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.
Google’s cars test for gas leaks minimizing unknown greenhouse gas emissions
The Google Streetview cars you see driving around your neighborhood are taking more than just pictures. Google has affixed sensors to their cars that detect natural gas leaks that are more common in the US than you might think—the cars picked up a leak every few blocks while driving through Read More...
Global warming: Eating meat is worse than driving cars
Researchers from Bard College in New York have found that the production of red meat releases more carbon into the atmosphere than any other meat product, and abstaining from it produces the most environmentally beneficial results. Cows require 28 times more land to raise than pigs or chickens, 11 Read More...
Smog-eating detergent turns clothes into air purifiers
Walking is good for the environment. But it can be even better if you wear the right clothes. A new detergent turns your clothes into wearable air purifiers. The detergent company Catalytic Clothing has harnessed the same titanium dioxide nanoparticle technology that is used in smog-eating roads Read More...
Floating platform to clean the plastic soup in the oceans
Plastic that you use for minutes, maybe even seconds will stay in the environment for hundreds of years. That’s why there are gigantic spots of “plastic soup” floating in the oceans. Cristian Ehrmantraut designed a platform that acts like a giant dialysis machine for the world’s oceans. The Read More...
Can ants reverse global warming?
When minerals break down they capture CO2. In the past 65 million years—before recent global warming—the dissolution of calcium and magnesium is cited as a main reason for the gradual reduction in atmospheric CO2. But breaking down minerals is not an easy or cheap process. However a study Read More...
Flying is better for the environment than driving
Recently a row broke out over the international program director working for Greenpeace in Amsterdam who several times a month flew to visit his family in Luxembourg. After the issue was raised in the media Greenpeace issued a statement saying that the director would take the train from now on. The Read More...
New electric cars will be untaxed in China
China is serious about getting more clean cars on its roads to battle its notorious air pollution and global warming. Chinese buyers of new hybrid, electric, and fuel cell cars won’t have to pay purchase tax– 10% of the vehicle’s net value, until Read More...
Consuming more energy is the fastest way to saving the environment
Often we hear about how important energy conservation is, but what if the fastest way to save the environment was to consume more energy? Consuming more energy will push the energy solutions we have to be more to be more efficient, and drive human ingenuity to come up with the next big Read More...
Damned lies and statistics
Amy Domini | July/August 2011 issue As a kid on Cape Cod, I’d get really frustrated with a ground-dwelling bird that lived all around us. The Virginia quail (or bobwhite) had the most annoying call. At dawn it would start in, tentatively, “Bob? Bob White?” This would repeat until you Read More...