Yale e360 · Page 11

The city of Linhares, Brazil, has granted legal personhood to the waves at the mouth of the Dolce River, the first instance in which a government has conferred rights upon part of the ocean. Read more on E360 →

The summer of 2024 set new records, European scientists found found. The world has never seen temperatures reach so high between June and August. Read more on E360 →

In the Mojave Desert, rising temperatures, less rainfall, and more intense wildfires are killing off Joshua trees. California officials are working on a plan to protect the distinctive yucca tree and its desert ecosystem by establishing refuges and controlling…

Global warming has fueled an exceptional drought on the Italian islands of Sicily and Sardinia, a new analysis finds. Read more on E360 →

Scientists in Brazil are racing to gather fossils uncovered by recent heavy floods before they are destroyed. Read more on E360 →

The Supreme Court of Indonesia has sided with villages opposed to a zinc mining project in North Sumatra. Of particular concern were plans for a massive dam, built to hold back mining waste, near a fault line. Experts had warned that an earthquake could…

In “Way of the Shepherd” — the First-Place Winner of the 2024 Yale Environment 360 Film Contest — filmmaker Matthew Boyd follows a Peruvian shepherd, two tenacious border collies, and a herd of goats that are reducing overgrowth on the fire-prone…

From 2022 to 2023, Germany saw installations of new wind and solar power nearly double, a shift driven in part by sweeping changes aimed to simplify permitting for clean energy projects. Read more on E360 →

Scientists have unearthed the remnants of more than 1,700 viruses from deep inside a glacier in western China. Most of these viruses are new to science. Read more on E360 →

Relatively warm ocean currents are weakening the base of Antarctica’s enormous Thwaites glacier, whose demise could raise sea levels by as much as seven feet. To separate the ice from those warmer ocean waters, scientists have put forward an audacious plan…

The number of conflicts worldwide over access to water reached an all-time high in 2023, a new report finds. Read more on E360 →

Scientists have found microplastics in brain tissue. Their discovery, detailed in a new paper, is the latest in a litany of studies finding tiny plastic particles no larger than a grain of sand in virtually every part of the human body. Read more on E360 →

In “Burnt Country” — the Second-Place Winner of the 2024 Yale Environment 360 Film Contest — filmmaker Kirsten Slemint centers the work of Tasmania’s Melukerdee people, who have long used low-temperature fires to reduce fuel loads and control far…

China appears to be tapping the brakes on coal. The amount of new coal power approved so far this year is down 80 percent from the same period in 2023. Read more on E360 →

Scientists have found new evidence that melting Arctic permafrost could unleash large sums of mercury, a dangerous toxin linked to brain damage in children and heart disease in adults. Read more on E360 →

Researchers have found pharmaceuticals, from antidepressants to antibiotics, in rivers in 10 national parks in England. Read more on E360 →

To manage contaminated stormwater, Philadelphia went all in on “green” infrastructure, like rain gardens and permeable pavement. But an increase in extreme rain events is spurring other U.S. cities to double down on traditional sewer upgrades that can…

Warming loaded the dice for fire weather — hot, dry conditions that leave forests ripe for burning — in Canada and in part of the Amazon last year, according to a new report. Read more on E360 →

In “Return of the No’ouhah Tok a’na” — the Third-Place Winner of the 2024 Yale Environment 360 Film Contest — filmmaker Roshan Patel documents how Fort Belknap tribal members in northern Montana are helping to reintroduce a native carnivore to its…

Streetlights left on all night cause leaves to become so tough that insects cannot eat them, threatening the food chain, a study has found. Read more on E360 →