Good News! 6 Positive Environmental News Stories From November 2023

Cities are in desperate need of trees and green spaces, but the cost of getting these spaces established can be a significant barrier. To expedite the creation of greener urban spaces, many city dwellers are taking matters into their own hands with DIY parks. 

These parklets provide people with a public space to relax and enjoy different aspects of nature. They are being constructed in parking lots and unused road areas, and these pockets of green are an accessible way for people in the city to escape from the concrete jungle. 

Green spaces are a crucial part of maintaining mental and physical health, especially in urban areas. By building these miniature parks, people everywhere in the city can enjoy them on their everyday walks. It’s especially helpful for neighborhoods that don’t have a park nearby and have no means to get to a park. These parklets make enjoying nature accessible to all, and that is a truly beautiful thing.

Within the last few years, artificial intelligence has flourished. From Siri to many chat AI forums, AI is currently changing the game in a lot of ways. Now, artificial intelligence might just become the next big thing for wildfire recovery. 

As the Earth continues to warm, wildfires grow in intensity and severity every year. They burn through large swathes of land, endangering animals and people alike. Many first responders put their lives on the line to fight these fires and get them under control. 

The emergence of new AI technology may just help communities rebuild after these devastating fires. Public safety teams have been testing a new tool in western states like Oregon and California. This new tool can determine the amount of the damage, where the damage occurred, and how severe the damage is, providing a complete picture of the land in just 24 hours. This new technology could provide a crucial starting point to ecosystem recovery post-wildfires, helping to promote resilience for the future!

With the holiday season upon us, Etsy is creating climate guides to help small business owners protect themselves. Etsy and Nest partnered with the Environmental Defense Fund to create the climate guides and make them accessible online. 

Two guides were made available for free online, both outlining disaster preparedness and recovery. For many of these small businesses, without the support of an entire team, navigating federal programs that offer relief after environmental disasters can be quite challenging. These guides were created to help these artisans and small business owners access the support and resources they need in difficult times.

Supporting small businesses is so important, and that can look like many different things. Whether you choose to buy holiday gifts only from small businesses, or you leave a kind review on one of their storefronts, these actions go a long way, and they even help the planet. Let’s keep supporting these small businesses and artisans and help the planet while doing so!

Sometimes, with everything that’s happening in the world, it’s hard to believe that just one person can make a difference. We get it. It’s okay to feel that emotional fatigue when the headlines are bleak, but we believe that the smallest of actions can make the biggest impact. One person can truly make a difference, and one man in California has just proven that. 

A senior biologist at the California Academy of Sciences, Tim Wong, single-handedly saved a struggling butterfly species in his home city of San Francisco. The California pipevine butterfly had all but disappeared in San Francisco, and Wong wanted to remedy that. 

He built enclosures for the caterpillars, found the native plant they feed on, and allowed them to mate and reproduce safely. From there the caterpillars began pupating and forming chrysalis before hatching and continuing the cycle. Conservation can truly happen in your backyard!

It is incredibly hard to be a tree in a city. We all know that. The costs of creating green spaces in cities continue to grow, making it that much more difficult to establish them for communities in need. The good news: many cities are starting to explore new and more cost-effective ways to have green spaces and public parks built for neighborhoods that need them. 

In Hayward, California, after almost a year of construction, the city debuted its first cost-effective public park. A strip of land that many drivers zoom past has been transformed into a tranquil outdoor space, full of flourishing plants and beautiful scenery. 

These environments are so important to local community members, and although the traditional means of creating a park can be pricey, it can be done beautifully on a budget.

Home to granite cliffs and giant sequoia trees, Yosemite National Park is a place where many people come to enjoy the beauty of nature. Keeping these parks clean and litter-free is vital to help preserve these natural spaces. Fortunately, these national parks are so beloved that people join together annually to help maintain them. 

Every year on National Park Lands Day, people come together in Yosemite to help preserve the beautiful picturesque nature of the park. This year, for the day’s 20th anniversary, over 1,500 volunteers came together to clean up this beloved park.

Through this entire event, volunteers collected 10,432 pounds of trash throughout the park, effectively helping to preserve and safeguard the natural wonder that is Yosemite. Picking up trash is an easy and effective way to make an impact on your local environment! You can stop by a local park any day and help keep it clean for everyone to enjoy.