An E360 Video Contest Award Winner
“A Red Dirt Town,” the second-place winner of the Yale Environment 360 Video Contest, examines the legacy of pollution in Anniston, Alabama, the former home of a Monsanto chemical factory. Produced by Spenser Gabin, the video tells the story of how PCBs from the Monsanto plant contaminated the town’s waterways and continue to taint the fish that are popular with local anglers. Watch the video |
More on the contest
Analysis
by david bielloSome scientists and analysts are touting carbon capture and storage as a necessary tool for avoiding catastrophic climate change. But critics of the technology regard it as simply another way of perpetuating a reliance on fossil fuels.
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Essay
by joel greenbergThis September 1 marks the 100th anniversary of the death of Martha, the last known passenger pigeon on earth. The extinction of this once-abundant North American bird still stands as a cautionary tale.
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Analysis
by fred pearceConflicts over water have long haunted the Middle East. Yet in the current fighting in Iraq, the major dams on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are seen not just as strategic targets but as powerful weapons of war.
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Report
by ed struzikHydraulic fracturing is about to move into the Canadian Arctic, with companies exploring the region's rich shale oil deposits. But many indigenous people and conservationists have serious concerns about the impact of fracking in more fragile northern environments.
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Tainted Harvest: An e360 Special Report
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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Report
by madeline bodinVultures are being killed on an unprecedented scale across Africa, with the latest slaughter perpetrated by elephant poachers who poison the scavenging birds so they won’t give away the location of their activities.
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Report
by bruce stutzAlong the Delaware River estuary, efforts are underway to restore wetlands lost due to centuries of human activity. With sea levels rising, coastal communities there and and elsewhere in the U.S. and Europe are realizing the value of wetlands as important buffers against flooding and tidal surges.
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Report
by rachel cernanskyAn increasing number of sewage treatment plants in the U.S. and Europe are processing food waste in anaerobic biodigesters, keeping more garbage out of landfills, reducing methane emissions, and producing energy to defray their operating costs.
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Interview: Calling for Moratorium
On Development of Tar Sands Oil
In a recent commentary in
Nature, aquatic ecologist Wendy Palen and seven colleagues were sharply critical of the way that Canada and the United States have gone
Wendy Palen
about developing Alberta’s vast tar sands deposits and the infrastructure needed to transport those fossil fuels to market. Rather than looking at the cumulative impact of this massive energy development on the climate and the environment, Palen and her co-authors wrote, major decisions have been made in piecemeal fashion. In an interview with
Yale Environment 360, Palen talks about why a moratorium on new tar sands developments is needed, how the decision-making process is biased in favor of short-term economic benefits, why the fate of the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline is critical, and what can be done to begin factoring in the real costs of exploiting the tar sands.
Read the interview.
Brazilian government data show destruction of the Amazon rainforest
increased 29 percent over the past
year. Satellites documented the deforestation of over 2,300 square miles in the Brazilian Amazon, reversing
highly praised gains in forest conservation since 2004. The largest losses were in the states of Para and Mato Grosso, in central Brazil, which are experiencing widespread agricultural development. The building of new roads and dams, along with illegal logging, also contributed to the rise in deforestation. Brazilian police frequently target illegal logging operations, but environmental groups say more enforcement is needed. Deforestation in Brazil peaked in 2004, when over 11,580 square miles of forest were destroyed. Worldwide, deforestation is responsible for roughly 15 percent of greenhouse gas emissions — more than all types of transportation systems combined.
Interview: Drones Are Emerging
As Valuable Conservation Tool
Ecologist
Lian Pin Koh is co-founder of a project called
ConservationDrones.org, which is pioneering the use of
Lian Pin Koh
low-cost drones in conservation efforts and biological research across the globe. In an interview with
Yale Environment 360, Koh, a researcher at the University of Adelaide, explains how drones – also known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) – can help monitor protected areas, collect data in inaccessible regions, and even deter poachers. “In just the last couple of months,” he says, “there has been tremendous interest from universities and other research institutes that finally see the value in this technology.”
Read the interview.
View a gallery.The U.S. this year has significantly scaled back coal and natural gas power plant additions compared to 2013,
and solar and wind power capacity is far outpacing the 2013 installation rate,
according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. No utility-scale coal plants were added in the first six months of 2014, whereas more than 1,500 megawatts of coal-fired power capacity had been added during the same period last year. Natural gas additions were cut roughly in half compared to the first half of 2013, while wind additions more than doubled and solar power increased by 70 percent. The only coal plants scheduled to come online in 2014 are the Kemper plant in Mississippi, which will
capture its own carbon emissions, and a small conventional steam coal plant in North Dakota, reflecting the challenging market for coal due to impending
federal environmental regulations and competition from natural gas.
Green Innovations Are Bringing
Energy-Saving Technology Home
Advances in technology and consumer demand for energy-saving devices have made green technology
Solar shingles
increasingly accessible. Many innovations are geared toward homeowners looking to lower not only their energy bills, but also the carbon footprints of their homes and daily activities. From solar-harvesting shingles and windows to shoe insoles that can power a smartphone, this
Yale Environment 360 gallery explores a few of these energy-saving technologies.
View the gallery.Ocean acidification, which is driven by rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, may cause sharks to
Smooth dogfish shark laboratory testing
be less interested in hunting prey,
according to research published in
Global Change Biology. In laboratory experiments emulating CO2 concentrations as they are expected to be by the middle and end of this century, scientists from the U.S. and Australia found that the smooth dogfish shark became uninterested in squid odors — sometimes avoiding them altogether. Sharks in control waters pursued prey scents four times more often than sharks in waters with high CO2 levels, the study found. Rising ocean acidity can disrupt the proper firing of neurons, the scientists say, because it interferes with a specific receptor present in most marine organisms with a nervous system. A study earlier this year found that fish in waters with increased acidity were also less able to detect predator odors.
Yale Environment 360 is
a publication of the
Yale School of Forestry
& Environmental Studies.
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Photographer Peter Essick documents the swift changes wrought by global warming in Antarctica, Greenland, and other far-flung places.
View the gallery.
The latest
from
Yale
Environment 360 is now available for mobile devices at
e360.yale.edu/mobile.
The Warriors of Qiugang, a
Yale Environment 360 video that chronicles the story of a Chinese village’s fight against a polluting chemical plant, was nominated for a 2011 Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject).
Watch the video.
Top Image: aerial view of
Iceland. © Google & TerraMetrics.
In a
Yale Environment 360 video, photographer Pete McBride documents how increasing water demands have transformed the Colorado River, the lifeblood of the arid Southwest.
Watch the video.
