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.
Scientists explain the impact of urban trees on air quality: They decrease pollution levels
City-dwellers, if you didn't already love your trees, here is another reason for you to become a treehugger. Researchers of the University of Leicester have found that trees are vital for improving the quality of air that we breathe in our cities. They have a measurable impact on pedestrians, by Read More...
Crop rotation boosts soil microbes, benefits plant growth
In the first study of its kind, new research from the University of New Hampshire shows that crop rotations, in isolation from other management factors, can increase the functions performed by soil microbial communities that benefit plant growth. The study was conducted by researchers with the New Read More...
These prize-winning, game-changing designs tackle some of our toughest global challenges
“Design’s purpose is to improve lives,” explained this year’s jury chair Mikal Hallstrup of the design industry’s Index Awards. “It’s not about tea cups or fancy chairs.” Organized by a non-profit organization based in Copenhagen, Denmark, a city looking to its architects and Read More...
Carbon dioxide capture by a novel material that mimics a plant enzyme
A novel porous material that achieves carbon dioxide (CO2) capture-and-release with only small shifts in temperature has been developed by a team of researchers at the Center for Gas Separations Relevant to Clean Energy Technologies, led by the University of California, Berkeley Read More...
Recycling coal plant residue to make bricks in India
Up until a few decades ago, being a brick-maker in India unequivocally meant moulding clay bricks by hand and manufacturing them in coal-fired kilns. This backbreaking work predestined brick-makers to wretched conditions, long hours and exposure to high levels of soot, a scourge on the lungs. While Read More...
Waste coffee used as fuel storage
Scientists have developed a simple process to treat waste coffee grounds to allow them to store methane. The simple soak and heating process develops a carbon capture material with the additional environmental benefits of recycling a waste product. The results are published today, 03 September Read More...
By 2018, Dutch rail will be fully powered by wind
The Netherlands, a nation that’s been keen on harnessing the power of the wind since pretty much forever, has announced that in an effort to slash transport-related carbon emissions, its entire electric train network — all 1,800 miles of it — will run on energy produced at European wind Read More...
Climate change will bring greater biodiversity to world seas
Tropical marine animals that currently thrive in warm habitats around the equator will have to spread north and south to avoid extinction as global sea temperatures rise, a study has found. Scientists at the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS), alongside international partners, modelled Read More...
Could diesel made from air help tackle climate change?
Making diesel out of thin air sounds like something from science fiction. But small companies in Germany and Canada are doing precisely this - capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) and finding ways to sell it. German company Sunfire produced its first batches of so-called e-diesel in April. Federal Read More...
How to capture and convert CO2 from a smokestack in a single step
Using a novel catalyst, a single chemical assembly (UiO-66-P-BF2) could capture CO2 and also transform it and hydrogen into formic acid (HCOOH) via a two-step (yellow arrows) reaction (credit: Ye and Johnson/ACS Catalysis) University of Pittsburgh researchers have invented (in computations) a Read More...