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The first thing you see when you step into the Campo del Cielo nature reserve parking lot is what looks like a large bowl in the ground about half the size of a football field.

It’s a crater made by a massive meteorite. One of thousands that peppered this whole area roughly 4,000 years ago.

The reserve has been a place for people to see some of the largest meteorites in the world. But Argentina has been trying for years to prevent the theft of the space rocks.

Just behind it is an interactive museum, with hundreds of meteorites on display.

Gancedo meteorite display in Buenos Aires, Argentina.Michael Fox/The World“The experience is magnificent,” said Alexis Saul, who was visiting with his wife and daughter, from a couple of hours away. “It’s so important for the world. We need to value this place so much more than we do.”

Groups of green parrots flew overhead. On a short walk around the area, a row of huge meteorites can be seen, including the second and third largest in the world, weighing almost 29 and 31 metric tons, respectively. They sit on large circular slabs of concrete and visitors can walk right up to them and touch and hug them. It’s a pretty incredible experience.

Ayelen Santillán has worked as the main guide at the park for the past decade. She said there’s no place like this on the planet.

“This is unique, because although the largest meteorite is in Africa, you don’t have the ability to get up close like you do with these meteorites,” she said.

Close-up of Gancedo meteorite in Buenos Aires, Argentina.Michael Fox/The WorldBut theft there has been a major problem. Santillán said the quantity of the theft is impossible to calculate. But it has happened for decades. And it’s still happening. 

In 2015, Argentine police foiled the theft of 3,300 pounds of space rocks from Campo del Cielo.

In another news report from 2019, a group of people was caught trying to steal three large meteorites. This June, two people were detained again in western Argentina, trying to make off with 77 stolen space rocks. Back in 1990, a US meteorite collector even tried to steal El Chaco, then, the second largest meteorite in the world.

Meteorites of varying sizes used to litter the ground.

“They aren’t that easy to find now,” said one Argentine researcher, in a clip from a 2014 documentary about the Campo del Cielo meteorite field. “But there were plantations, where the entire road was lined on both sides with meteorites. Every rock you found here was a meteorite.”

Campo del Cielo Museum is located in Buenos Aires, Argentina.Michael Fox/The WorldThe Argentine state has tried to respond. Since the 1990s, laws have prohibited the removal and sale of the country’s meteorites. In 2004, Argentina passed a law declaring the meteorites a cultural patrimony of the nation.

Rogelio Daniel Acevedo is a geologist and meteorite specialist, who’s retired from Argentina’s science and research agency, CONICET.

“So, they can’t be sold,” he said. “If I find one on my property, I don’t have to turn it in, but I can’t sell it.”

Nevertheless, he explained, in the markets of the world where precious metals and rocks are sold, there is always an Argentine meteorite for sale.

Be it at a gift shop in the United States or online, a quick search on eBay revealed dozens of listings just for Campo del Cielo meteorites.

View from the Campo del Cielo viewing tower.Michael Fox/The World“It’s really unfortunate,” said guide Santillán. “This question of meteorite theft and contraband is really hard to control.”

She said that even though the sale of Argentina’s meteorites abroad is still illegal under Argentine law, it’s hard to regulate.

Her message: Please don’t buy or sell our meteorites. “This is something that belongs to us,” she said. “Something that’s unique — [a] world heritage.” 

But Santillán said these meteorites are just used, sold and commercialized, like everything today.

And that, she said, is a shame.

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Vanya, a Ukrainian soldier, pulled up his T-shirt to reveal a nasty scar that he got while fighting in the war in Ukraine — he said that he was hit half a millimeter from his heart.

Vanya is staying at Lisova Polyana, or Forest Glade, a veterans’ mental health and rehabilitation center in a quiet, wooded area just 30 minutes from downtown Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital.

(None of the soldiers that The World spoke to for this story are identified by their full names because they are on active duty and in many cases, returning to the front lines.)

Vanya has been at Forest Glade for four days and said that he was hoping he would be better by now, though he didn’t share the details of his treatment or recovery.

Soldiers play pool at Lisova Polyana (Forest Glade), a veterans’ mental health and rehabilitation center run by Ukraine’s Ministry of Health.Emily Johnson/The WorldHe is among the 220 men and women being treated at the center, which is run by the Ministry of Health; it works on “invisible wounds,” including stress disorders, depression, anxiety, PTSD and traumatic brain injuries. They also treat people who were tortured or held in captivity.

After nearly 1,000 days, Russia’s war against Ukraine is causing mental health issues for soldiers and civilians alike. Ukraine’s Health Ministry estimates that 15 million people will need psychological support in the future — or 40% of the population.

The Ukrainian government said it’s in the process of developing a comprehensive new veterans policy that includes psychological care and career support for people transitioning back to civilian life. In the meantime, mental health professionals are scrambling to modernize an outdated system to accommodate the vast needs.

Kseniia Voznitsyna, the chief doctor at Forest Glade, said that Ukraine has experienced psychologists, but even they may need additional skills training to deal with military trauma.

“This is happening now with a lot of trainings in Ukraine — this process is happening widely,” she said.

A large wooden map of Ukraine covers the wall in the office of Forest Glade’s chief doctor, Kseniia Voznitsyna.Emily Johnson/The WorldAt Forest Glade, she explained, they take an integrative approach: “It’s a bio-psycho-social approach. We have a big team. Psychologists, psychiatrists, neurologists, physical therapists, speech therapists.”

Clinical case managers work individually with the soldiers, ensuring that they show up for appointments, and they plan excursions for them, Voznitsyna said. Patients receive plenty of complementary methods of treatment, including everything from acupuncture to yoga to art rehabilitation classes.

Forest Glade has a long waitlist, and patients usually stay for several weeks before returning to military service.

Vanya receives a haircut, one of the services offered to soldiers and veterans receiving treatment at Forest Glade.Emily Johnson/The WorldSoldier Volodymyr, speaking in front of a group of other men in line to get a haircut, referenced the physical therapy, but not the mental health treatment he was receiving at the center.

“It’s great,” he said. “I was treated here, it’s a little easier on my foot, easier on my back.”

He could stay longer, he said, but as platoon leader, he was eager to get back to his men in eastern Ukraine.

War trauma ‘is not for one day’For many Ukrainians, seeking out mental health care means overcoming long-held stigmas going back to the Soviet period when political opposition figures were often sent to psych wards.

“Because Soviets used this as an instrument, this is a huge stigma towards psychiatry,” said Dr. Orest Suvalo, executive director of the Institute of Mental Health of the Ukrainian Catholic University. “We even still feel it now, after 30 years of Ukrainian independence.”

Meanwhile, demand is only growing. PTSD isn’t the only consequence of traumatic experiences. Ukrainians are also dealing with depression, substance abuse, loss and anxiety.

“It’s important to pay attention to the trauma-informed approach to train people and explain to people in many different specialties how to speak with people,” he said. “Because we are predicting that everyone could have some kind of traumatic experience.”

Dr. Oleh Berezyuk at Unbroken, a national rehabilitation center in Lviv, said that the country’s mental health challenges are multilayered; there is the sheer number of people who need help, plus, the brutal nature of their trauma.

Memorials to lost soldiers fill Sophia Square in Kyiv. Emily Johnson/The World“We have to care for every soldier, for every civilian who suffered from the war trauma, which is very important because war trauma, it’s not for one day,” he said. “And you cannot treat it just by one simple intervention. You have to prepare people to live in a different reality.”

That’s why Unbroken is treating mental and physical trauma together in the general hospital, a successful model that they are recommending to other hospitals, Berezyuk said.

Others, like Victor Dosenko, a professor of pathophysiology at the Bogomolets Institute of Physiology in Kyiv, are working specifically on PTSD.

Dosenko is studying biomarkers and how to detect PTSD.

“It’s a bad opportunity, but medicine, medical progress moves forward when there are challenges,” said Dosenko, who has also been advocating for a PTSD center in Ukraine.

The importance of preparing a family Veterans need to return to an understanding society where they can find work and medical help, said Tetiana Kril, head of the mental health program and psychological support centers Razom With You.

When her husband returned home from fighting in 2017 after Russia’s earlier invasion of eastern Ukraine, “I realized how important it is to prepare a family,” she said. “Because every soldier returns to his family. And today, there are already 3.5 million veterans in Ukraine, and by the end of the war, we expect there will be 5 million.”

Kseniia Voznitsyna, the chief doctor at Forest Glade, emerges from an office where the walls are covered in colorful mural tributes to the Ukrainian armed services.Emily Johnson/The WorldYrii Liashuk, who works for Razom for Ukraine, said that when he was discharged from the military last year due to an injury, his family was supportive. His wife became his “personal psychologist,” he said.

He joined the military in 2012 and had thought it would be his lifelong career.

He stays busy with a job as a security officer and running a company that makes drones. He believes veteran reintegration will be one of the biggest challenges ahead.

“Society needs to be prepared for the fact that heroes with unique challenges will live with us,” Liashuk said. “We need to understand this.”

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Vishwanath Srikantiah, an urban planner in Bengaluru, India’s tech hub, sat on the edge of a 50-year-old water well in a quiet neighborhood near the airport.

When Vishwanath first encountered the well several years ago, he said it was full of garbage. His organization, Biome Environmental Trust, helped clean and restore the well, which is now adorned with artwork. It also has a protective metal cover and a pulley for residents to draw water for washing or bathing.

“Even during the crisis when there was no water in the city, this well always had water,” Vishwanath said, referring to a looming water emergency in Bengaluru earlier this year.

Vishwanath’s organization brings many of these humble wells back to life through the Million Wells for Bengaluru project. Vishwanath estimated that they’ve gotten to around 280,000 of them over the past decade.

A few years ago, this well in Bengaluru, India, was full of garbage. Now, it has a protective metal cover and a pulley for residents to draw water for washing or bathing.Sushmita Pathak/The WorldSmall, shallow wells could hold the key to alleviating Bengaluru’s ongoing water problems. Using age-old, well-digging techniques, they help residents tap into a forgotten water source: the shallow aquifer.

For centuries, Indians depended on open wells. However, with the advent of deep drilling technology, traditional wells fell out of use.

Now, in an era of climate change, Vishwanath said, wells are a simple yet effective choice to make the city more water-secure: “Truly, it’s a low, shallow-hanging fruit.”

Today, Bengaluru gets most of its water from the Cauvery River, about 60 miles away and at a lower elevation than the city. The municipal piped network delivers this water to homes. But newer parts of the ever-expanding city don’t have government water connections yet.

“The infrastructure is barely able to match the city’s growth, and so, where the piped network does not reach, the dependency is completely on groundwater,” Vishwanath said.

In a part of the Indian city of Bengaluru where water shortages occur year-round, residents stock up on water in blue, cylindrical drumsSushmita Pathak/The WorldGroundwater is pumped up from great depths through borewells — narrow shafts that dig as deep as 1,800 feet below the ground to extract water, much farther down than traditional wells. Bengaluru has an indiscriminate number of borewells, and new ones are being drilled constantly.

“When you go deeper into the ground, the water becomes more saline, more unreliable, and the borewells tend to dry out,” Vishwanath said.

That’s precisely what happened earlier this year — many of the city’s borewells ran dry. Traditional, open wells, on the other hand, go less than 100 feet below the ground. This part of the earth is like a sponge, Vishwanath said: “It can hold water and release water, provided we understand the recharge zones and make sure that rainwater percolates.”

Water from a well requires much less energy because it only needs to be drawn up to 20 feet or 30 feet.

A recharge well outside Vishwanath Srikantiah’s home in Bengaluru.Sushmita Pathak/The World“It’s very energy efficient. It’s cheap water. It has less carbon emissions,” Vishwanath said.

The Million Wells initiative harnesses the knowledge of traditional well-diggers called Mannu Vaddars, many of whom lost work when India shifted to mechanically dug borewells.

Sahana Goswami is a senior program manager for urban water and climate resilience at the World Resources Institute India.

“This sort of campaign is very important because you’re widening our scope and saying, ‘Here’s another resource that we can tap into when we need,’” she said.

After all, relying too much on one source of water is at the root of Bengaluru’s water problems.

“You should have a diverse set of sources of water,” Goswami said. “So, if one is diminished, you still have the other one that you can draw from.”

Vishwanath Srikantiah lifts up the metal grate covering a recently revived 100-year-old well near a lake on the outskirts of Bengaluru, a megacity in India.Sushmita Pathak/The WorldIn the face of climate change, she said, solutions like the Million Wells initiative become all the more urgent, especially as summers in Bengaluru are getting hotter and rainfall is becoming more erratic.

At the same time, the city is urbanizing rapidly.

“The way we have developed, we have all these paved surfaces. The natural capacity of water to get absorbed into the ground is also getting diminished,” Goswami said. “We have had more incidences of acute rainfall but short duration, high rainfall, which usually flows away. So, how much water has been absorbed into the ground has been a bit lesser.”

Capturing rainwater is essential to recharge the shallow aquifer, something lakes do naturally. While Bengaluru has many lakes, some are drying up.

In the evening light, the pattern of the metal grate reflects beautifully on the water surface. Soon after the lake beside it was rehabilitated, water filled up in this recently revived well.Sushmita Pathak/The WorldBut Vishwanath pointed to the successful rehabilitation of Sihineeru Kere (“Sweet Water Lake”) on the outskirts of Bengaluru, and a nearby well. The Environmental Foundation of India intervened in 2022, filling it with rainwater and treated wastewater.

Through Vishwanath’s Biome Environmental Trust, a treatment plant next to the lake purifies water from the shallow aquifer, which will soon be supplied directly to locals, and well-diggers cleaned and de-silted the well.

Vishwanath described the collaboration as a success, but he’s eager to see it replicated because climate change “is coming like a tsunami, so we don’t have time to be able to deal with it,” he said. “So, that’s the impatience that I feel as much as the satisfaction.”

Vishwanath Srikantiah stands near Sihineeru Kere (“Sweet Water Lake”) on the outskirts of Bengaluru, a megacity in southern India.Sushmita Pathak/The WorldThe post Why a megacity in India is reviving the humble water well appeared first on The World from PRX.

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Katsumi Kusumoto has become a celebrity chef in Japan for his awareness of the environmental pressures on food systems and his adaptation of menus to be less reliant on mass-produced animal protein.

Thinking outside the bento box got Chef Kusumoto to partner with a high-tech food company in Israel called Forsea.

“The Japanese consumed 160,000 metric tons of eel in 2000. Today, they consume only 30,000, and that’s because it’s just not available,” said Roee Nir, co-founder and CEO of Forsea.

Nir says most eel varieties are in short supply as endangered and protected species. Eels are also expensive because they are raised for several years before harvesting.

Earlier this year, The World staff visited Israel and saw what Forsea was working on.

Roee Nir, CEO and co-founder of Forsea, sits down with The World’s Marco Werman to discuss the company.Alon Farago/The World“What we do is grow mini-tissues called organoids, and we basically mimic the natural development of cells,” Nir said. “Our tissue is a natural composition of fat, muscle and the actual extracellular matrix.”

The “extracellular matrix” is animal flesh, but developed in a stainless steel bioreactor.

“We’re not an eel company. We’re a cultivated meat company focused on fish and seafood, and our first product is the meat of the freshwater eel.”

Roee Nir, co-founder and CEO of Forsea

“We’re not an eel company,” said Nir. “We’re a cultivated meat company focused on fish and seafood, and our first product is the meat of the freshwater eel.”

In its current research and development phase, Forsea’s operations occur on one floor in a building in Rehovot, just outside Tel Aviv.

The eventual eel meat is developed right down the hall from Nir’s office.

Moria Shimoni, another of Forsea’s co-founders and chief technology officer, gave The World a tour of the area.

“This is where the magic happens,” said Shimoni before correcting herself. “Actually, all of the places … is where the magic happens: It starts with the cell isolation, it continues with the media development. This is actually the media. The media inside the bio-reactor is the media we developed.”

When Shimoni says “media,” she means the complex formula that feeds the eel cells that grow in the bioreactor.

Moria Shimoni, co-founder and CTO of Forsea, shows The World’s Marco Werman an eel cell line that is kept in the deep freeze until it’s ready to go in the bioreactor.Alon Farago/The WorldIn that sense, the magic really does happen in the bioreactors: stainless-steel tanks that mimic each cell line’s temperature, oxygen and nutritional needs as the team at Forsea trial-and-errors their way to something that tastes like unagi.

Nir said that cultivated meat grown in a lab has many benefits over conventional fish farming, but there’s one big thing: “The aquaculture that has been helping close the supply-demand gap for decades has been quite impactful for the environment,” he said. “And what’s expected to close the supply-demand gap of fish and seafood is cultivated meat.”

Cultivated meat also eliminates the need to grow animal-feed crops. As far as climate change emissions, various studies have shown that cultivated beef could improve the situation over real cows. However, other studies suggest that the infrastructure around cultivated beef could actually increase those emissions.

There are other benefits the cultivated eel industry is promoting, like a massive drop in microplastic pollution as a result of abandoning fishing nets.

A Forsea staffer shows a bioreactor that is the home for eel cell line development.Alon Farago/The WorldBut all of these positives depend on one big obstacle.

Faraz Harsini, a senior scientist at the Washington, DC-based Good Food Institute, who focuses on developing lab-grown meat, said, “With cultivated meat, the challenge is really to scale it up.”

Right now, the cultivated meat industry has proof of concept. But there’s a way to go still before you find cultivated eel in a cooler in the produce department.

Harsini said that better, more cost-effective bioreactors and cheaper media will be required to feed the cells.

But if that happens, Harsini will be optimistic about the benefits.

“This is something people don’t realize: The United Nations says that the top drivers of the next pandemic are due to increased demand for animal protein.”

Faraz Harsini, senior scientist at the Good Food Institute

“This is something people don’t realize: The United Nations says that the top drivers of the next pandemic are due to increased demand for animal protein,” he said.

In other words, as the production of conventional chicken, pork and beef is increasingly industrialized to feed the world’s growing population, the probability of another outbreak of some disease — avian flu, swine flu or COVID-19 — will increase.

