Analysis
by christina larsonThere has been growing talk about a clean-tech race between China and the U.S., often cast in ominous tones. But the quest to develop and implement renewable energy can be one where both nations win.
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Report
by tom knudsonThe shrinking ice cap atop Mount Kilimanjaro is Africa’s most famous glacier. But the continent harbors other pockets of ice, most notably in the Rwenzori Mountains of western Uganda. And as temperatures rise, the Rwenzori’s tropical glaciers — located as high as 16,500 feet — are fast disappearing.
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Report
by todd woodyFew places are as well suited for large-scale solar projects as California’s Mojave Desert. But as mainstream environmental organizations push plans to turn the desert into a center for renewable energy, some green groups — concerned about spoiling this iconic Western landscape — are standing up to oppose them.
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Analysis
by carl zimmerIn the last two decades, network theory has emerged as a way of making sense of everything from the World Wide Web to the human brain. Now, as ecologists have begun applying this theory to ecosystems, they are gaining insights into how species are interconnected and how to foster biodiversity.
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Video Report
Living on shifting land formed by river deltas, the people of Bangladesh have a tenuous hold on their environment, with cyclones buffeting coastal zones and rising seas posing a looming threat. But, as this
Yale Environment 360 video report by Jonathan Bjerg Møller makes clear, many Bangladeshis already are suffering as a growing population occupies increasingly vulnerable lands.
Report
by jim motavalliFor years, the promise and hype surrounding electric cars failed to materialize. But as this year’s Detroit auto show demonstrated, major car companies and well-funded startups — fueled by federal clean-energy funding and rapid improvement in lithium-ion batteries — are now producing electric vehicles that will soon be in showrooms.
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Opinion
by fred pearceThe traditional parks model of closing off areas and keeping people out simply may not work in Africa, where human demands on the land are great. Instead, what’s needed is an approach that finds ways to enable people and animals to co-exist.
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Video Report
During the last two decades, mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia has destroyed or severely damaged more than a million acres of forest and buried nearly 2,000 miles of streams. Leveling Appalachia: The Legacy of Mountaintop Removal Mining
, a video report produced by Yale Environment 360
in collaboration with MediaStorm, focuses on the environmental and social impacts of this practice and examines the long-term effects on the region’s forests and waterways. At a time when the Obama administration is reviewing mining permit applications throughout West Virginia and three other states, this video offers a first-hand look at what is at stake for Appalachia’s environment and its people.
Opinion
by rob young and orrin pilkeyAs governments, businesses, and homeowners plan for the future, they should assume that the world’s oceans will rise by at least two meters — roughly seven feet — this century. But far too few agencies or individuals are preparing for the inevitable increase in sea level that will take place as polar ice sheets melt.
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Opinion
by fred pearceThe way that climate scientists have handled the fallout from the leaking of hacked e-mails is a case study in how not to respond to a crisis. But it also points to the need for climate researchers to operate with greater transparency and to provide more open access to data.
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Report
by sonia shahIn the past dozen years, three new diseases have decimated populations of amphibians, honeybees, and — most recently — bats. Increasingly, scientists suspect that low-level exposure to pesticides could be contributing to this rash of epidemics.
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09 Feb 2010: Great Lakes Region Looks to
Prevent an Invasion by Asian Carp
U.S. officials are considering a $78.5 million plan
to prevent a Great Lakes invasion by Asian carp, a species of large, nonnative fish known to destroy ecosystems. While the fish, which can reach 3 feet in length, have not yet been found in the lakes, DNA material from the species has been found in Lake Michigan. Some worry that the fish, which was first found in the southern parts of the Mississippi River in the 1970s, could forever alter the ecosystem of the Great Lakes, which hold about 20 percent of the world’s fresh water. Meeting with leaders from the Great Lakes region in a so-called “Asian carp summit,” federal officials unveiled a plan that would include construction of barriers to prevent flooding that might encourage the spread of the fish; completion of a new electronic barrier to keep carp in the Mississippi system from reaching the lakes; and reducing the
Asian carp
amount of time that navigational locks on the Mississippi are opened. The money would come from federal funds already allocated for Great Lakes restoration. While state leaders expressed gratitude that the federal government is willing to fund these projects, some suggested these efforts may not be enough. Michigan Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm called plans to open the locks less frequently insufficient. ”They just need to shut the locks down, at least temporarily,” she said.
