Yale e360

In the first 10 months of 2018, investors poured $125 million into U.S. companies whose mission is to prevent food from going to waste, according to a new report. Read more on E360 →

A U.S. scientific panel reports that technologies that take CO2 out of the atmosphere could be a significant part of a strategy to mitigate global warming. In an e360 interview, Stephen Pacala, the panel’s chairman, discusses how these fast-developing…

Nearly 400,000 homes in the United States will be either permanently inundated by sea level rise or suffer chronic flooding from higher tides and storm surges by 2050 if nations fail to make significant cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new…

A recent study showed that birds in the Andes were heading uphill to keep pace with warming temperatures and would soon run out of room. It’s the latest example of how species are on the move as they struggle to adapt to climate change. Read more on E360 →

A team of researchers from the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey have created a “bionic mushroom” that can produce electricity without using fossil fuels. The mushroom is covered in cyanobacteria, tiny organisms found across the globe that turn…

Exposure to neonicotinoid compounds, the world’s most commonly used insecticides, directly impacts the social behavior of bumblebees, causing them to be less active and less likely to care for or feed larvae, according to a new study published in the journal…

Newly elected Jair Bolsonaro, an authoritarian nationalist sometimes called the “tropical Trump,” has staked out an environmental agenda that would open the Amazon to widespread development, putting at risk a region that plays a vital role in stabilizing…

Scientists have discovered a rare three-species hybrid bird living in Pennsylvania. The bird is the offspring of a hybrid warbler species and a warbler from an entirely different genus — a combination that has never been recorded before, according to a new…

More than 450 candidates with backgrounds in science, technology, engineering, and math ran — or are still running — for federal, state, and local office this midterm election, according to CBS News. Forty-eight of those vied for seats in the U.S. House of…

Rapid warming and vanishing sea ice in the Arctic has enabled new species, from humpback whales to white-tailed deer, to spread northward. Scientists are increasingly concerned that some of these new arrivals may be bringing dangerous pathogens that could…

The impact of wind farms on flying species has been well documented, with turbines reducing the number of birds and bats in an area and disrupting migration routes. But a new study finds that the impacts of turbines are more far-reaching than previously…

Mongolia has secured funding from the Asian Development Bank and other sources to build a 41-megawatt distributed renewable energy system that will provide clean electricity to about 260,000 people living in remote areas in the western part of the country,…

Update, November 14, 2018: The authors of this study have acknowledged that their research contained inadvertent errors that make their conclusion about the amount of heat the ocean has soaked up less certain. They say corrections to the research will have a…

Citizen court actions on global warming have taken very different turns in Europe and the U.S. A Dutch court has ruled the government must keep its promises to cut emissions, but prospects for the U.S. “climate kids” suit are dimming given the increasingly…

Populations of birds, fish, mammals, and amphibians have declined an average 60 percent since 1970, according to a new report by the World Wildlife Fund. South and Central America experienced the highest loss of biodiversity, with vertebrate species declining…

Conflicts between elephants and humans are on the rise. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, animal cognition expert Joshua Plotnik talks about his research into the thinking of Asian elephants and how what he is learning could help save the world’s…

Despite being banned in 2010, about 40,000 tons of carbon tetrachloride, an ozone-depleting compound, are still emitted into the atmosphere every year. But the origins of the illegal emissions have long baffled scientists. Now, an international team of…

The U.S. Interior Department has approved a plan by Hilcorp Energy, one of the nation’s largest privately-held oil and gas companies, to drill for oil in the Beaufort Sea. If developed, the project, located six miles off the Alaskan coast, would be the first…

The world is making progress in decarbonizing economies, but not nearly fast enough, says the former U.S. chief climate negotiator. Here he spells out what forces must come together to marshal the public and political will needed to tackle climate change.…

The world’s oceans are getting noisier, humming with the near-constant sounds of ship engines, seafloor mining, and oil and gas exploration. Now, a new study published in the journal Biology Letters has found that dolphins are being forced to simplify their…

Rising global temperatures are altering climatic zones around the planet, with consequences for food and water security, local economies, and public health. Here’s a stark look at some of the distinct features that are already on the move. Read more on E360 →

A collection of uncapped oil wells located 12 miles off the coast of Louisiana has been leaking as many as 700 barrels of oil every day since 2004 and could soon spill more oil into the Gulf of Mexico than BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster, which leaked 4.9…

The number of deaths related to air pollution in the United States shrank by 47 percent between 1990 and 2010, dropping from 135,000 per year to 71,000, according to new research published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. The decline in…

The amount of plastic debris in the ocean waters of the British islands in the South Atlantic — some of the most remote places on the planet — has increased hundredfold in the last 30 years, according to a new study in the journal Current Biology. Today,…

They don’t make the headlines the way charismatic animals such as rhinos and elephants do. But there are thousands of critically endangered plants in the world, and a determined group of botanists are ready to go to great lengths to save them.…

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…