Cultivated meat lowers that risk.

“Because it’s a process that is completely under control, you are constantly sampling and testing for any microbes and contamination, and if you have contamination, you just waste a batch,” Harsini said.

Farmers pump their livestock with antibiotics to prevent infections and to make them grow faster. Cultivated meat also eliminates the need for antibiotics.

And Harsini, like many scientists, is deeply concerned about where continued reliance on antibiotics in the current food system will take the planet.

“According to WHO’s former director, it’s going to be the end of modern medicine when we have [an] antibiotic-resistant pandemic,” he said. “Again, that’s a problem completely mitigated with cultivated meat.”

Israel has become an incubator for companies on the cutting edge of cultivated meat. Just down the road from Forsea is Aleph Farms, which is working on cultivated beef.

Many scientists are deeply concerned about where continued reliance on antibiotics in the current food system will take the planet, so they’re working on safer alternatives.Alon Farago/The WorldNo fewer than half a dozen cultivated meat operations are scattered around the country.

Tami Tvash, vice president for research and development at Aleph Farms, showed The World several new creations, including what can only be described as “beef ink,” a combination of muscle and fat cells designed to smell and even sound like steak when it’s on a hot skillet.

“And with this ink,” Tvash said, “we’re actually printing a steak, so we can print areas with muscle cells, we can do areas with fat components in a steak.”

Aleph Farms is working on a minute-steak, and once that gets scaled up, thicker cuts of meat will follow.

Why is this all happening in Israel?

Faraz Harsini of the Good Food Institute, which has an affiliate office there, says the Israeli government has actively supported food innovation because “Israel relies heavily on importing meat, and so for them, it’s a matter of national security.”

It likely should be one for the rest of the world, too.

This work is something Nir at Forsea is excited to do every day.

“How many industries do you know that are targeting two of the world’s biggest problems: nutrition and climate?” he said.

Nir expects Forsea’s first product will reach the market late next year or early 2026.

Editor’s note: A previous version of this story incorrectly identified a last name. The original version had Faraz Farsini, but the correct name is Faraz Harsini, which has been updated to reflect this.

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In Namibia, a plant colloquially known as the encroaching bush is threatening the land with desertification. In addition, the country faces a growing housing shortage. MycoHAB, a nonprofit in Namibia, has found a solution to both problems for the price of one.

Chris Maurer is an architect behind MycoHAB, which aims to combat the housing crisis and climate change by researching and producing sustainable building materials.

The organization has found a process that can take the encroaching bush, use it as the substrate — like soil but for growing mushrooms — and use the mushrooms to feed people. Then, the waste material is used to build bricks for new houses.

Maurer spoke to The World’s co-host, Carolyn Beeler, to learn more.

Carolyn Beeler: So how does this material compare? This mix of the woody stuff from these invasive bushes and the, let’s say, roots of the mushrooms? How does that material compare to a traditional building material, like concrete for example, on strength and price and all those good things?Chris Maurer: It compares very well to concrete in terms of strength. The blocks that we make in Namibia have compressive strengths of around 6 megapascals, which is very similar to what concrete blocks are in that part of the world. The compression strength is just one type of characteristic that we look at in building materials. It’s also insulative. It tends to be fire-resistant and it’s sound-attenuating, so it can have all kinds of multifunctional effects.What are the downsides of this material, and what are the negatives?Well, I guess if you do compare it to concrete and other materials like that, you wouldn’t use this exposed to the elements the same way that you could some of those materials. The houses we’re building in Namibia now, we’re using a mud plaster to protect it from rain and things like that, very similar to wood construction. It can last forever. There’s lots of wood buildings that are centuries old. Biogenic material lasts a very long time if you protect it, but things like concrete are better for using underground in areas where it can become very wet or humid.So, you’ve built one of these homes so far, is that correct? And if so, describe what it looks like.Yeah. So, it’s made out of 900 or more of these blocks that we’ve made in Namibia. Each one of those blocks are about 10 kilograms each. So, this one very small house that we built sequestered 9 tons of carbon. It used 9 tons of encroaching bush and it made 3 tons of mushrooms in its production. It’s a very small house. It’s a one-bedroom, one-bath, but it’s basically a model for how we hope to go forward and scale this up to hundreds of homes, thousands of homes and, you know, one day millions of homes with this process.So, only one of these homes is standing so far. What are the challenges to scaling up this approach to building fundraising?We’re currently funding to scale the process now. We’ve basically made this demonstration project in Namibia. It was a collaboration between my studio, Red House, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for Bits and Atoms and Standard Bank Group, which funded this as part of their environmental and social governance program. Now that we’ve proven that it can be done, that you can take, encroach or push and turn it into food and housing in a vertically integrated process, we’re pulling in investors and doing this at industrial scale.And how does cost compare with these bricks to traditional building materials?Well, not to be too cheeky, but the materials are free, but we don’t sell them necessarily. At this point, we’re using the mushrooms, we’re selling those. And that’s basically going to be our revenue-generating process. And then, the building materials are going strictly toward humanitarian housing at this point. As I mentioned, this was started under an environmental social governance program with Standard Bank. And so, they are committed along with partners like the Shack Dwellers Federation and the Bio Brick Foundation to support housing for the nearly half of all Namibians that are living in informal settlements now.Now, what’s your ultimate goal? Looking down maybe 5-10 years, how do you hope this changes buildings and homes in Namibia?Well, I hope in Namibia and throughout the world that we’re using more of these bio fabrication functions because it can store carbon dioxide. And I want to see architecture start to become a solution for climate change, rather than a major part of the problem.This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

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Days ago, a story started making the rounds on social media. It claimed that Olena Zelenska, the first lady of Ukraine, had recently purchased a $4.8 million Bugatti Tourbillon while she was visiting Paris for D-Day celebrations in June.

An unnamed source in the story said she used American military aid money to pay for the car, and the story included what it said was an invoice for the vehicle. The Bugatti dealership in Paris said it was a lie, but by the time they released a statement, it was too late. The story had already gone viral.

These are the kinds of disinformation campaigns that Antibot4Navalny, an anonymous group of disinformation researchers, have been flagging since last fall in a bid to blunt Moscow’s efforts to confuse and misinform.

The “Click Here” podcast from Recorded Future News spoke recently by encrypted app with one of the leaders of the group about efforts to unmask Russian bots, their work with global researchers on disinformation and why some people are saying Antibot4Navalny is punching way above its weight as it takes on the Kremlin.

“Click Here”: What’s the best way to describe Antibot4Navalny?Antibot: Most people describe us as an anonymous group of analysts tracking Russia-related influence operations on X, formerly Twitter. We’ve been in operations since November 2023, but I personally have been researching Russian disinformation since March 2018.What makes you different from other anti-disinformation groups?In a nutshell, we don’t focus on exposing or debunking fake narratives individually — in order to avoid getting on the wrong side of the Brandolini law. You can’t take aim at individual stories and be effective. That’s why we chose to expose the channels that are pushing these stories … and dig deeper to explain what the disinformation is trying to do — its underlying agenda — on a regular, systematic basis.How many of you are doing this?We’re a small group. I’m the only one working full-time on this. We also count on what I would call enthusiasts, who contribute their research on a regular basis. And then in addition to that, we have dozens of loyal followers who give us specialized help when we need it.And what made you go from disinformation researcher to leading the organization?Before October 2023, when we really began in earnest as a group, there hadn’t been an occasion to research how Russian influence campaigns were targeting other countries. Our key focus at the time was looking at disinformation targeting Russia and Ukraine. And those were campaigns driven by troll farms, paid humans.

Then in late October of last year, we uncovered a massive bot campaign. Bots [computer software] were posting and reposting a highly produced Russian-language video that was clearly aimed at changing the narrative of the war in Ukraine.

It was saying two things at the same time: One, that Russia and Ukraine were brothers, and two, that the fighting was essentially breaking up a family. We assumed that it was targeting Russian and Ukrainian audiences.

But a short time later, we could see that the very same bots had widened the aperture and had started to target France, Germany, the US, Israel and Ukraine all at the very same time. They started promoting fake articles that were meant to convince people to stop sending Western aid to Ukraine.

This seemed to present an opportunity to use all our experience tracking internal Russian information campaigns and help Western audiences know what to expect. Antibot4Navalny has been tracking Doppelgänger, one of these Russian disinformation groups, can you talk about them a little bit?Doppelgänger started operating in mid-2022. Back in October, when we saw these viral posts on X claiming Ukraine’s defeat was imminent, we began to investigate. The articles were being shared on fake websites that looked like well-known news outlets in the West.

We identified the bots behind the campaign, found some unique photos that had not previously been published, and made everything public. That helped us connect to media outlets like Le Monde and Liberation, and other researchers working on the Doppelgänger problem began contacting us.

We discovered all kinds of funny details about the campaign like the way they developed these accounts. They were alphabetic. All the US-associated bots started with D names; French ones used names that began with J, and German ones started with R.What does a typical day look like for you? Eighty percent of my time is promoting the work we do. I compile new findings, pitch stories to media outlets, and post detailed X threads for our followers. The other 20% of my time is spent on what I think I do best: find patterns, analyze content, and automate our day-to-day routine.

However, for the past several months, 0% of my time has been spent on what I think I do best: expose new bot and troll crowds and build automated detectors.

The team spends most of its time collecting data on bots’ nightly runs. They would most benefit from automation, but we cannot afford it yet.How do you expose bots and trolls? Is technology changing the way you do it?Overall, there are two streams of work: exposing a new “crowd” of bots and following the new accounts joining it to analyze trends, narratives and priorities. We focus on finding a few “species” that we suspect are inauthentic in some way and then we find what’s common between them. Then we gather sufficient evidence to prove that the accounts are inauthentic and let the world know.

Because we track and record the content they promote and/or the topics they comment on, we get a lot of coverage.

To try to make this work at scale, machine learning used to help dramatically, until Twitter discontinued free access to their Application Programming Interface (API). We are still struggling to recover.

What’s important to understand is that the point isn’t really just to look at what bots are writing about or what their specific talking points are. What they are trying to accomplish is more subtle than that. Bots are about introducing uncertainty and confusion — to undermine, not a particular story, but news more generally, to disrupt the conversation itself. That’s why they bring in as many talking points and perspectives as possible, even if they are contradicting each other. It adds to the confusion.How have disinformation groups, like Doppelgänger, transformed over the past few years?Doppelgänger and other influence operators are constantly experimenting in order to work around social media abuse protection measures (and X is struggling to catch up with those changes); X is becoming increasingly less transparent and accessible for researchers; and Doppelgänger seems to be learning from its own mistakes.

For example, the recurring pattern is: A few citizens of a third country are hired to do something on the ground that favors the Kremlin’s interests or agenda; a few days later, Doppelgänger bots are focusing on massively promoting it. It might be taking aim at an official or to chip away at support for Ukraine or some other targeted country.

Now, it seems like Doppelgänger is learning from its own experience when covering on-the-ground influence operations.

Last fall, Doppelgänger bots promoted unique photos of Stars of David in Paris that were never published before. That showed very strong evidence of connection between Doppelgänger operators and people behind the offline operation.Their bots promoted a publication by Doppelgänger’s original site (artichoc[.]io), which used a broadly circulated photo of red handprints at a memorial by AFP — which helped with “plausible deniability.” Bots promoted publication by Le Figaro, a legitimate, reputable media outlet — which made the tweets posted by the bots look more authentic.What have people gotten wrong about bots and their operations?The most common misconception is that bots’ key goal is to promote a specific set of talking points to make an audience believe something specific.

In reality, the biggest achievement of influence operations based on trolls-for-hire is, in our opinion, that regular users suspect each other to be pro-Russian, pro-China, pro-Iran, what have you. Once they encounter someone from an opposing point of view, they prefer to stop the conversation altogether. In a sense, the Godwin’s law is not there any more. It was replaced with “you’re a troll-for-hire.”

The biggest achievement of FIMI (Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference), as well as of domestic troll farms in Russia, is that it ruined the benefit of doubt. Regular users stopped trusting each other, especially with those holding views different from theirs. Polarization and atomization improved; it became increasingly difficult to seek tactical allies for the sake of common goals among those bearing differing views. It’s “divide and conquer” at its best.How do we fix it?There are some options to explore: Make user-generated data of social media companies as widely and freely available to researchers as possible; stimulate third-party developers to build an ecosystem of third-party analysis tools and libraries; social networks providing users multiple tools helping to analyze the accounts they never encountered before.What are your proudest achievements?There are several. Among some of them, we exposed Matryoshka, a completely new influence operation that was never researched before us. Following our initial exposure, it was further researched by other organizations.

We also collected what we believe is a top-3-largest dataset on Doppelgänger bot activity that can be made available for journalists for analysis and reporting. We collected over 3,500 articles that were promoted by social media bots on X, along with every relevant evidence out there.What do you make of all the media interest in the work you’ve done?We were surprised to see how incredibly interested the media is in Russian disinformation influence campaigns. In just over six months, we were quoted in about 60 stories by non-Russian media in relation to the Russian state’s FIMI alone.

At the same time, it turned out that most media outlets are not used to being paying customers for researchers; they typically trade exposure to researchers for viral stories from them, unlike photo agencies, stringers or paparazzi.The interview has been edited for clarity and length.

An earlier version of this story appeared on the “CLICK HERE” podcast from Recorded Future News. Additional reporting by Sean Powers and Jade Abdul-Malik.

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Saliha Gündüz, a PhD student from Turkey, has just handed over her smartphone to one of the founders of The Offline Club in Amsterdam, who places it carefully in a “phone hotel” — essentially a locker with dividers that holds up to 60 phones.

Phones are placed in a “phone hotel,” or a locker with dividers, as people try to disconnect from technology at The Offline Club.Orla Barry/The WorldGündüz said she doesn’t feel apprehensive yet — and she settled down to a cup of herbal tea at the New Yoga School cafe in the center of Amsterdam.

“The withdrawal symptoms will kick in later,” she said. “But maybe a withdrawal is what’s needed if I’m going to cure myself of my addiction.”

Gündüz estimates she spends up to six hours a day on her phone.

“I just want to get a hit of dopamine but then it wears off, and I want the same thing again. It’s an endless cycle.”

Gündüz is among 20 people of all ages and nationalities who turned up at The Offline Club on a wet Friday evening in May to see if they could wean themselves off of their addiction.

DisconnectingThe club’s founders — Ilya Kneppelhout, Valentijn Klok and Jordy van Bennekom — started the venture in 2022 with a plan to host offline weekend getaways. Kneppelhout said, at the time, each of the co-founders felt their phones had been dominating their lives.

Earlier that year, he took a short trip to the north of the Netherlands on his own with “some books, a journal and myself.”

No phone. He said something shifted over those four days.

“I felt so much creativity and, at the same time, a sense of peace.”

Van Bennekom did the same and loved it. They began organizing weekend getaways with groups in a house in the countryside. Everyone was required to hand over their phones upon arrival. The three-day events were a hit. But Kneppelhout said that not everyone can afford to pay a few hundred dollars for the experience. So, the idea of The Offline Club was born.

People chat with each other while they disconnect from their phones for a couple of hours at The Offline Club.Courtesy of The Offline ClubEach attendee at the club pays around $8 at the door. The events and venues differ each time. At the New Yoga School in Amsterdam, van Bennekom lays out the rules for the evening.

First, there’s 45 minutes of quiet time, then a 30-minute break to chat, then a further 30 minutes of time to yourself. Most people bring books to read. Soft music plays in the background as van Bennekom lays out coloring books and markers for anyone who wants to draw or doodle.

People read, knit, play games and partake in other activities while trying to disconnect from technology at The Offline Club.Courtesy of The Offline ClubOn that rainy Friday, three men from Puglia in Italy were huddled in one corner drinking tea. Two of them were visiting their friend Pietro Maggi who lives in Amsterdam. Maggi, who works for electric carmaker Tesla, said the evening was his idea and that he persuaded his two visitors to join him.

“Sometimes, I feel overwhelmed by technology,” Maggi said. “After a full workday, a lot of us just go back home and start streaming movies or scrolling through our phones and I think, in a way, we are detaching from ourselves and from our thoughts.”

People drink tea or have other refreshments while they’re disconnecting at The Offline Club.Courtesy of The Offline ClubHis friend, Damiano Caforio, said he was curious about the event. Maggi joked that Caforio might find the evening useful. Caforio shook his head at the suggestion that he might have a mild smartphone addiction: “I don’t have any social media accounts except Facebook. I don’t have Instagram, I don’t even have LinkedIn.”

But then, he admitted that there might be some truth to Maggi’s accusation.

“I keep looking at the news constantly, checking to see what’s going on in the world, or, more specifically, with my job.”

He works at the Italian Chamber of Commerce.

Phones are locked away in containers while people unplug from technology for a couple of hours at The Offline Club in the Netherlands.Courtesy of The Offline Club“I need to know what’s going on, I feel I need to control the environment.”

Even on the flight over, Caforio said, he downloaded wifi so he could message his friends on WhatsApp even while he was in the air.

“Actually, I desperately need this experience tonight,” he laughed.

It wasn’t long before they said they felt more relaxed and grounded. The friends started reminiscing about the days before smartphones — when every phone call cost money. When they were teenagers, Caforio, said they had a special code to let girls know they were thinking of them.

You would call her and then hang up before she answered to avoid being charged, he said. Then she’d know she was on your mind. And if you really liked her, you would leave several missed calls. If she did the same back, Caforio said there was no feeling in the world quite like it.

Some people read books while they’re at The Offline Club.Courtesy of The Offline ClubOffline activitiesLeah Davies from Wales said she spotted a post about The Offline Club on Instagram.

“I saw people reading books and knitting and playing piano,” she said. “And I just loved the idea of being able to go somewhere where you’re not checking your phone all night.”

Ilya Kneppelhout is one of the founders of The Offline Club in The Netherlands.Orla Barry/The WorldDavies attended while she was on a weekend break with her partner. She agreed that it’s not the first thing that comes to mind for most visitors to Amsterdam.

