
Biodiversity
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Climate Relicts: Seeking Clues On How Some Species Survive
In pockets ranging from mountain peaks to bogs, scientists are discovering plants and animals that survived previous eras of climate change. Now, conservation biologists say, these climate “relicts” could shed light on how some species may hang on in the coming centuries.
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The Long Strange Journey Of Earth’s Traveling Microbes
Airborne microbes can travel thousands of miles and high into the stratosphere. Now scientists are beginning to understand the possible role of these microbes — such as bacteria, fungal spores, and tiny algae — in creating clouds, causing rain, spreading disease, and even changing climate.
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Assessing Emerging Challenges In U.S. Environmental Health
From understanding the cumulative impacts of widely used chemicals to preparing for life in a warming world, a host of environmental health issues now face medical experts. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Lynn Goldman, dean of the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, talks about meeting the challenges.
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On Lake Taihu, China Moves To Battle Massive Algae Blooms
For two decades, the once-scenic Lake Taihu in eastern China has been choked with devastating algae blooms that have threatened drinking water for millions. Now, in a move that could provide lessons for other huge lakes worldwide, China is taking steps to restore Taihu’s ecological balance.
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The World at 7 Billion: Can We Stop Growing Now?
With global population expected to surpass 7 billion people this year, the staggering impact on an overtaxed planet is becoming more and more evident. A two-pronged response is imperative: empower women to make their own decisions on childbearing and rein in our excessive consumption of resources.
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Tapping Social Media’s Potential To Muster a Vast Green Army
A rapidly expanding universe of citizens’ groups, researchers, and environmental organizations are making use of social media and smart phone applications to document changes in the natural world and to mobilize support for taking action.
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A World Centered on Sea Ice Is Changing Swiftly at the Poles
For eons, the polar marine food chain has been closely linked to the seasonal formation and retreat of sea ice. Now, as that ice rapidly melts in the Arctic and along the Antarctic Peninsula, this intricate web of life is undergoing major shifts, benefiting some creatures and putting others at risk.
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New Model for Aquaculture Takes Hold Far from the Sea
With ever-greater quantities of seafood coming from aquaculture operations, some companies are working on ways to reduce the environmental impact of fish farming. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Josh Goldman of Australis Aquaculture talks about his highly praised closed-containment fish farm in Massachusetts.
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Forum: Just How Safe Is ‘Fracking’ of Natural Gas?
New technologies for freeing natural gas from underground shale formations have led to a hydraulic fracturing boom across the U.S. that is now spreading to other countries. In a Yale Environment 360 forum, eight experts discuss whether “fracking” can be done without serious harm to water and air quality and what environmental safeguards may be needed. -
The Unfulfilled Promise of the World’s Marine Protected Areas
Biologists and conservationists maintain that establishing marine reserves — areas where fishing is off-limits or severely restricted — offers the best hope for recovery for our overstressed oceans. So why is such a small area of the world's oceans protected?
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In Brazil, Palm Oil Plantations Could Help Preserve the Amazon
In recent years, palm oil development in Malaysia and Indonesia has devastated tropical forests there. With Brazil on the verge of its own palm oil boom, can sustainable cultivation of the crop actually help save the rainforest, rather than hastening its destruction?
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Using the Power of the Web To Protect Africa’s Wildlife
Paula Kahumbu runs a conservation organization with a distinctly 21st-century mission: Posting field blogs from conservationists to attract global support for wildlife protection. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Kahumbu talks about her group’s triumphs and struggles as it battles to preserve Africa’s magnificent animals.
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Green Failure: What’s Wrong With Environmental Education?
Marine conservationist Charles Saylan believes the U.S. educational system is failing to create responsible citizens who consider themselves stewards of the environment. To do that, he says in a Yale Environment 360 interview, educators need to go beyond rhetoric and make environmental values a central part of a public education.
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By Barcoding Trees, Liberia Looks to Save its Rainforests
A decade after a brutal civil war, the West African nation of Liberia has partnered with the European Union on a novel system for protecting its remaining forests — marking every harvestable tree so it can be traced to its final destination. But given Liberia’s history of conflict and corruption, will it work?
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From the Fields to Inner City, Pesticides Affect Children’s IQ
Scientists studying the effects of prenatal exposure to pesticides on the cognitive abilities of children have come to a troubling conclusion: Whether pregnant mothers are exposed to organophosphate pesticides in California fields or New York apartments, the chemicals appear to impair their children’s mental abilities.
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Germany’s Unlikely Champion Of a Radical Green Energy Path
The disaster at the Fukushima plant in Japan convinced German Chancellor Angela Merkel that nuclear power would never again be a viable option for her country. Now Merkel has embarked on the world’s most ambitious plan to power an industrial economy on renewable sources of energy.
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Facing the Dirty Truth About Recyclable Plastics
The recyclable plastic bags you get at the green grocer are not biodegradable. But product life-cycle assessments, which are about to become more prominent in the marketplace, fail to consider whether those bags will break down in landfills or just end up as litter.
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The World’s Tropical Forests Are Already Feeling the Heat
Much attention has been paid to how global warming is affecting the world’s polar regions and glaciers. But a leading authority on tropical forests warns that rising temperatures could have an equally profound impact on rainforests and are already taking a toll on some tropical species.
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One Year Later: Assessing the Lasting Impact of the Gulf Spill
On the anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon explosion, the worst fears about the long-term damage from the oil spill have not been realized. But the big challenge is more fundamental: repairing the harm from the dams, levees, and canals that are devastating the Mississippi Delta and the Louisiana coast.
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The Cerrado: Brazil’s Other Biodiverse Region Loses Ground
While Brazil touts its efforts to slow destruction of the Amazon, another biodiverse region of the country is being cleared for large-scale farming. But unlike the heralded rainforest it borders, the loss of the cerrado and its rich tropical savanna so far has failed to attract much notice.
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Against the Odds: Saving Rhinos in a Troubled Land
For three decades, Raoul du Toit has led the fight to protect black rhinos in Zimbabwe, a struggle that earned him a Goldman Environmental Prize this week. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, he talks about the challenge of saving this iconic African animal in the face of his country’s economic collapse and a new wave of poaching.