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.
Activists plan to plant 10bn trees to offset CO2 released by Trump policies
Activists want to plant a “Trump Forest” of 10 billion trees between now and December 24th with the last one being a Christmas tree planted in front of the White House. They are asking people to donate trees to make up for the 650 million tons of CO2 that will be released into the atmosphere by Read More...
Regeneration: Discarded orange peels brought back a rainforest in Costa Rica
With a little help forests will regenerate themselves. We have reported about that before. Now, researchers in Costa Rica have discovered that a barren, deforested area transformed in a lush forest 16 years after 1,000 truckloads of orange peels were unloaded onto the land. The area that was Read More...
UK wants to try fracking but may be 55 million years too late
Many argue that fracking to harvest shale gas creates environmental nightmares. We may not even need it as renewable energy has become competitive with fossil fuels. The UK is late entering the fracking game. Very late, according to a British geologist who argues that the island of Britain was Read More...
What's the annual value of trees? $500 million per megacity, study says
In the megacities that are home to nearly 10 percent of the world's 7.5 billion people, trees provide each city with more than $500 million each year in services that make urban environments cleaner, more affordable and more pleasant places to Read More...
A sustainable concrete jungle: The road to a zero-carbon cement industry
What’s the most widely used material in the world apart from water? You may not guess it: cement. Cement is a problem because it accounts for 5 percent of the world’s industrial and energy greenhouse emissions. A new report outlines several ways to reduce the footprint of the cement industry by Read More...
Scientists invented edible coffee creamer capsules to stop plastic pollution
Tiny, to-go coffee creamer cups do make our morning routine more convenient. But they also add to the rampant throwaway plastic problem in the U.S., which amounts to about 33.6 million tons of plastic waste every year. Now, scientists are trying to offset some of the damage with a new invention: Read More...
Soil education: There's an app for that
The new free Starting with Soil app offers a "playful, visually rich way" of helping kids (and adults) learn about healthy soil, which is a crucial part of our food Read More...
Moss may prove cheap city pollution monitor, study finds
Delicate mosses found on rocks and trees in cities around the world can be used to measure the impact of atmospheric change and could prove a low-cost way to monitor urban pollution, according to Japanese scientists. Moss, a “bioindicator”, Read More...
The Netherlands opens the world’s biggest parking garage… for bikes
Parking garages are everywhere around the globe and they host… cars. But in The Netherlands, there are many more bikes than cars. So, it may not be a surprise that the country is opening the world’s largest parking garage… for bikes. The three-storey parking garage under the train station of Read More...
How carbon farming could halt climate change
Soil holds more carbon than the atmosphere and all vegetation combined. But who’s going to convince more farmers to farm with carbon levels in mind? We can’t say we weren’t Read More...