Point/Counterpoint

Ivory Trade Debate: Should the
International Ban on Ivory Be Lifted?

In a Yale Environment 360 debate, author John Frederick Walker and conservationist Mary Rice offer opposing views on whether the global ban on ivory trading should be eased. Walker argues that a partial lifting of the ban would reduce demand for illicit ivory, while Rice insists such a move would only accelerate the slaughter of Africa’s elephants.
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Tainted Harvest: An e360 Special Report

China’s Dirty Pollution Secret:
The Boom Poisoned Its Soil and Crops

by he guangwei
Three decades of rapid economic development in China has left a troubling legacy – widespread soil pollution that has contaminated food crops and jeopardized public health. In a three-part series, Yale Environment 360 looks at a grave problem that has been labeled a “state secret” and that Chinese officials are only beginning to acknowledge.
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In East Coast Marshes, Goats
Take On a Notorious Invader

Land managers in the eastern U.S. and Canada have spent countless man-hours and millions of dollars trying to tame a pernicious, invasive reed known as Phragmites australis. Toxic herbicides, controlled burns, and even bulldozers have been the go-to solutions to the problem. But recent research out of Duke University suggests another, less aggressive fix: goats. The approach is finding practical applications, including in New York City, where officials deployed a herd of goats at Staten Island’s Freshkills Park.
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29 Oct 2014: Weather and Climate Key in Weights of Penguin Chicks, Researchers Say

Local weather and large-scale climate trends have the largest impact on the weights of Adélie penguin chicks — not food availability — according to researchers at the University of Delaware. Adélie penguins are native to the West Antarctic Peninsula, and their habitat is warming faster than most other parts of the planet. Looking at records dating back to 1987, scientists found that year-to-year changes in local weather — including wind speed, temperature, rain, and humidity — could cause chicks’ weights at the time they leave their nests to fluctuate by up to 7 ounces. That’s often the difference between a surviving and non-surviving chick, the researchers say. Biologists previously thought that food sources and parenting played the largest role in chicks’ health, but these findings suggest that exposure to elements is more important. The study "calls into question what happens to an ecosystem when you change climate quickly," principal investigator Matthew Oliver said.

Interview: A Call for Climate Goals
Other Than Two Degrees Celsius

When international delegates meet in Paris next year to negotiate a new climate agreement, they'll be aiming to keep the global average temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the maximum seen by many for avoiding the worst impacts of climate change. But David Victor, a professor of international relations at University of California San Diego, argued in a recent controversial commentary in Nature that the 2-degree goal is now unattainable and should be replaced by more meaningful goals. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Victor explains why he believes the 2-degree threshold has failed to position policy makers to take serious action on climate change and outlines the "basket of indicators" that he and his co-author are suggesting be used instead.
Read the interview.

28 Oct 2014: Scientists Find Seafloor Fallout Plume of Oil from Deepwater Horizon Spill

Researchers say they have found a large fallout plume of oil on the seafloor from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. According to a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a portion of the 2 million barrels of oil thought to be trapped in the deep sea after the spill appears to have settled across a 1,250-square-mile patch of the seafloor centered around the Macondo Well, which discharged an estimated 5 million barrels of oil in the nearly three months between its blowout in April and eventual capping in July. The oil is concentrated in the top half-inch of the seafloor, and mostly distributed in patchy deposits to the southwest of the well, the study found. These deposits account for between 4 and 31 percent of the Macondo oil sequestered in the deep ocean, researchers estimate. The rest has likely been deposited outside this area, they say, but has evaded detection so far because of its patchiness.

E360 Video Winner: A Legacy of
Toxic Pollution in Southern Waters

“A Red Dirt Town,” which placed second in the Yale Environment 360 Video Contest, examines the legacy of pollution in Anniston, Alabama, the former home of a Monsanto chemical factory. The video, produced by Spenser Gabin, tells the story of how PCBs from the Monsanto plant contaminated the town’s waterways and taint the fish that are popular with local anglers.
Watch the video.

27 Oct 2014: Forests Protect Waterways
From Nitrogen Pollution, Researchers Find

Forest top soils capture and stabilize nitrogen pollution very quickly but release it slowly, according to new research published in the journal Ecology. The findings indicate that mature forests may be providing an under-appreciated service by storing excess nitrogen, which can lead to algal blooms and oxygen-depleted dead zones if too much is released into lakes and waterways. Older forests store nitrogen more efficiently than young forests recovering from clear-cuts, the researchers found, because they have accumulated more top soil and organic matter within the forest floor. Previously, it had been unclear how mature forests continued to capture and store nutrients such as nitrogen after they stopped adding tree biomass. The new research indicates it’s likely due to the delay between nitrogen uptake, which happens within days, and nitrogen release, which unfolds over years and decades.

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