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.
Colorful Chicago building proves affordable housing and beauty can go together
Affordable housing, beautiful aesthetics, and sustainability are three things that rarely unite under one building, but in Chicago, architects have managed to bring all three together in harmony. Created by John Ronan Architects, the colorful building contains a public library at ground level and Read More...
A former landfill in Maryland becomes the perfect site for a community solar farm
Solar power is an effective way of producing clean, renewable, energy, but finding the space for large solar farms, especially in populated areas, can be a challenge. Fortunately for the residents of Prince George’s County, Maryland, they already had a large area of land unsuitable for Read More...
You may soon be driving on roads made of recycled plastic
Although plastic can take up to 1,000 years to degrade making it a severe threat to our ecosystems, plastic's resilient nature makes it perfect for repurposing it into roadways. That's why the City of Los Angeles and Technisoil are collaborating to recycle plastic into material to pave roads in the Read More...
French startup can recycle any old plastic and turn it into virgin plastic again
The problem with traditional recycling is that you degrade the material each time you do it. That’s why a France-based startup called Carbios is taking an entirely new approach. Using a bioreactor, the startup is taking pulverized PET plastic waste—the kind of plastic found in drink bottles Read More...
3D-printed coral offer new hope for endangered reefs
In the wake of the global climate crisis and the acidification of oceans due to rising temperatures, coral reefs around the world and their ecologically diverse inhabitants have been drastically affected. Particularly, fish living among or in close relation to coral reefs who often use the reefs to Read More...
In America’s biggest cities, cemeteries have become havens for animal life
Don’t be mistaken: while the cemetery may not be sprawling with human life, it’s most certainly a hotspot for plant and animal life—especially in urban areas. Perhaps the best example of this comes from the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, one of the most densely populated places Read More...
These California trees hold the key to climate resilience
When California's historic five-year drought finally relented a few years ago, the tally of dead trees in the Sierra Nevada was higher than almost anyone expected: 129 million. Most are still standing, the dry patches dotting the mountainsides. But some trees did survive the test of heat and Read More...
Southwest Atlantic humpback whales have returned from the brink of extinction
In the late 1920s, humpback whales in the southwest Atlantic became so rare that whaling ships could only find and catch a few dozen individuals per year. It was estimated that some 27,000 humpbacks frequented the southwest Atlantic at the start of the 20th century, but due to intensive commercial Read More...
Your next in-flight meal may be served in a banana leaf
Climate activist Greta Thunberg made headlines this summer by choosing to sail, rather than fly, from Europe to the U.S. to take a stand against the heavy carbon footprint of airline travel. But what about the items on board? After all, the average airline passenger produces three pounds of waste Read More...
These companies show why carbon tech is going to be the next big business boom
If removing tons of carbon from the atmosphere to mitigate climate change seems like a difficult task, doing so profitably sounds almost impossible. However, these carbon tech companies are demonstrating that removing carbon and turning it into revenue is feasible. The interface is an innovative Read More...