Fueled by climate change and a strengthening El Niño, record-setting marine heat waves are gripping oceans worldwide and playing havoc with sea life. Mounting evidence from recent events suggests the damage could be severe and long-lasting, both onshore and off.
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Policy
A Hard-Won Rule to Cut Chemical Plant Pollution Is Being Unraveled
In 2024, the Biden administration enacted wide-ranging regulations to protect communities near petrochemical plants from air toxics. The Trump administration has since granted exemptions to scores of polluting facilities and is working to rewrite the long-awaited rule.
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E360 FILM CONTEST WINNER
Filipino Cacao Growers Learn to Live With a Hotter Climate
In “Chocolates Melting Away” — the First-Place Winner of the 2026 Yale Environment 360 Film Contest — Breech Asher Harani explores how cacao growers in the Philippines are developing new techniques to protect their crops from increasingly turbulent weather.
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OPINION
For America’s Rarest Wildlife, Survival May Hinge on a Single Word
For 50 years, the Endangered Species Act has defined "harm" as not just injury to individuals but to the habitat on which they depend. By narrowing that definition, the Trump administration is leaving hundreds of species at risk of extinction.
E360 FILM CONTEST
A Bicycle Journey Across Brazil to Find a Vanishing Savanna
In “Here There Was Cerrado” — the Second-Place Winner of the 2026 Yale Environment 360 Film Contest — Natascha Otoya shows how industrial farms are plowing up the Brazilian savanna, changing the flow of water, and skewing human memory of the landscape.
E360 Digest
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Data Centers are Helping Fuel a U.S. Battery Boom
Across the U.S., tech companies have courted backlash for using polluting gas generators to power massive new data centers. But energy industry data shows that in addition to building out natural gas, firms are adding huge amounts of battery storage. More about Data Centers are Helping Fuel a U.S. Battery Boom →
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Suburban Sprawl Puts Western Homes at Risk from Wildfires
Recent fires in Spokane, Washington, and Reno, Nevada, illustrate the risks from suburban sprawl, experts say. In both cities, encroaching flames burned homes built at the edge of wilderness. More about Suburban Sprawl Puts Western Homes at Risk from Wildfires →
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As Death Toll From Nepal Flood Rises, Officials Call to Tackle Warming
Five days after a calamitous flood washed through Rasuwa, Nepal, the death toll continues to climb. Authorities said Monday that 903 people have been confirmed dead, while another 4,247 are missing, as the country reels from a disaster that experts say may be linked to the melting of glacial ice. More about As Death Toll From Nepal Flood Rises, Officials Call to Tackle Warming →
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Biodiversity
‘Wastelands’ No More: India Charts a Future for Its Grasslands
Since the colonial era, India has regarded its native scrublands and savannas as little more than degraded forest. Now, amid a growing recognition of rangelands globally, officials are working to map the nation's ailing grasslands, with a view to restoring these vital ecosystems.
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E360 Film Contest
Who Gets to Decide the Fate of a Pristine Alaskan Rainforest?
In "Land Less" — the Third-Place Winner of the 2026 Yale Environment 360 Film Contest — filmmaker Alexi Liotti follows the activists fighting a bill that would transfer thousands of acres of Alaskan rainforest to five Native corporations, opening the land to logging.
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Climate
After Decades of Drought, Water Is Rising in the African Sahel
Warming has brought extreme rain to the parched Sahel, which is seeing aquifers refill as monsoons grow stronger. But heavier downpours alone cannot explain the groundwater revival, say hydrologists, who believe efforts to harvest rainfall may also be paying dividends.
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Cities
In Steel Country, the Fight for Clean Air Faces New Obstacles
A Japanese steel giant has pledged billions in new investment in Pennsylvania’s Monongahela River Valley, raising hopes that it would clean up pollution from its steel mills in the region. But documents show that its plans to ramp up production will worsen local air quality.
