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.
U.S and China ratify Paris Agreement ahead of schedule
The Paris climate agreement seeks to keep the global average rise in temperatures below 2C, but until it’s ratified, it will achieve nothing. Saturday, the deal came one step closer to coming into force legally after China and the U.S, who together are responsible for 40 percent of the world’s Read More...
Conservation progress: Nearly 15% of earth’s land is now protected
Biodiversity plays a key role in protecting human life. So, it’s good news that according to a new report nearly 15 percent of land on earth is now protected. The scientists behind the report say that some 200,000 protected areas cover 7.7 million square miles of the planet. There’s more Read More...
Bollywood star buys up land in Himalayas to save wild tigers
Wild tiger populations are increasing for the first time in 100 years as conservation efforts succeed. In the foothills of the Himalayas, where the largest population of wild tigers in the world lives, a famous Bollywood actor has decided to use his movie star earnings to buy forest land to create Read More...
A state in Australia is giving fracking the boot
Gas exploration is going cold turkey in the Australian state of Victoria. On Tuesday, the state became the first to introduce a permanent ban on all onshore conventional gas exploration, including fracking and coal seam gas. The government said it received more than 1,600 submissions last year Read More...
Russia wants to launch rockets that use clean fuel
Sending a space vehicle into orbit takes a massive amount of fuel and energy, which is why the first nation to launch a satellite into space has now created a rocket engine that runs on “clean” fuel. Russia announced recently that it completed the first successful test of a full-size Read More...
This app is helping the fight against illegal animal trade
Just by using an app, tourists or researchers in Southeast Asia can help save endangered animals from poachers. The app is called Wildlife Witness, and it allows anyone who sees people engaged in suspicious hunting, trapping, or sales activities to take a photo and pin it to a virtual map, which Read More...
Largest marine protection area created as National Park Service celebrates 100 years
Recently, we wrote about a coral reef near the Phoenix Islands that was found teeming with life years after being pronounced dead. The revival of this was accredited to the marine protection area that surrounds the islands, and now President Obama has signed legislation that will create a new Read More...
California takes a major stand against coal
In the port city of Oakland, a developer’s plan to ship coal from city docks has been shut down thanks to a new bill signed by Gov. Jerry Brown. The bill blocks state funds from being used for any coal-shipping terminals in California, lowering the number of coal exports from California from 4.65 Read More...
MIT researchers find a cleaner process for smelting metal, by accident
Accidents happen. And sometimes that’s a really good thing. At MIT, researchers accidently stumbled upon a new, more efficient process for smelting metal. The researchers were trying to develop a new kind of high temperature storage battery using a new chemical configuration. The battery didn’t Read More...
Clean-up days work, just ask the Balkans
It’s a wonderful thing when one of the most fashionable events a country has each year is the annual clean up day. Perhaps this sounds a bit utopian, but in the Balkans, countries that had once been divided by war are now uniting in the fight against trash. One example of this involves the border Read More...