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.
World's first ocean plastic-cleaning machine set to tackle Pacific Garbage Patch
Pioneering effort to collect debris that kills wildlife about to begin after teenager made his dream come Read More...
Earth Day 2018 around the world in pictures
Students make a sand sculpture on the Earth Day on the banks of the river Yamuna in Allahabad, Read More...
Climate change: Michael Bloomberg offers $4.5m for Paris deal
Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says he will pay $4.5m to cover the lapsed US financial commitment to the Paris climate Read More...
Hawaii may soon become the first U.S. state to ban coral-damaging sunscreen
On the island of Maui alone it’s estimated that 55 gallons of sunscreen are dumped into the water every day. No sunscreen is best for reefs, but some types of sunscreen have ingredients that are worse than others and that can cause coral bleaching. Now environmentalist groups and lawmakers are Read More...
Single-use plastics to be banned from music festivals in the UK by 2021
If you’ve ever been to a musical festival, you’ll know about the massive amount of plastic litter that accumulates as the festival goes on. In an effort to combat unnecessary waste, 60 independent British music festivals have committed to banning single-use plastic from their sites by 2021. Read More...
Wind farms less harmful to seabirds than first thought
Wind farms are far less harmful to birds that first thought, the biggest ever study has shown because seabirds actively change their flight path to avoid them. Researchers used radar and video to monitor seabirds flying near the Vattenfall’s Thanet offshore wind farm in the English Channel Read More...
Gas prices in the US are remarkably low. You just don’t realize it
If you’re complaining about the rising cost of gasoline in the US, it’s time you get a little perspective; Americans pay the second-lowest price for gasoline among major world economies, with one liter of gas costing about $0.79. Compare that with $1.1 paid by Australians, the third-lowest Read More...
The tea industry is finally removing plastics from their teabags
Clipper Teas—a UK tea brand that champions the unbleached teabag—has announced it will stop using synthetic sealants in its teabags. The tea brand becomes the latest company to pledge to eliminate polypropylene from their teabags, which is used to ensure bags hold their shape. Tea-giant Read More...
A plan for New York city’s forests. Yes, forests
Sarah Charlop-Powers was comparing New York City’s forests to its subways. The city has more than 840 miles of tracks for one. It has 10,542 acres of the other, about half as much as the Congaree Swamp in South Carolina, a small national park with an old-growth forest and, according to the Read More...
Scientists have found a bacterium that might be able to clean up oil spills
Oil spills are serious environmental hazards that are extremely difficult to clean up. Thankfully, we may be getting closer to finding a way to effectively clean up oil spills after scientists discovered a little bacterium that chows down on the hydrocarbons that make up oil. Now the researchers Read More...