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.
2022's most optimistic climate stories
These days, it’s easy to sink into feelings of climate anxiety and eco-grief. However, this past year brought us a number of good climate stories that encourage us not to lose hope! Renewables are expected to produce more energy than coal in the United States. Hydropower, wind, and solar Read More...
California county sees greatest number of monarch butterflies in 20 years
Over this holiday season, there’s a glimmer of optimism in San Luis Obispo County. It takes the shape of a famous orange-and-black striped butterfly that lives in towering eucalyptus and Monterey cypress trees all along the coast. According to preliminary statistics shared by local volunteer Read More...
France's ban on single-use restaurant tableware is a fast-food “revolution”
Fast-food restaurants in France are now tackling one of the most significant shifts in the industry, ever: a government ban on disposable plates, cups, and tableware for anybody eating or drinking on-site. On January 1, McDonald's, Burger King, Starbucks, and Subway faced what Read More...
22 reasons for optimism in 2022 (part II)
Here are eleven more good things that happened in 2022 that gave us cause to hope and celebrate. If you haven’t read part I yet, click here to check it out. Wordlemania hit hard In 2022, the number everyone was begging to hear was your Wordle score. Though the game where you try to predict a Read More...
22 reasons for optimism in 2022 (part I)
Here are eleven good things that happened in 2022 that gave us cause to hope and celebrate. Ukraine still stands Russian President Vladimir Putin and most others expected Ukraine to succumb to Russian control within days of his late February invasion. Few foresaw the force of the Ukrainian Read More...
Two new DC public schools model net zero education
It goes without saying that we should be teaching our children about important environmental matters, especially excessive energy consumption and the need for energy efficiency. But what about the energy that a school itself consumes? While it is a rarely-thought-of area for improvement, new Read More...
Welcome to Modhera, India’s first village entirely powered by solar
Modhera in Gujarat became India's first solar-powered village, setting a precedent for what UN Secretary-General António Guterres called a "reconciliation between humanity and the planet," according to Euronews. UN News reports that the solar project provides residents of Modhera with an Read More...
Local community in Gabon succeeds in saving ancestral forest from logging
About a year and a half ago, a community in northeastern Gabon embarked on a first-of-its-kind initiative to request the declassification of a logging concession area. As part of the effort, the villagers sought to instead reclassify it as a protected area to safeguard its ecological and heritage Read More...
Australia adds 127 reptiles to global treaty against wildlife trade
Australia added a total of 127 reptiles to a global treaty put in place to shield animals from the illegal wildlife trade. The inclusion of these 127 animals (one of the biggest listings in the treaty’s history) will grant these scaly creatures, who have long been targeted by bad actors in the Read More...
England is turning 99,000 hectares of land into nature recovery projects
In recent years, an increasing number of influential scientists have suggested that we reserve half of our planet for protecting nature to make Earth more liveable. In England, a huge conservation project aims to contribute to that goal by turning 99,000 hectares of land into nature reserves. The Read More...