“But this is our first night, we have three other nights for all the debauchery,” she joked.

Davies said she would like to see phones restricted at other events too, like concerts and nightclubs, “so people can just dance or talk like you did in the ‘90s.”

Phone-free music events are already happening elsewhere in the Netherlands. In Tilburg, a city in the south of the country, another group, Off the Radar, organizes music gigs where attendees are expected to hand in their devices at the door.

There isn’t anything quintessentially Dutch about the desire to have smartphone-free events, said Ilya Kneppelhout, co-founder of The Offline Club. But work-life balance is an important aspect of life in the Netherlands.

“We work to live here, not the other way around,” he said.

A study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) found only 0.3% of employees in the Netherlands work very long hours in paid work, the lowest rate in the OECD, where the average is 10%. In January, smartphones were banned in secondary schools across the country under government guidelines.

A similar ban is set to be introduced in Dutch primary schools in the 2024-25 school year. A study last month by Radboud University in the Netherlands found that students were generally positive about the change, saying breaks were more enjoyable and there was less bullying during school hours.

Plans to expandThe Offline Club’s founders are hoping to expand the concept to other cities worldwide. Right now, the trio operates events in six different cities across the Netherlands. Kneppelhout said the sudden success of the venture took them by surprise.

Some people like to draw or color while they’re at The Offline Club.Courtesy of The Offline ClubIn February, they posted a couple of reels on Instagram after their first club event. The videos gained millions of views and their feed was filled with requests asking them to hold similar events abroad.

It was all a bit overwhelming, Kneppelhout said, but in a good way. He said he also sees the irony of an Instagram post about a club that advocates for an offline lifestyle going viral. Ultimately, Kneppelhout said, I would like to delete all our social media apps and for the initiative to still be a success.

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When North Korea hacked Alejandro Caceres, he expected the US government to rush to his defense. When they just shrugged, he took matters into his own hands.

Click the blue player above to hear the full story.

An earlier version of this story appeared on the “CLICK HERE” podcast from Recorded Future News. Additional reporting by Sean Powers.

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GPS satellites do more than just tell us where we are. The world’s industrial control systems use their signals to tell precise times. That’s why when Russian and Ukrainian officials began jamming GPS satellite signals to throw missiles off course during the war, an unexpected thing happened — the lights went out. That is until some American researchers figured out a fix.

Dina Temple-Raston, host and managing editor of the CLICK HERE podcast from Recorded Future News, explains.

Click above to hear the full story.

An earlier version of this story appeared on the “CLICK HERE” podcast from Recorded Future News. Additional reporting by Sean Powers.

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In the 1950s, when Emelia Lozano Gonzalez was 7 years old, her baby sister Cecilia got sick with double pneumonia. Antibiotics were hard to come by back then, and her 22-month-old sister died.

“After, I remember going into the fields with friends,” she said, “collecting flowers for my sister’s funeral. That’s my memory.”

Gonzalez has carried around this memory only in her head for the last 65 years — until now. Today, she can open her wallet and pull out what looks like a black-and-white photo of a little girl in a field of flowers, with another kid in the background.

“Look what they made me,” she said. “I got so emotional when I first saw it because it looks so much like me.”

But it isn’t her, exactly.

Gonzalez provided this information to a Spanish company called Domestic Data Streamers, which then uses artificial intelligence to create a so-called “synthetic memory.”

Upon closer reflection, the image is an imperfect composite of the memory — it shows some distortion in the faces, blurry limbs and an ever-so-slightly stitched-together landscape.

But it doesn’t have to be perfect because memories themselves are vague and change constantly over time, said Domestic Data Streamers’ Marina Olivares.

“Memory is [a] construction in a way,” Olivares said, “because, sometimes, we have a memory of something that our parents have explained that happened to us, and then, we generate an image of that, but we didn’t really recall it before.”

In keeping with the fuzzy nature of remembrance, synthetic memories have a dreamy quality built into them.

One of the company’s designers, Pau Garcia Sanchez, said they’re after an emotional response from people. Too much detail or realism, he said, and our intellects start to nitpick over small details, like the color of a childhood couch.

The less-than-real imaging is also a safeguard.

“The potential misuse of this technology [is] to create fake news and fake memories, so this is something that we should acknowledge, as any technology can be used and can be put for bad practices,” he said.

Google which partly funds Domestic Data Streamers, has been sued by consumers for alleged misuse of users’ personal data. But controversy aside, the synthetic memories, Sanchez said, are being offered for free to vulnerable populations, such as people living with dementia. The synthetic memories were used to help people remember real events.

“You feel afraid when you feel that you are losing your memory. Finding something that feels familiar is such a relief, so connecting to a part of your past where you’re safe; it’s giving people a lot of relief,” Sanchez said.

The process is free and participants must be willing to share a lot of information upfront during the first part of the process — the interview.

As the participant shares a memory, an assistant types keywords into a laptop. They never take a photo of the participant or ask for one. Everything is based on the memory described by the participant — such as arriving each summer at a family lake house.

After about 20 minutes, the participant is left holding a Polaroid-style image, which reflects the shared memory. It’s not an exact replica, but it’s enough to trigger an emotional response.

People usually smile when they see their synthetic memory, even when it’s a sad one, like picking flowers for a sister’s funeral, Domestic Data Streamers said.

“It’s a fond memory, but also a tough one … one that’s just so hard to bear,” said Gonzales, the participant who lost her baby sister. “But now, somehow, having the synthetic memory is helping me to accept it as part of my life.”

After all these years, a synthetic rendering of a memory based on 65 years of remembering, and reremembering, has brought Gonzalez some peace. She said she’ll stick the photo to her fridge with a magnet.

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On Friday, Tigran Gambaryan — the head of financial crime compliance for Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange — found himself in the last place he’d ever expected to be: a Nigerian courtroom on trial for something his company might have done.

A former investigator with the IRS, he’d spent more than a decade following illicit cryptocurrency transactions back to the people who made them. Rolling up, among others, the alleged founder of AlphaBay, Alexandre Cazes, and Silk Road’s “Dread Pirate Roberts,” Ross Ulbricht.

But now, after a spectacularly bad turn of events, Gambaryan is at the center of a battle between his company and regulators of the Nigerian government. Nigerian regulators have charged him personally for a roster of alleged crimes that they claim Binance has committed, and it is unclear how a middle manager, a former cop, has ended up shouldering the blame. Gambaryan has pleaded not guilty. He says he’s done nothing wrong.

Even so, Nigerian authorities have detained Gambaryan since late February. “Click Here”spoke to more than a dozen current and former IRS and FBI agents who either knew Gambaryan well or had worked with him, and they all voiced the same concern: Why isn’t the US government doing more for one of its own?

“You’re leaving a fellow law enforcement officer, even though he’s out of the game, kind of hanging,” said Matt Price, a former IRS agent who worked with Gambaryan on cases and at Binance. “We can’t believe they’re not doing anything.” And while Gambaryan’s plight appears to have been elevated inside the Biden administration in recent days, agents are asking, “What took them so long?”

“I have done nothing wrong,” Gambaryan said in a cell phone video he filmed back in March. “I’ve been a cop my whole life. I’m asking the United States government to assist me … I need your help, guys. I don’t know if I’ll get out of this without your help. Please help.”

Charges after an escapeGambaryan’s video summed in 40 seconds what is otherwise a very complicated series of unfortunate events: “Hello my name is Tigran Gambaryan and I’m the head of financial crime compliance at Binance,” it began. “I have been detained by the Nigerian government for a month and I don’t know what is going to happen to me after today.”

As Gambaryan recorded the message, it was clear he was worried guards would stop him or grab his phone because just a few hours earlier he had awoken from a nap to learn that the Binance colleague who had originally been detained with him, Nadeem Anjarwalla, had somehow escaped. “I had nothing to do with it, I was not involved in any of it,” he said in the video.

Anjarwalla was Binance’s regional manager in charge of Africa and the afternoon of that video, according to three people familiar with what happened, Gambaryan found a Post-it note from Anjarwalla that essentially said he was sorry, but he was making a break for it. Anjarwalla had put pillows under the covers of his bed so guards would think he was still there.

While it is unclear exactly how he got out of the government compound, it appears he asked guards if he could go to a nearby mosque to say prayers for Ramadan, and while he was at the mosque, he gave them the slip.

As a result, it was left to Gamabaryan to break it to his captors that his colleague was gone. The Nigerian government now claims that it is in negotiations with Kenya to have Anjarwalla extradited.

Their anger and embarrassment at having lost Binance’s country manager seems to have fallen mostly at the feet of Gambaryan. Within days of the escape, the Nigerian authorities charged him, Anjarwalla and Binance itself with tax evasion and money laundering.

The fact that Gambaryan found himself on the receiving end of all of this is particularly ironic because his job at Binance was to act as a liaison between law enforcement and the company and he traveled to Nigeria to teach local investigators how to track shady transactions back to the criminals behind them.

An unexpected announcement The timing of the Nigerian government’s decision to detain Gambaryan and Anjarwalla in February came just months after the Justice Department reached a plea agreement with Binance’s founder and former CEO, Changpeng Zhao. Zhao had agreed to plead guilty to a roster of charges including tax evasion and money laundering related to lax oversight at the Binance exchange.

Zhao, known as CZ, agreed to step down as CEO, surrender his passport, and pay a multibillion-dollar fine. The announcement, rumored for months, rocked the crypto world and, some observers say, may have planted an idea into the minds of some Nigerian officials.

“CZ was sort of a cult figure within the industry,” said Jacob Silverman, who wrote a book with Ben McKenzie on the crypto industry entitled “Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud.”

He said that people had looked up to CZ because he had managed to build the biggest crypto exchange in the world at breakneck speed, though “he had had a reputation for, you know, to use the old [Mark] Zuckerberg phase, ‘move fast and break things.’”

Silverman said there was always a whiff of something being not-quite-on-the-up-and-up about Zhao. Among other things, he would never travel to the US. He lived in the United Arab Emirates, but he was from Canada.

“People kept wondering, what’s this guy up to in Dubai?” Silverman said, adding that kind of mystery was rife in the early days of the industry.

“There was a sense that the existing rules — especially the existing rules around banking and how money moves — shouldn’t really apply. And that’s certainly what animated a lot of the overseas growth of crypto, especially in East Asia and in Africa. There was this notion that ‘we should be able to move money wherever we want to without really much heed for how we’re doing it or how much we’re sending or to whom.’”

In its case against Zhao, the Justice Department said the former CEO prioritized Binance’s growth, market share, and profits over US law. He admitted to facilitating billions of dollars in cryptocurrency transactions without adhering to some of the most fundamental rules of banking. Binance didn’t implement anti-money laundering protocols or adhere to “know your customer” procedures, which require that a bank or financial institution should know basic information about their customers.

“For several years after Binance first opened in 2017, you could register a Binance account with just an email address and a password,” Silverman said. “And CZ knew that they were flagrantly in violation of Know Your Customer and anti-money laundering laws and regulations.” The Justice Department said as much when it charged Zhao, using internal texts and emails as proof that the attitude was “do it now, and ask for forgiveness later.”

A very familiar looking set of chargesIn early January, just weeks after the Zhao plea agreement was made public, Gambaryan was part of a group of Binance employees who traveled to Abuja, the Nigerian capital, to meet with regulators from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

“It was more of a training event with the EFCC, this is something that Tigran did quite a bit,” Price said. “He did these trips a lot and I had done it quite a bit. You come in and talk to law enforcement people, it’s usually a soft approach and you’re trying to build relationships and trying to train them how to do crypto investigations.”

So in other words, Gambaryan was there to teach the Nigerian regulators how to track cryptocurrency transactions back to the bad guys. But the January trip, the first of two Gambaryan would make in the first part of 2024, took a bad turn. Nigerian officials said they were concerned that Binance was evading taxes and violating anti-money laundering rules.

A Nigerian official allegedly took someone from the Binance team aside during the early January trip. The official said that regulatory authorities were planning an investigation of the company and that the cost of settling the company’s legal problems would come to some $150 million. The authorities floated the idea of detaining some of the people in the delegation.

“Obviously Tigran said, ‘shit, I got to get out of here,'” Price said, adding that Gambaryan canceled his remaining appointments and hopped a plane back to the States.

Yuki Gambaryan, Tigran’s wife, told “Click Here” that she heard about it all in almost real time. “He texted me, saying that, ‘Hey, this is just a heads up, but things are not going well right now and we might get detained.’ So I was aware of it.”

Then, just weeks later, Gambaryan got an invitation from the Nigerian government to meet with regulators again. Gambaryan told his friends that he felt he had an obligation to go. I asked his wife whether she was worried when he left for that second trip at the end of February.

“I was. One hundred percent. Everybody was,” she said.

Soon after officials detained Gambaryan and Anjarwalla, they asked Binance to turn over all the Nigerian transaction data they had. Local newspaper reports then said the government had limited the request to the top 100 users. Central bank officials then began accusing Binance of manipulating the exchange rate of the local currency, the naira, and said the company couldn’t account for tens of billions of dollars in transactions.

All of which Binance has denied.

‘Some pretty bad people were using the platform’The Justice Department’s indictment against the former CEO of Binance showed Zhao and his lieutenants had a penchant for rule-breaking.

“You had, for example, employees of Binance joking about the price of an AK-47 and as if they knew about it in the context of a conversation of terrorist groups using Binance,” said Silverman, the author of that book on cryptocurrencies. “I think the company, at least at the top levels, definitely had a sense that some pretty bad people were using the platform.”

Binance has been left to convince skeptics that they have changed. Richard Teng, the company’s new CEO, is a former Singaporean regulator. He hired people like Gambaryan to help redeem the brand. Nigerian regulators are either unconvinced, or opportunistic. It is hard not to see echoes of the charges the Justice Department brought against Zhao in what Gambaryan is battling in Nigerian courts now.

Nigeria has the second largest cryptocurrency adoption rate in the world, after India. Its crypto transactions topped $56.7 billion last year, according to Chainalysis, a blockchain data platform.

We spoke to half a dozen people close to Tigran’s case in both the US and Nigeria and they say there may have been something else about the Zhao plea agreement that caught the eye of Nigerian officials. CZ agreed to pay a record $4.3 billion in fines and restitution to the US government — one of the biggest fines in corporate history.

Silverman said it sends another message: “I think that indicates the gravity of the situation and maybe the amount of money sloshing around,” he said.

It doesn’t seem like a coincidence that days after Nigerian officials detained the two Binance executives in a government compound, they mused in the local press about potential billion-dollar fines.

Economic woesNigeria’s case against Gambaryan is about more than just trying to hold Binance and the cryptocurrency industry to account. There is a larger context: Nigeria is in the midst of a full-blown economic crisis.

The numbers tell the story. Inflation in Nigeria is now well over 30%. Food prices are up even more than that and the local currency, the naira, has declined in value against the US dollar by some 40% since the beginning of the year. Just to keep up with inflation, Nigerians have started flocking to cryptocurrencies — and trading stablecoins, which are pegged to the US dollar — amongst themselves, peer-to-peer.

Binance just facilitates those trades, it doesn’t control them. But it has angered Nigeria’s central bank nevertheless.

According to Feyi Fawehimni, a Nigerian scholar who has been writing about the nation’s economic and political affairs for more than a decade, it was easy to blame Binance for economic problems.

“People who wanted simple answers simply turned on them and said, Oh, OK, this economy is struggling. Nobody has dollars, who’s fault is this?” he said. “The dollar rate has jumped so significantly and the central bank had no control, so Binance became a kind of scapegoat.”

Central bankers didn’t want to blame the people trading naira, so they blamed the Binance platform instead. “These are unpopular people, right?” he said. “Nobody likes Binance. The US government doesn’t like them. The UK government doesn’t like them. Everyone is suspicious of them as a crypto platform across the world so someone in the government made the calculation that if we go after these people, nobody’s going to really fight for them.”

And the calculation was right. Gambaryan has given critics of Binance a human shape, a shorthand not just for crypto and all the problems it has caused in Nigeria. They didn’t have a former CEO to blame so they settled for a compliance officer.

Nearly all the current and former IRS agents we spoke to for this story said Nigeria wasn’t alone in being unable to see the difference between Gambaryan and the company he worked for — the US government seemed to be doing that, too.

It wasn’t until mid-March that the US State Department seemed to focus on the case. Gambaryan’s wife said he had six visits from embassy personnel in Abuja while he was being held in the government compound. And they’ve visited him once since he’d been moved to Kuje prison. “They seem kind of out of touch to me,” she said. “They don’t seem to understand our sense of urgency.“

We spoke to four people at the State Department familiar with the case. They declined to be identified by name because they are not authorized to speak. But they claimed that the State Department didn’t like to interfere with legal proceedings in other countries and quickly added that Binance wasn’t just any company, before mentioning the Zhao plea agreement and the parade of cases against the industry more generally.

At the end of March, after Gambaryan had been in Nigerian detention for over a month, his case was flagged at the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs. It’s part of the Criminal Division and is supposed to help the department sort through international criminal matters. It is unclear what the response to that query was.

But the rank-and-file agents we spoke to all agreed that the Gambaryan case was moving slowly. The thought is that if he was an ExxonMobil or Apple executive detained overseas, would the response have been quicker?

The only official email that we discovered that went out about Gambaryan among the rank and file came from a special agent in the Cyber Crimes Unit in DC. It was sent to a small group of agents, nearly all of whom either knew Gambaryan well or had worked with him. Two people who had seen the email described its contents as mentioning that Gambaryan had been detained and that he would always be part of the law enforcement family. There was no mention of elevating this up the chain of command, but the email did suggest that everyone keep Yuki Gambaryan and Tigran Gambaryan in their thoughts and prayers.

“I guess the best word for me would be, I think, it is sad,” said John Baker, who was at the IRS with Gambaryan and retired from the government a couple of years ago, so was at liberty to say on the record what other agents told us privately.

