Yale Environment 360

In a summer of record heat waves, France and Spain are now facing wildfires that have forced the evacuations of more than 300,000 people. Scientists say that a sharp swing from wet to dry weather, a signature of climate change, helped fuel the blazes.Read more on E360 →

The use of small, controlled burns to clear out flammable underbrush has saved thousands of giant sequoias from devastating wildfires, new research finds.Read more on E360 →

Warming has brought extreme rain to the parched Sahel, which is seeing aquifers refill as monsoons grow stronger. But heavier downpours alone cannot explain the groundwater revival, say hydrologists, who believe efforts to harvest rainfall may also be paying dividends.Read more on E360 →

Last year, the acreage burned in the Brazilian Amazon reached its lowest level in at least four decades.Read more on E360 →

Sixty years after surveyors first uncovered evidence of a sprawling coral reef off the West African nation of Benin, scientists have at last found the reef.Read more on E360 →

As global warming fuels more extreme rainfall in Appalachia, new research finds a link between flooding and opioid deaths.Read more on E360 →

The Aral Sea sits between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and was once the fourth-largest inland body of water on Earth. For the past 60 years, though, humans have bled it nearly dry irrigating cotton crops, leaving behind a salty plain the size of Ireland. Its loss has long been seen as an ecological and humanitarian problem, but new research shows that it has also been a significant driver of climate change.Read more on E360 →

A Japanese steel giant has pledged billions in new investment in Pennsylvania’s Monongahela River Valley, raising hopes that it would clean up pollution from its steel mills in the region. But documents show that its plans to ramp up production will worsen local air quality.Read more on E360 →

Scientists have identified a new species of monkey in the forests of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is just the fifth new species of African monkey discovered in the last 75 years.Read more on E360 →

As China erects the largest hydropower installation on Earth atop an active fault line in the Himalayas, Chinese scientists are calling on engineers to guard against risks from earthquakes.Read more on E360 →

Western Europe recorded more than 10,000 excess deaths during an unprecedented June heat wave, an analysis finds.Read more on E360 →

Four Ugandan farmers have launched a suit in the U.K. High Court against a controversial oil pipeline being built in East Africa. The suit is a last-ditch effort to halt the project before it goes online in October. Read more on E360 →

As EV sales boom and grids seek more energy storage, researchers are racing to develop batteries that are cheaper, more powerful, and less reliant on hard-to-source materials. Lithium-ion still dominates, but sodium-ion and solid-state technologies are moving from lab to market.Read more on E360 →

Pervasive plastic contamination and unreliable methods have clouded the science on microplastics in the human body. In an interview, Australian scientist Cassandra Rauert, who built a plastics-free lab to study human exposure, explores the challenges for researchers.Read more on E360 →

A vast system of Atlantic currents that delivers warmth to northern Europe is at risk of collapse, according to a growing body of research. The latest study to warn of its demise finds there is at least a 10 percent chance that a collapse may already be “locked in.”Read more on E360 →

Off the eastern coast of Italy, large numbers of bottlenose dolphins are looking to fishing trawlers as a source of food, a sign that dolphins may be struggling to feed themselves in waters depleted by overfishing.Read more on E360 →

As residential batteries have become more energy dense, cheaper, and smaller, more households are storing their excess solar power. Now, utilities and energy companies in dozens of countries are buying up those electrons, bundling them together, and using them to balance the grid.Read more on E360 →

As extreme heat worsens pollution, a network of 277 monitors will identify pollution hot spots.Read more on E360 →

In mountain regions from the Andes to the Himalayas, Indigenous people see the retreat of glaciers as a sign that they have lost the favor of their gods or ancestors.Read more on E360 →

Despite years of opposition, a 900-mile crude oil pipeline through East Africa is about to be completed, and its environmental and social risks are coming into focus. Campaigners in Uganda and abroad are making a final push to halt the project before the oil starts to flow.Read more on E360 →