Sustainable Urban Development
With cities expected to host about 70 percent of the world's population, sustainable urban development is key to making communities worldwide more resilient against the growing threat of climate change. Find out about the latest urban practices from across the world aiming to make our cities more sustainable and inclusive in these good-news stories from The Optimist Daily.
Sweden combats fake news with new agency
The pandemic brought on a host of problems; however, it also gave us the opportunity to pay more attention to other issues that flew under the radar while we were busy getting through our hectic pre-pandemic schedules. One of these concerns is the dominance of misinformation or “fake news.” Read More...
This ingenious solution tackles food waste and insecurity at once
Food waste is a particularly infuriating problem because so much is wasted. According to nonprofit FoodPrint, almost 40 percent of all food in America, much of it still edible, is chucked out. All while at least a tenth of the world’s population (around 800 million people) are struggling with Read More...
Berlin plans to have the world’s largest car-free urban area
In recent years, many cities around the world have become much more aware of the plight of designing our urban spaces with a car-centric mentality. In Europe in particular, cities like Amsterdam, Paris, Barcelona, and Stockholm are well ahead when it comes to reclaiming urban space from cars in Read More...
Rapidly retrofitting old buildings is key for climate goals - Here's how to do it
Buildings account for about 40 percent of annual global carbon emissions. In order to meet our climate goals, every building on the planet will have to be net-zero by 2050. But since most of the current buildings will still exist then, a massive number of homes will have to undergo retrofits in Read More...
Using rubber to create safer, longer lasting EV batteries
Synthetic rubbers have been widely applied for many purposes, such as in tires, sealants, and wearable electronics. A study, from the Georgia Institute of Technology in collaboration with the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, has discovered a new use for the material in electric Read More...
This market is tossing "use-by" dates to help curb food waste
The British supermarket Morrisons has decided to remove “use-by” dates on milk packaging by the end of the month in an effort to save millions of pints of milk from being needlessly thrown away each year. Instead, the supermarket is inviting their customers to use the traditional, age-old Read More...
Windows giant Anderson gives solar window integration a $30M boost
Here at The Optimist Daily, we love sharing stories about the exciting advancements that we are making in terms of discovering and fashioning creative ways that we can harvest clean, green, and renewable energy. One of the threads of renewable energy we’ve been following closely is solar Read More...
Everything you need to know about California’s new composting law
Food waste is a huge problem to tackle, which is why we’ve shared numerous stories with tips on how you can help reduce your own personal food waste. To that end, we’ve suggested that people re-organize their pantry and refrigerator, download apps that connect consumers with grocery items that Read More...
China’s “artificial sun” fusion reactor breaks yet another record
The Chinese Academy of Sciences has exciting news about its fusion reactor that it recently shared in a release. The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) fusion reactor successfully sustained a plasma temperature of 120 million degrees Celsius for 1,056 seconds, effectively Read More...
How this initiative is helping us worm our way into a greener future
A Nottingham-based initiative called the Urban Worm Community Interest Company (UWC) is helping spur on an urban worm farming movement in the UK that will help the nation deal with waste while simultaneously providing high-grade fertilizer. So far, the enterprise has been granted 50,000 GBP from Read More...