recovery
As lockdowns around the world begin to ease, medical professionals are urging political leaders not to forget the lessons learned from the coronavirus, emphasizing that a new trajectory, one that takes account of air pollution and the climate crisis, is needed. More than 200 organizations Read More...
New agreement helps protect migrating monarch butterflies
Every year millions of monarch butterflies migrate from northern and eastern U.S. and Canada to spend winter in southern California and Mexico. Now, these threatened species are getting a little more help along the way, thanks to an agreement between The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), the Read More...
South Korea is on a mission to transform from carbon villain to model
A year ago, Soyoung Lee was one of a crowd of climate activists demonstrating on the streets of Seoul in a campaign inspired by the global school strike founder Greta Thunberg. Today, the 35-year-old lawyer is the youngest member of the South Korean parliament and a driving force in the Read More...
How AI can save the American West this fire season
The American West is heading into the dry season, but AI could help firefighters predict where fires are likely to break out for a less devastating fire season. A new deep-learning model maps out landscape dryness and the amount of burnable material across 12 states to get ahead of destructive Read More...