“Originally I was thinking he’s well known, so well regarded that somehow the United States would get involved to kind of figure out what’s going on. He has friends in various agencies, including the FBI or the US Attorney’s Office. But it sounds like most people don’t even know what’s happened to him or haven’t heard.”

“Go after the companies and the people making the decisions,” he said. ”But when we’re dealing with people who are, you know, middle management, employees, people who have no way to make a decision other than to receive a paycheck, that’s crazy to me.”

The CEO of Binance, Richard Teng, said on Bloomberg television last week that the company is talking to the Nigerian government to get Gambaryan back. “Our key priority is to get Tigran home safely, right?” he said on the sidelines of a cryptocurrency conference in Dubai. “Tigran is a person of the highest integrity, people that know him know that he has devoted his entire lifetime previously with US agencies. We are giving him and his family all the support needed and our key priority, our prayers, is to bring Tigran home safely as soon as possible.”

So given all of this one could be forgiven for wondering why Gambaryan returned to Nigeria at the end of February after that earlier close call. Hindsight is always 20-20. But his friends say that when the Nigerian government invited him back for that fateful February meeting, Gambaryan thought he saw an opening to make things right.

Former IRS agent Price said that was just the way Gambaryan was. “He believed he could solve it,” he said. “Knowing Tigran’s personality, I certainly could see him believing he would be the only one that could fix it.”

On May 17, a Nigerian judge ruled that Gambaryan can stand trial on behalf of Binance because he is the company’s chief compliance officer and represented the company in meetings in Nigeria. Meanwhile, on April 30, a US court sentenced Chengpeng Zhao, the former Binance CEO, to four months in prison.

An earlier version of this story appeared on the “Click Here” podcast from Recorded Future News.

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The US Congress has just passed a bill that could lead to a ban on the Chinese-owned video app TikTok. Europe’s cracking down, too — not just on TikTok but also on its new spin-off platform, TikTok Lite.

The lite version is slightly different from what most TikTok users know the app to be. This new version pays people to watch videos.

Jennifer Gay, a TikTok content creator, sits outside the US Capitol, April 23, 2024.Mariam Zuhaib/AP“It’s totally nuts,” Spanish YouTuber Feliking told his 150,000 subscribers earlier this month. “They will literally pay you to watch videos. You’ll accumulate more and more coins for as long as you can hang in there.”

So far, it’s available in Japan, France and Spain. But the scheme has health officials warning of addiction, and European leaders are demanding answers.

The videos on the lite version are the same as those on TikTok, but as users continue to watch videos, they accumulate virtual coins that can be cashed in to use on sites such as Amazon and PayPal.

“You get 150 coins for every minute you’re connected,” said TikTok user Les Gens D’Internet in France. “And if you connect every day for 10 straight days, you get a bonus!”

The hype is high, but so far, TikTok itself has been silent. The company did not respond to The World’s interview request, nor has it said how many downloads TikTok Lite has had in its first month.

The controversial company has said it created the app to reach people in remote parts of the world where internet and cell phone coverage are weak. The “Lite” in TikTok Lite refers to the new app’s smaller bandwidth.

However, as TikTok seeks to expand its market, it risks losing a big one: Europe.

“We have already launched formal proceedings against TikTok on the grounds of addictive or potentially addictive behavior,” said Johannes Bahrke, a spokesman for the European Commission. The Commission opened its case against TikTok in February, accusing it of failing to keep kids off its platform.

TikTok Lite, with its watch-and-reward system, is under even harsher scrutiny.

It launched this month without presenting a risk assessment for mental health and addiction, as required by European law. According to Commission officials, TikTok claims to have the assessment in hand but says it hasn’t been able to share it for technical reasons.

So, Bahrke said that TikTok was given a deadline of 24 hours to share the assessment. “On the grounds of protection of minors and the mental health of users,” he said.

But that deadline came and went, and still, TikTok isn’t talking.

The TikTok Inc. building is seen in Culver City, Calif., March 17, 2023.Damian Dovarganes/APFile photoThe Commission has now given TikTok until April 24 to explain itself. If it doesn’t, the Commission says it will suspend the app’s rewards section and freeze its coins. It would be the first such penalty against a social media platform since Europe passed a strict new law governing online services last August.

Some mental health workers in Spain welcome the crackdown.

“The symptoms include a lack of emotional well-being and belonging, dissatisfaction with life and a rise in anxiety and depression,” said Jannira Becerril, a therapist at Centre Bonanova, a clinic in Barcelona. More and more adolescents are grappling with screen-time addiction, she said.

TikTok Lite is following the formula of other popular apps and online games, Becerril added, like Fortnite or Candy Crush.

“You’re being rewarded,” she said. “… whether it’s with virtual tokens or with more time on the platform.”

That’s essentially the app’s design — to give users’ brains a hit of dopamine, the neurotransmitter associated with reward and pleasure.

“It leaves users more and more vulnerable to becoming addicted,” Becerril said.

As online influencers tout TikTok Lite as an easy way to get a paid side hustle, another issue pops up: It doesn’t actually pay very much. For a full hour engaged on TikTok Lite, users earn under a dollar.

If Europe does suspend this rewards system, TikTok Lite stands to lose a lot more than just its customers.

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Thousands of tourists flock to Mazatlán each year for its beautiful beaches, great food and party scene — mostly from within Mexico.

Mazatlán on the Pacific coast of Mexico, was the first place in continental North America on the path of totality. Tibsay Zea/The WorldBut thanks to the total eclipse on April 8, many international tourists are in town, including Brian Day, a staff scientist for NASA’s Solar System Exploration Research Institute.

Day is part of a delegation from NASA in Mazatlán who came to engage with the public and set up a livestream of the total solar eclipse for NASA TV.

On April 7, Mazatlán held a special astronomy conference organized by the mayor’s office and it was open to the public. Daniel Hernandez, with the Astronomical Society of Mazatlán, also attended the conference.

He said that over the last year, Mexican astronomers have been hosting public talks about the eclipse in schools and universities in Mazatlán and other cities. The goal is for more people to become interested in astronomy and science in general.

On April 8, thousands came to Mazatlán from all over the world to experience the solar eclipse. Tibisay Zea/The WorldAfter the conference, the city threw a large public party in downtown Mazatlán, with a parade headed by the mayor and several beauty queens. The event attracted thousands of people who came for the entertainment including dancers and a live band playing banda, a form of traditional music from Mazatlán.

Scientists, astrophotographers, and eclipse-chasers booked their trips months or even years ago.

But domestic visitors like Julian Camilo were able to be more spontaneous. He and his wife, Mary Camilo, decided to come to Mazatlán just two days ago from Mexico City. They were lucky to find bus tickets. But they couldn’t find any accommodation, so they had to sleep in a tent at a public park.

Many international tourists came to view the total solar eclipse, including scientists from around the world. Tibisay Zea/The WorldAccording to the mayor, hotels are at capacity. The city is expecting about $70 million in revenue.

The last total eclipse experienced here was in 1991, and some still remember it.

Maria Estrada said it was an unforgettable experience. She convinced her family in Mexico City to come to Mazatlán for the eclipse. Her granddaughter, Amayranis, said the plane ride was the most exciting part so far, but she’s excited to view the eclipse with her special painted eclipse glasses.

Mazatlán on the Pacific coast of Mexico, was the first place in continental North America on the path of totality. Tibisay Zea/The WorldBut not everybody is excited about the eclipse.

Julio Camacho, who sells fresh oysters at the beach, said he stayed home today because his wife is pregnant and he believes watching the eclipse could harm the baby.

Ancient civilizations in Mexico believed eclipses were bites taken out of the moon or the sun. This idea became the Mexican belief that if a pregnant woman viewed an eclipse, a bite would be taken out of her baby’s face and cause facial deformities.

Hernandez, with the Astronomical Society of Mazatlán, said this is one of the strongest superstitions that still persist in Mexican culture.

Camacho, the oyster seller, said he and his wife will watch the eclipse on social media or TV.

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Middle-school math: Fractions, decimals. A-squared-plus-B-squared, X to the power of N.

For a lot of students, this is tough stuff.

That’s why Antoine Carrier, also known as A’Rieka, the “rapping math teacher” from Bordeaux, France, takes it slow with a rap that walks 11-year-olds through multiplication tables.

Without them, you can’t pass pre-algebra, A’Rieka said, adding that his raps turn math into something that goes in one ear — but not out the other.

“Instead of my students just opening a notebook and going over a lesson feeling unmotivated,” he said, “they can go on online, click on a rap, and study the material to the music.”

It keeps them focused, he said, especially at home. That’s the magic of Rapématiques.

A’Rieka posted his first Rapématiques, or rhyming math lesson, two years ago.

In all his videos, the tattooed, hoodie-wearing, 30-something teacher stands before a whiteboard, rapping and waving a sharpie around.

A’Rieka now has dozens of raps posted across his social media. And nearly 90,000 followers on Instagram.

Outside one middle school in Bordeaux, a group of students said they know A’Rieka’s songs. And they love what he’s doing.

“It’s a great idea,” said 13-year-old Roxanne, because our generation listens to tons of music and we learn all the lyrics by heart. By contrast, she said, “math is hard for us to absorb. Rap helps a lot.”

“I wish other teachers, like for science, would do the same thing,” said another teen named Eva.

Other teachers are actually making guest appearances. In one rap about exponential numbers, A’Rieka’s colleague Chloe Laf takes the mic, dropping mad rhymes about an inverted parabola aligned symmetrically along the Y-axis.

These performances are unforgettable — and that’s the point.

Kids can scroll through Rapémathiques to learn about anything in their syllabus: angles, order of operations, percentages, perimeters. Each topic has its own beat and catchy refrain.

“When I upload a new video,” A’Rieka said, “I get to school the next day, and often the kids are already singing the chorus.”

In singing along, the students also answer for themselves that age-old, existential middle-school math question: Why are we even learning this?

Perhaps — against all the laws of probability — it’s because math might just be kinda, sorta, cool.

Lawrence Collins contributed to this report.

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A recent leak of secret contracts, presentations, client lists and chat logs are pulling back the curtain on China’s secret world of hackers for hire.

The target of the leak is a Chinese intelligence company called i-Soon.

The FBI has charged seven Chinese nationals and what it has called a sinister plot. The suspects hacked into online accounts of US and foreign critics of China, as well as businesses and politicians. The leak of documents from China suggests that this kind of hack is likely not the work of just a few people.

As Dina Temple-Raston from the “Click Here” podcast reports, the leak provided concrete evidence of just how closely China’s cybersecurity community is working with the Chinese government to hack adversaries inside and outside of China.

Click above to hear the full story.

An earlier version of this story appeared on the “Click Here” podcast from Recorded Future News. Additional reporting by Sean Powers.

Related: China’s dominant role in producing hacking bugs

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MIT graduate student Talia Khan said this year — for the first time in her eight years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — she feared for her safety.

Khan, a 26-year-old daughter of an American Jewish mother and Afghan Muslim father, said the polarized climate on campus turned her studies, friendships and mental health upside down.

“I personally had best friends who I spent a lot of time studying with, and they told me that the people who were killed in the Nova [festival] massacre deserved to be killed because they were partying on stolen land,” she said. “It took me so long to process that anybody could say that. There’s no excuse for killing, raping, kidnapping innocent people — kids our own age. It could have been me at that concert.”

Since the Israel-Hamas war erupted five months ago, many students now find themselves isolated on deeply divided college campuses where pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli students protest, clash and misunderstand each other.

Many worry about their safety. More than a quarter of Jewish college students who participated in a survey by a Tufts University researcher in the weeks following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack said they need to hide their Jewish identity to fit in. That’s almost double the rate who felt that way in spring 2022.

With both antisemitism and Islamophobia on the rise, a separate report from the University of Chicago found more than half of Jewish and Muslim students — and a sixth of all college students surveyed — feel unsafe on campuses because of their views on the conflict. That’s about 2 to 3 million students nationwide.

“Campus fears are more intense and more widespread than we’ve previously known,” said political scientist Robert Pape, the author of the University of Chicago report.

“Oct. 7 caught us all by surprise, but it especially caught college campuses and universities by surprise,” Pape said.

Campuses are now different places, with students self-reporting that they feel afraid because they’re hearing pro-Palestinian protest chants like “global intifada” and “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” that they interpret as a call to genocide.

For Muslim students like Jana Amin, an Egyptian American junior at Harvard, the intimidation and fear from the “doxxing truck” that appeared on campus in October lingers.

Harvard junior Jana Amin’s image appeared on a doxxing truck labeling her as an antisemite because of her pro-Palestinian activism. “I was devastated and really scared for my own personal safety on campus,” Amin said. “Might someone recognize me from the truck and then choose to kind of take it a step further and turn to violence?”Kirk Carapezza/GBH NewsAmin’s image appeared on the doxxing truck’s large screen that broadcast images of students involved in pro-Palestinian causes and labeled them “Harvard’s leading antisemites” as it drove around campus. Amin said she felt “devastated” and scared.

“Might someone recognize me from the truck and then choose to take it a step further and turn to violence?” Amin said. “This is our home, too.”

Weeks after the doxxing truck left Harvard Square, Amin said she still hadn’t recovered.

“I definitely think that just seeing the truck allowed to stay there, with my face, forever altered how I was going to think about my time at Harvard,” she said.

Jewish and pro-Israeli students are exhausted and losing patience with college leaders and classmates, according to Miriam Blue, executive director of the Hillel Council of New England, a hub for Jewish campus life at Boston College, Simmons University and other campuses

“They’re burnt out. They’re scared. They’re threatened, sometimes daily,” Blue said.

Pro-Palestinian protests occur in areas where Jewish students live off campus, including downtown Boston, which makes navigating their daily life challenging. Some protests have drawn thousands of student activists.

“It’s literally in their face all the time,” she said.

Blue said one reason no one is talking across the divide may be because many college students were middle and high school students during COVID-19, so they’re still emerging as adults. They’re also spending a lot of time online in front of screens.

“They don’t have to look someone in the eye,” she said. “They can just turn off their camera. They can just ‘unfollow.’ They don’t have to engage in anything that puts them out of their comfort zone.”

Becca Packer is a senior at Berklee College of Music and a founding member of the campus Hillel group. Packer said many of her peers are not willing to have difficult conversations. “It’s their way or the highway,” she said.Kirk Carapezza/GBH NewsBecca Packer, a senior at Berklee College of Music, said many of her pro-Palestinian peers are unwilling to have difficult conversations about the conflict.

“It’s their way or the highway,” said Packer, a Jewish student who belongs to a recently formed Hillel group at Berklee and who has cousins in the Israeli Army.

Sitting in the back of a coffee shop off Boylston Street on a recent morning, Packer recalled how some of her peers shared antisemitic posts on social media and attempted to deny violence against Israeli women after the deadly attacks on Israel by Hamas.

“People are very quick to jump on a train when there’s a trending view going around,” she said. “One of my first things that I knew I had to do was get on Instagram and try and be that opposing perspective that people aren’t going to see because I knew exactly what was going to happen.”

Packer said a lot of the antisemitic social media language described Jewish and Israeli people as “colonizers.” Her classmates also shared infographics saying that American Jews control media and entertainment.

It made her wary of the students in her midst.

“You don’t think that the people who are sitting in your classrooms next to you have those views, and they don’t express them in person either,” she said.

On smaller college campuses like Berklee, Suffolk University and Emerson College, Blue said Jewish students, even if they’re not pro-Israeli activists, are sometimes questioned or even excluded because of their race or ethnicity.

“‘Oh, you’re Jewish, what do you think?’ or ‘You’re Jewish, you’re not welcome in this club,’” she said, referring to progressive organizations.

Some colleges have taken steps to ease the fear.

Dartmouth College created a curriculum called “Politics of Israel and Palestine.” Professors who specialize in the Middle East make themselves available through in-person and online forums that give students, faculty and the general public opportunities for open, uncomfortable conversations about the war.

“The climate has been, honestly, incredibly supportive,” said Roan Wade, a pro-Palestinian student activist at Dartmouth who was arrested last semester after she occupied an administrative building during a peaceful protest.

Wade, who was raised Catholic, said such measures have helped, but the campus climate is still troubling. She said she’s been harassed, doxxed and called “a terrorist” online and on campus by a small group of Zionist students.

“It’s been very heated,” said Kevin Engel, a pro-Palestinan activist at Dartmouth who was also arrested for trespassing during a protest. “We’ve seen a lot of pushback from the administration on issues such as divestment or even acknowledgment of Palestinians.”

After a 12-day hunger strike, Engel said the college finally recognized Palestinian students.

“Prior to this there was not even an email about Palestinian students,” he said. “So it’s been very tough.”

Engel, a first-year student from Oklahoma, said administrators and pro-Israeli students have characterized him and other activists as violent. During one sit-in, he said a group of drunk students called him a terrorist.

Earlier this month, the college clarified that the pro-Palestinian protests on campus have been nonviolent.

At MIT, students and faculty said the climate remains tense.

Some professors whose research is supported by federal funding said that they have been intimidated and falsely accused of committing “scientific complicity” and taking money directly from the Israeli Ministry of Defense.

Since MIT prohibits large banners or flags being displayed by individuals or groups without permission, graduate student Talia Khan posted this sign supporting Israeli hostages in a window on the Cambridge campus.Kirk Carapezza/GBH NewsTalia Khan, the MIT graduate student, said many of her classmates, wherever they stand on the Israel-Hamas war, fear getting canceled on campus and online for expressing their views.

“They’re afraid of seeming anti-woke,” she said. “I think that social media has really changed what it’s like to be a young person on campus.”

Some of Khan’s former friends and current classmates have blocked her on Instagram and other social media platforms after she became outspoken in her support of Israel.

“They didn’t want to listen. They wanted to stay in their bubble,” she said. “It’s awkward seeing people that you were once really good friends with who now refuse to talk to you or look you in the eye just because you believe that Israel has a right to exist and they do not [believe that].”

