environment

Fatal attractions are a standard movie plotline, but they also occur in nature, with much more serious consequences. As a conservation biologist, I’ve seen them play out in some of Earth’s most remote locations, from the Gobi Desert to the Himalayan Highlands. In these locales, pastoralist communities graze camels, yaks and other livestock across wide ranges of land. The problem is that often these animals’ wild relatives live nearby, and huge, testosterone-driven wild males may try to mate with domestic or tamed relatives. Both animals and people lose in these encounters. Herders who try to protect their domestic stock risk injuries, emotional trauma, economic loss and sometimes death. Wild intruders can be displaced, harassed or killed. These clashes threaten iconic and endangered species, including Tibetan wild yaks, wild two-humped camels and Asia’s forest elephants. If the wild species are protected, herders may be forbidden from chasing or harmin...

Coast to coast, millions of Americans are experiencing sweltering temperatures this summer, with seemingly little relief in sight. For people who struggle to access or afford air conditioning, the rising need for cooling is a growing crisis. An alarming number of Americans risk losing access to utility services because they can’t pay their bills. Energy utility providers in 2022 shut off electricity to at least 3 million customers who had missed a bill payment. Over 30% of these disconnections happened in the three summer months, during a year that was among the hottest on record. In some cases, the loss of service lasted for just a few hours. But in others, people went without electricity for days or weeks while scrambling to find enough money to restore service, often only to face disconnection again. As researchers who study energy justice and energy insecurity, we believe the United States is in the midst of a disconnection crisis. We started tracking these disconnect...

Federal Chevron deference is dead. On June 28, 2024, in a 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court overturned the 40-year-old legal tenet that when a federal statute is silent or ambiguous about a particular regulatory issue, courts should defer to the implementing agency’s reasonable interpretation of the law. The reversal came in a ruling on two fishery regulation cases, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce. This decision means that federal courts will have the final say on what an ambiguous federal statute means. What’s not clear is whether most courts will still listen to expert federal agencies in determining which interpretations make the most sense. While courts and judges will vary, as a scholar in environmental law, I expect that the demise of Chevron deference will make it easier for federal judges to focus on the exact meaning of Congress’ individual words, rather than on Congress’ goals or the real-life wor...

Hurricane Beryl was the latest Atlantic storm to rapidly intensify, growing quickly from a tropical storm into the strongest June hurricane on record in the Atlantic. It hit the Grenadine Islands with 150 mph winds and a destructive storm surge on July 1, 2024, then continued to intensify into the basin’s earliest Category 5 storm on record. Beryl was still a powerful Category 4 hurricane on July 3 when its eyewall brushed the coast of Jamaica and headed toward the Cayman Islands. A large part of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula was under a hurricane warning. The damage Beryl caused, particularly on Carriacou and Petite Martinique, was extensive, Grenada Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell told a news briefing. “In half an hour, Carriacou was flattened.” Beryl’s strength and rapid intensification were unusual for a storm so early in the season. This year, that is especially alarming as forecasters expect an exceptionally active Atlantic hurricane season....

Wherever people look, climate change is inflicting ever greater physical, economic, and mental costs on people and communities. From the impact of extreme weather events on food security to the growing spread of infectious diseases as weather patterns change, and with the rise of deadly heat waves, it is undeniable that what harms our planet also harms our health.  To meet the Paris Climate Agreement targets of limiting global temperature rise to under 1.5°C (2.7°F), every sector—including health care—must undergo decarbonization in adapting to this new reality. Health care is one of many sectors fueling the climate crisis, emitting more global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions than the shipping industry.    In a new study, Unitaid sought to answer whether switching from one drug to another could provide lifesaving benefits while reducing carbon emissions. The findings reveal that this is not only possible, but also already...

The warming climate doesn’t only melt ice caps and bleach coral reefs but also puts your health at risk. Climate change is no longer a far-removed issue, able to be cast off as a problem “of tomorrow.” Climate change alters health both through long-term stressors, such as air pollution1 and vector-borne diseases2, and through acute events, such as heat waves3 and hurricanes.4 These long and short term elements collectively influence public health around the world.  Climate change has health consequences from the scale of entire populations all the way down to the level of your cells.5 Here are six things that are sometimes forgotten regarding climate and health:  Climate change is associated with infectious disease spread As temperatures rise, disease vectors like mosquitoes and ticks move northward into newly habitable terrain.2,6,7 This means that diseases that were previously only endemic to t...

Relentless rain drenched the northern Philippines on Wednesday (Jul 24), triggering floods in Manila and deadly landslides as Typhoon Gaemi intensified the seasonal monsoon. Rescuers were deployed across the densely populated capital to help evacuate people from low-lying homes after downpours turned streets into rivers, trapping vehicles. People clutched flimsy umbrellas as they waded through thigh-deep murky water or used small boats and shopping trolleys to move around. “The disturbance it caused is great. The waters reached the second floor of our house,” Nora Clet, a resident, told AFP. Restaurant employee Rex Morano said he was not able to work due to the “very high” floodwaters. A state of calamity was declared for Manila, unlocking funds for relief efforts, after the state weather forecaster warned of “serious flooding” in some areas. Government offices were shut and classes suspended, more than 10...