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.
California says goodbye to gas-powered gardening equipment
We recently wrote an article about why you should invest in all-electric gardening equipment. Recognizing the environmental and public health benefits of this transition, California has signed a bill into law that will ban the sale of new gas-powered leaf-blowers, lawnmowers, power washers, and Read More...
Why fish poop is more important than we realize
A new study published in Science Advances has some news for the scientific community: We should be paying more attention to fish poop. While not a glamorous subject, the study finds that fish and their feces play an underappreciated role in ocean ecosystems. Why fish? Phytoplankton in the Read More...
Mongolia to fight desertification by planting one billion trees
Mongolia’s presidential press office announced that the country will combat desertification by promising to plant a billion trees, starting next week. “Mongolia aims to realize the target by 2030 to combat climate change and desertification,” the country’s president Ukhnaa Khurelsukh Read More...
Refugees in Cameroon turn desert camp into a lush forest
In 2014, thousands of refugees who were fleeing the violence linked to militant group Boko Haram in Nigeria came to Minawao, Cameroon, a desert region badly affected by climate change. Since 2014, almost 70,000 refugees had made the space their home, cutting down the last standing trees to support Read More...
Public libraries are climate justice tools
We’ve written about how libraries should double as food banks, but did you know that public libraries are also essential to climate justice? As more regions face extreme temperatures due to climate change, libraries are increasingly serving as refuges for heat-vulnerable residents. For Read More...
New policy reduces climate misinformation on popular video platform
A 2020 report by Avaaz, a US not-for-profit organization focused on issues such as climate change, blamed YouTube for “incentivizing this climate misinformation content via its monetization program.” In response, Google is finally banning ads, YouTube videos, and other content that preaches Read More...
This mangrove forest can help us better understand climate change
When botanist Carlos Burelo was a young boy, he used to play among a grove of red mangroves along the banks of the San Pedro Martir River in the middle of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. The funny thing is that mangroves typically grow in coastal salt waters, while these ones thrive in freshwater 124 Read More...
US reported record solar power growth in 2020
We’ve previously written about how renewables outpaced fossil fuels in Europe for the first time in 2020. Now, new data demonstrates how US renewables, specifically solar, also thrived despite the challenges of a global pandemic. Last year, the US built more utility-scale solar power plants Read More...
This program bridges the gap between Indigenous knowledge and Western science
The University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) has launched a new program aimed at bridging the gap between Indigenous knowledge and Western science. Part of the UAF’s College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, the program offers fellowships to Indigenous graduate students with the goal of researching Read More...
Birmingham switches gears from car-centric to low-traffic
Birmingham, the second-largest city in the UK, has announced a revolutionary transport plan designed to lower CO2 emissions and make the city more livable by transforming it from a car-centric area into a super-sized low-traffic neighborhood. The city currently has a population of 1.2 million Read More...