Climate Action
What is Climate Action? Climate Action is humanity's efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance our planet's resilience against climate change. From adaptation to mitigation, at The Optimist Daily you will learn about the most recent positive news stories and solutions targeting climate change and other environmental issues.
The future is bright white! How paint can help cool a city
Last year, we wrote about a team of researchers led by Purdue University mechanical engineering professor Xiulin Ruan who invented a kind of paint that is so white it reflects more than 95 percent of the sunlight that falls on surfaces covered in it. We love keeping track of solutions as they Read More...
This is how bacteria can help us recycle electric car batteries
Though electric vehicles (EVs) emit much fewer greenhouse gas emissions than cars that burn petrol or diesel, the rare metals needed for manufacturing their batteries are increasingly in short supply. Currently, the EU recycles less than five percent of EV batteries, and the most common technique Read More...
How one neighborhood used gamification to reduce traffic emissions
Green transportation methods like walking, biking, and taking public transportation reduces carbon emissions and improve air quality for residents, but encouraging people to choose these options over personal vehicles is a challenge. One neighborhood in London has finally cracked the code on green Read More...
New carbon capture facility will remove 1m tons of CO2 from the air yearly
We have previously written about emerging carbon capture technologies and their potential to help us tackle climate change. Now, we’re thrilled to share with you a real breakthrough in our efforts to cut the amount of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere. Scotland is set to become home to Read More...
Technology reduces Chernobyl's radiation levels by 47%
Swiss company Exlterra (Excellence for Earth) in partnership with Ukrainian entity State Specialized Enterprise Ecocenter (SSE Ecocenter) has successfully reduced radiation in the soil and air in the Chernobyl exclusions zone thanks to a new technology called Nucleus Separation Passive System Read More...
NASA technology offers full picture of regenerative agriculture benefits
As you are probably well aware by now, most current agricultural practices have a hugely detrimental effect on the environment, leading to the degradation of swathes of land across the world which would otherwise serve as a tool against climate change. The good news though, is that farmers around Read More...
Feeding cattle seaweed could change the world
Methane is a potent greenhouse gas and a major contributor to climate change. About 70 percent of agricultural methane comes from enteric fermentation, chemical reactions that occur in the stomachs of cows and other grazing animals as they digest plants. Fortunately, studies have shown that Read More...
Scotland blows up its last coal plant as part of its green energy transition
In recent years, an increasing number of countries have moved away from coal in an effort to meet their climate targets. Scotland, for example, severed its ties with fossil fuel back in 2016, when it shut down its last remaining coal power plant. Last week, government officials blew up that same Read More...
New battery biodegrades after a month in soil
E-waste is one of the most rapidly growing and toxic waste streams in the world today, but scientists at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore have come up with a partial solution by creating biodegradable batteries that can actually be buried in soil once they’ve reached the Read More...
New technology uses seawater to remove carbon from the atmosphere
The ocean absorbs about a third of the CO2 that humans create when burning fossil fuels. While that’s good news for the air, capturing so much extra carbon dioxide makes ocean waters more acidic, harming marine life. Enter Ebb Carbon, a startup that wants to reinforce the ocean’s ability to Read More...