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.
Well, turns out you can pack in a lot of mosquitoes without killing them
Mailing mosquitoes doesn't seem wise on the surface. Nevertheless, researchers from New Mexico State University have been looking into it, as part of an effort to help control the spread of Read More...
Scientists champion forests as 'unsung hero' of climate action
Scientists from around the world called for stepped-up efforts to use forests to keep global warming to the lowest limit agreed by governments in 2015, as a key report on how to meet that goal is finalized in South Korea this week. "Forests really are the unsung hero of our struggle to address Read More...
Why forests are the best 'technology' to stop climate change
The warning from the world's top climate scientists that carbon dioxide (CO2) will need to be removed from the atmosphere to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is both a due and dire recognition of the great task in front of Read More...
Agriculture destroyed monarch butterfly habitats–now it’s trying to save them
Over the past couple of decades, monarch butterflies, one of the most recognizable (and important) visitors to gardens across North America, have been declining in number–as much as 95 percent of the population has disappeared since the 1980s. The reasons are numerous: Mexico, where the Read More...
A startup in New Delhi wants to build a smog-eating tower in the city center
New Delhi is choking from smog as pollution levels reach new hazardous heights. That’s why a startup wants to build a 40-feet tall purifier in the middle of the capital that uses 48 fans and nine stages of filtration to pump out 1.3 million cubic meters of fresh air per hour—enough to provide Read More...
A clothing brand in India is converting plastic bottles into sportswear
India alone produces over 15,342 tons of plastic waste each day. One clothing company is making use of plastic waste by turning it into sports t-shirts. The company, Paragon Apparels, uses eight PET bottles of fizzy drinks to make one shirt. Now the clothing brand produces over 4,000 pieces of such Read More...
Jordan's capital is creating green mosques and schools to tackle emissions
Poking above the bright pink bougainvillea that spills into the street, the lone minaret of the Ta'la Al-Ali mosque towers over the Khalda neighborhood of Amman. Aside from its colorful stain-glassed windows and ornate calligraphy, this mosque stands out for another reason: its roof is covered with Read More...
The Ocean Cleanup System begins removing the great pacific garbage patch
A Dutch non-profit organization announced they were working on advanced technologies in an attempt to remove the plastic waste from the world’s oceans. The Ocean Cleanup launched in September the cleanup system called “System 001” from the San Francisco Read More...
Is it possible for an oil company to help fight climate change?
A year ago, Royal Dutch Shell, now the largest oil company in the world, acquired NewMotion, a company with thousands of electric car charging points throughout Europe. A month later, Shell started installing fast chargers at some of its largest gas Read More...
Scientists have found a brilliant way to repurpose plastic bottles
A team of scientists has developed a cheap method for converting the most common type of plastic waste into a highly useful aerogel. The newfound material has a wide array of uses, from working as a protective insulator for firefighter coats to acting as an absorbent for cleaning up oil spills. Now Read More...