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.
The chemical compound of love: oxytocin turns lions into kittens
Love’s effect can sometimes be mystifying. A tender embrace from a friend or the adoring eyes of a pet can bring us back from anger or sadness at almost any time. Affection soothes the beast inside all of us, and it can even be tracked scientifically. What we feel when we experience love is Read More...
Four questions to make your grocery trip more sustainable
If you’re looking to reduce your household waste, the easiest place to start is with the activities and products you use the most. For almost all of us, this means taking a good hard look at the food we buy and eat every day. To make your grocery shopping more sustainable, here are four great Read More...
Chile joins the legislation green wave
A beautiful thing about democracy is that it is inherently self-correcting. Democratic constitutions survive because they change with the times. They adapt to new environments. That’s why they’re called “amendments” to the constitution. Chile is joining a wave of constitutional change in Read More...
This student startup uses cremation ashes to rebuild oyster reefs
It's the surprising and beautiful nature of inspiration that brings us answers to our problems from the most unexpected places. Sometimes, an answer can come from another problem, or combining different concepts to create solutions to multiple issues. At the moment, we need to pull carbon out of Read More...
The EU proposes plan to ensure fast fashion goes out of style
At the end of last month, the European Union announced a plan to counter the pollution generated by mass-market fast fashion with the overarching goal of ending the throwaway culture that compels consumers to use cheap clothing that becomes deformed or ruined after only a few wears. The EU Read More...
Architects transform old wine silos into apartments to minimize resources
Breathing new life into old things is one of the best ways we humans can reduce the number of resources extracted from the environment. A new development in Amsterdam did just that by creatively repurposing former industrial wine silos into residential buildings. Beyond reusing the obsolete silos, Read More...
Why we should all trade our fences for this environmentally supportive alternative
To tackle the climate crisis and reduce pollution, the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) in the UK urges gardeners and homeowners to take down their fences and plant hedges instead. The charity partnered with scientists to explore what types of green infrastructure could be implemented, Read More...
Study finds forests on indigenous lands sequester twice the carbon
We have written at length, in great volume, and with great enthusiasm about the importance of green spaces in cities, carbon sinks, and environmentally helpful trees in general. Forests are absolutely essential to sequestering carbon and our continued adaptation to a changing climate, but some Read More...
The Ocean Cleanup’s sunglasses fund even more cleanup missions
We at The Optimist Daily have been following The Ocean Cleanup project since its first plastic-capturing voyage back in 2019. From that point forward, we’ve enjoyed reporting its progress, from removing plastic debris from rivers to eventually becoming the largest trash-collecting system of our Read More...
"Invisible" UV bull's-eye is vital in attracting pollinators to flowers
Here at The Optimist Daily, we hold a special tenderness in our hearts for our planet's pollinators. Mini-beasts, like bees and butterflies, have the integral role of spreading pollen from plant-to-plant facilitating their reproduction. In return, the plants provide the insects with the delicious Read More...