Khan said she is in a unique position to help bridge ideological divides on campus due to her Israeli and Muslim background. Earlier this month, she was invited to the State of the Union address by House Speaker Mike Johnson.

Standing under MIT’s Great Dome, she said administrators still haven’t done enough to repeatedly condemn and discipline those who espouse hateful rhetoric on campus.

That would bring her closer to feeling safe again, she said.

*Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story misquoted Miriam Blue. She said Jewish students have been excluded from progressive clubs generally, not pro-Palestinian clubs specifically.

An earlier version of this story was published on GBH News.*

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On a recent day in the Cardamom Mountains of southwest Cambodia, a local resident steered a boat along a calm waterway, pointing out plants grown by community members: durian, banana, jackfruit, avocado.

This area has seen increased patrolling by the Cambodian military, environmental officials and staff of the New York-based nonprofit Wildlife Alliance, according to the man, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retribution.

“All of this farmland belongs to people. Starting from the border of the forest, that’s where people have enjoyed farming every year for a long time,” he said. “We’ve done farming here for many years already before they came to do conservation.”

Cambodia’s monsoonal wet season drenches Toap Khley village in the Southern Cardamom National Park’s Areng Valley.Anton L. Delgado/Southeast Asia GlobeThe small farms dotting the riverbank are part of a protected area that is now being enforced through a forest carbon offset project known as the Southern Cardamom REDD+ Project. A new report from Human Rights Watch found that the project had violated the rights of Indigenous Chong people who live here, documenting forced evictions, arrests and harassment.

The project brought in more than $18 million by 2021 through carbon credit sales. Companies including Delta Air Lines, Stella McCartney, McKinsey and Boeing bought the credits in an attempt to reduce their overall carbon footprint, in this case, by supporting a project that patrols a conservation area to prevent deforestation.

The industry has faced a slew of critical coverage in the last few years, with accusations that projects have overstated their climate benefits. The research from Human Rights Watch indicates that these projects can also harm local and Indigenous groups in the name of conservation.

A sign in Chamnar village, the furthest community in Areng Valley, indicates that a new water tower was supported by the Southern Cardamom REDD+ project within the national park.Anton L. Delgado/Southeast Asia GlobeEmpty boats line one side of the riverbank, as the Chong Indigenous fishers and farmers are restricted from crossing over to cultivate their crops, the resident explained.

The local people support conservation of forested areas, he said, but want to continue cultivating crops in areas that have long been agricultural plots. Instead, members of his community have been arrested for collecting sustainable forest products, had their crops destroyed and huts burned down, according to the report.

“People are farming on land that they have customarily thought belongs to them but the interpretation of the project is that this farming amounts to an environmental crime,” said Luciana Téllez Chávez, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch and the lead author of the report.

“Some people have also been jailed for basically just performing the activities that have formed the core of their livelihoods for generations.”

Luciana Téllez Chávez, senior researcher, Human Rights Watch

“Some people have also been jailed for basically just performing the activities that have formed the core of their livelihoods for generations.”

A bathroom, supported by the Southern Cardamom REDD+ Project within the national park, is visible from the rain-drenched gate of a home in Samraong village.Anton L. Delgado/Southeast Asia GlobeThis carbon offset project was able to sell credits at higher prices because it received additional certifications reserved for projects that specifically benefit local and Indigenous communities. But Human Rights Watch found that the process of obtaining “free, prior and informed consent” from residents did not begin until 2 and 1/2 years after the project had already started.

“I cannot imagine a more egregious problem than reversing free, prior and informed consent. If you say that happened and the opposite happened, why should I trust anything you say anywhere else?” said Danny Cullenward, a climate economist and lawyer.

For Cullenward, the report findings are made even worse by the fact that some of the issues were documented in the project’s own audits years before the investigation. The auditing firm SCS Global Services, for instance, noted that the free, prior and informed consent meetings with residents began 31 months after the January 2015 project start date, but still determined that the project was “in conformance” with certification requirements.

“Every single party in this transaction has a financial interest in there being more credits issued,” Cullenward said. “It’s a lose-lose situation here because, either one of the parties has really screwed up at its job or the rules are so weak, you really don’t want to have any confidence in their application elsewhere.”

The credits are certified by the US nonprofit Verra, the world’s leading carbon credit certifier, which is meant to confirm that the projects produce certain environmental and social benefits.

Verra began its own investigation of the project after Human Rights Watch shared its preliminary findings in June. Joel Finkelstein, Verra’s senior director for media and advocacy, told The World that the allegations are appalling. He believes Verra’s auditing system is something the organization can really stand behind.

“It’s a system designed to get to meaningful, credible, high-integrity climate impact and ethical processes in these projects,” he said. “If that was not the case here, our investigation will find that out and there will be censures for that, too.”

Verra would not provide a timeline for when its investigation will be completed, and said its policy is to not provide commentary while an investigation is ongoing. SCS Global Services said in an email that its policy was to not comment on ongoing reviews. Cambodia’s Environment Ministry did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Wildlife Alliance said in a statement that the Human Rights Watch report “fundamentally distorts the reality of the project.”

A local resident walks down the red road to Chamnar Village in the Areng Valley of the Southern Cardamom National Park.Anton L. Delgado/Southeast Asia GlobeAt his family home, a Chong Indigenous man in his late 50s said the rangers and officials carrying out the carbon offset project have cut down crops grown by his community.

“They should be protecting only the forest, not [patrolling] the plantations and trees that people have planted for years,” the man said, who also asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation from the Wildlife Alliance.

He still farms in the area despite the patrols, but is afraid of being spotted. He doesn’t earn enough for his family’s daily living expenses, and had to take out private loans for $150.

“I only ask the companies that gave to [Wildlife Alliance] and the REDD+ Project to review the map that overlaps with people’s land,” he said. “Do not hurt the people anymore.”

The authorities don’t go after people who have excavators, he said, but they come for people with small farms like him.

Additional reporting and translation by Phon Sothyroth.

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The recent Alabama Supreme Court decision that embryos are people has sparked a debate that sounds familiar to many in Latin America.

Costa Rica was the first country in the world to ban in vitro fertilization. In the year 2000, Costa Rica’s High Court ruled that excess embryos created and discarded in the IVF process have a constitutional right to life.

About a dozen years later, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights struck down Costa Rica’s IVF ban. And the new ruling helped usher in an era of reproductive freedom. It was a decision some called the Roe v. Wade of Latin America. To discuss the situation, The World’s host Carolyn Beeler spoke to Lynn Morgan, a medical anthropologist focused on Latin America. Among other books, she’s written “Icons of Life: A Cultural History of Human Embryos.”

Carolyn Beeler: Lynn, let’s go back to Costa Rica’s IVF ban in 2000. How and why did it end up banning in vitro fertilization?Lynn Morgan: In 1995, Costa Rica permitted in vitro fertilization. The Catholic Church was not happy about this decision, and an attorney who was working for the Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) asked the high court to recognize that the embryos had a right to life. He argued that the embryos that were created through IVF were subject to what he called a disproportionate risk of death and should be protected, and nobody was paying much attention to this at the time. But the Costa Rican Constitutional Court agreed with him. They ruled that human life does begin at conception and that the embryos are therefore protected by a provision in the Costa Rican constitution that held that human life is inviolable.Important to note that Costa Rica is Catholic by law.Costa Rica is a Catholic country within its constitution, but it also guarantees freedom of religion. So, this was a quarter of a century before the Alabama Supreme Court did the same thing. The Costa Rican High Court ruled that embryos have full personhood with full legal rights and protections, including fertilized eggs and those that are created in the IVF lab and are sitting in a freezer.One of large capacity IVFCryo One storage containers that can hold approximately 1,000 egg samples, immersed in liquid nitrogen, at the Aspire Houston Fertility Institute in vitro fertilization lab in Houston, Feb. 27, 2024.Michael Wyke/APSo, that ban was in effect for a dozen years. And then the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled on the matter, overturning the ban. What did it decide, that court?That court decided that embryos are not juridical persons and that the rights of embryos may not take precedence over those of women. It said that states do have responsibilities to embryos and fetuses, but that those responsibilities accrue gradually over the course of the pregnancy. And it said the best way to protect the rights of embryos is to protect the rights of pregnant people. It also stated, really importantly, that conception should be defined not as beginning with fertilization but as beginning when an embryo gets implanted in the womb. So, this would exempt IVF embryos. It also said that the IVF ban in Costa Rica violated the rights to privacy, the rights to liberty, the rights to personal integrity, the right to form a family and the right to be free from discrimination. And it made a big splash throughout the whole hemisphere.So, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has jurisdiction over many other countries, of course, not just Costa Rica. What were the repercussions of this decision beyond that one country?Right so, when the Inter-American court ruled that the IVF ban was a violation of human rights, it ordered Costa Rica to lift the ban and to make the procedure available to everybody. That ruling was considered binding on the 22 countries of the Americas that accept the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. So, what this meant was that it applied not only to people in Costa Rica, but it said that everybody in those 22 countries cannot be barred from having access to in vitro fertilization. But because the court’s ruling was so broad in terms of defining that embryos aren’t persons, it also had major implications for other reproductive health issues like emergency contraception, stem cell research and abortion. So, it was immediately read as a landmark abortion case for Latin America, hence some people calling it the Roe v. Wade of Latin America.What were those implications? Was it increased access to abortion in Latin American countries?Yeah, it has led to that. A lot of people have said that the Inter-American court ruling was highly influential in the recent decisions to legalize abortion in Argentina, as was done in 2020, in Mexico in 2021 and in Colombia in 2022. So, it has had and continues to have major implications across Latin America, although not in the United States.Right, because the US never ratified the American Convention on Human Rights. So, the ruling isn’t binding here.That’s right.A small petri dish holding several embryos is positioned onto a microscope stand used to extract cells from each embryo to test for viability at the Aspire Houston Fertility Institute in vitro fertilization lab in Houston, Feb. 27, 2024.Michael Wyke/APSo, when Costa Rica’s IVF ban was overthrown and did not have the impact of increasing access to abortion care in some Latin American countries, that was the opposite of what a lot of folks in Costa Rica would have wanted, right?Yes, indeed. And that was a major setback for anti-abortion conservatives. They hoped that they could bank on Costa Rica’s reputation as a champion of human rights. They hoped to set up a sort of pro-life movement across the Americas. And that’s not, in fact, what happened. What happened was quite the opposite.Latin America is still fairly Catholic, and the Vatican officially opposes IVF. Could you tell me how popular IVF is today in Latin America?IVF is hugely popular in Latin America. The estimates are somewhere between about 200,000 and 500,000 babies have been born through IVF in Latin America. And a lot of people consider it a gift from God. They don’t consider it a violation of Catholic doctrine because it does produce babies.As you mentioned, this is a personal decision for families. When you think about how folks are grappling with issues of reproduction and faith, is there one conversation you’ve had in the past that really sticks with you?When I was doing fieldwork in Costa Rica, I was talking with a father about the controversy over in vitro fertilization. And he said, it’s true that only God can make children, and children are a gift from God. He also said that God gave us doctors and God granted them the knowledge to treat infertility. And shouldn’t we respect them and their knowledge also as a gift from God? And I think he was pointing out that not all people, even people of faith, think that it’s a good idea to elevate the rights of embryos above the rights of all the other people that are in God’s realm.This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

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In a report released this month, Access Now, a digital rights organization, joined forces with the Citizen Lab, a cybersecurity watchdog organization at the University of Toronto, to document a roster of Pegasus cases in Jordan. The spyware is one of the most notorious hacking tools used by governments to slip into mobile devices and vacuum up their contents.

“Our investigation unveils the widespread hacking,” the report said, “demonstrating the relentless nature of this targeted surveillance campaign” in Jordan. While the report suggests that Jordanian authorities are behind the campaign, the authors stop short of saying so directly.

Citizen Lab had previously reported that it had been able to confirm that two organizations in Jordan were Pegasus spyware customers. The first publicly confirmed case of the use of Pegasus in Jordan happened in early 2022, when a human rights lawyer named Hala Ahed revealed that forensic artifacts linked to the spyware was found on her phone.

“Ahed’s device [was] unsuccessfully targeted with Pegasus spyware for a second time on or around Feb. 20, 2023,” the Access Now report said. “The hacking attempt occurred amidst a broader campaign of harassment against her.”

‘We’re proud of our truthfulness’Daoud Kuttab, an award-winning Palestinian American journalist based in Jordan, was also the subject of a Pegasus spyware attack. He was a Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University and is currently the director of the Community Media Network, an NGO that, among other things, runs a community radio station and a news website in Jordan.

The Community Media Network is unusual in the region because it has earned a kind of Good Housekeeping seal of approval from Reporters Without Borders, which promotes and defends freedom of expression around the world. The group said the Community Media Network provides unbiased, trustworthy reporting.

“We are proud of our truthfulness, our professionalism,” Kuttab told the “Click Here” podcast in a recent interview ahead of the report’s release. He believes he was targeted by Pegasus spyware because he published some stories from the Pandora Papers, a mysterious leak of some 12 million financial documents that revealed where influential people around the world had stashed their money, including Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle and Jordan’s King Abdullah.

Kuttab said soon after his network published a piece on shell companies the king allegedly had set up to buy property in the US and the UK, he got an angry text message from officials in the Jordanian General Intelligence Directorate. He said they wanted him to pull the story.

“I told them that wouldn’t do any good because, in today’s world, you cannot keep bad news away,” Kuttab said in an interview. “The best way to deal with a bad story is to present your own story and try to hope that it will go viral.”

Eventually, after some back-and-forth, Kuttab did take the story down from his website. But a short time later, he published his account of the entire episode in Foreign Policy Magazine. Not long after that, according to Kuttab, he came to find out much later that his phone was infected with the Pegasus spyware.

That was in March 2022.

According to the Access Now report, forensic analysis of his phone suggests Kuttab’s mobile device was then targeted seven more times, unsuccessfully, until September 2023.

Zero-click exploitsPeople targeted by Pegasus don’t have to click on anything to be infected. The software uses something called a zero-click exploit to crack into a device.

“[For] a zero-click exploit, you wouldn’t see anything. You wouldn’t get a text message or an email,” said John Scott-Railton, a researcher at the Citizen Lab. “Your phone would just be uninfected one minute and then a spy in your pocket the next moment.”

Pegasus just finds some vulnerability on your device and takes advantage of it and it is so sophisticated that The New York Times Magazine has dubbed it “the world’s most powerful cyberweapon.”

Scott-Railton agrees. “One minute, your phone is yours, filled with your private data. And the next minute, some autocrat, perhaps halfway around the world, is dumping your digital life out on the proverbial table,” he told “Click Here” before this latest report was published. “That’s what’s so scary about this technology.”

NSO Group Technologies, the Israeli company that created Pegasus, says it only sells the tool to nation-states for national security purposes. In fact, one of the spyware’s early adopters was Mexico. They used it to spy on the drug cartels and to roll up drug lords. NSO declined an interview request for this article, but it has said publicly that anyone using their spyware on targets within civil society is doing so without their permission.

Scott-Railton said that it would be naive to create something like Pegasus and not expect it to be abused. “There’s something about it, something about that temptation of total access to a person’s innermost world on their phone that just makes it really, really, really prone to abuse,” he said.

Human Rights WatchAmnesty Tech and Human Rights Watch (HRW) discovered last year that the personal mobile devices belonging to two of its Jordan-based staff were targeted with Pegasus as well. Adam Coogle, a deputy director with HRW’s Middle East and North Africa division was hacked with Pegasus through a zero-click attack.

According to the Access Now report, the attack occurred exactly two weeks after HRW published a report on the increasing government repression in Jordan. “We have typically had a relatively adversarial relationship with the authorities, which isn’t surprising given the fact that we report on their human rights abuses,” Coogle told “Click Here” in an interview. “Because of that … I’m not terribly surprised that we, or our staff, would be targeted.”

Even so, Coogle said that learning he’d been hacked changed his mindset. While he hasn’t confirmed the Jordanian government was behind it, he said the whole experience rattled him. “The idea that you are on their radar, you’re being directly targeted by a security apparatus of a country is a little bit … unnerving,” he said. “And then you start to think about what was on my phone, what could they have potentially gained access to, and that’s a conversation that goes on in your head for a long time.”

In the conclusion of its report, Access Now called on the Jordanian government to investigate the allegations of spyware abuse. “We urge all world governments, including Jordan’s, to halt the use of Pegasus spyware and implement an immediate moratorium on the export, sale, transfer, servicing and use of targeted digital surveillance technologies,” it reads, “until rigorous human rights safeguards are put in place to regulate such practices.”

An earlier version of this story appeared on the “Click Here” podcast from Recorded Future News.

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On a recent afternoon in Kyiv, Ukraine, about 20 skilled workers were busy producing high-end military drones at a workshop called Airlogix.

Alexey, one of the workers, was making a mold for the back wing of a drone.

“We focus on the quality,” he said. “We can’t allow there to be any problems, because there’s a high level of responsibility here.”

He said everyone here feels patriotic and knows their work is a matter of life and death.

At Airlogix, about 20 skilled workers manufacture drones in the Kyiv-based workshop. Daniel Ofman/The WorldIn the two years since Russia first launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, drones have played a major role in the war. Ukraine has used sea drones to destroy Russian ships on the Black Sea. And they’ve used aerial drones across the front lines.

Drone manufacturing is also one way Ukrainians are trying to become more self-reliant as the war continues.

“Since this [first] moment, it really became the war of drones.”

Roman Lozynskyi, member of Ukraine’s parliament, former soldier and drone pilot

“Since this [first] moment, it really became the war of drones,” said Roman Lozynskyi, a 30-year-old member of Ukraine’s parliament who also served as a soldier for more than a year.

Lozynskyi piloted drones, and he said they are critical for two reasons: They’re used for reconnaissance, and they’re used as weapons.

“We destroyed a lot of Russian armored vehicles, even tanks, by small bombs, and by drones,” Lozynskyi said.

