Report
by shefa siegelWith high gold prices fueling a global gold rush, millions of people in the developing world are turning to small-scale gold mining. In many countries, including Colombia, miners are putting themselves and those who live nearby at risk by using highly toxic mercury in the refining process.
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Analysis
by rhett butlerNorway and other nations have vowed to invest billions of dollars to help preserve Indonesia’s remaining tropical forests. But can foreign involvement stem the tide of graft and uncontrolled logging that has steadily decimated one of the world’s largest areas of rainforest?
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Report
by christina larsonThe Chinese government has begun to make environmental records available to the public, empowering green groups and citizens as they try to force factories — and the Western companies they supply — to comply with the law.
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Opinion
by fred pearceThe Cancun conference is being credited with keeping international climate talks alive. But the real potential for bringing emissions under control may lie in a Plan B, with nations acting on their own in moving toward a low-carbon economy.
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Report
by mark schapiroTo offset their own carbon emissions, European companies have been overpaying China to incinerate a powerful greenhouse gas known as hfc 23. And in a bizarre twist, those payments have spurred the manufacture of a harmful refrigerant that is being smuggled into the U.S. and used illegally.
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e360 Video Report
As temperatures rise and water supplies dry up, semi-nomadic tribes along the Kenyan-Ethiopian border increasingly are coming into conflict with each other. A
Yale Environment 360 video report from East Africa focuses on a phenomenon that climate scientists say will be more and more common in the 21st century: how worsening drought will pit groups — and nations — against one another.
Watch the video
Analysis
by j.e.n. veronIt is a difficult idea to fathom. But the science is clear: Unless we change the way we live, the Earth's coral reefs will be utterly destroyed within our children's lifetimes.
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Report
by bruce stutzLong a proven technology in Europe, green roofs are becoming increasingly common in U.S. cities, with major initiatives in Chicago, Portland, and Washington, D.C. While initially more expensive than standard coverings, green roofs offer some major environmental — and economic — benefits.
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Report
by fen montaigneThe fringes of the coldest continent are starting to feel the heat, with the northern Antarctic Peninsula warming faster than virtually any place on Earth. These rapidly rising temperatures represent the first breach in the enormous frozen dome that holds 90 percent of the world’s ice.
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Opinion
by jeff goodellWith an aggressive campaign focused on advertising, lobbying, and political contributions, America’s coal industry has succeeded in beating back a challenge from environmentalists and clean-energy advocates. The dirty truth is that Big Coal is more powerful today than ever.
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03 Jan 2011: Enzyme Mix Could Cut Key Step
For Hydrogen Fuel Cells, Scientists Say
U.S. researchers have used a combination of enzymes
that consume cellulose from nonfood products to produce a high-quality hydrogen gas, a potential breakthrough in efforts to use biofuels to power hydrogen fuel cells. Scientists at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the University of Georgia combined 14 enzymes, a coenzyme, materials from nonfood sources, and heated water to produce a hydrogen gas pure enough to power a fuel cell. The researchers say the process generates the highest hydrogen yield reported from cellulosic materials. While researchers used wood chips in their experiments, they say agricultural waste or switchgrass could also be employed. “Using cellulose instead of starch expands the renewable resource for producing hydrogen to include biomass,” said Jonathan Mielenz at the Oak Ridge Laboratory. Meanwhile, the Australian airline Qantas this month is expected to announce plans to build
the world’s second commercial-scale power plant to produce green jet fuel using food and household waste.
PERMALINK
03 Jan 2011: Building of Coal-Fired Plants
Continued to Lag in 2010 in the U.S.
For the second year in a row, construction did not begin on
a single new coal-fired power plant in the U.S. in 2010, reflecting a growing shift toward natural gas and renewable energy.
The Washington Post reports that a combination of new shale gas discoveries, low natural gas prices, the recession, and opposition from environmental groups has impeded the construction of new coal power plants. “Coal is a dead man walkin’,” said Kevin Parker, global head of asset management at Deutsche Bank. “Banks won’t finance them. The EPA is coming after them... And the economics to make it clean don’t work.” Despite
helping to kill climate legislation in the U.S. Congress last year, the coal industry faces long-term pressures — including efforts in half of the states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions — that are likely to lead to the phasing out of older coal plants and limited construction of new ones, the
Post reported. From 2000 to 2008, construction started on 19 coal-fired power plants, but last year utilities abandoned plans to build 38 new ones while announcing they would retire 48 aging plants.
