In 2005 he moved from San Jose to Dobbs Ferry, New York where he lives with his wife, freelance writer Fran Smith, and their daughter, Nicole.

[5] While assistant managing editor of paper's afternoon edition, the San Jose Mercury News won a Pulitzer Prize for general reporting for its coverage of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

[1][2] In that role, he focused on corporate environmental practices and market-based approaches to greenhouse-gas reduction in China, co-led the EDF's joint authorship of California's AB32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, and co-chaired the founding committee of the United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a coalition of businesses and environmental organizations promoting national climate change legislation.

[9] His article "Don’t Throw Bald Eagles Under the Bus" appeared on the April 12th, 2016 SAT test as the prompt for the student-produced essay response.

Yarnold publishes frequent opinion pieces on energy policy, bird conservation and other environmental topics, and is a contributor to The Huffington Post and Audubon magazine's blog "The Perch".