e360 Video Report

Colorado River: Running Near Empty

Photographer Pete McBride traveled along the Colorado River from its source high in the Rockies to its historic mouth at the Sea of Cortez. In a Yale Environment 360 video, he documents how increasing water demands have transformed the river that is the lifeblood for an arid Southwest.
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Interview: Taking Green Chemistry
Out of the Lab and into Products

Paul Anastas is credited with coining the term “green chemistry,” the movement to make chemicals and industrial processes more environmentally friendly, and during two stints in Washington, D.C., he has worked to promote those principles at the U.S. Environmental Protection. Anastas, 49, recently left his post as EPA assistant administrator and science advisor to return to teaching at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, he talks about his role in EPA’s decision to approve the use of chemical dispersants after the BP oil spill, why a chemical-by-chemical approach to toxicity testing is not the best model for protecting the environment or human health, and why companies are increasingly applying the concepts of green chemistry to the design of materials and products. “For every one process or product that’s being reinvented using green chemistry and green engineering,” he says, “there may be a hundred or a thousand that have yet to be rethought under these terms.”
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16 May 2012: Wildlife in Tropical Regions
Has Declined 60 Percent Since 1970

Wildlife populations in the world’s tropical regions have fallen by more than 60 percent during the last four decades, according to the latest version of the Living Planet Index. The Index — which tracks populations of 2,688 vertebrate species in tropical and temperate regions worldwide — found that species abundance in the tropics declined by about 44 percent on land, 62 percent in the oceans, and 70 percent in freshwater ecosystems from 1970 to 2008. Cumulatively, species abundance declined by about 1.25 percent annually every year compared with a 1970 baseline, according to the report, which is published by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the Zoological Society of London. Wildlife populations declined by 38 percent in Africa during that period; about 50 percent in Central and South America; and 64 percent in Indo-Pacific regions. Overall, the global index dropped almost 30 percent during the same period. These steep population declines are the result of many factors related to human activities, including deforestation, habitat loss, pollution, overfishing, and climate change.

16 May 2012: State Oversight Helps Reduce
Effects of Fracking, Study Says

A new study conducted by the University of Buffalo has found that state regulation helped reduce environmental problems associated with unconventional forms of natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania since 2008. In an analysis of 2,988 violations at nearly 4,000 Pennsylvania hydraulic fracturing drill sites, university researchers found that roughly 38 percent (845 violations) were environmental in nature. Among these violations, 25 were classified as “major” — including site restoration failures, contamination of water supplies, land spills, blowouts, and venting and gas migration. As the number of drilling sites increased, the percentage of environmental violations compared to the number of wells drilled dropped from 58.2 percent in 2008 to 30.5 percent in 2010, largely as a result of increased state oversight, the study said. But the total number of environmental incidents tripled from 2008 to 2011 as the number of wells increased. The report’s three lead authors have energy industry ties, but lead author John Martin said the report was funded entirely by the university.

15 May 2012: Record Number of Fish Stocks
‘Rebuilt’ in 2011, NOAA Study Says

U.S. officials say a record number of fish stocks recovered to healthy population numbers in 2011 while a declining number of species were subject to overfishing. In a reportto Congress, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) declared that six species have been “rebuilt,” including the Bering Sea snow crab, the summer flounder found on the mid-Atlantic coast, the haddock in the Gulf of Maine, the Chinook salmon on the northern California coast, the Coho salmon on the Washington coast, and the Widow rockfish on the Pacific coast. Meanwhile, the number of stocks subject to overfishing decreased by four, and overfished stocks declined by three compared with the 2010 report. Samuel D. Rauch III, a NOAA deputy assistant administrator, said the findings underscore the fact that fisheries management — including sometimes unpopular catch limits — has been effective.

Interview: The Long Battle to Build
The U.S.’s First Offshore Wind Farm

More than a decade after he announced plans to build the nation's first offshore wind farm off Cape Cod, Cape Wind president Jim Gordon is on the verge of finally starting construction. During a 10-year fight to get approval for the project, Gordon has faced no shortage of challenges, including bitter public squabbles, a regulatory gauntlet of 17 government agencies, court challenges, and now, as he prepares to plant the first turbine, a glut of cheap natural gas that is undercutting renewable energy prices. But backed by Massachusetts laws that require utilities to buy from renewable sources, Gordon is confident the logic of wind power will prevail. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Gordon describes why he has stuck with this project through a decade of turmoil and why he believes Cape Wind’s long struggle will ultimately be good for the clean energy sector. “It was painful, it was costly, it was frustrating,” Gordon says. “But you know something, if it makes it easier for others after me, I take some pride in that.”
Read the interview

15 May 2012: U.S. Companies Use Steel Linked
To Amazon Destruction, Greenpeace Finds

U.S. car makers such as General Motors, Ford, and Nissan are purchasing steel made from pig iron that is smelted using large amounts of illegally logged timber from the Amazon rainforest, according to a two-year investigation by Greenpeace. The environmental group also said that the pig iron smelting, fueled by charcoal produced from tropical forest trees, has resulted in virtual slave labor and illegal logging of indigenous lands in northeastern Brazil. The Greenpeace investigation said that Brazil’s Carajas region — where three-quarters of the forests have been cleared, mainly for charcoal production — is home to 43 blast furnaces used by 18 different companies. Two of the major companies, Viena and Sidepar, sell pig iron to a U.S. steel mill operated by Severstal, Greenpeace said. That mill sells steel to General Motors, Nissan, BMW, and Mercedes, according to Greenpeace. As illegal charcoal operations have decimated the forests in Carajas, loggers have entered conservation areas belonging to indigenous tribes, who have lost 30 percent of their lands to illegal loggers, Greenpeace said.

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