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09 Feb 2010: U.S. Creates Office to
Coordinate Climate Change Data
The Obama administration
is creating an office to coordinate and report the latest climate change data, a unit analogous to the National Weather Service that officials hope will help planners, businesses, and the public better understand and prepare for the effects of global warming. The office, which will be part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, will assemble about 550 scientists already working on climate issues under one roof. All data will be accessible on a website,
www.climate.gov. “As the realities of climate change become more obvious to more people, farmers, businesses, government agencies and public
Jane Lubchenco
health officials are going to be turning to us for credible, useful and relevant information,” said
Jane Lubchenco, administrator of NOAA. Lubchenco said that while the new office is not a response to recent controversies surrounding climate science and the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the government does want to build public confidence in the science and better explain what information is well-established and what research needs to be done.
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As a reporter for the
New York Times since 1995 and author of the popular Dot Earth blog, Andrew Revkin has had an unusually high public profile for a journalist who covers environmental issues. So it attracted media attention last month when he announced he would be leaving the
Times staff, but would continue writing Dot Earth. In an interview with
Yale Environment 360, Revkin says he will now spend more time focusing on environmental education, starting with a course he’ll be teaching at Pace University that will address a question he regularly asks on Dot Earth: “9 Billion People + One
Andrew Revkin
Planet = ?” (Or, as he says of a projected global population of 9 billion by 2050, “How do you make that happen without total screw-ups?”) In the wide-ranging interview, Revkin also talks about why the U.S. public has remained relatively unconcerned about climate change, what bothers him about writing a blog, and what he sees as the prospects for a world with 9 billion people. “I could see us getting into a world where we’re just sort of living these hermetic lives,” he says, “...where we have no connection to the natural world anymore.”
Read the interview08 Feb 2010: Black Soot is Main Cause
Of Himalayan Glacier Melt, Study Says
Aerosols and black carbon from air pollution may be responsible for
as much as 90 percent of the melting taking place in Himalayan glaciers, according to a new study. The study, conducted by scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, said that soot and pollution not only soak up heat and warm the atmosphere, but the deposition of black carbon on snow and ice absorbs sunlight, further hastening glacial melt. The study, published online in the journal
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, said that warming from greenhouse gas emissions may only be responsible for about 10 percent of the rapid melting of many Himalayan glaciers. The researchers used pollution reports from the Indian government and other data to estimate what percentage of Himalayan glacial melt was caused from pollutants, as opposed to greenhouse gases. Lead researcher Surabi Menon said the results of the study show that if the governments of India, China, and other nations in the region work hard to cut pollution from cars, factories, and dirty home stoves the rate of melting of Himalayan glaciers could be significantly slowed. Reducing black carbon emissions also would cut down on extreme weather events in eastern India and Bangladesh, as the increased warming of the atmosphere causes more storms, the study says.
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08 Feb 2010: Blue Whales Songs Deepen
As Populations Rebound, Researcher Says
Male blue whales
have been singing at a lower pitch in recent decades, and one oceanographer suggests it is linked to growing populations following the elimination of whale hunting. Songs used by blue whales worldwide to warn off predators and attract mates have become increasingly deeper in tone and are now about 30 percent lower than during the 1960s, says John Hildebrand, a marine biologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The reason, he believes, is that whale populations have grown significantly since hunting was banned in 1966, and male blue whales now feel less urgency to sing in a high pitch, which they may have been using to communicate with widely scattered females when populations were low. Essentially, when blue whale numbers dropped to just a few thousand during the 1960s, he said, there was a “push to have the sound go to higher frequency so that more of the girls can hear it.” With whale numbers restored, he said,
NOAA
male whales have shifted to deeper tones to attract females. Richard Ellis, a whale expert at the Museum of Natural History in New York, was skeptical of Hildebrand’s conclusion, saying, “It’s a great anthropomorphism to suggest that the whales have thought this through.” Meanwhile, a new report from the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) says
large-scale fishing with nets threatens 86 percent of the world’s toothed whales, including dolphins and porpoises.
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05 Feb 2010: Mideast Project Develops
Biofuel With Water From the Sea
Researchers in the Middle East are developing a technology they say will
convert saltwater-tolerant crops into jet fuel, creating a biofuel that doesn’t consume huge amounts of fresh water or take land away from food crops. The Masdar Institute in the United Arab Emirates is creating a demonstration farm that will use a system called integrated seawater agriculture, in which seawater would be transported via canal to a desert-based farm that combines fish and shrimp farming with cultivation of mangrove trees and salicornia, whose seeds can be converted into fuel. The effluent from the fish farming will be used to fertilize the salicornia plants, which are grown in saltwater-irrigated fields, said Scott Kennedy, the project leader. The runoff of that irrigation, which by that point would be even saltier, would be used to grow the saltwater-tolerant mangrove trees. The oil-rich salicornia seeds would then be processed into biofuel suitable for blending in jet fuel, researchers said. One potential challenge for the project, experts noted, is the damage that high salt levels will likely inflict on machinery used to harvest the salicornia.
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