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.
Paris’ outdoor pandemic dining is here to stay
After over a year of dining outdoors, many people have come to love the experience of enjoying a meal in what would otherwise be a busy street or parking lane. Closed streets and dining terraces have made our cities more human-friendly and in the city of lights, the change is here to Read More...
WomBot is helping scientists explore wombat burrows in Australia
Wombat burrows in Australia can be 10 to 100 feet long and 11.5 feet deep. This makes it quite challenging for scientists to gain a full understanding of how a deadly disease affecting wombats spreads through these complex tunnels. To overcome this hurdle, robotics researchers at La Trobe Read More...
This 71-year-old Mexican man builds solar stoves made from reused materials
If you walk near Mexico City’s primary wholesale food market, Central Abasto de Ecatepec, you’re likely to run into 71-year-old Maximino Antonio Piedad, who’s often there demonstrating his homemade solar cooker built out of reused materials. His aim is to support people who have limited Read More...
Ancient "mini-Pompeii" discovered beneath abandoned Italian cinema
During an excavation of a former cinema in the northern Italian city of Verona, the renovation team made a valuable and surprising discovery. Beneath the abandoned Astra Teatro, which is currently undergoing renovation after lying unused for more than two decades, was the hiding place of an Read More...
This innovative plant proves that polystyrene isn't impossible to recycle after all
Did you know that styrene naturally occurs in foods like strawberries and cinnamon? It’s only when it’s combined with other chemicals to create packaging and foam insulation to protect fragile items in transit does it become polystyrene — that white, staticky, and virtually Read More...
Somerset House welcomes trees into its courtyard for the first time
London’s acclaimed Somerset House was designed based on the principles of the Enlightenment and has maintained that aesthetic ever since — until now. Traditionally, trees and anything with leaves was forbidden in the Somerset House courtyard based on the building’s founding principles. Read More...
Scientists discover two cat-size squirrel species living in the Himalayas
Researchers from Australia have discovered two new species of the woolly flying squirrel, one of the world’s rarest mammals, in the Himalayan mountains. Scientists have known about the woolly flying squirrel (Eupetaurus cinereus) for a long time, which, at five pounds and three feet long, is one Read More...
Rare orchids found growing in London rooftop garden
Until this week, the small-flowered tongue-orchid hadn’t been seen in the UK in over 30 years. That all changed when a colony of the small orchids was found on a London rooftop, a shock to its owners and naturalists. The collection of 15 delicate blooms was found in Nomura International's Read More...
Scientists discover 5 million years of climate change records in Kazakhstan
After making the precarious descent into the Charyn Canyon in Kazakhstan, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany discovered a practically unbroken record of climate change in an 80-meter-thick layer of sediment. This ancient slab of earth and rock provides Read More...
Oyasai all-natural crayons are made with vegetable waste
The modern environmental movement urges us to assess the environmental impact of everything in our lives, including day-to-day items like school supplies. In an attempt to reduce waste and introduce sustainability to children at a young age, Japanese company Mizuiro, Inc., has figured out a way Read More...