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.
Six ways we can adapt to climate change
As our climate changes, human creativity has been turning to solutions to problems ranging from restoring water supplies to rebuilding failing ecosystems. In interviews, six scientists discussed their efforts to slow or even reverse changes brought by warming. Their comments have been edited and Read More...
UK to bring back beavers in first government flood reduction scheme of its kind
A valley in the Forest of Dean will echo to the sound of herbivorous munching next spring when a family of beavers are released into a fenced enclosure to stop a village from flooding, in the first ever such scheme funded by the Read More...
These electric busses could start cleaning up national park travel
Under the Donald Trump administration, the national parks and monuments in the United States have entered into an era of unprecedented threat. Earlier in December, the President moved to slash the size of two national monuments in Utah by a Read More...
Meat tax would serve health and beat climate change
The global livestock industry causes 15 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions and meat consumption is rising around the world, but dangerous climate change cannot be avoided unless this is radically curbed. Many people already eat far too much meat, seriously damaging their health and Read More...
How British plant-hunters served science
In a corner of the Yorkshire Dales, far from the beaten track, you might stumble on the peaceful village of Clapham. Now known as a stop-off point for exploring the dales, it was once the home of a rock garden full of plants never seen before in Read More...
Why shipping used clothes to East Africa has become a burden for locals
East Africa no longer wants your old clothes. For decades, countries such as Tanzania, Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, and Uganda have received shipments of second-hand clothing from North American and European charities. These charities gather donations from well-meaning citizens who were Read More...
Scientists have discovered a massive “carbon sink” in the Congo
Deep in the heart of the Congo rainforest, Congolese and British scientists have made an extraordinary discovery. What they have come across is a huge basin of peat, a mud-like material that builds up over centuries and stores carbon that would normally be released into the atmosphere during Read More...
How an underground urban farm in Sweden is heating the building above it
Like many indoor farms, a subterranean urban farm in Stockholm will grow greens in vertical towers under LED lights. But what makes this urban farm different is that it will capture the heat from the lights and send it into a heat storage system for the office building above. Usually that heat Read More...
How to build a city that doesn’t flood? Turn it into a sponge
Urban floods make the news with alarming regularity. Just in the past few months, Hurricane Harvey submerged Houston, and the seasonal monsoon crippled cities in South Read More...
13 scientists saving our soils
Soil performs a variety of vital functions, including supporting plant and animal life and filtering contaminants from water and the Read More...