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.
Shoe boxes are redesigned for environmental sustainability
Viupax wastes significantly less cardboard and occupies a smaller volume than traditional shoe boxes. Viupax—a shoe box that creator Andreas Kioroglou, founder of design studio Matadog Design, hopes will help save the planet—uses 20 to 57% less material than traditional cardboard shoe Read More...
Insuring nature, ensuring resilience
Today, I want to talk about two topics. First, and this is likely what you’d expect to hear from me, I want to discuss nature-based solutions: How can we invest in nature, our best and biggest asset, to boost resilience to severe weather and other climate impacts — and protect nature at Read More...
Research: Biochar reduces air pollution, saves health costs
Producing “biochar” is a 2,000 year-old practice that converts agricultural waste into a soil enhancer that can hold carbon, boost food security, and increase soil biodiversity, and discourage deforestation. The process creates a fine-grained, highly porous charcoal that helps soils retain Read More...
U.K. takes leadership on ocean plastics with ban on microbeads
Globally we are buying a million plastic bottles a minute. 91 percent of these bottles are not recycled, and much of that ultimately ends up in the oceans, breaks down into small pieces, is consumed by fish that we eat. It’s an environmental and health disaster. The good news is that awareness is Read More...
A carbon-free city is being built from scratch
Can a city built from scratch be profitable to developers and enjoyable to residents as it tries to be carbon-free? That is the question facing owners and planners of a mostly vacant, sunburned 400-acre plot of land near this city's sprawling International Airport as they plan an energy system with Read More...
Tobacco-style California climate lawsuits can stimulate clean energy revolution
Twenty years ago lawyers brought tobacco manufacturers to their knees with billion-dollar claims for damages—thus making an important contribution to curtailing smoking and improving public health. Similarly, now lawyers see possibilities for a major contribution to the fight against global Read More...
Citizens begin reclaiming coal country after decades of corporate land grabs
Across central Appalachia, once-thriving mining communities have been ravaged by the collapse of the coal industry and the flight of jobs from the region. For a region that remains rich in natural resources, Appalachia’s local governments continue to struggle to fund basic services such as Read More...
'The idea is coming of age': Indigenous Australians take carbon farming to Canada
Australia’s world-leading Indigenous land management and carbon farming programs are spreading internationally, with a formal agreement signed to help build a similar program in Canada. A chance meeting between Rowen Foley from the Aboriginal Carbon Fund and a Candian carbon credit businessman at Read More...
Good morning: Watch this video of a whale jumping completely out of the water
Being in nature brings calmness and peace. Watching nature films or pictures is not the same but it helps to relax too. Here’s a shirt video of a jumping humpback whale. An astonishing sight and a great opportunity to take a short break from your busy Read More...
Fighting deforestation by paying people not to cut down trees works
When it comes to global warming and the regeneration of land, trees have enormous value. Yet, short-term challenges force many people in the developing world to cut down trees. Would it work to pay landowners to leave their land alone? Critics have argued that such a policy would simply make the Read More...