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.
Regenerative agriculture: Bringing our soil back to life
The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. One of the biggest modern myths about agriculture is that organic farming is inherently sustainable. It can be, but it isn’t necessarily. After all, soil erosion Read More...
A couple in India spent a quarter-century nurturing a rainforest back to life
While many places on the planet are witnessing distressing levels of rainforest destruction, one couple in India has nursed a rainforest back to life. For the last 25 years, the couple has been collecting land farmers no longer wanted and restoring vegetation. Slowly but surely, insects and animals Read More...
This electric-plane startup could clean up the aviation industry
The aviation industry is in search of cleaner ways to fly, and it seems they are finding one in hybrid electric-aircraft startup Zunum Aero. The startup has received an investment from Boeing and JetBlue that will help them build a quiet, environmentally friendly aircraft. Zunum’s proposed Read More...
Reviving the Mammoth Steppe and the Wooly Mammoth to reverse global warming
In Eastern Siberia, a father and his son are nurturing an extensive grassland known as the Mammoth Steppe back to life, including the Woolly Mammoths that used to roam it. Their quest to bring back an extinct species is undoubtedly controversial, but their reason for doing so isn’t. With the help Read More...
If Dubai can become a green city, all cities can
Dubai is easily one of the most unsustainable cities in the world. You can ski (indoors) in the desert city! And yet a sustainable city is precisely what Dubai’s government says it aims to create. Here’s a feature of National Geographic describing how Dubai is setting an example for any major Read More...
Scientists ‘melt down’ old clothes to make fibers for new ones
We like to buy new clothes. And, we feel good when we give our old one away. But, ultimately, most unwanted clothes end up in landfills. Recycling of textile is not easy. However, Finnish scientists have devised a method of "melting down" old clothes to make new Read More...
The mayor of Paris wants to create the first post-car megacity
“Unparalleled challenges like air pollution require unprecedented action,” says the mayor of Paris. She wants to clean the city’s air and lower its carbon footprint. The solution: more walking, more bikes, more public transport—and fewer cars. “These policies are based on the urgency of Read More...
Why opting for organic cotton matters
Cotton clothing has a longstanding history of being all-natural and wholesome. Unfortunately, times have changed, and once you delve behind-the-scenes of the cotton industry, its wholesome image quickly frays around the edges. Most people forget that a vast majority — about 90 to 95 percent Read More...
Water is more powerful than fossil fuels in the fight against climate change
The usual global warming story is a single focus narrative that says that the only way to reverse climate change is by replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy. The truth is there are other essential things we can do to stop climate change, like using the world’s most powerful tool: Water. Read More...
Trees are giant air conditioners with no power bills
Anyone who has walked outside on a sunny day knows that forests and trees matter for temperature, humidity and wind speed. Planting trees speaks to concerns about climate change -- but the directly important aspects of the tree-climate relationships have so far been overlooked in climate policy Read More...