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Yale Environment 360
For Your Phone and EV, a Cobalt Supply Chain to a Hell on Earth
As countries around the world look to pivot quickly to clean energy, demand for the lithium-ion batteries used to charge our smartphones, laptops, and electric vehicles is booming. But as author and contemporary-slavery expert Siddharth Kara says in an interview with Yale Environment 360, those rechargeable batteries require cobalt to function, and 75 percent of the world’s supply of that mineral is mined from the rich earth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Unheralded Environmentalist: Jimmy Carter’s Green Legacy
The angry Alaskans gathered in Fairbanks to burn the president’s effigy. It was early December 1978 and President Jimmy Carter was that unpopular in Alaska. A few days earlier Carter had issued an unusual executive order, designating 56 million acres of Alaskan wilderness as a national monument. He did so unilaterally, using a little known 1906 Antiquities Act that ostensibly gave the president the executive power to designate buildings or small plots of historical sites on federal land as national monuments. No previous president had ever used the obscure act to create a vast wilderness area. But Congress was refusing to pass the necessary legislation, so Carter decided to act alone.
EU Approves 2035 Ban on Sales of Gas-Powered Cars
EU countries have approved an end to the sale of gas-powered cars in 2035, allowing the law to enter into force. With its vote on Tuesday, the European Council “has taken an important step towards zero-emission mobility,” EU environment commissioner Frans Timmermans said on Twitter. “The direction is clear: in 2035 new cars and vans must have zero emissions.”
Some Big Green Groups Drawing More Foundation Money Than All Environmental Justice Groups Combined
Foundations have given more money to individual green groups, including the Sierra Club, the Environmental Defense Fund, and The Nature Conservancy, than to every U.S. environmental justice group put together, according to a new analysis. “Some of the communities that are most in need of funding are the ones getting...
European Central Bank Cuts Carbon Intensity of Corporate Bond Purchases in Half
The European Central Bank has made marked progress on its goal of investing in lower-carbon corporations, cutting the carbon intensity of new corporate bond purchases in half, a new report shows. In 2021, the bank announced that it would seek to buy corporate bonds that aligned with the European Union’s...
As Enforcement Lags, Toxic Coal Ash Keeps Polluting U.S. Water
A few months ago, the New Castle Generating Station, an hour northwest of Pittsburgh, was named one of the most contaminated coal-fired power plant sites in the country. Polluted with arsenic and other toxic chemicals, the facility sits between the village of West Pittsburgh, population 821, and the Beaver River, a tributary of the Ohio River, which serves as a drinking water source for more than 5 million people.
In Eastern U.S., Climate Change Has Extended Forest Growing Season by a Month
A century of rising temperatures has extended the growing season of hardwood forests in the eastern U.S. by one month, a new study finds. Growing season lasts from the first budburst in spring until trees turn gold and crimson in the fall. As spring and fall grow warmer, trees are bearing their leaves for longer, the research shows.
Lauded as Green Model, Costa Rica Faces Unrest in Its Forests
Costa Rica has a green halo. In recent decades, the small Central American nation has transformed itself from a notorious hotspot for deforestation into a beacon of reforestation that is the envy of the world. Many of its more than 12,000 species of plants, 1,200 butterflies, 800 birds, and 650 mammals, reptiles, and amphibians have gone from bust to boom, and eco-tourists are savoring the spectacle.
Total Weight of Wild Land Mammals Less Than One-Tenth Weight of All Humans
The combined weight of every human is more than 10 times that of every wild land mammal put together, a new study finds. “When you look at wildlife documentaries on television — for instance of wildebeest migrating — it is easy to conclude that wild mammals are doing quite well,” Ron Milo, a biologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science and coauthor of the study, told The Observer. “But that intuition is wrong. These creatures are not doing well at all.”
Swiss Startup to Install Solar Panels on Railway
A Swiss start-up will install solar panels on a railway in western Switzerland, pending approval from transportation officials. Based in the Swiss town of Ecublens, the firm Sun-Ways has developed a mechanized system for laying down solar panels in which a specially equipped train car glides over the tracks, ejecting panels that fit in between the rails. The panels are outfitted with clamps that fix them into place, and if the tracks need maintenance, the panels can be removed using the same system.
