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 is the world's first carbon negative country
As companies, researchers, scientists and entrepreneurs work to make industries and systems carbon-neutral, one tiny nation in the Eastern Himalayas has them all beat: Bhutan is world's first – and only – carbon-negative Read More...
The largest ever tropical reforestation is planting 73 million trees
There are more habitable planets in our galaxy than humans living on planet Earth. But the nearest one is about 70 trillion miles away, which means that, for now, and for the foreseeable future, Earth is the only life-supporting rock hurtling through infinite space we’ll ever know. It’s really Read More...
Plants are becoming better at photosynthesis as carbon levels climb
Scientists have noticed a strange trend happening simultaneously with rising levels of carbon emissions: vegetation is able to use water more efficiently, leading to increased levels of photosynthesis. Apparently, plentiful levels of a particular type of carbon allows plants to adjust their Read More...
How Iceland is regrowing forests destroyed by the Vikings
Iceland is beautiful yet barren country, but it wasn’t always like this. When the Vikings first arrived to Iceland more than a millennium ago, they found an uninhabited landscape with plentiful forests and other woodlands. So what happened? The Vikings began chopping down and burning Iceland’s Read More...
How inmates, scientists, and government workers are teaming up to save a butterfly
If you have been reading news about the western part of the United States in the past few months, you wouldn’t be a fool to think lighting a fire in a forest or prairie is a terrible idea. But that’s exactly what a motley collection of prison inmates, Native ecologists, and military base Read More...
Cities’ best bet for fighting climate change is encouraging sharing
By 2050, 85 percent of people in the developed world and 63 percent of the developing world are expected to be urban dwellers. That creates either an opportunity to reduce emissions or exacerbate them, depending on the type of development we choose to undertake and how much people are prepared to Read More...
'Precycling' concept aims to eliminate food packaging waste
MIWA is working to help food and grocery businesses take a step toward more responsible practices. Food packaging has been a persistent environmental problem, and so has food waste. To combat two food issues at once, Czech packager Arancia Europa created MIWA to help stores sell goods without Read More...
New Zealand’s next prime minister wants to plant 100 million trees yearly
Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s youngest leader in more than 150 years, has plans to make the country an even greener place. As one of the first orders of business, she announced an initiative that will see 100 million trees planted yearly. The newly elected prime minister also wants to introduce Read More...
Used toilet paper helps pave a bike path
It is commonplace to manufacture toilet paper out of recycled paper, but it could soon also be commonplace to manufacture raw materials out of recycled toilet paper. Although the concept has a strong ick factor, recycled toilet paper could soon join other recycled materials, such as travel bags Read More...
With new peace, Colombia finds hope for saving its wild lands
Brandishing automatic rifles, the guerilla fighters ordered Andrés Cuervo to leave his camping gear and research notes at the abandoned wooden house where he had been staying. One of the insurgents wrote “Do Not Touch: ELN” — the initials for the National Liberation Army — on a piece of Read More...