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.
How British plant-hunters served science
In a corner of the Yorkshire Dales, far from the beaten track, you might stumble on the peaceful village of Clapham. Now known as a stop-off point for exploring the dales, it was once the home of a rock garden full of plants never seen before in Read More...
Why shipping used clothes to East Africa has become a burden for locals
East Africa no longer wants your old clothes. For decades, countries such as Tanzania, Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, and Uganda have received shipments of second-hand clothing from North American and European charities. These charities gather donations from well-meaning citizens who were Read More...
Scientists have discovered a massive “carbon sink” in the Congo
Deep in the heart of the Congo rainforest, Congolese and British scientists have made an extraordinary discovery. What they have come across is a huge basin of peat, a mud-like material that builds up over centuries and stores carbon that would normally be released into the atmosphere during Read More...
How an underground urban farm in Sweden is heating the building above it
Like many indoor farms, a subterranean urban farm in Stockholm will grow greens in vertical towers under LED lights. But what makes this urban farm different is that it will capture the heat from the lights and send it into a heat storage system for the office building above. Usually that heat Read More...
How to build a city that doesn’t flood? Turn it into a sponge
Urban floods make the news with alarming regularity. Just in the past few months, Hurricane Harvey submerged Houston, and the seasonal monsoon crippled cities in South Read More...
13 scientists saving our soils
Soil performs a variety of vital functions, including supporting plant and animal life and filtering contaminants from water and the Read More...
UN signals 'end' of throwaway plastic
The end of the era of throwaway plastic has been signalled by UN environment ministers meeting in Kenya. They signed off a document stating that the flow of plastic into the ocean must be Read More...
Healthy diet, healthy planet: How good eating habits benefit the environment
Scientists say that food production including growing crops, raising livestock, fishing and transporting all that food to our plates is responsible for 20 to 30 percent of total global greenhouse gas emissions. But altering our diets could change that. A new study found that if citizens in 28 Read More...
Climate change is a surprisingly straightforward problem to solve
The average global temperature today is about 1°C higher than it was before the Industrial Revolution began in the late 1700s. That may not sound like much, but scientists agree that just one more 1°C, and our planet will pass a tipping point Read More...
Behold the world’s first zero-emissions fossil-fuel power plant
From the top of the Sam Houston Ship Channel Bridge, more than 50 meters (160 ft) above Buffalo Bayou, in every direction you look, you can see huge oil tankers, massive piles of coal, and uncountable smokestacks. This small corner Read More...