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.
How Iceland is regrowing forests destroyed by the Vikings
Iceland is beautiful yet barren country, but it wasn’t always like this. When the Vikings first arrived to Iceland more than a millennium ago, they found an uninhabited landscape with plentiful forests and other woodlands. So what happened? The Vikings began chopping down and burning Iceland’s Read More...
How inmates, scientists, and government workers are teaming up to save a butterfly
If you have been reading news about the western part of the United States in the past few months, you wouldn’t be a fool to think lighting a fire in a forest or prairie is a terrible idea. But that’s exactly what a motley collection of prison inmates, Native ecologists, and military base Read More...
Cities’ best bet for fighting climate change is encouraging sharing
By 2050, 85 percent of people in the developed world and 63 percent of the developing world are expected to be urban dwellers. That creates either an opportunity to reduce emissions or exacerbate them, depending on the type of development we choose to undertake and how much people are prepared to Read More...
'Precycling' concept aims to eliminate food packaging waste
MIWA is working to help food and grocery businesses take a step toward more responsible practices. Food packaging has been a persistent environmental problem, and so has food waste. To combat two food issues at once, Czech packager Arancia Europa created MIWA to help stores sell goods without Read More...
New Zealand’s next prime minister wants to plant 100 million trees yearly
Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s youngest leader in more than 150 years, has plans to make the country an even greener place. As one of the first orders of business, she announced an initiative that will see 100 million trees planted yearly. The newly elected prime minister also wants to introduce Read More...
Used toilet paper helps pave a bike path
It is commonplace to manufacture toilet paper out of recycled paper, but it could soon also be commonplace to manufacture raw materials out of recycled toilet paper. Although the concept has a strong ick factor, recycled toilet paper could soon join other recycled materials, such as travel bags Read More...
With new peace, Colombia finds hope for saving its wild lands
Brandishing automatic rifles, the guerilla fighters ordered Andrés Cuervo to leave his camping gear and research notes at the abandoned wooden house where he had been staying. One of the insurgents wrote “Do Not Touch: ELN” — the initials for the National Liberation Army — on a piece of Read More...
EU on brink of historic decision on pervasive glyphosate weedkiller
A pivotal EU vote this week could revoke the licence for the most widely used herbicide in human history, with fateful consequences for global agriculture and its regulation. Glyphosate is a weedkiller so pervasive that its residues were recently found in 45% of Europe’s topsoil – and in the Read More...
Entrepreneurs are turning trash into food, drink, and clean energy
When Tristram Stuart was growing up on a farm in England, he raised pigs as a hobby. He saw that much of the thrown-out food he was feeding them was actually fit for Read More...
Washington D.C. tackles emissions with dockless bikes
It's morning rush hour in the nation's capital, and bicyclists crowd their lane six deep at an intersection. Clad in spandex and business suits, a few ride the bright green, orange, red or yellow bikes that signal a new phase of city Read More...