Yale e360

Abandoned farmland has been increasing, with a billion acres — an area half the size of Australia — lost globally. Ecologists are increasingly pointing to the potential of these lands and of degraded forests as neglected resources for rewilding and for…

Satellite images have confirmed that the world's oceans have become slightly greener. Scientists suspect climate change is the reason. Read more on E360 →

After sampling the skies over two Japanese mountains, scientists have found microplastics in the clouds.Read more on E360 →

Faced with more frequent flooding and worse to come, the Philadelphia environmental justice community of Eastwick is grappling with difficult questions about its future: Will levees and flood walls protect them, or should residents abandon their homes and move…

Land-based wind turbines kill as many as 880,000 bats a year, wiping out so many threatened bats that at least one species could soon become endangered without preventative action, according to a recent study.Read more on E360 →

Only 5 percent of the redwood forests that once stretched across coastal Northern California have never been logged. An initiative to restore these forests is gaining momentum, aided by research showing that redwoods store more aboveground carbon than any…

White rhinos saw their numbers grow for the first time since 2012 last year, boosted by efforts to restore the creatures to the African landscape.Read more on E360 →

A new study reveals how, by cultivating fertile soil for farming, ancient Amazonians locked away thousands of tons of carbon that have stayed in the ground for centuries.Read more on E360 →

A massive volunteer effort to digitize World War II-era U.S. naval logbooks is helping fill an important gap in the climate record.Read more on E360 →

Researchers are only beginning to uncover the toxic cocktail of chemicals, microplastics, and heavy metals hidden in car and truck tires. But experts say these tire emissions are a significant source of air and water pollution and may be affecting humans as…

Germany is on track to generate more than half of its electricity from renewables this year, an official said Monday.Read more on E360 →

More than 8,000 years ago, as the planet thawed following the end of the last ice age, Northern Europe abruptly cooled. New research reveals that Arctic ice melt weakened a critical ocean current, leaving Europe in the cold, a finding with important…

Fireflies — whose shimmering, magical glows light up summer nights — are in trouble, threatened by habitat destruction, light pollution, and pesticide use. With 18 species now considered at risk of extinction in North America alone, recovery efforts are…

Between 2012 and 2022, at least 1,910 people advocating for environmental protection were killed worldwide, a new report finds.Read more on E360 →

Bouts of intense rainfall and drought are hurting water quality in rivers around the globe, according to a sprawling new analysis.Read more on E360 →

For millennia, lakes in Greenland’s tundra have locked up huge loads of carbon in their sediment. But as the Arctic becomes warmer and wetter, scientists believe these lakes could be turning into sources of carbon, which would have important consequences for…

The Biden administration announced Wednesday that it would cancel all remaining oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which the Trump administration opened to development in 2021. Conservationists say the move is a boon to wildlife in one…

To rein in emissions, the E.U. is looking to insects as an alternate source of protein for livestock and people and is easing regulations and subsidizing makers of insect-derived food. In a photo essay, Luigi Avantaggiato explores the emerging bug food…

Indonesian officials said they may label loans to some new coal plants as “green” investments.Read more on E360 →

After the lower Mississippi began pouring through and enlarging Neptune Pass in 2019, sediment began flowing into a sand-and-silt-starved Delta bay. Now the Army Corps of Engineers — breaking with tradition — is considering letting at least part of the…

A Trump-era rule that allows for the logging of old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest violates federal law, a judge found Thursday.Read more on E360 →

Global subsidies for fossil fuels reached $7 trillion in 2022, an all-time high, according to the International Monetary Fund.Read more on E360 →

Cold War nuclear weapons tests scattered radioactive material across the globe. That material can still be found in trace amounts in the sea, the soil, and — according to a new study — the flesh of wild boars roaming the forests of southern Germany.Read…

A company established by a Dubai sheikh is finalizing agreements with African nations to manage vast tracts of their forests and sell the carbon credits. Critics are concerned the deals will not benefit Africans and will just help foreign governments…

Six years on, a prolonged ocean heat wave known as the Blob has altered the makeup of marine life off the coast of California, new research shows. Read more on E360 →

After Ecuadorians overwhelmingly voted to end oil drilling in a prized national park, the government challenged the legitimacy of the referendum and said it would continue drilling.Read more on E360 →

In 2021, the South African government committed to shutting down the country’s captive-lion breeding industry, which provided animals for canned hunts. Among the sticking points slowing progress is what should happen to the thousands of lions that remain on…

Even as unprecedented wildfires hamper Canadian oil drilling, fossil fuel firms are seeking to boost production by 8 percent over the next two years.Read more on E360 →

In cities, a little native greenery can go a long way. Australian scientists found that, after adding native shrubs to a planting in Melbourne, the number of insect species at the site increased sevenfold.Read more on E360 →

"Vanishing Oasis" — First-Place Winner of the Yale Environment 360 Film Contest — documents how massive withdrawals from rivers that feed the Great Salt Lake are threatening the survival of millions of migratory birds and creating bare lake beds that…