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 Texas village gives the homeless a permanent home and a sense of community
The world looks a little brighter from the front porch of your own home. It’s a sight more than 200 formerly homeless people are waking up to each morning at the Community First! Village – a planned suburbia in Austin, Texas which provides affordable, permanent housing and a supportive Read More...
Every Sunday in Colombia’s capital is car-free—and people love it
Cars may be the champion of travel on rural roads, but they are a pain in the ass in cities, creating congested streets and polluted air that pedestrians have to travel through. This is especially the case in the buzzing capital of Colombia, which is home to more than 1,600,000 private cars. Read More...
How this LA community kicked an oil drilling facility out of their backyards
Los Angeles is a city pockmarked with oil facilities. There are about 1,000 active wells in the city, and in some places, the oil facilities are so close to people’s homes that you can put one hand on a bedroom window and the other on the facility wall. The oil site on Jefferson Boulevard, Read More...
These former gang rivals are helping Dallas youth escape gang violence
Antong Lucky and Def D had nearly identical childhoods: both were raised in underprivileged neighborhoods in Dallas, both experienced gang violence at an early age, and both had family members who were in gangs. There was, however, one notable difference: they were raised one mile apart, in Read More...
Miami launches app that rewards citizens for ditching their cars at home
If you take the bus to work instead of driving a car, you can feel a bit of some self-satisfaction knowing your commute isn’t so harmful to the planet. But that’s about all you get—unless you live in Miami. This week, Miami Mayor Carlos Gimenez announced a new app called Velocia that Read More...
The case for putting speed limits on cargo ships
Should cargo ships start going slower on their journeys across the ocean? This is the question being discussed this week at the UN where officials will hear proposals to cut shipping industry emissions by introducing speed limits. Container ships and other ocean liners in the industry deal with a Read More...
The world’s largest electric ferry just made its maiden voyage in Denmark
Although electric ferries have been running in Norway since 2015, none have been as large as the one that just made its maiden voyage between the Danish islands of Aero and Als. The 195-foot long ferry, named Ellen, can carry up to 30 cars and 300 passengers and is powered by a 4.3 megawatt-hour Read More...
Singapore installs creative displays to engage its inhabitants with sustainability
While changing people’s behaviors towards greener living habits is an essential step in the fight against the climate crisis, it is also a difficult one. But one possible way to nudge them towards making more sustainable choices is by simply exposing them to these possibilities. At least Read More...
Boost your local wildlife by rewilding your lawn or just mowing it less
Removing the lawn from your home and allowing it to grow wild with flowers and native hedges can do wonders for local wildlife and pollinators. But if you’re not ready to remove your lawn or your neighborhood doesn’t allow it, consider this: In a new study, researchers found that even a modest Read More...
Major shipping groups to come together to decarbonize the industry
About 90 percent of world trade is transported by sea, with the global shipping fleet accounting for 2.2 percent of CO2 emissions. A coalition of the world’s biggest shipping groups, representing 90 percent of the industry, has submitted a research fund of $5 billion over 10 years to develop Read More...