PERMALINK
With the Arctic Ocean heading toward a largely ice-free state in summer by mid-century, scientists are looking closely at areas that may retain remnant sea ice and help preserve ice-dependent creatures. Researchers have identified a key spot north of Canada and Greenland, which they say could be a kind of Noah’s Ark
![Stephanie Pfirman](http://web.archive.org./web/20110103234113im_/http://e360.yale.edu/images/features/pfirman_95.jpg)
Bruce Gilbert
Stephanie Pfirman
in the age of global warming. In an interview with
Yale Environment 360, Stephanie Pfirman, an Arctic ice expert and co-chair of the Environmental Science Department at Barnard College, describes how the refuge could harbor substantial numbers of polar bears, ringed seals, and other Arctic creatures until the end of the 21st century and, possibly, beyond. The good news, says Pfirman, is that if humanity begins to significantly reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, the ice refuges could preserve Arctic species and enable them to repopulate the region if ice levels eventually recover.
Read the interviewRare Elephant Filmed in Cambodian Forest
The New York-based
Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has released what it says is the first high-quality video footage of the elusive Asian elephant in the wild in Cambodia, where civil war and environmental degradation have made sightings of the animal rare. The video, shot by photographer Allan Michaud in
August, captures a male Asian elephant feeding on grass near a road in the
Seima Protection Forest, a recently created, 1,100-square-mile conservation area located in the foothills of the Annamite mountains, along Cambodia’s eastern border with Vietnam. According to a 2006 study by the WCS and the Cambodian government, about 116 wild Asian elephants live in the protected area, but most photos of the animal have been taken by camera traps. Edward Pollard of the WCS’s Cambodia Program called the footage “visual confirmation that Seima is vitally important for biodiversity.”
PERMALINK
When it comes to energy consumption, no single part of the U.S. government comes close to the Defense Department, with military operations accounting for about 80 percent of total federal energy use. Pentagon
![Sharon Burke](http://web.archive.org./web/20110103234113im_/http://e360.yale.edu/images/digest/burke_sharon_95.jpg)
Department of Defense
Sharon Burke
leaders say this reliance on fossil fuels is a threat to troops, as supplying increasingly energy-hungry forces exposes fuel supply lines to attack and makes troops more vulnerable to energy disruptions. As head of a new energy office at the Pentagon, Sharon Burke is charged with finding ways for the U.S. military to cut its dangerous dependency on oil. In an interview with
Yale Environment 360, Burke talks about the new green technologies that are being tested and the challenges she faces – cultural as well as technological – in implementing them in the field.
Read the interview22 Dec 2010: Honeybee-Destroying Mites
Are Targeted Using Genetic Technique
UK scientists have developed
a genetic technique to cause the self-destruction of a deadly mite that has played a role in the decimation of honeybee populations worldwide through so-called colony collapse disorder. In laboratory tests, researchers at the University of Aberdeen and the UK’s National Bee Unit were able to target and disable specific genes in the varroa mite, a parasite that has killed millions of bees across Europe, Asia, and the U.S. and caused significant harm to the honey industry. “This approach targets the mites without harming the bees or, indeed, any other animal,” said Alan Bowman, lead author of the study published in the journal
Parasites and Vectors. Researchers hope the technique will be approved for general use within five to 10 years. The mites, which look like tiny brown crabs, attach themselves to honeybees, draining the insects of their blood and weakening their immune systems. According to researchers, 1,000 mites can destroy a colony of 50,000 bees.
PERMALINK
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Leveling Appalachia: The Legacy of Mountaintop Removal Mining, an e360 video examining the environmental and human impacts of this mining practice, won the award for best video in the 2010
National Magazine Awards for Digital Media.
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Living on shifting land formed by river deltas, the people of Bangladesh have a tenuous hold on their environment. But, as
this Yale Environment 360 video makes clear, many Bangladeshis already are suffering as a burgeoning population occupies increasingly vulnerable lands.
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