A close-up of a drone model. Anastasia Vlasova/The WorldThe way it works is that an explosive device is strapped onto a drone about the size of two footballs. Using a remote control, a soldier flies the drone, crashing it into the target.

Other drones can drop explosives like a bomber plane. These kinds of drones are cheap and easy to make. And some Ukrainians have even volunteered to assemble them at home.

“It’s between like $300 and like $600 or $700, this drone which can damage a tank or armored vehicle, and stop it. It’s a change-maker now,” Lozynskyi said.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that the country plans to produce 1 million drones this year.

An assortment of drone parts at the Airlogix workshop in Kyiv, Ukraine.Daniel Ofman/The WorldLozynskyi said that this is, in part, because Russia has a lot more artillery, and that Ukraine is using drones to compensate for that shortage.

“If you don’t have enough ammunition for your artillery systems, you have to use something else to stop all armored vehicles, tanks, and tries of Russian troops to occupy our territories,” he said.

But Lozynskyi said that this war isn’t just about the quantity of drones, it’s also about technology and innovation.

‘This is our new intelligence’Back at Airlogix in the upstairs office, several experts in computer science, design and aerodynamics were working together on drone designs.

Vitaly Kolesnichenko, chief executive officer and founder of the company, pointed to a computer screen depicting a 3D model of a new drone. It’s about the size of a bicycle and looks like a small plane.

“This is our new intelligence — surveillance and reconnaissance drone.”

Vitaly Kolesnichenko, chief executive officer and founder, Airlogix, Kyiv, Ukraine

“This is our new intelligence — surveillance and reconnaissance drone. We want to make it with more endurance, up to 10 hours, and to have less weight,” he said.

Vitaly Kolesnichenko is the chief executive officer and founder of Airlogix. Daniel Ofman/The WorldDrones like this can fly in the air for hours, and they have cameras that operate like an eye in the sky.

Anastasiia Dakhovnik, one of the design engineers, began working here soon after Russia’s full-scale invasion. She said it’s been rewarding to see her designs put into action.

“I’m very proud that I work for our victory and see that our job changes and helps our people, and it calms me,” she said.

CEO Kolesnichenko said that they’re in a race against Russia to produce high-quality military drones.

Bohdan Danyliv, the drone project coordinator with the Prytula Foundation, a Kyiv-based nonprofit that helps acquire military equipment, also thinks about the time pressure.

“When we find something new, it’s a matter of time that they will start doing it. The problem is, who will be first, who will be smarter, and how effectively we’ll be using it, that’s the question.”

Bohdan Danyliv, drone project coordinator, Prytula Foundation, Kyiv, Ukraine

“When we find something new, it’s a matter of time that they will start doing it. The problem is, who will be first, who will be smarter, and how effectively we’ll be using it, that’s the question,” he said.

Bohdan Danyliv is the drone project coordinator with the Prytula Foundation.Anastasia Vlasova/The WorldDanyliv said he spends most of his time talking to troops on the front lines to understand their needs. He also trains soldiers on how to use drones.

He said that drones have drastically changed the nature of this war.

“The war right now is like on the television, you see everything, it’s like big brother. You see the enemy a couple of kilometers away, what he’s doing. They can see what we are doing. So now, we have to work on electronic warfare,” he said.

Bohdan Danyliv, the drone project coordinator with the Prytula Foundation, a Kyiv-based non-profit that helps provide equipment for the Ukrainian military.Anastasia Vlasova/The WorldElectronic warfare allows soldiers to jam and disable the other side’s drones. It’s tit-for-tat — one side develops something, and the other side tries to thwart it.

Danyliv said that soldiers on the front lines are motivated to keep innovating and fighting for their country. The war-fatigue narrative is overblown, he added. Ukraine doesn’t need anyone to fight for them, he said, they just need the weapons.

In the meantime, Ukraine will use whatever it can get its hands on. And for now, that means producing a lot of drones.

Editor’s note: Volodymyr Solohub contributed to this report.

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Listen to a related interview on The World with Dina Temple-Raston, host of the “Click Here” podcast, by clicking the audio player above.

The US and partners around the world ousted Russian government hackers from a network of more than 1,000 home and small business routers, FBI Director Christopher Wray said on Thursday.

The law enforcement action, dubbed Operation Dying Ember, has not been previously announced.

“Working with US and worldwide law enforcement partners, we ran a court-authorized technical operation that knocked the Russian GRU [Main Intelligence Directorate] off well over 1,000 home and small business routers,” Wray told an audience at the Munich Cyber Security Conference in Germany.

“And [we] locked the door behind them, killing their access to a botnet they were using to run cyber operations around the world.”

In a subsequent announcement, the Department of Justice on Thursday said the operation in January neutralized routers “used to conceal and otherwise enable a variety of crimes.”

“These crimes included vast spearphishing and similar credential harvesting campaigns against targets of intelligence interest to the Russian government, such as US and foreign governments and military, security, and corporate organizations,” the agency said.

The nature of the botnet differed from Russian government networks the FBI has disrupted in the past in that the GRU did not create it on its own, the agency said. Instead, the operation relied on “non-GRU cybercriminals” to install Moobot malware on Ubiquiti Edge OS routers using default administrator passwords, DOJ officials said.

“GRU hackers then used the Moobot malware to install their own bespoke scripts and files that repurposed the botnet, turning it into a global cyber-espionage platform,” the agency said.

In the operation, the Mirai-based Moobot malware was leveraged “to copy and delete stolen and malicious data and files from compromised routers.” To “neutralize” GRU access, the FBI and its partners modified the routers’ firewall rules to block remote management access.

Eyes on ChinaThe announcement of the new takedown comes amid a broader survey of a number of successful cyber operations the US has launched alongside partners in the past few years.

“The good news is that we’ve learned what success can look like, we’ve lived it,” Wray said. “For the past several years, the bureau has been laser-focused on leading joint sequenced operations with our partners.”

The bad news, he said, is that while the bureau has improved at launching coordinated operations against cyber adversaries, “the world has become more dangerous than ever and chief among those adversaries is the Chinese government.”

He reiterated previous comments about how the cyber threat posed by the Chinese government is “massive,” adding that their “hacking program is larger than that of every other major nation combined and that size advantage is only magnified because the PRC uses AI, built in large part on stolen innovation and stolen data, to improve its hacking operations.”

The Chinese Communist Party is bullying nations it sees as adversaries or detractors, Wray said. Cross China, and “you might find your companies harassed and hacked by a web of PRC proxies.”

Wray’s decision to take aim at China’s cyber operations so publicly comes just a week after the US announced that hackers tied to the Chinese government were targeting US critical infrastructure by pre-positioning themselves with offensive cyber weapons in key US networks like telecommunications, water and aviation.

“These days it has reached something closer to a fever pitch,” Wray said of the Chinese operations. “What we’re seeing now is China’s increasing build-out of offensive weapons within our critical infrastructure poised to attack whenever Beijing decides is right.”

James Reddick contributed to this story.

An earlier version of this story was published at The Record.

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The costs of the war in Ukraine can be measured first and foremost in human lives lost, in destroyed communities and infrastructure.

But environmental damages are also widespread and will continue to impact Ukrainians for decades to come.

In early June 2022, the Kakhovka Dam on the Dnipro River burst, unleashing much of the water from a reservoir roughly the size of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Large swaths of the reservoir dried up, while towns and villages south of the dam were flooded. Floodwaters contaminated with sewage, oil and land mines swept away houses and forced evacuations.

This incident sparked global attention on the environmental impact of the war for the first time.

But damage to the environment has been ongoing since February 2022, when the full-scale invasion started.

In the video above, The World’s Carolyn Beeler explains how the war has impacted the environment in Ukraine.

Related: A coalition of Ukrainians is documenting environmental crimes Old-school trench warfare along the front lines has torn up forests and triggered fires.

Industrial sites and oil depots have been bombed and destroyed, sending contamination into the soil and groundwater.

Damaged wastewater and sewage facilities have contaminated drinking water, while mines and unexploded ordinance have rendered agricultural land unusable.

Beeler also speaks about the effort by the Ukrainian government and local nongovernmental organizations to document the damage.

Related: Farmland off-limits in Ukraine due to mines

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From Parisian pigeons to New York City rats, every city has its pesky wildlife creatures.

In London, it’s the city’s 10,000 urban foxes that have become both a malevolent menace and misunderstood mammal — it just depends on who you ask. 

“One thing you can certainly say about the fox is it's an animal that's been persecuted its whole existence,” said professional wildlife photographer Matt Maran, co-author of the book "Fox: Neighbor. Villain. Icon." 

A fox stands outside Southwark Crown Court in London, Wednesday, July 26, 2023. 

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Alberto Pezzali/AP

Maran said his fascination with London’s foxes stems at least in part because of the creature’s ability to adapt to its surroundings, even as other animals were phased out of the city.

“We used to have bears, wolves and lynx roaming these lands,” Maran said.  “But somehow the fox has managed to survive all of that persecution.”

Wildlife photographer Matt Maran.

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Rebecca Rosman/The World

For many Londoners, there’s less of a fascination and more of an irritation, especially as urban foxes become bolder, increasingly making their way into gardens and raiding trash bins. 

“I think most people consider them perhaps a nuisance,” London resident Sara Johnson said. She regularly sees foxes rummaging around the garden of her home located just next to Hyde Park. 

“[London] is not a natural habitat for foxes,” according to Eivand Johnson, her husband. “There’s so much food in the city that’s thrown out that foxes can live off of these provisions that are left from restaurants and even private homes.”

To which Maran said — can we blame them? 

“Why would you blame an animal for going to get easy pickings?” he said, “They're really great survivors.”

These are what you call human problems, Maran said, not fox problems. 

Wildlife photographer Matt Maran looks out for foxes.

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Rebecca Rosman/The World

Maran points to other places where humans have found solutions to living with disruptive wildlife. For example, specially designed bear resistant trash cans used inside national parks in the US. Why doesn’t London have fox-proof bins, he said.

Wildlife photographer Matt Maran prepares to photograph a fox in his neighborhood community garden.

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Rebecca Rosman/The World

After all, foxes have been a staple of the city’s landscape for decades. 

“The whole thing with foxes is they've been prevalent in London since the 1930s,” said Trevor Williams, founder of the Fox Project, a charity that operates a wildlife ambulance service that treats more than a thousand foxes a year. 

But when Williams launched the organization in 1991, it was because he felt there were too many misconceptions going around about foxes.

“I've always felt there was a need for an organization, an information bureau really on foxes, and that's what I wanted to establish,” he said.

There are some points Williams wants to make straight: Foxes are generally not a threat to humans or domestic animals such as cats or dogs. They haven’t carried rabies in the UK since 1902. The fox population in London isn’t growing — it’s actually gone down since its peak in the mid-'90s. 

And those wailing screeching sounds that they sometimes make at night? They can be annoying, but they’re generally just mating calls or a simple fox conversation. 

“It's those kind of misconceptions which blow up and they get worse by urban myth,” Williams said.

“Everybody gets more and more frightened because we love being frightened in England.” 

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Costa Rica’s Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Preserve is one of the country's top ecological destinations.

And there's a good reason for that. It has a lush green jungle, and it’s home to more than 2,000 species of plants and trees, 400 different types of birds and 120 amphibian and reptile species that thrive in a unique ecosystem that is nearly permanently in the clouds.

Or, at least, it used to be.

As temperatures in the area warm, the clouds are beginning to lift. On one particular day a couple of weeks ago, it was abnormally windy and mostly dry. Decades ago, there were only 25 days annually when it didn't rain. Now, there are more than a hundred dry days a year.

"For cloud forests, that's a lot of dry weather,” said Monteverde resident scientist Alan Pounds who has been at the reserve since the 1980s. "Plants and animals in the cloud forest are adapted for this constant input of mist and cloud; like all these little orchids that grow on branch tips have evolved to be bathed in this moisture most of the time and so they can be really affected by these kinds of events."

Fungai in Costa Rica’s Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Preserve. It is home to more than 2,000 species of plants and trees.

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Michael Fox/The World

Already two species of local frogs have gone extinct: the golden toad and a local breed of the harlequin frog. And there are concerns that the extravagantly feathered Quetzal bird, whose native mating habitat is in the cloud forest, may now be in danger.

Alan Pounds is a residen scienists in Monteverde in Costa Rica and has been at the reserve since the 1980s.

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Michael Fox/The World

Pounds wrote one of the first papers on the impact of climate change in tropical forests in the late 1990s and said the future of the cloud forest itself is at risk.

"If we continue on the present trajectory, I think it's safe to say the cloud forest is going to disappear,” he said. "It’s already turning into something else. It’s turning into more of a seasonal rainforest."

Pounds said even if the reserve gets the total rainfall it did before, it’ll come in clumps, rather than dispersed evenly throughout the year. The transformation means a hit to the local ecosystem, with some species being pushed out or killed off, and different ones moving in as temperatures warm.

Costa Rica’s Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Preserve. Decades ago, there were only 25 days annually when it didn't rain. Now, there are more than a hundred dry days a year.

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Michael Fox/The World

Sensitive species could face extinctionMonteverde is just one of many places in Costa Rica that are seeing an impact.

The privately run Tirimbina Biological Reserve is located about 100 miles east of Monteverde. Tirimbina boasts of having the longest suspension bridge in Costa Rica, nearly 1,000 feet across the rushing Sarapiquí River. And it’s based in a tropical rainforest, not a cloud forest like Monteverde. But climate change is taking a similar toll there.

The privately-run Tirimbina Biological Reserve boasts of having the longest suspension bridge in Costa Rica, nearly 1,000 feet across the rushing Sarapiquí River.

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Michael Fox/The World

“If you came here 25 years ago, you’d find that more than 300 days out of the year it was raining, raining, raining — constant rain,” Tirimbina biologist Sergio Villega said. "But not today. Daily rainfall has decreased dramatically."

Sergio Villega is a biologist at the privately-run Tirimbina Biological Reserve in Costa Rica.

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Michael Fox/The World

Villegas said there are studies that temperatures near the reserve have increased by almost half degree over the last 20 years.

“For a person, that might not seem like much, but for a little frog or a fish or a sensitive species, this could mean the difference between a decline in the population or not,” he explained. “Some species may move to higher regions. But others may have nowhere to go and they may be condemned to extinction or [become] highly endangered."

A poison dart frog in Costa Rica.

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Michael Fox/The World

Stemming the tideCosta Rica, as a country, has been doing its best to stem the tide.

“Costa Rica has been one of the top Latin American countries on the forefront of the battle against global warming,” said Alonso Villalobos, a political scientist at the University of Costa Rica who specializes in climate and sustainability.

"Combating climate change has been state policy going back over four administrations — from the mid-2000s on,” he said.

Hummingbirds at Costa Rica’s Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Preserve.

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Michael Fox/The World

They've created national plans against global warming, pushed for carbon neutrality and transitioned to renewable energy.

"Previous governments have approved binding international commitments such as the Paris Agreement,” said Pascal Girot Pignot, the director of the geography school also at the University of Costa Rica.

“And public policies such as Carbon Neutrality, the Climate Change National Adaptation Policy and its National Adaptation Plan and the Decarbonization Plan,” he added. “These commitments are based on a long tradition in national and international environmental law in which Costa Rica has been a leader."

Costa Rica’s Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Preserve is home to species that thrive in a unique ecosystem which is nearly permanently in the clouds.

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Michael Fox/The World

But it can’t be done alone. If other countries don’t also contribute, climate change will still affect Costa Rica.

"Climate change is not something that’s going to happen,” in the future, Tirimbina biologist Sergio Villegas said. "It already is happening and we're witnessing the consequences."

Related: Animal species are evolving to adjust to climate change, but scientists say time is running out

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Six months after record-breaking earthquakes devastated southern Turkey and northern Syria, the historic city of Antakya is a rolling landscape of cracked high-rises, tent cities and piles of debris.

The freezing temperatures of the earthquake’s immediate aftermath have been replaced by dust and 95-degree-Fahrenheit days.

Despite the Turkish government’s promise to rebuild affected areas within a year, nearly everyone in the city continues to live in tents and converted shipping containers — set up in front of gardens, olive orchards and open fields.

Donated tents, designed for the winter cold, soak up the heat of the sun. But skin infections, borne by flies, are common. Organized settlements of container homes are set up on hot concrete, surrounded by barbed wire, and are reliant on regular shipments of drinking water.

Of the more than 50,000 deaths reported in Turkey, half occurred in Hatay, the country’s southernmost province. Grief pervades almost every corner of the province but, slowly, the residents who remain are carving out a life amid the rubble.

Here is a photo essay by The World's Durrie Bouscaren.

Some homes and buildings remain standing in central Antakya, Turkey, awaiting demolition.

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Durrie Bouscaren/The World

Mustafa Güler, a tinsmith in Antakya’s covered bazaar in Turkey, lost 57 members of his family in the earthquakes.

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Durrie Bouscaren/The World

A motorcyclist rides past a demolished building in the beach town of Samandağ. A converted shipping container serves as an insurance office.

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Durrie Bouscaren/The World

From their terrace, a family watches a building next door get torn down. Asbestos wasn’t banned in Turkey until 2010, and environmentalists fear the dust created by earthquake debris is toxic.

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Durrie Bouscaren/The World

A child walks through a tent camp in an olive orchard in Antakya, Turkey.

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Durrie Bouscaren/The World

A container camp in Antakya, Turkey.

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Durrie Bouscaren/The World

An informal tent camp set up in an olive orchard in Antakya. The Turkish government has prioritized its own citizens for container housing, and most residents of informal tent camps are Syrian refugees.

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Durrie Bouscaren/The World

Syrian children outside their tent in Antakya, Turkey. Many Syrian families who lost their homes in the earthquake are living in tents.

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Durrie Bouscaren/The World

A tent hospital set up on Samandağ beach, not far from a large dump site for earthquake debris.

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Durrie Bouscaren/The World

Many shops have reopened for business in converted shipping containers, like this liquor store.

