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.
China builds new city with a million plants to fight air pollution
China is building a forest city using the ideas of Italian architect Stefano Boeri. Boeri is known for his “vertical forest towers” that are being built in Switzerland and Italy. The new Chinese city will host 30,000 people and will be clad in trees and plants—not just in the parks, gardens Read More...
Reforestation with drones: Planting 100,000 trees a day
Each citizen of the world needs to plant 240 trees. That would be the best way to heal the planet as we recently proposed. Quite a challenge. But technology can help. These pioneers have developed a drone that can identify the best places to plant trees. And the drone can plant up to 100,000 trees Read More...
Supply chain transparency: The consumer connection for forest responsibility
Humans have always had an intimate, complicated relationship with forests. We clear away trees to make room for development and agriculture, harvest them for paper, pulp, and palm oil and seek refuge in their remaining intact solitude. Human wellbeing depends on trees. Forests suffer when opaque Read More...
Most Australians want renewables to be primary energy source, survey finds
The vast majority of Australians want to see the country dramatically increase the use of renewable energy, a new survey has found, despite attempts by the federal government to characterise renewables as unreliable and expensive. The Climate Institute’s national Climate of the Nation survey, Read More...
Anti-poaching drive brings Siberia’s tigers back from brink of extinction
With only 20 to 30 Amur tigers remaining in the 1930s, the graceful Siberian animal was on the brink of extinction. Today, thanks to the work of conservationists, there may be more than 500 Amurs living in the wild Siberian terrain. The reversal is encouraging, but the World Wildlife Fund is not Read More...
France new government to ban all new oil and gas exploration
France is to stop granting licences for oil and gas exploration as part of a transition towards environmentally-friendly energy being driven by Emmanuel Macron’s government. Nicolas Hulot, the “ecological transition” minister said a law would be passed in the autumn. “There Read More...
Sustainability is unhelpful: we need to think about regeneration
For 25 years, sustainable development has been held up as the solution to the world's problems. But instead we have had ever more pollution, biodiversity loss and climate change. The concept of sustainability has been abused like few other terms in history. It is time to think not just about Read More...
Amazon deforestation: Norway threatens to cut $1bn aid to Brazil
Norway has told Brazil that it needs to reverse the rising deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, if the country doesn’t want to lose one billion-dollar in Norwegian financial assistance. The leaders of the two nations meet in Oslo this week. The oil-rich Scandinavian nation has provided $1.1bn Read More...
Sweden uses revolutionary cement technology to get to zero emissions
Sweden has committed to reaching net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases by 2045. Today, only 5 percent of the electricity Swedes consume comes from burning fossil fuels. Still, the country has big challenges to overcome to meet the ambitious goal. Here’s one innovative solution Sweden is Read More...
Wind turbines are hardly the bird slayers they’re made out to be
Do wind turbines kill birds and bats? Yes. Is it as bad as people make it out to be? Not at all. Those who oppose wind farms often claim wind turbine blades kill large numbers of birds, but according to three new studies, this is certainly not the case. One study found that there are between 0.3 Read More...