Yale e360

Photographer Luigi Avantaggiato has trekked high into the Italian Alps to document the melting of some of the world’s most studied glaciers. His images track the glaciers’ increasingly rapid retreat and capture the stark beauty of a land in transition as…

Some 1,175 gigawatts of new coal projects have been canceled since 2015, an amount greater than the current coal capacity of China, according to a new report from climate think tank E3G. Read more on E360 →

Peatlands make up 3 percent of the earth’s landscape, yet absorb large amounts of carbon and harbor surprising biodiversity. Although peat bogs and fens are under increasing environmental threat, efforts to protect and restore these ecosystems are gathering…

James Gustave Speth has been calling for action on climate since serving in the White House in the 1970s. In an e360 interview, he talks about his new book, which chronicles how U.S. administrations repeatedly failed to act in response to scientists’…

Young people around the globe are profoundly worried about climate change, according to a new study, which found that those who feel governments are doing too little to address the crisis are most prone to climate anxiety.Read more on E360 →

Some 227 land and environmental activists were killed in 2020, the highest number ever recorded, according to a new report from Global Witness, an international human rights organization. Read more on E360 →

Indigenous voices on the environment are finally being heard as Marseille hosts a global biodiversity summit, with a call to protect 80 percent of the Amazon, as well as a “counter conference” highlighting the conservation movement’s historic violation…

North Carolina’s industrial-scale hog farms have long been a major source of pollution. Smithfield Foods now plans to turn some hog waste into biogas, but critics say the project does nothing about the larger problem of waste being stored in lagoons and…

Weather disasters have become five times more common since 1970, due in large part to climate change, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).Read more on E360 →

Though long hostile toward climate science, News Corp Australia is planning an editorial campaign calling for a zero-carbon economy, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. In mid-October, News Corp Australia, owned by conservative media magnate Rupert Murdoch,…

Severe winter storms and unusual cold snaps, like the one that hit Texas in February, are, paradoxically, becoming more frequent as temperatures rise, and are linked to rapid warming in the Arctic, according to a new study. For more than a decade, scientists…

Researchers are finding that when pulverized rock is applied to agricultural fields, the soil pulls far more carbon from the air and crop yields increase. More studies are underway, but some scientists say this method shows significant benefits for farmers and…

Scientists have long drawn up a Red List to alert officials about wildlife and plant species threatened with extinction. Now some say it’s time to flip the script and create a “green status” category that identifies how to bring these species back to…

Wind energy accounted for the bulk of new power-generating capacity in the United States last year, according to a trio of new reports from the Department of Energy. In total, wind supplied 42 percent of new U.S. capacity in 2020, while solar supplied 38…

Climate change is setting the stage for wildfires beyond California and Oregon, fueling hotter, drier conditions in places such as Oklahoma and Nebraska not historically prone to large wildfires, according to a new analysis from Climate Central.Read more on…

Despite the mounting risk of climate change, U.S. counties that are most prone to weather disasters are seeing an influx of new residents, while those that are least vulnerable to extreme weather are seeing an exodus, according to a new analysis by the real…

Next month, an industrial facility in Iceland will join a growing number of projects to remove CO2 from the air and put it underground. But major hurdles, including high costs, remain before this technology can be widely deployed and play a key role in…

For a few minutes on Sunday, solar energy supplied more than half of Australia's power generation, marking the first time that solar has outstripped coal in a country long dependent on fossil fuels to produce electricity, The Guardian reported.Read more on…

Shortly after taking office in January, President Joe Biden directed federal agencies to procure "clean, zero-emission vehicles," but work toward that goal has been slow — just 10 percent of new mail trucks ordered by the United States Postal Service are…

The Montreal Protocol, which phased out the use of ozone-depleting chemicals, not only saved the ozone layer, but also staved off an additional 2.5 degrees C (4.5 degrees F) of warming by the end of this century, according to a new study.Read more on E360 →

“The Story of Lumshnong” — the winner of the 2021 Yale Environment 360 Video Contest — examines how government officials allowed cement companies to pour into a forest in northeast India, polluting the air and water and destroying an ecosystem on which…

From the Bank of England to the People’s Bank of China, monetary authorities of the world’s largest economies are gauging how climate change could rock the financial system. Though long committed to being “market neutral,” some are even starting to…

In its latest climate plan, Sri Lanka is ruling out new coal power and aiming to reach 70 percent clean electricity by 2030, an important milestone on its way to reaching its goal of a carbon-neutral electricity generation system by 2050, Climate Home News…

Recent years have seen a spate of coral bleaching events, where reefs stressed by unusually warm waters turned white. Scientists have sought different ways of protecting corals from such bleaching, such as pumping cold water into threatened reefs or…

Global greenhouse gas emissions must peak in the next four years, coal- and gas-fired power plants must close in the next decade and lifestyle and behavioral changes will be needed to avoid climate breakdown, according to the leaked draft of a report from the…

The latest report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change offers not only a clearer view of the causes and consequences of global warming, but also a better understanding of some extreme and untested solutions to the climate crisis, including…

In apartheid South Africa, the Sokhulu practice of gathering mussels was outlawed. “Ulwandle Lushile: Meeting the Tides,” the second-place winner in the 2021 Yale Environment 360 Video Contest, shows how Sokhulu women persevered and are again harvesting…

In an interview with Yale Environment 360, marine biologist Edith Widder talks about her pioneering research into the world of bioluminescent organisms in the deep oceans and warns of the dangers, from trawling to oil drilling, that imperil this hidden…

The third-place winner of the 2021 Yale Environment 360 Video Contest vividly depicts how, as the Venezuelan state collapses, the nation’s corrupt leaders are controlling — and profiting from — a flood of illegal mining in what was once one of South…

During a typical year, some 55 million people pass through San Francisco International (SFO), the nation’s seventh-busiest airport. At some point during their journey to or from the terminal, each one of them will travel by a seemingly unremarkable 180-acre…