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.
This community of women in Kenya have restored a dying coral reef
Three years ago, the coral reef along the Kenyan coastline was almost totally destroyed in some areas. Rising surface sea temperatures had triggered devastating bleaching episodes for the fourth time in less than two decades, and with the whitening of coral came a dwindling of marine life. Read More...
New footage shows the biggest gathering of sea turtles ever recorded
As if there were “bumper cars” driving around on the surface of the sea, hundreds of thousands of female sea turtles were filmed as they gathered off the coast of Costa Rica before reaching the shore to lay their eggs. While sea turtles do this every year at Costa Rica’s Ostional National Read More...
Vendors turn streets into community spaces, so why are cities cracking down?
Earlier this month, a woman from Ecuador was handcuffed by police for selling churros in a New York City subway station. Officers confiscated her pushcart—her livelihood—and all its contents. She did not have a permit. But the city has not raised the number of permits since 1983, meaning $200 Read More...
Student activists disrupted Harvard-Yale football game to protest fossil fuels
When spectators storm the field at a sporting event, it’s usually a silly plea for attention. But this weekend the sporting world saw something entirely different when over 200 students and alumni disrupted the annual football game between Harvard and Yale to demand both schools to divest from Read More...
To plant 90,000 trees in Los Angeles, the city is giving free trees to residents
Want a free tree for your yard or neighborhood? Well, if you live in Los Angeles, you’re in luck. Under the city’s Green New Deal, LA will give out up to seven free yard and/or street trees to qualifying residents in a bid to plant 90,000 trees in the city over the next two years. Neighbors Read More...
Australian hospital receives record number of donations to save koalas from extinction
With Australia experiencing a record-breaking drought and harsh bushfires, koala populations have dwindled along with their habitat, leaving them “functionally extinct”. In a bid to save and rehabilitate the injured animals, an Australian koala hospital managed to raise over $1 million from Read More...
If you want to live in this Arizona community, you’ll have to ditch your car
Try and imagine your life without a car. No noisy engines, no busy asphalt streets, your grocery store within walking distance. This is the vision for Culdesac Tempe, a new development slated for 2020 in the fast-growing outskirts of Phoenix. The project will house 1,000 people, all without cars. Read More...
The Paris Aquarium is rescuing and providing refuge to unwanted goldfish
Lurking in the depths of a 40,000-liter fish tank within the Paris Aquarium is an unlikely sight—one that many visitors might be surprised to see. The freshwater tank is just one of several that house the aquarium’s growing population of goldfish. Over the past few years, the aquarium has Read More...
Creating pockets of air within concrete fixtures can slash building emissions
The production of concrete is one of the biggest sources of emissions in the world, so anything done to reduce the production of it is a win for the environment. In Germany, architects have come up with a clever way to use less concrete in buildings by incorporating air pockets made of recycled Read More...
This device can kill weeds without chemicals by using electromagnetic waves
Spraying weed killer near your prized plants can be tricky, but picture this: a weed, sucking up valuable sun and nutrients — but suddenly, a shadow passes above, and deep within the plant pest, tiny, violent vibrations begin. The molecules shake, the water inside warms and expands, until its Read More...