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Yale Environment 360
How a Small Herd of Romanian Bison Is Locking Away Millions of Tons of Carbon
A new study finds that a small herd of bison that was recently reintroduced to the Carpathian mountains is helping to draw down a huge volume of carbon. Gone from Romania for 200 years, European bison were restored to the Țarcu Mountains at the southern end of the Carpathian range in 2014. Now numbering 170, the herd is reshaping the mountain landscape in ways that are helping clean up emissions.
In Seawater, Researchers See an Untapped Bounty of Critical Metals
Can metals that naturally occur in seawater be mined, and can they be mined sustainably? A company in Oakland, California, says yes. And not only is it extracting magnesium from ocean water — and from waste brine generated by industry — it is doing it in a carbon-neutral way. Magrathea Metals has produced small amounts of magnesium in pilot projects, and with financial support from the U.S. Defense Department, it is building a larger-scale facility to produce about 200 tons of the metal a year. By 2028, it says it plans to be operating a facility that will annually produce more than 11,000 tons.
In Wet Winter, LA Captured Enough Stormwater to Supply One in Four People
Since October, Los Angeles County has gathered enough stormwater to meet the demand of one in four residents for a year. Uncommonly heavy rains allowed the county to capitalize on its billion-dollar investment in storage infrastructure. Since 2001, local officials have raised dams and cleared sediment from reservoirs in an...
Offset Schemes Failing to Benefit Forest Communities, Report Finds
Increasingly, businesses are writing off their carbon emissions by funding the conservation of forests. A new report finds that while such schemes have made “limited” progress in curbing deforestation, they have largely failed to alleviate poverty in forest communities. “We are too late on in the game to...
Chorus of Whale Song Signals Antarctic Blue Whales May Be Making a Comeback
A nearly two-decade study of whale songs recorded in the Southern Ocean suggests that blue whales, the largest creatures ever to have roamed the Earth, may be recovering in Antarctica after being hunted to the edge of extinction. Commercial whaling reduced the number of Antarctic blue whales from around 125,000...
Will Indonesia’s New Regime Mark the End of Gains for Its Forests?
Indonesia, the world’s fourth most-populous country with the third largest surviving area of tropical forests, has a new strongman president. Environmentalists are concerned. They fear that, after a decade during which the country’s deforestation rates have fallen by almost two-thirds, Prabowo Subianto will unleash a new ecological orgy, cutting, burning, and despoiling some of the world’s greatest rainforests.
Dire Straits: Can a Fishing Ban Save the Elusive European Eel?
Long, V-shaped eel traps cross from shore to shore on Italy’s Comacchio Lagoons, pointing like arrowheads out to the Adriatic Sea. When eels headed to their ocean breeding grounds arrive at the tip of the V, aluminum panels allow them into the trap, but not out. Metal replaced wood and reeds in the 1980s, but otherwise the design of the trap is the same as it has been since ancient times.
Can Aging U.S. Nuclear Power Plants Withstand More Extreme Weather?
To reach its climate goals, the Biden administration aims to extend the lives of U.S. nuclear reactors. But a new report finds regulators have not studied whether increasingly extreme weather could threaten the safety or viability of power plants largely built in the 1970s and 1980s. On August 10, 2020...
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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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