Today’s Solutions: March 29, 2024

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.

Oslo city center will be car-f

Oslo city center will be car-free within four years

In September, Paris envisioned life without cars for a day as people walked and biked freely on the streets under clear blue skies. But Oslo is raising the bar with its plans to ban cars from the city center within four years. The move would rid private vehicles in an effort to reduce traffic and Read More...

Coaxing Patagonia back to its

Coaxing Patagonia back to its natural state

Patagonia. The very word is synonymous with unspoiled wilderness. In reality, however, European immigrants began redefining this remote stretch of Chile and Argentina a century ago, carving significant portions of its 402,700 square miles into vast private estancias. Over time, many of those sheep Read More...

Simple steps to a more sustain

Simple steps to a more sustainable workplace

Would you like to make your business more sustainable? Whether you’re running a cupcake cafe or a 500-strong tech company, there are a range of techniques for improving your sustainability credentials. In our live Q&A on how to make your workplace more sustainable, we discussed different Read More...

French diplomacy in full swing

French diplomacy in full swing to make a success of Paris climate talks

With the United Nations global climate conference in Paris only a month away, France made it top priority to work towards a major climate change deal. The Guardian reports climate diplomacy has never seen such a concerted push to forge a new global agreement on climate change. In the past couple Read More...

Big win for environmentalists

Big win for environmentalists as Obama administration cancels oil drilling lease sales

Shell announced a few weeks ago that it would be stopping its oil exploration in the Arctic indefinitely, but only now can environmentalists let out a sigh of relief. That’s because The Interior Department has scrapped two lease sales for 2016 and 2017 for oil drilling rights in the Arctic Ocean, Read More...

Israelis and Palestinians marc

Israelis and Palestinians march for peace together in Jerusalem

This weekend, Israelis and Palestinians marched together in a Jerusalem solidarity rally. Together, they were calling for an end to the current wave of violence. In addition, they demanded peaceful talks toward a two-state solution in the region. The event was organized on Read More...

Biodiversity stabilizes ecosys

Biodiversity stabilizes ecosystems during climate extremes

Can biodiversity help protect ecosystems from extreme conditions? That question is much on the minds of scientists and policy makers as a changing climate brings more wildly swinging conditions at the same time human activities reduce the number of species available to produce food and oxygen and Read More...

Meet the new climate panel chi

Meet the new climate panel chief, who promises to focus on solutions

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the most authoritative gathering of climate scientists, setting the agenda for policy makers. Last week, South Korean economist Hoesung Lee was elected as the new chairman. In an interview with Nature he says: "I would like to be remembered as Read More...

The quest for greener weed

The quest for greener weed

The cash crop is hogging more and more water and energy as U.S. production grows. So some pot industry insiders are taking early steps to make it more sustainable. Growing weed isn't usually very green. In rural California, where marijuana is the top cash crop, it uses massive amounts of water Read More...

An MIT scientist has invented

An MIT scientist has invented a way to turn pollution into printer ink

Anirudh Sharma doesn't just want to pull harmful carbon from the air. He wants to offer a cheaper alternative to the exorbitant costs of ordinary printer ink. Sharma recently invented "Kaala," a device that can gobble up harmful pollutants and instantly repurpose them, with a little help from Read More...