Environment - Project Optimist

The future of geothermal energy may depend on fossil fuel workers

The next generation of geothermal energy is drawing on decades of talent and technical expertise developed in the oil and gas industries.

Environment

There’s a surprising climate solution right under your feet

Mycorrhizal fungi help plants thrive, and sequester an enormous amount of carbon. But a new atlas shows that they need urgent protection.

Environment

Duluth Community Garden Program wilted. Volunteers stepped in to save it.

“I couldn’t watch it die,” said Haley Diem, who co-chairs the board and helped reshape it into a volunteer-run organization with other supporters of the gardens.

Environment

Atlanta is embracing a cheap, effective way to beat urban heat: ‘cool roofs’

White or reflective roofs significantly reduce temperatures. Atlanta is the latest city to mandate their adoption.

Two people hold buckets of garbage they collected on a beach. The image does not show their faces. You see their hands holding the buckets. They're wearing gloves on their hands.

Environment

Science says plastic bag bans really do work

Outlawing or taxing plastic bags reduces beach litter, according to a recent study.

Two people walk along a paved trail. Railroad tracks are seen to their right, with the river bank even further to the right of the frame.

Environment

Decades of effort revitalize St. Louis River

Work to mediate more than 100 years of industrial pollution and dumping in Duluth, Minn., has reached new milestones.

Three people sit at a white folding table. The woman on the right is speaking. The two men next to her listen. In the background is a projection screen with an image of a controlled burn.

Environment

‘We have always existed with fire’

Education about the history and role of controlled burns in northeast Minnesota is key, officials say.

Two people wear costumes, one looks like a turtle costume. They hold signs that say "No more fossil fuels."

Community voices

Community Voices ⎸ Cycling infrastructure pays dividends

Creating more cycling infrastructure in cities is one part of the larger puzzle to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Six people sit in chairs along a wall. They are all dressed in business casual attire. They wear blue identification badges. They are part of a panel discussion at COP29.

Community voices

Community Voices ⎸ Climate change makes water insecurity worse in the Global South

Without the money and resources that the Global North has, countries in the Global South are not able to adapt to or fight back against the impacts of climate change.