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.
A Dutch inventor has created a ‘cow toilet’ to reduce emissions from urine
By now you’ve probably heard about cow farts and the massive amounts of methane they squeeze into the atmosphere, but did you know cow urine also contributes to greenhouse gas emissions? As it turns out, urine can produce large amounts of nitrous oxide after spilling onto the ground, soaking into Read More...
A battery-swapping scheme is electrifying rickshaws in India
In India, where fewer than four million cars are sold annually, auto rickshaws (called tuk-tuks in other Asian countries) are one of the dominant modes of transportation. As India attempts to clean up the country’s troublesome air pollution, some manufacturers are now, for the first time, Read More...
Burger King is now offering Whoppers made from meatless patties
There used to be a great stigma surrounding plant-based burgers, but now it seems those days are long gone after fast food giant Burger King announced plans to offer vegetarian Whoppers made using meatless patties from Impossible Foods. At 59 locations in and around St. Louis, customers will be Read More...
Judge restores drilling ban in Arctic
Recent decisions to reverse bans on offshore drilling in vast parts of the Arctic Ocean and dozens of canyons in the Atlantic Ocean, were received by a US District Court Judge with ‘not so fast’. Last Friday, Judge Sharon Gleason decided to throw out the recent executive order that overturned Read More...
The EU has banned one of agriculture’s most-used pesticides to save the bees
Although you may not be a big fan of bugs, it’s bad news for everyone that insect populations are rapidly dwindling around the world. Insects are the foundation of nature’s ecosystems, and without them, we would run the risk of a ‘catastrophic collapse’ of those ecosystems. Still, if we Read More...
New scheme pays Greek fishermen to clean up plastic debris from the sea
Bans on single-use plastics will surely prove to be important for protecting our oceans from further pollution, but the reality is there’s still a huge need to remove the plastic that currently sits in our waterways if we want to save oceans from further damage. This means everyone will have to Read More...
How a climate change activist became Slovakia’s first female president
As an anti-corruption lawyer and climate activist, Zuzana Caputova already had an impressive record in Slovakia. But now she has reached the peak of Slovakian politics after becoming the first woman to be elected president in the nation’s history. For the past year, Caputova has been the most Read More...
Self-care products are hurting the environment. Here are better alternatives
Toilet paper, tampons, cotton swabs, and baby wipes are all personal care staples that, perhaps surprisingly, come with hefty environmental costs. From upstream problems, like logging crucial boreal forests for wood pulp that becomes toilet paper, to post-use issues like the centuries it can take a Read More...
New York to introduce second statewide ban on bags, after California
State action on plastic bags is picking up pace in the US. After California gave plastic bags the boot, New York is set to impose the second statewide ban on most types of single-use plastic bags from retail sales, changing a way of life for millions of New Yorkers as lawmakers seek to curb Read More...
European parliament just voted to ban single-use plastics by 2021
While members of the UN Senate voted to reject the first draft of the Green New Deal this week, members of European Parliament did the world a favor by voting to ban an array of single-use plastics as part of a sweeping law against plastic waste that despoils beaches and pollutes oceans. The ban Read More...