Green Winter: Europe Learns to Live Without Russian Energy
When a cold snap hit northern Europe last November, ordinary citizens and industry leaders alike feared the onset of an agonizing winter of deprivation, spiraling energy prices, unheated buildings, and work stoppages. After all, embargoes in place as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had severely curtailed oil and gas deliveries to many countries and upended supply chains that much of Europe had come to rely on.
As 1.5 Degrees Looms, Scientists See Growing Risk of Runaway Warming, Urgent Need to Slash Emissions
As the planet rapidly approaches 1.5 degrees C of warming, scientists warn that rising temperatures are degrading the Earth’s ability to soak up carbon dioxide, threatening to further exacerbate climate change. To keep warming in check, they stress, countries must make steep cuts to emissions in the next few years.
How Indigenous People Are Restoring Brazil’s Atlantic Forest
It was 2016 when Jurandir Jekupe noticed the bees were gone. Their nests were once common in Yvy Porã, the Guarani Mbya village where Jekupe grew up and still lives. But now the uruçu, a species known for its honey, had all but vanished, and sightings of the jataí, a species sacred to the Guarani Mbya, were rare.
Facing Intense Heat and Dust Storms, Iraq Aims to Plant 5 Million Trees
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has announced plans to plant 5 million trees to help the country cope with climate change. Speaking at the Iraq Climate Conference in Basra on Sunday, al-Sudani said that, with climate change, his country is seeing extreme heat, meager rainfall, and worsening dust storms. Last year, dust storms shrouded Baghdad in sand, forcing the closure of airports and schools. And drought has displaced hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, al-Sudani said.
U.S. Deploys Modified B-57 to Seek Out Chemicals That Could Cool the Planet
U.S. scientists have deployed a modified Korean War-era bomber to measure trace gases in the stratosphere that reflect sunlight. The goal of the project: to better understand how humans might use such gases to cool an overheated planet. “Processes in the stratosphere can change climate at the Earth’s surface,” Karen...
U.S. Energy Storage Made Record Gains Last Year
Last year U.S. energy storage saw a record buildout, with battery and thermal storage growing by 73 percent, a new report finds. As the U.S. shifts to renewable power, utilities are looking to deploy more energy storage to balance out the peaks and troughs in solar and wind generation. Last year, renewable energy — include hydropower — comprised nearly a quarter of the U.S. power supply, according to a new report from BloombergNEF and the Business Council for Sustainable Energy. Wind and solar power are both cheaper, on average, than gas and coal power, and they accounted for the bulk of new power additions last year.
The East Coast Whale Die-Offs: Unraveling the Causes
In early December of 2016, the carcasses of juvenile humpback whales began turning up in the busy waters around the mouth of Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay. By the end of February, 10 animals had been found within about a 200-mile stretch of coast between Virginia and North Carolina. Though scientists...
Less Than 1 Percent of People Globally Breathing Safe Levels of Pollution, Study Finds
Only one in every 100,000 people on Earth are breathing safe levels of fine particulate pollution, according to a new study. For the research, scientists gathered data on fine particulate matter from more than 5,000 on-the-ground monitoring stations, along with data on weather and geography, using machine learning to map out airborne particulate levels. The study found that on 99.82 percent of land across the six habitable continents, particulates exceed levels deemed safe by the World Health Organization.
Countries Reach Deal to Protect Marine Life in International Waters
UN member states have forged a landmark deal to guard ocean life, charting a path to create new protected areas in international waters. “This action is a victory for multilateralism and for global efforts to counter the destructive trends facing ocean health, now and for generations to come,” UN secretary-general António Guterres said in a statement.
Remnants of Two Banned Insecticides Nearly Eliminated in Great Lakes Region
Two banned insecticides known to linger in the atmosphere have been all but eliminated from North America’s Great Lakes region, a study finds. “For once we can report something positive,” Marta Venier, an environmental chemist at Indiana University and coauthor of the study, told Environmental Health News. “A few of the chemicals we’ve been measuring for a long time are well underway to being eliminated from the atmosphere.”
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Yale Environment 360 is an online magazine offering opinion, analysis, reporting, and debate on global environmental issues.
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