Features
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VIDEO CONTEST WINNER - RUNNER UP
Peak to Peak: An Intimate Look at The Bighorn Sheep of the Rockies
The third-place winner of the Yale Environment 360 Video Contest focuses on a herd of bighorn sheep in Montana and features remarkable scenes of lambs as they gambol along the slopes of the northern Rockies. Produced by Jeremy Roberts, the video follows a field biologist as he monitors the sheep and talks about the possible impact of climate change on the animals’ future.
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How to Make Farm-to-Table A Truly Sustainable Movement
Chef Dan Barber says the farm-to-table movement that he helped build has failed to support sustainable agriculture on a large scale. To do that, he says in a Yale Environment 360 interview, we need a new way of looking at diverse crops and the foods we eat.
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VIDEO CONTEST WINNER - RUNNER UP
A Red Dirt Town: An Enduring Legacy Of Toxic Pollution in Southern Waters
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.
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Can Carbon Capture Technology Be Part of the Climate Solution?
Some 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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The Case for a Moratorium On Tar Sands Development
Ecologist Wendy Palen was one of a group of scientists who recently called for a moratorium on new development of Alberta’s tar sands. In a Yale Environment 360 interview, she talks about why Canada and the U.S. need to reconsider the tar sands as part of a long-term energy policy.
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VIDEO CONTEST WINNER - 1ST PLACE
Badru’s Story: Early Warnings From Inside an Impenetrable African Forest
"Badru’s Story," which documents the work of researchers in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, is the first-place winner of the Yale Environment 360 Video Contest. Filmmakers Benjamin Drummond and Sara Joy Steele trek along with scientist Badru Mugerwa and his team as they monitor the impact of climate change on one of Africa’s most diverse forests and its extraordinary wildlife.
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Fate of the Passenger Pigeon Looms as a Somber Warning
This 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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Mideast Water Wars: In Iraq, A Battle for Control of Water
Conflicts 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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How Drones Are Emerging As Valuable Conservation Tool
Lian Pin Koh believes drones can be a key part of conservation efforts, particularly in remote regions. In a Yale Environment 360 interview, he talks about how his project, ConservationDrones, is promoting the use of drones for everything from counting orangutans to stopping poaching.
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A New Frontier for Fracking: Drilling Near the Arctic Circle
Hydraulic 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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Africa’s Vultures Threatened By An Assault on All Fronts
Vultures 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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As Small Hydropower Expands, So Does Caution on Its Impacts
Small hydropower projects have the potential to bring electricity to millions of people now living off the grid. But experts warn that planners must carefully consider the cumulative effects of constructing too many small dams in a single watershed.
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Making Farm Animal Rights A Fundamental Green Issue
As president of the Humane Society of the United States, Wayne Pacelle has pushed the animal welfare group into areas that directly impact the environment. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, he talks about how what we eat, how we raise our food, and how we treat farm animals are basic conservation issues.
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Why Restoring Wetlands Is More Critical Than Ever
Along 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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Primate Rights vs Research: Battle in Colombian Rainforest
A Colombian conservationist has been locked in a contentious legal fight against a leading researcher who uses wild monkeys in his search for a malaria vaccine. A recent court decision that banned the practice is seen as a victory in efforts to restrict the use of monkeys in medical research.
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Scientists Look for Causes of Baffling Die-Off of Sea Stars
Sea stars on both coasts of North America are dying en masse from a disease that kills them in a matter of days. Researchers are looking at various pathogens that may be behind what is known as sea star wasting syndrome, but they suspect that a key contributing factor is warming ocean waters.
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The Soil Pollution Crisis in China: A Cleanup Presents Daunting Challenge
Chinese officials are only starting to come to grips with the severity and extent of the soil pollution that has contaminated vast areas of the nation’s farm fields — by one estimate more than 8 percent of China’s arable land. But one thing is already clear: The cost and complexity of any remediation efforts will be enormous.
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Loss of Snowpack and Glaciers In Rockies Poses Water Threat
From the Columbia River basin in the U.S. to the Prairie Provinces of Canada, scientists and policy makers are confronting a future in which the loss of snow and ice in the Rocky Mountains could imperil water supplies for agriculture, cities and towns, and hydropower production.
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In China’s Heartland, A Toxic Trail Leads from Factories to Fields to Food
Long known as China’s granary, Hunan Province has been a major rice producer for the nation’s growing and increasingly urban population. But toxic pollution from Hunan’s mines and heavy metal plants has contaminated large tracts of its once-fertile farmland and put China's staple food supply at risk.
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Where Will Earth Head After Its ‘Climate Departure’?
Will the planet reach a point where its climate is significantly different from what has existed throughout human history, and if so, when? In an interview with Yale Environment 360, biogeographer Camilo Mora talks about recent research on this disquieting issue and what it means for the coming decades.
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China’s Dirty Secret: The Boom Poisoned Its Soil and Crops
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. Although they once labeled soil data a “state secret,” Chinese officials are slowly beginning to acknowledge this grave problem.
The first in a series.