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.
Can a two-kilometer long floating device remove plastic from the oceans ?
Two years ago the scourge of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and of the plastic pollution that jeopardizes marine ecosystems around the globe, inspired 19-year-old aerospace engineering student Boyan Slat to imagine the Ocean Cleanup Array. Next year this 2,000-meter long floating device Read More...
Apple partners with WWF to protect 1 million acres of forests in China
Apple is a huge consumer of wood virgin fiber, including the pulp and paper used in the packaging of all its products. Following up with its recent announcement about renewable energy investments in China, Apple declared yesterday that it is investing further in China to protect 1 million acres of Read More...
When creative thinking wins over a repressive government
How do you fight a massive dam project that would destroy ecosystems and ruin whole communities, when you live under a brutal regime like Myanmar’s? You allow your anger to embolden you, you take little steps, and you use offline storytelling and communication tools and strategies such as art. Read More...
China going green one textile mill at the time
Almost a third of China’s rivers are classified as too polluted for any direct human contact. That is the terrible price paid for having become the manufacturing center of the world with no appropriate environmental regulations. China alone is responsible for 50% of the global production of Read More...
26 major European cities commit to energy and environmental transition
The climate change policy debate is obviously heating up in the City of Lights, eight months ahead of the landmark COP21 Paris Summit that is expected to produce a “universal agreement on climate.” The mayors of 26 European big cities and metropolises representing more than 60 million Read More...
Ancient, forgotten bean to save world bean crop from global warming
Once again, Nature's formidable science lab has yielded the solution to a problem that had been haunting scientists: how to preserve bean crops, which provide food security for more than 400 million people in the developing world, from an expected 50% reduction by 2050 given the sensitivity of the Read More...
Will art free streams of their toxic sludge in the post-coal mining era ?
Artist John Sabraw has been testing pigments created from the orange toxic sludge, rich in iron oxides, inherited from decades of coal mining in Southern Ohio. The project is led by Ohio University with a view to demonstrating that the production of commercial paint could fund the expensive Read More...
Electric cars make cities cooler
Electric cars are cool in more than one way. Scientists at Michigan State University have discovered that electric cars emit 20 percent less heat than conventional cars. This will mitigate the so-called “urban heat island effect,” meaning that cities are warmer than the surrounding areas. Read More...
First US city moves against the car; will pay drivers to use public transit
Many cities in the world are battling congestion problems with charging drivers more money to enter the city at peak travel times. Since ten years, London charges $18 to enter the city on most weekdays. Studies show reduced traffic, pollution, and fewer traffic deaths. In the US—the empire of Read More...
Sunlight and bacteria remove drugs and chemical pollutants from drinking water
Drinking water supplies around the world often contain trace amounts of pharmaceuticals and synthetic compounds that may be harmful to human health. Man-made wastewater treatment plants are not able to remove these residues. But nature can, as experiments with artificially constructed wetlands Read More...