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Durrie Bouscaren/The World

Semih and Serap Bozaydi reopened their tailoring shop in a market of small, prefabricated buildings set up by the government. The shopkeepers will be charged rent starting in October, and the Bozaydi’s aren’t sure they’ll stay. “It feels like a temporary life,” Semih said.

Credit:

Durrie Bouscaren/The World

Mişel Atik, director of the Samandağ Environmental Protection and Tourism Association, stands outside the ruins of the historic house that he had painstakingly restored. The morning of Feb. 6, Atik had randomly awoken just a few minutes before the earthquake, and escaped through a window just before his home collapsed.

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Durrie Bouscaren/The World

Environmentalists help hatching sea turtles reach the surface on Samandağ Beach, just a few meters from a large dump site for earthquake debris.

Credit:

Durrie Bouscaren/The World

Related: Life returns to Antakya, a city nearly leveled by earthquakes in southern Turkey

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For centuries, shark fin has been considered a delicacy in Chinese cooking — a symbol of hospitality, status and good fortune. The fin itself doesn’t have much taste, but it provides a gelatinous texture to a popular soup served at fancy banquets and luxury restaurants in China, where people pay up to $200 for a single bowl.

But there is a huge problem with this soup: Tens of millions of sharks are killed every year to make it. Many come from South America, where the shark fin trade has expanded and flourished.

Peru is the world's largest exporter of shark fins, according to Oceana, an international organization devoted to ocean conservation. Around 95% of their shipments go to Hong Kong, where buying and eating shark fins is legal.

But most of these fins don’t come from Peruvian waters, explained Alicia Kuroíwa, a biologist and researcher with Oceana. “Around 75% of the sharks come from neighboring Ecuador, where there are far larger populations of sharks and fewer regulations,” she said.

César Ipenza, an environmental lawyer based in Peru, said there are criminal organizations that smuggle fins to Peru or hide them among frozen fish.

“Once there, there’s a system that allows for officials to issue illicit permits to ship them abroad,” Ipensa said.

Both Peru and Ecuador are grappling with corrupt officials, a lack of capacity and the large profits at play.

In Hong Kong, a pound of shark fins can cost up to $700, compared to $7 in Peru.

Selling shark fins in Hong Kong is legal, but people need a special permit to sell endangered species. People can face up to 10 years in prison for illegal trading, but prosecutions are rare.

Around the world, it’s not uncommon that shark hunters cut the fin off and throw the animal back into the sea. Unable to swim, they sink and die of blood loss or are eaten by other predators. This practice is known as finning, and it’s banned in many countries.

Finning doesn’t happen so much in Ecuador or Peru, Alicia Kuroíwa said, where sharks are caught and retained whole to satisfy a modest demand for shark meat.

But foreign ships may engage in finning and get away with it, according to Evan Ellis, a Latin American research professor with the US Army War College.

“You’ve seen Chinese-flagged vessels operating farther and farther off their coasts after they pretty much depleted fish stocks closer to [their] own shores,” Ellis said. "Their fishing fleets have had to go farther and farther away to find fishing stocks that have not been exhausted."

Recent investigations show that hundreds of Chinese fishing vessels are operating almost 24/7 off the coast of South America.

Last year, China accounted for about 80% of the fishing in the international waters off Ecuador, Peru and Argentina.

According to Ellis, it’s challenging for authorities there to catch illegal foreign ships. “Oftentimes, vessels also will change names and registries that make it difficult for them to do so. And you have other practices such as turning off the transponder systems.”

Without advanced techniques, proving that a specific vessel has been engaged in illegal fishing is difficult.

The lucrative trade of fins is threatening species of sharks in South American waters, according to María Cristina Cely, a marine veterinarian and an environmental activist in Ecuador.

“Industrial fishing is depleting the overall fish population in Ecuador, which forces many local fishermen to look for exotic and more lucrative species like sharks or to go fishing in protected areas like the Galapagos islands.”

Maria Cristina Cely, marine veterinarian and environmental activist in Ecuador

“Industrial fishing is depleting the overall fish population in Ecuador, which forces many local fishermen to look for exotic and more lucrative species like sharks or to go fishing in protected areas like the Galapagos islands,” Cely said.

The business is thriving across South America despite legislative efforts to stop it.

Last month, authorities in Panama seized its largest amount of illegal shark fins. And just a month earlier, Brazilian officials caught 29 tons — the world's largest-ever shipment of illegal shark fins. Authorities estimate that close to 10,000 sharks were killed for this single shipment.

Panama’s Congress is currently discussing a bill that plans to restore and protect shark populations off its waters, but the country has still not banned shark fishing and the export of shark fins.

In Ecuador, people have been able to catch sharks by categorizing it as “incidental catch,” or an unintentional catch while fishing other species, which remains legal in the country.

However, in February 2022, Peru convicted two shark traffickers to four and a half years in prison for carrying 1.8 tons of fins from six species of shark, which they were going to sell to a seafood company. It took four years for the case to be completed, and there have been no convictions since.

Ipenza called it a “major success for Peru,” as this was the first time this country had ever sentenced anyone for illegal shark fin trading.

Related: An important fishing village in Senegal is on the verge of disappearing as sea levels rise

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Tetyana Samoylenko tried to save all the vegetables in her root cellar before the water started filling it last winter, but she couldn’t get them all.

Now, shriveled black potatoes float in about 3 feet of water that flowed to the village of Demydiv in the early days of the full-scale Russian invasion.

Samoylenko lives not far from a dam separating the Irpin River from the Kyiv Reservoir, which Ukrainian forces blew a hole through in February of 2022.

A view of the flooded area in Kozarovychi village in the Kyiv region of Ukraine on June 10, 2023.

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Anastasia Vlasova/The World

Thousands of acres of land about 25 miles north of central Kyiv were flooded. That water has been credited with preventing Russian troops from advancing toward Kyiv in their early push for the capital. The new wetland has become a largely welcome addition to the natural landscape, though the water remains an inconvenience for Samoylenko and others in her village whose homes were flooded.

The water reached Samoylenko’s floorboards at its highest. Her water pump was destroyed and her well was contaminated, so she can’t drink the water anymore.

“It’s too dirty,” she said. “All of the sewage system got flooded, too, and all the toilets. Everything was floating here.”

A view of a flooded household in Demydiv village in the Kyiv region of Ukraine on June 10, 2023.

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Anastasia Vlasova/The World

Now, her sister and brother-in-law, who live in a part of the village that still has clean drinking water, drop off several, 5-liter bottles of drinking water each day.

It’s been like this for well over a year, but Samoylenko is still glad the dam was damaged.

“I’m not mad,” she said. “Had this not happened, Russians would have reached Kyiv.”

That’s largely the public sentiment here, where some people have started calling the Irpin a “Hero River.” The dam hasn’t been repaired; the 7,000 acres remain flooded.

On a warm June afternoon, people sat relaxing on the dam, biking across its span, or hiking along the water line. Swans floated by on the water.

Volodymyr Nechyporenko, who lives in a nearby town, fished in the shallow water.

“It was the right decision to [burst the dam],” he said through an interpreter, “because if they hadn’t blown it, the Russians would be in Kyiv.”

He fishes here about once a week, sometimes frying up the bigger catch to eat, and he wants the wetlands to stay as they are.

Roman Lysenko, a biologist with the Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group, said conservationists in Ukraine mostly say the same thing.

The biologist, Roman Lysenko, photographed by the flooded area in Kozarovychi village in the Kyiv region of Ukraine on June 10, 2023.

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Anastasia Vlasova/The World

“It's quite like what it used to look like in the spring, maybe a hundred years ago,” he said.

Lysenko said the dam was built in the 1960s, and that dried out a natural floodplain. Now, the Irpin River is running closer to its natural course again.

“Now, almost everything that remains under the water is natural floodplains,” he said.

On a visit to the new wetland in June, Lysenko surveyed the pioneer species establishing themselves in the new ecosystem, noting plant species growing near the waterline and a gray heron that flew low over the water.

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Anastasia Vlasova/The World

“It’s a good sign. I think we will see that biodiversity will bloom here,” he said.

The flooded wetland is a nursery for fish and a good habitat for plants that need fluctuating amounts of water, he said, but for birds, “it’s like heaven.”

This is not how conservationists would have restored this ecosystem had they planned it. Fertilizer and sewage was likely swept into the water when the dam was damaged, Lyzenko said, and homes were flooded.

But now, the area is closer to its natural state than it has been in decades, Lysenko said: “Maybe it’s optimal. It’s optimal for nature, and it’s still optimal for the defense of our country.”

The Ukrainian military has told residents this new wetland will stay here until at least the end of the war.

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Ukraine is now considered the most heavily mined country in the world.

Nearly 1,000 civilians have been killed or injured by landmines and unexploded ordnances since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022.

And about a third of the country needs to be cleared of these explosives.

A view of a field which is still mined in Makariv village, Kyiv region, Ukraine on June 8, 2023.

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Anastasia Vlasova/The World

Most of that land is along the border with Russia, in eastern Ukraine. But it also includes parts of the Kyiv region, where Russian forces battled with Ukrainians early in the war.

Yuriy Zahoryui manages a 15,000-acre farm north of Kyiv, in an area that Russian forces reached in their failed push for the Ukrainian capital early into the war.

Security cameras at the farm caught tanks rolling over the land.

Zahoryui said that about 10% of his farm fields are still mined, including one he showed to The World.

“Last spring, we found around 10 anti-tank mines here, and one local resident got injured when one of the mines blew up,” he said, adding, “Where we’re standing right now was sort of a gray zone, because [the] Ukrainian military was positioned over there behind the forest, 500 feet away from here. And over there, there is a highway leading towards Kyiv.”

Yuriy Zahoryui shows the mines found on his field in Makariv village, Kyiv region, Ukraine on June 8, 2023.

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Anastasia Vlasova/The World

About 20% of Ukraine’s farmland was off-limits in 2022 due to unexploded ordnances or active fighting, in a country where agriculture is a major driver of the economy.

Zahoryui spoke to The World’s environmental correspondent, Carolyn Beeler, about the impact of the war on the farm.

Click the audio player above to hear the full story.

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Thomas Sperle held up an old photo of a bog and looked directly at the exact same spot, 50 years later. The photo shows a marshy area, with water winding through the grass. Today, it’s mostly dry.

“In this part of the bog there were no trees,” Sperle said. “And nowadays, a lot of trees.”

This photo, taken 50 years ago, shows a healthier bog, with water winding through the grass.

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Emily Haavik/The World

The trees represent new growth. But in a bog, a tall tree is not a sign of life.

“The tree is a sign that the water level in the ground of the bogs is sinking,” Sperle said.

Thomas Sperle surveyed 124 bogs over three years, counting plant species by hand.

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Emily Haavik/The World

Germany’s Black Forest is the backdrop for countless fairytales. But there’s a darker story emerging about a loss of biodiversity that’s hard to see with the naked eye. And it’s not the only place where a pretty picture can mask a trend of extinction.

Across the globe, the extinction of species doesn’t necessarily mean a desolate landscape – so it takes specialized, time-intensive research to find out what plants the planet is losing.

In 2017, Sperle started surveying dozens of bogs in Germany’s Black Forest. For three years he counted plants, some just a few centimeters long. He often spent nights in his camper van. He made lists of plants and their quantities and compared them to a survey from 50 years ago.

“I find out that nowadays much less species are growing,” he said.

In the nutrient-poor ecosystem of a bog, plants have to get creative. This tiny red specialist plant is a carnivore, trapping and eating insects.

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Emily Haavik/The World

Two plant species have gone extinct, and several more will likely disappear in the next 15 years.

“If this trend in the future will go on, we have … the extinction of I think 10 species in all the bogs,” Sperle said.

The plants that are dying out are mostly what are called specialists, which do well in a very specific setting. Meanwhile, generalists, which can thrive almost anywhere, are increasing. Sperle and his research partner, Helge Bruelheide, attribute the homogenization to hot, dry summers from climate change.

“It results in a type of globalization,” Buelheide said. “So you lose the difference between different habitats.”

Bruelheide is a professor of geobotany at Martin Luther University in Halle, Germany. In another study in northern Germany, he found that over two decades, the landscape had gotten greener.

“Most people think, ‘Wow, yeah, it’s a good sign,’” he said. “Because if something gets greener, we have less concrete and more nature.”

But in this case, greener meant a loss of other colors.

“Colorful meadows have disappeared,” he said. “Less colorful flowers mean you have less pollinators.”

This bog in the Kohlhütte nature reserve has a low water level, and the dry conditions are contributing to a loss of species.

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Emily Haavik/The World

At the University of Minnesota, Elizabeth Borer is also researching biodiversity – but through a more experimental lens.

“I want to know what will happen if I change the conditions, often trying to simulate something like what future Earth might look like,” she said.

As humans burn fossil fuels, it’s not just carbon that is released. Nitrogen and other nutrients are going into the air and falling back down in the rain. Borer simulates these higher nutrient levels in a controlled setting to see what happens to plant biodiversity.

“What we see there is a continued loss of species from those areas,” she said.

Elizabeth Borer is a researcher and professor at the University of Minnesota.

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Emily Haavik/The World

More nutrients might sound like a good thing.

“If you have a single outcome in mind, which is more plant, you are likely to get more plant,” Borer said.

There’s more vegetation overall in the short term because the generalist plants are thriving. But they’re often crowding out the specialist plants, so biodiversity declines.

“The little seedlings or small-statured plants don't have the light resources they need,” she said.

What does a loss of biodiversity actually mean for the planet? Fewer plants mean fewer pollinators, which are important for food production. Plants also store carbon and keep it out of the atmosphere. Bogs are especially good at this.

“The bogs are holding carbon dioxide in very great size,” Sperle said.

Thomas Sperle loves the bogs of the Black Forest, and he works hard to protect them. “They are rare,” he said.

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Emily Haavik/The World

Back in the Black Forest, Sperle said if nothing is done, these particular bogs could disappear completely by the end of the century. So he’s moving from research to action.

Four years ago, he surveyed a tiny birch tree called a Betula nana and discovered there were only 50 left.

“This is a very small tree,” he said. “It is also a specialist of bogs.”

This variety of birch tree is about the size of a bonsai. It was almost extinct for lack of water. And unlike taller, generalist trees, this tiny one is supposed to live in the bog. So Sperle had an idea.

“We take in water from a little stream opposite the bog,” he said. “The tube brings the water in the bog where this little birch is growing.”

With the extra water, they managed to stabilize the 40 remaining plants.

Betula nana is just one small species, but every loss has untold consequences for the planet.

“We don't know exactly what role every species or every system of species has,” Sperle said. “And we cannot say, ‘Oh, that's going away. It is nothing.’”

Sperle said it will take both research and action to find out what kind of extinctions are hiding behind beautiful trees and vibrant green spaces, and keep any more species from disappearing.

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In the city of Chernihiv, in northeastern Ukraine, the wreckage of a bombed home improvement store has stood twisted and rusting since Russian forces attacked it on just the fifth day of the full-scale invasion in February of 2022.

One morning this past spring, ecologist Kateryna Polianska carefully crunched over broken glass and stepped around piles of metal roofing that appeared to have melted into heaps in the inferno of the attack.

“This is evidence that there were huge temperatures, there were a lot of burning materials inside of this building,” said Polianska, who works with a leading Ukrainian nongovernmental organization called Environment People Law and has crisscrossed Ukraine collecting samples of soil and rubble from sites like this one.

Polianska usually wears gloves as she digs through the rubble of affected sites.

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Anastasia Vlasova/The World

Nearly a year and a half into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, its impact has been felt most acutely in lost lives, flattened cities and destroyed infrastructure. But the environmental damage from combat has also contaminated Ukraine’s soil, water and air at a cost the government estimates to be $56 billion. This impact is likely to be one of the longest-lasting legacies of the war, persisting for decades after the fighting stops.

At the destroyed home improvement superstore in Chernihiv, Polianska said the immediate concern was air pollution as the paint, plastic, insulation and other building materials housed there went up in flames. Nationwide, excess greenhouse gas emissions from the first year of the war are estimated to be similar to the annual emissions of the country of Belgium.

The destroyed home improvement superstore in Chernihiv, Ukraine.

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Anastasia Vlasova/The World

But as the wreckage has sat largely unattended, Polianska said there are now other concerns.

“We can see there is a lot of ash,” Polianska said as her footsteps through the wrecked store sent dust she warned may contain dioxins and cancer-causing materials into the air. “If there is some windy weather, it can just blow up, and people in the nearest buildings can breathe these things.”

Disposal of war waste in Ukraine – where asbestos is widespread in buildings – is also a concern for Polianska. Ukraine lacks special landfill facilities that would prevent toxins from being blown away or leaching into the soil or groundwater after being disposed of, she said.

Polianska collects samples out of the rubble to send back to labs for testing.

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Anastasia Vlasova/The World

“When people try to rebuild their houses,” she said, “they just collect and remove this waste to another place. But it doesn’t solve the problem.”

Polianska wore gloves as she dug with a gardening spade into the rubble at the home improvement center, putting samples of burned insulation into plastic baggies for laboratory testing. She’s still waiting for those results, but previous testing has shown high concentrations of heavy metals in the soil underneath burned Russian tanks.

Nationwide, groundwater and soil have been contaminated by munitions and chemicals leaked from bombed industrial sites; forests have been mowed down and set ablaze by artillery strikes and missiles, agricultural fields have been compromised by mines, and drinking water has been cut off after sewage and wastewater treatment facilities have been damaged.

Russian forces targeting oil depots and energy facilities have sent more than 30,000 tons of oil into the water and soil.

In the town of Kalynivka, about 20 miles outside of Kyiv, a Russian airstrike on an oil depot last March sent 6,000 tons of oil into the soil, according to government environmental inspectors.

"The explosion was so big, we were scared even sitting in the basement. It was burning and smoking for five days after they blew up everything."

Yulia Samokhatka, resident of Kalynivka, Ukraine who has been affected by the Russian airstrikes.

