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As global temperatures rise and the Arctic Ocean becomes increasingly sea ice-free, phytoplankton blooms are expanding northward at a rate of 1 degree of latitude — or 69 miles — per decade, moving into waters where they have never been seen before,…

South Africa’s largest city proudly notes that it has one of the world’s largest urban forests. But an invasive insect has been killing Johannesburg’s trees by the tens of thousands, and baffled experts are scrambling to find ways to stop it.…

Solar and wind energy now generate more than 20 percent of electricity in 10 states, according to a new report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Iowa is at the top of the list, with 37 percent of its electricity coming from wind and solar…

As a strip of darkness fell across the continental United States during last year’s total solar eclipse, bees in the path of the rare celestial event went abruptly and completely silent for several minutes. The sudden halt in buzzing was caught by tiny…

For decades, hurricanes have been rated on a scale of 1 to 5 based solely on a storm’s wind speeds. But as recent hurricanes show, a tropical cyclone’s winds often tell us little about its real threats — coastal storm surge and precipitation-driven…

President Donald Trump has announced a plan to allow the year-round sales of higher-ethanol blends of gasoline, recharging a longstanding debate over the pros and cons of biofuels ahead of the midterm elections, several news outlets reported. The new policy…

The latest UN report on climate says reducing deforestation is crucial to slowing global warming. But researchers must first reconcile two contradictory sets of statistics on tree loss in order to determine whether promises made by nations to protect and…

Unless nations drastically reduce their greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade, the world will exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming by mid-century, with significant threats to ecosystems and human civilization, according to a new report from the…

In an interview with Yale Environment 360, former EPA official Elizabeth Southerland discusses the hostile takeover of the EPA by the Trump administration and industry interests and explains why she is hopeful that the recent damage can be undone.…

European lawmakers have approved a plan to cut carbon dioxide emissions from cars and vans by 40 percent by 2030, Reuters reported. Members of the European Parliament voted 389 to 239 in favor of the new target, which also sets a 20 percent reduction goal for…

ClimeWorks, a Swiss company working to commercialize carbon sequestration technology, has opened its third carbon dioxide capture site, located in Troia, Italy. The new plant will suck 150 metric tons of CO2 from the atmosphere every year — the equivalent of…

As wildfires become more frequent and destructive in a warming world, they are increasingly leaving in their wake debris and toxic runoff that are polluting rivers and fouling water supplies. Some municipalities are having to upgrade their water treatment…

The Gulf of St. Lawrence in eastern Canada is rapidly losing oxygen, declining by as much as 55 percent in some spots since the 1930s — compared to a 2 percent drop globally. Now, new research has found that the region’s dramatic oxygen decline is due…

In a draft environmental impact statement, the Trump administration has projected that global temperatures will rise 7 degrees Fahrenheit (about 4 degrees Celsius) above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century if nations fail to drastically reduce…

A new double-decker bus in the English city of Southampton will filter pollutants from the air as it drives, several news outlets reported. The diesel bus’s filtration system, which is attached to its roof, traps 99.5 percent of ultra-fine particles and…

Marine biologist Daniel Pauly is calling for a total ban on open-ocean fishing. In an e360 interview, he contends that such a step is essential for rebuilding badly depleted global fish stocks and preventing the demise of the fishing industry itself.…

The Arizona-based technology company NantEnergy has unveiled a new rechargeable battery that operates on zinc and air and costs significantly less than the lithium-ion batteries currently powering the world’s electric cars and renewable energy systems, the…

Runoff from farms and feedlots has badly polluted Iowa’s waterways, more than half of which do not meet federal quality standards. Now, an unlikely coalition is calling for stricter controls to clean up the drinking water sources for millions of the…

America’s national parks are warming up and drying out much faster than the rest of the United States, according to a new study on the impacts of climate change on U.S. parks published in the journal Environmental Research Letters. The changing conditions…

Large-scale geoengineering projects that would involve building walls and berms along the seafloor could help stem the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and slow global sea level rise, two scientists contend in a new peer-reviewed study published in the…

Urged on by the oil and gas industry, the Trump administration is moving to drastically weaken the Endangered Species Act. But the act, writes a former U.S. Interior Secretary, has saved hundreds of species that might now be extinct, while allowing for…

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities is seeking proposals from developers to build 1,100 megawatts (MW) of offshore wind capacity, the largest single-state solicitation of its kind in the United States to date, according to Greentech Media. The order is…

An estimated 7,000 to 14,000 lions are held in captivity and bred in South Africa. Increasingly, the animals are slaughtered for their bones and other body parts, many of which are sold in Asia for their purported — and scientifically discredited — health…

A new 100-foot track in the Dutch city of Zwolle is the world’s first bike path made almost entirely out of recycled plastic, containing the equivalent of 218,000 plastic cups or 500,000 plastic bottle caps. The plastic road is the latest example of the…

Twenty-seven cities across the globe, home to 54 million people, have already reached their peak greenhouse gas levels and are now seeing emissions fall an average 2 percent per year, according to C40 Cities, a coalition of local governments working to fulfill…

Hurricane Florence measures 50 miles wider and will drop 50 percent more rainfall on the U.S. East Coast in the heaviest precipitating parts of the storm than it would have without global warming, according to a new attribution study by a team of U.S.…

For millennia, ecosystems in Greenland and throughout the Arctic have been regulated by seasonal changes that govern the greening of vegetation and the migration and reproduction of animals. But a rapidly warming climate and disappearing sea ice are upending…

As climate change continues to fuel more intense and frequent wildfires, the number of people who die in the United States from inhaling wildfire smoke could more than double by 2100, jumping from 15,000 premature deaths per year today to 40,000 by the end of…

A convoy of Chinese cargo ships, with at least two carrying turbine blades and other equipment for the wind power industry, has traveled via the Northern Sea Route from Asia to Europe across the Arctic Ocean. Read more on E360 →

As climate negotiators consider rules for verifying commitments under the Paris Agreement, they will have to confront a difficult truth: There currently is no reliably accurate way to measure total global emissions or how much CO2 is coming from individual…