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.
This radio station plays ethereal ambient music made by trees
Silent tree activity, like photosynthesis and the absorption and evaporation of water, produces a small voltage in the leaves. In a bid to encourage people to think more carefully about their local tree canopy, sound designer and musician Skooby Laposky has found a way to convert that tree activity Read More...
Food transport to become much greener thanks to solar-powered reefers
Transporting food to your local supermarket typically requires refrigerated trailers (also known as reefers). These are usually cooled by diesel fuel, with an idling diesel tractor burning about a gallon of fuel per hour and releasing about 22.4 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as a Read More...
Little connections can make big cities a refuge for those with depression
Big cities tend to have the reputation of being exhausting and impersonal as everyone rushes around anonymously amidst busy streets. However, researchers at the University of Chicago found that the fleeting (and often forgotten) connections people make in a city can actually help make urban Read More...
Phytomining is the sustainable makeover the mining industry needs
Mining is one of the most heavily polluting industries, especially when it comes to water contamination, but Malaysia’s Kinabalu Park is home to a mine that looks a little different. In this mine, nickel is extracted from leafy green plants with a fraction of the environmental Read More...
Berkeley is the first city in the US with long-term plans to go vegan
Last week, the City Council of Berkeley passed a resolution to cut the number of animal product purchases in the city in half by the year 2024. However, this is just the beginning as the long-term goal of this resolution is the eventual phasing out of all purchases of animal products and replacing Read More...
This eco-friendly energy storage device is made from tropical fruit waste
While your local grocery store most likely doesn’t have any tamarinds in its fresh produce aisle, the tropical fruit is consumed in great quantities in Asia, where the fruit’s bulky shells usually end up in landfills after they’ve been discarded. In a bid to find a better use for this Read More...
How NASA technology is helping firefighters tackle wildfires on the ground
From the United States to the Mediterranean coastlines, wildfires have been breaking records this summer, with places in Greece, Lebanon, Turkey, and Italy seeing some of the worst fires in decades. As climate change-induced drought and severe heatwaves complicate the painstaking efforts of Read More...
This new metric assesses road safety before any accidents ever happen
The way urban planners currently assess the safety of a road involves counting the number of accidents on that particular road. Essentially, this means that there’s a "literal human cost" to measuring how safe a street is, says Megan Ryerson, a transportation engineer and urban planner at the Read More...
Cooperation beats contracting for affordable homeless housing
A developer, homeless service providers, local church leaders, and a social impact investment manager have teamed up to demonstrate that cooperation between the private sector and non-profits can beat our traditional contractors when it comes to building housing for the unsheltered. They’ve Read More...
Cheaper and Cleaner: Europe’s renewable energy success story
Europe made history over the last six months when it generated more electricity from renewable sources than it did from fossil fuels. Over 40 percent of the electricity used by the EU’s 27 member states came from renewable sources, such as solar, wind, hydro, and bioenergy. In contrast, fossil Read More...