The news is very often about the bad things (especially if you’re on the Guardian’s environment desk). Wildfires, floods, tipping points, billionaires making huge profits and buying themselves island refuges for the apocalypse … And yet, ticking along beside that is the steady pulse of what the rest of humanity is doing in response to the climate crisis. From housing developments with no cars to buildings made out of hemp, all over the planet, people are ploughing ahead and changing their neighbourhoods and cities and world.But as news stories typically need to be about new developments or things people didn’t previously know about, it can be hard to cover all those brilliant initiatives being undertaken in the background – no matter how cheering they are. Which is why, back in 2023, we decided to ignore the usual rules about what constitutes “news” and start writing about them anyway. Readers, we knew, would like to hear about them.And so was born the Alternatives, a weekly news column where we cover these different projects. We’re constantly amazed by some of the things we learn this way. Norway has heat pumps in two-thirds of its homes. China’s sponge cities are targeting 70% rainwater reuse. Paris is building a gigantic cooling machine using river water. It feels as if the series is a vast chronicle of this transformation that is taking place everywhere, far faster than we sometimes realise.This year, as part of the Guardian’s annual climate support campaign, we are highlighting all of the work that our environment team does to bring readers positive ideas like those above, providing hope that a better world is possible if we start acting on it.So, below, we asked our environment reporters around the world to share one big idea from their journalism – funded by you – that has helped drive or inspire some kind of positive change for the planet.