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.
The drought in California is officially over
Hurrah! Hurrah! For the first time since 2011, the entire state of California is free of drought. Californians can thank all that record-breaking rain they’ve been getting, which has helped add water to the soil and build up the state’s snowpack. In the south and north, some dryness persists. Read More...
Gillette wants to turn your old razors into new products
You may not realize it, but the razors you use to shave with are made of precious metals that are necessary for avoiding rust. The problem is that without any proper way of recycling these metals, people have been tossing them in landfills for as long as razors have been around, which is a disaster Read More...
Costa Rica sets ambitious target to become plastic and carbon-free by 2021
Costa Rica has long been on the forefront when it comes to addressing climate change, but their latest pledge is their boldest yet. By 2021, the central American nation wants to become the first country to be plastic and carbon-free. Costa Rica already launched a national strategy to replace Read More...
This environmental activist is on course to become the president of Slovakia
There’s a packed crowd of Democrats running in the 2020 election, many of whom are campaigning with environmentalism as a top priority. If those candidates want to run a successful campaign, they should look towards Slovakia where Zuzana Caputova, an environmental activist and anti-corruption Read More...
Italian oil giant pledges to achieve net-carbon emissions by 2030
With more and more evidence pointing towards the major threat climate change poses to our global society, even oil companies are beginning to realize the risks involved and the need for urgent action. Just recently, Eni – a major oil and gas company in Italy – has committed itself to eliminate Read More...
Maryland just passed a measure to ban foam food containers
In the past year, plastic straws became the target of a number of environmental campaigns, which has led it to be banned in many places around the world, including Hawaii. Indeed, many states around the US have started to introduce laws that will phase out straws, cutlery, and other single-use Read More...
The greatest climate strike the world has ever seen is happening today
We’ve been covering the Youth Climate Strikes for the last few weeks and marveled at how quickly it’s grown. In just a matter of months, the solo protest of then 15-year-old Greta Thunberg outside the Swedish parliament last Fall has grown into a massive global movement. But never has the Read More...
These artificial plants make sure urban insects have enough food to survive
Insects need a little love. They currently face a multitude of different threats, from pesticides and climate change to invasive species and the spread of deforestation. All of these things are taking such a toll on insect populations that as many as 40 percent of all species may be endangered in Read More...
Seaweed is here to join the fight against plastic straw pollution
It hurts just writing this, but an estimated 8 million tons of plastic garbage that ends up in our oceans annually, plastic straws contribute a great deal to this. Thankfully, innovative ideas on how to deal with this growing issue keep on coming. The latest comes from a startup called Loliware, Read More...
The inventor of Roomba designed a subaquatic robot to hunt invasive lionfish
While the lionfish may look spectacular, this venomous fish is a disaster for marine ecosystems. In the Bahamas alone, the invasive lionfish will eat 72 different species, far more than any other local predator; a single lionfish in a coral reef can reduce native reef fish by 79 percent. Reducing Read More...