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.
Regreening the planet could lower carbon levels and end use of fossil fuels
There’s a new study out spearheaded by The Nature Conservancy and published in the Proceedings Of The National Academy of Sciences which presents a series of 20 steps that can be taken to naturally mitigate the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Taken together, the effect on carbon Read More...
The key to solving one of cities’ biggest problems? Think small
Climate change is one of our generation’s biggest challenges–and most confusing policy problems. The country’s top politicians are busy rolling back protections. Cities are plowing ahead with resiliency plans. There’s still little consensus on how best to approach climate change’s Read More...
World’s first 'negative emission' power plant turns CO2 into stone
After opening the world’s first commercial plant designed to pull CO2 directly out of the air, a Swiss company is now joining forces with a geothermal power plant in Iceland to create the world’s first “negative emission” power plant. The power plant will take captured CO2, bound it with Read More...
From dead woods to triumph of nature, 30 years after the Great Storm
It is remembered as a generation-defining moment, the night when ships ran aground, London endured its first blackout since the Blitz, 18 people died and 15 million trees were toppled. But the devastation wrought by the Great Storm of 1987 also left in its wake a startling woodland recovery, Read More...
New study finds nature is vital to beating climate change
Better stewardship of the land could have a bigger role in fighting climate change than previously thought, according to the most comprehensive assessment to date of how greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced and stored in forests, farmland, grasslands and wetlands using natural climate Read More...
California becomes the first state to require pet stores to sell rescue animals
California will be the first state to require pet stores to sell rescue animals under legislation signed by Gov. Jerry Brown on Read More...
How to start a regenerative agriculture movement in your community
The most important, although as of yet little known, new paradigm shift and set of practices in the world today is regenerative agriculture, or rather regenerative food, farming and land Read More...
This device can collect 20,000 plastic bottles from the ocean each year
In 2015, a duo of Australian surfers developed a device that can clean waterways on its own. It works by sucking in various kinds of pollution (including oil) and spitting out clean water. Now, nearly two years after unveiling the device and creating a crowdfunding campaign, the surfers have Read More...
Plastic bottle deposit return scheme could save England's councils 35m a year
Councils across England could save up to £35m every year if the government introduces a deposit return scheme [DRS] for plastic bottles and other drinks containers, according to a new Read More...
From fluffy pillows to concrete: The uses of captured CO2
Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are contributing to global warming, so could technologies removing some of the gas from the atmosphere help slow the process? When you tuck yourself into bed tonight - curling up on your memory foam mattress and fluffy pillows - consider this: you could be helping to Read More...