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.
Why electric cars excite the world’s biggest mining company
BHP Billiton Ltd., the world’s biggest miner, is hot for electric vehicles. The Melbourne-based resources giant, which mines metals and coal used for both steelmaking and fueling power plants, is increasingly optimistic that there’ll be a surge in demand for some of its products as Read More...
Healthy soils could deliver nearly $50 billion in benefits annually
The Nature Conservancy and General Mills today unveiled the Soil Health Roadmap at the annual BSR Conference. Developed by an interdisciplinary team of Conservancy scientists, economists and agriculture experts and made possible through support from General Mills, the Roadmap makes the business Read More...
If you want to help protect bees from pesticides, here are the stores to avoid
Most big grocery chains are still sourcing food grown with pollinator-killing chemicals. Before your next trip to the supermarket, grab your shopping list and Friends of the Earth’s new scorecard to see where your go-to grocery store stands in the fight to protect bees and the Read More...
Commonwealth drives strategies to put climate change into reverse
Cities that mimic forests, bricks made from converted carbon dioxide and highways lined with wind turbines powered by traffic. These are ideas that, for now, still belong to a distant, brighter future – when the world’s focus can be turned from halting runaway climate change to actually Read More...
Floating homes: The answer to population density and climate change
Architects and city planners across the world are starting to look beyond the traditional confines of the city, towards building on water as one of the answers to reducing inner-city population density and also developing flood-resilient Read More...
Fantastic beasts: Our secret weapon in combating man-made climate change
In a viral video released late last year, Koko the Gorilla used sign language to call mankind “stupid” and warn about the dangers of global warming. The video was debunked as a skillful editing job, but it wasn’t so hard to believe an animal of Koko’s intelligence would be pissed about Read More...
Hemp can’t get you high but it can support a sustainable economy
Hemp is not the same as marijuana. And that confusion stands in the way of much progress towards more sustainability. Hemp is the industrial strain of Cannabis Sativa. It grows very easily without the need for chemical fertilizers or pesticides and has been used for many purposes—food, fuel Read More...
Europe takes the lead in building urban resilience
An EU-funded project has been helping cities face the future with confidence by tackling climate change, putting the green back into cities, and preventing urban sprawl in new and exciting ways. By the time TURAS, a five-year EU project aimed at making cities better, greener places to live, ended Read More...
This giant vacuum cleaner sucks pollution out of the air
A Dutch company recently unveiled a giant vacuum that sucks pollution right out of the air. The vacuum cleans the air within a 300-meter radius and up to a seven-kilometer height, filtering out 100 percent of fine particles and 95 percent of all ultra-fine particles from ambient air. The company Read More...
Meet the tiny towns taking on climate change
Ugh! Everything is miserable, you might be thinking, plopping down on the couch. Climate change is too big and I’m too tired to deal with it. I’m just going to sit here watch Netflix for eternity. Not so fast, lazypants. Take some inspiration from the tiny communities around the world Read More...