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 is how to do wildlife tourism the right way
Travelers love animals. We want to get close to them and learn more about them. But the reality that many tourists don’t see is that to stay in business, animal encounters, such as elephant rides and photo ops with tigers, rely on putting wild creatures to work. Discerning the difference between Read More...
Now Ireland has joined the UK in declaring a climate emergency
Just a week after the UK made the historic decision to declare a climate emergency, the parliament of Ireland has followed up with their own declaration, making it the second country to do so. Should you be wondering why declaring a climate emergency is of the utmost importance, allow us to fill Read More...
Finally, a company has come up with a plastic-free way to shave
Unless you're going for the Mountain Man look, owning a razor is a necessity in modern society. Unfortunately, that often means using a pile of plastic. Even if you've switched from disposable razors to replaceable cartridges (an improvement), there is still excess packaging and plastic blade heads Read More...
NASA is helping build the first all-electric airplane fueled by hydrogen
The aviation industry is often heavily criticized, rightfully of course, for not doing enough to help save the environment. Now, in a quest to clean-up the heavily-polluting industry, NASA-funded scientists are working to develop an all-electric aircraft that produces no greenhouse-gas emissions. Read More...
To save the monarch butterfly, US cities are creating specially-made gardens
With their distinctive black-and-orange wings patterned as precisely as stained glass, the monarch butterfly is a beloved insect in America. The sad thing is nature societies are observing huge drops in the populations of these beautiful butterflies. In 2018, the National Wildlife Federation Read More...
Satellites will soon track the exact air pollution of every power plant on Earth
Tuesday brought a somewhat mind-blowing announcement in the world of power plants and pollution. In a nutshell: A nonprofit artificial intelligence firm called WattTime is going to use satellite imagery to precisely track the air pollution (including carbon emissions) coming out of every single Read More...
Scientists have come up with a plant-based alternative to Styrofoam
Of all the types of waste that pollute our planet, styrofoam is one of the absolute worst. That’s because unlike many types of waste that take decades or even centuries to degrade, styrofoam never degrades. And to make matters worse, it’s made out of petroleum and creates pollution when Read More...
Europe shows us why many of the Green New Deal’s proposals are viable
When Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey, both Democrats, introduced their Green New Deal resolution earlier this year, it quickly sank in the Senate, largely due to Republican opposition. But its ideas are certain to remain in the spotlight, given the increasing visibility of Read More...
These eco-friendly drink coolers are made using recycled tree pulp
Cheap drink coolers get the job done if you just want to keep a couple of drinks cold, but most of the times they end up in landfills, where they can take hundreds of years to break down. Now, thanks to cooler company Igloo, we are one step closer to ditching harmful polystyrene coolers. The Read More...
China is creating a panda refuge three times the size of Yellowstone
If you love giant pandas (who doesn’t?), then you’ll be happy to hear this bit of news: the Chinese government is on the verge of creating an expanded panda refuge that will span 10,476 square miles. That’s nearly triple the size of Yellowstone. The proposed Giant Panda National Read More...