"The explosion was so big, we were scared even sitting in the basement,” resident Yulia Samokhatka said. “It was burning and smoking for five days after they blew up everything."

The oil that seeped into the ground eventually made its way into a nearby lake, covering about half of its 15 acres.

Almost a year and a half after the explosion, small oil slicks are still visible on the lake’s surface. Residents complain of a foul smell.

Lyudmyla Odynets, who can see the lake from her house, said people used to come there from neighboring towns to swim and sunbathe.

“Now, we wish we could go to our own backyard without this terrible smell,” she said.

Odynets worries about the health impacts of the spill. Her water comes from a well, but hasn’t noticed a funny smell or taste, so she’s continued drinking it.

Odynets guesses that local officials have higher priorities right now than cleaning up this spilled oil but that sooner or later, the war will be over and “we will still have a disaster here.”

That’s the case in many other parts of the country. Government estimates from early in the war suggest that more than a quarter of the country’s protected areas have been impacted by combat.

When the Kakhovka dam burst in June, waters rushing down the Dnipro River flooded about 250 square miles of forests, wetlands and several national protected areas, and has put animal species in the Delta region at risk of extinction.

On the edge of Kyiv, in the Holosiivski National Park, a Russian ballistic missile was shot down in early June, leaving an impact crater about 20 feet long inside a ring of charcoal-black trees.

When the missile was shot down, the fuel inside of it started a fire in the forest, said Oleksandr Novitskiy, an inspector with the national park agency.

Many forest fires in Ukraine have been triggered by artillery strikes from Russian forces.

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Anastasia Vlasova/The World

The fuel that didn’t burn up soaked into the soil, leaving an acrid smell still apparent a week after the explosion.

“These pine trees are over 100 years old. They will die,” Novitskiy said. “Even the human efforts to replant something, regrow something, will not rectify all the damage that has been done.”

Old-fashioned trench warfare waged with tanks and heavy artillery has mowed and burned down forests on a much larger scale along the more than 600-mile frontl ine in eastern Ukraine.

“In a nutshell, the forests are being destroyed,” said Yehor Hrynnyk, a biologist at the Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group. “Places where intense fighting took place in forests, these forests are no longer forests at all. They look like something on the moon.”

Yehor Hrynnyk, a biologist at the Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group.

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Anastasia Vlasova/The World

Artillery strikes and bombings have also triggered forest fires. According to one analysis, half of the roughly 20,000 wildfires in Ukraine last year occurred within about 40 miles of the front lines.

“And of course, it will take decades for the forest to regrow and in some cases, these ecosystems, there is no possibility to restore them,” Hrynnyk said.

That’s true for all of the ecological destruction caused by Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Some areas will take years to clean up, but ecologists warn others may never fully recover.

Related: A ‘green road’ leads displaced Ukrainians to shelter in ecovillages

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Between 2014 and 2017, Senegal and Mauritania found world-class deposits of natural gas along their Atlantic shores. It was one of the largest discoveries of natural gas in the last two decades. A plan to export that gas abroad has brought hope for the two nations’ economies.

“I want us to profit from the gas,” said Aguibou Ba, executive director of Senegal's National Institute for Oil and Gas. “Because as soon as we start extracting, I expect the electricity prices of fuel — even food prices — will drop and become affordable for us."

A man walks on the beach past an offshore gas terminal in Saint-Louis, Senegal, Jan. 19, 2023.

Credit:

Leo Correa/AP/File

The joint project with Senegal and Mauritania involves two energy giants: BP and Kosmos Energy. The first phase of the project is almost finished, which means it could start producing and exporting liquified natural gas as soon as this fall.

Germany and Poland have already signed deals with Senegal's government.

Experts say natural gas won’t transform Senegal into a rich country overnight, but it could bring significant economic growth.

“It might help the government to achieve universal access to electricity by 2025,” said William Davis, an economic analyst with the Natural Resource Governance Institute in the United Kingdom. “And so, an individual person might get access to electricity that they never had before, as a result of this project.”

But many locals are skeptical about any promises of a more prosperous future from natural gas.

Fishermen on a traditional boat known as pirogue leap over a wave heading out to the Atlantic Ocean as an offshore gas terminal is seen at the horizon in Saint-Louis, Senegal, Jan. 18, 2023.

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Leo Correa/AP/File

In the coastal city of Saint-Louis, in northern Senegal, there is an ancient, vibrant fishing village just 75 miles from the offshore platform where the natural gas is being extracted.

On their way out to the sea, fishermen pass right by the drilling rig.

“We used to have a lot of fish at sea and now we don't have that anymore.”

Pa Badiane, local fisherman in Saint-Louis, Senegal

Pa Badiane, a local fisherman, said this natural gas project has only brought unemployment and poverty to the community. “We used to have a lot of fish at sea and now we don't have that anymore,” he said.

To make way for the drilling of natural gas, access to waters teeming with fish has been cut off, and the fishing boats are not allowed to go into certain areas. “The coast guards pass by every day, you're not allowed to get anywhere nearby,” Badiane said. “And if you do, you will be attacked. Very recently, a pirogue attempted to get nearby, and the marines just cut the pirogue in half. They just hit it.”

A representative of the local government conceded that the natural gas project does have downsides for local fishing communities.

A woman sits next to crates filled with fish as she works at the shore of the Senegal River in Saint-Louis, Senegal, Jan. 20, 2023.

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Leo Correa/AP/File

“Authorities have to think about gas leaks in the area that can affect the fish population,” said Boun Daouda Soumaré, director of the Communal Development Agency of Saint-Louis.

Soumaré added that people should be patient, as jobs and other benefits from the gas deal will materialize in the future.

Boun Daouda Soumaré is the director of the Communal Development Agency of Saint-Louis.

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Maria Elena Romero/The World

But Pa Badiane, the local fisherman, said he doesn’t trust the government, “because we have the feeling that, given all the parties involved, Senegal will not have much on its own. And if there is, it might be taken for other purposes,” he added.

This lack of trust is common in many African countries, as Will Davis explained. “Transparency and accountability [are] key factors in making sure that the revenues are used well for the benefit of the population rather than the political priorities of the government of the day, or even the personal priorities of politicians who are in power.”

The city of Saint-Louis is also grappling with a rise in sea level, which has already displaced thousands of people.

Fishermen interviewed for this story said the natural gas project — combined with the impact of climate change — might be the end of their way of life.

Officials from the two gas companies involved in the project turned down interview requests for this story.

Journalist Borso Tall helped produce this story.

Related: An important fishing village in Senegal is on the verge of disappearing as sea levels rise

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Stuart Banks was inside the submersible Alvin as it descended to the ocean floor when the discovery was made.

“Suddenly, there was this huge built-up reef that just went on and on and on,” said Banks, a senior marine scientist at the Charles Darwin Foundation.

He was one of two scientists and a pilot who were aboard the Atlantis deep-water research expedition submersible when they unexpectedly discovered these deep-sea coral reefs off Galapagos earlier this year.

Stuart Banks, a senior marine scientist at the Charles Darwin Foundation, examines a live coral specimen collected from the deep-sea reef during the Atlantis expedition, July 12, 2023.

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Gisele Regatão/The World

Once the shock and awe of the discovery subsided, the scientists went to work.

They used the submersible’s external mechanical arms, nets and a vacuum-like device to collect samples.

It was like striking gold for Banks and the other scientists on the expedition. The reef, Banks said, “was a highly productive, ancient, extremely physically vulnerable, unmapped habitat.”

A few months later, Banks showed off some of the coral samples in a lab room at the Darwin Foundation on Santa Cruz Island in the Galapagos.

Corals are laid out on the counter — spiny fossils in plastic bags and live specimens, orange and purple, floating in alcohol-filled jars.

“This is a fossil coral,” Banks said as he held up a dark-colored specimen. “It looks a bit grotty but that’s kind of what fossil coral looks like at the bottom of the ocean.”

Stuart Banks, a senior marine scientist at the Charles Darwin Foundation, holds a coral fossil collected from the deep-sea reef during the Atlantis expedition, July 12, 2023.

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Gisele Regatão/The World

The importance of the discovery lies with its location in the deep sea about 1,600 feet below the surface.

These cold-water corals support important marine ecosystems — and they are as vulnerable to climate change as the more recognizable shallow, tropical reefs.

“You have huge areas of the world’s oceans which are completely unmapped which are all deeper than people can easily reach by research diving — like 95% of the world’s oceans,” Banks said.

Michelle Taylor, the other scientist aboard the Alvin, said that when the submersible's outside cameras illuminated the breathtaking view of the reefs, it was like shining a light on the global importance of deep-sea corals.

“These areas are beautiful. They’re diverse. They are going to be impacted by climate change but for the moment it’s out of sight, out of mind,” Taylor said.

Ancient living deep coral reef (Mixed Madrepora sp. and Dendrophyllia sp.cold water coral) framework at 500-meter to 400-meter depth.

Credit:

Courtesy of L. Robinson (U. Bristol), D. Fornari (WHOI), M. Taylor (U. Essex), D. Wanless (Boise State U.) NSF/NERC/HOV Alvin/WHOI MISO Facility, 2023/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Taylor studies deep-sea corals with an eye toward learning how to protect them. Some of the Galapagos specimens are being shipped to her lab at the University of Essex in England for study and analysis.

With the Galapagos discovery, researchers like Taylor can begin to understand the impact of climate change.

“We are going to spend time cataloging all of the animals we saw, the density of them, how many of them there were — we’re going to use that as a baseline,” she said.

Basically, in future dives, researchers can use the baseline to see how changes in the ocean’s temperature and higher acidity caused by carbon absorption have affected the reefs.

Taylor said that scientists in geochemistry at the UK’s University of Bristol will take a different tack — going back in time to study the gene history of coral fossils.

“You can find what the chemistry of the ocean around Galapagos was like 10,000, 50,000, 100,000 years ago, just by looking at coral fossils,” she said. “Then, we can look at all the live stuff we collected and we can start seeing just how different the environment is for these corals now than it was then.”

The Galapagos are an archipelago of volcanic islands about 600 miles from Ecuador’s mainland that sit at the intersection of several ocean currents. They famously support an unrivaled diversity of land and marine life.

A blue-footed booby perches on a cliff on Santa Cruz Island in the Galapagos, part of an archipelago that is supports an rich diversity of animal and marine life, July 12, 2023.

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Gisele Regatão/The World

The islands have long been a center for naturalistic research. It was Charles Darwin’s expedition here in 1835 that resulted in his seminal work, “On the Origins of Species.”

The discovery has done little to pierce the usual routines of the islands. At a dock not far from the Darwin Foundation, local fishermen unloaded their daily catch. Sea lions lounged on nearby benches. Tourist boats returned to port laden with sated visitors after a day of snorkeling.

Fishing boats return to port in Puerta Ayora in the Galapagos town of Puerta Ayora.

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Gisele Regatão/The World

But scientists around the world are fascinated by the discovery. Sebastian Hennige, a leading researcher of ocean acidification and its impact on deep-sea coral at the University of Edinburgh, said deep-sea corals play a big role in the ocean.

“They’re rainforests of the deep. They create these vast structures, and they support thousands of different species,” he said. “So, they're really, really important in terms of the framework and the habitats they build, and the other species which they support.”

He said the Galapagos discovery will result in knowledge vital to the conservation of deep-sea corals.

“The first part in solving a problem is being aware of the existence of the ecosystem, and then how that may be under threat from different things in the future,” Hennige said.

Hennige and the other scientists all agree that more deep-sea exploration is needed to fully understand the impact of climate change on cold-water corals. But these expeditions are complex, expensive and sometimes risky, as seen recently by the implosion of a submersible on a private expedition to the Titanic wreck.

Daniel Fornari is a marine geologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute on Cape Cod, which operates the Alvin submersible. Fornari, the co-leader of the Atlantis expedition, said the discovery of the Galapagos reefs has advanced research tremendously.

“The fact that we discovered it and mapped it reasonably well so we can go back to do more work on it is huge from the point of view of scientific productivity and the ability to not have to wait years and years to write yet another proposal and get yet another ship,” Fornari said.

Stuart Banks, a senior marine scientist at the Charles Darwin Foundation, was one of three people aboard the submersible when the deep-sea coral reefs were discovered off the Galapagos earlier this year, July 12, 2023.

Credit:

GiseleRegatão/The World

Banks, the Darwin Foundation scientist, is organizing another expedition off Galapagos for this fall.

He and the other scientists are pretty sure there are more reefs down there that are yet to be discovered, and this may lead to more research that will ultimately protect those rainforests of the deep ocean.

Editor's note: Support for this story was provided in part by a PSC-CUNY Award, jointly funded by The Professional Staff Congress and The City University of New York.

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The quaint fishing port of Akureyri, in Iceland, has set itself a big goal — to become of the world’s first carbon-neutral city by 2030.

Akureyri is Iceland’s second largest city, with 18,000 residents. It gets all of its electricity from hydroelectric dams and all of its heat and hot water from geothermal boreholes.

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Gerry Hadden/The World

New arrivals in Akureyri, in northern Iceland, can begin their visit feeling carbon- and guilt-free. By taking an electric scooter from the airport all the way downtown.

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Gerry Hadden/The World

The 18,000 people who live there are ready to do what it takes to stop emitting more harmful greenhouse gasses than it absorbs.

There are two challenges keeping Akureyri from being carbon-neutral currently. The first is that most people fly in on commercial jets — that carbon footprint alone is giant. The second is gas-guzzling cars — each licenced driver owns about two of them.

But once on the ground, it can almost feel like a challenge to find ways to pollute.

For starters, from the airport into Akureyri, visitors can use a dedicated bike and scooter path for the 10-minute ride into town, carbon-free.

Hydroelectric plants provide 100% of Akureyri’s electricity, powered by snow-fed rivers cascading down from the surrounding mountains.

“The power installation produces electricity for 8,000 to 10,000 electric vehicles,” said Gudmundur Sigurdarson, the visionary behind Akureyri’s carbon-neutral plans.

“In theory, we could produce all the electricity we need for transport from the local river,” said Sigurdarson, who is also the town’s informal spokesman and a guide for all things green.

“We want the people living here to have all the opportunities to live as green a lifestyle as possible,” he said. “So, you can rent a scooter. There are charging stations for cars and recycling stations everywhere. So, there are no excuses not to take part in this green wave.”

Just about everything is recycled here. From soda cans and plastic water bottles to heat-trapping greenhouse gasses like methane.

Sigurdarson walked up to the top of a grassy hill just outside town that used to be Akureyri’s main landfill.

“Under here we have cars, animals, jeans, everything,” he said.

The landfill is not obvious, but for the dozens of black pipes sticking up from the ground.

One of dozens of pipes sunk into Akureyri’s old, buried landfill channels methane gas for use as a fuel for local busses. The methane would otherwise leach out into the atmosphere over time.

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Gerry Hadden/The World

The pipes capture the tons of rising methane that would otherwise escape into the atmosphere over time. Instead, the greenhouse gas gets pumped to a storage station for refinement as a fuel to run the town’s buses. Free buses, to boot. As Sigurdarson might say, there’s no excuse not to use them.

Methane captured from the town landfill is pumped to processing stations and converted into fuel for all of Akureyri’s public buses. Which are free to ride.

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Gerry Hadden/The World

Same goes for Akureyri’s cooking oil recycling bins. The drop-off points are everywhere. The oil gets turned into biodiesel for ships.

One of several cooking-oil recycling bins around Akureyri. The idea is to make it so easy to recycle that no one has an excuse to not do it.

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Gerry Hadden/The World

In fact, nothing organic in Akureyri goes to waste. Uneaten food, grass clippings, even animal carcasses get turned into compost.

“Today these are horses and pigs,” said Christian Olaffsson, who runs the local composting plant. He was pointing to a long conveyor belt piled with animal remains. It all gets mixed with wood chips and grass and other materials, then stored outside for months before being given away — again, for free — to anyone who wants it.

The smell is overpoweringly pungent, but Olafsson said he got used to it.

Christian Olaffsson runs Akureyri’s composting plant.

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Gerry Hadden/The World

The composting plant, the last stop on Sigurdarson’s green tour, seems to embody what Akureyri’s shooting for.

“We talk about the plant as a climate hero,” Sigurdarson said. Because for every 1 kilo that goes in, it reduces our emissions by 1 kilo of CO2.”

In other words, carbon neutrality. But the second of the two things slowing Akureyri’s progress toward that goal are the gas-guzzling cars.

There are some 16,000 of them in town, Sigurdarson said. That’s about two per licensed driver. Getting people to go electric is proving tough, despite all the charging stations, because electric vehicles are expensive.

And besides, Akureyri has a deeply rooted, old-fashioned car culture. In fact, there’s a parade every Wednesday when dozens of guys in vintage vehicles gather along the fjord and then roll out for a slow cruise — creating a lot of noise and exhaust.

Akureyri’s biggest challenge to going carbon neutral is cars. The town has a deeply rooted car culture. Each Wednesday night owners of vintage —and fossil-fuel-guzzling — vehicles parade them around town. The exhaust can be overwhelming.

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Gerry Hadden/The World

One driver said he felt too old to consider switching to an electric vehicle.

“I am 66 years old. Maybe I’ll be buried in a car like this,” he said.

That’s hardly the voice of a green revolution.

But to be fair, the vintage car fellows are a small group of people.

And Akureyri did have a milestone to celebrate around this year’s summer solstice: The number of electric vehicles registered in the town hit 1,000.

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The city of Saint-Louis, in northern Senegal, is grappling with a dire reality: rising sea levels.

The former administrative capital of French West Africa, Saint-Louis sits between the Senegal River and the Atlantic Ocean. Its highest point stands just 13 feet above sea level, and it gets waves from both fresh and seawater that have become a growing threat.

Fishing is one of the main industries in Saint-Louis. But the city’s fishing village of Guet Ndar is now on the verge of disappearing.

“We had to walk very far to reach the ocean, but now we have it right in front of our houses.”

Cheikh Badiane, retired fisherman

“Growing up, what we used to see is not what we're seeing today,” said Cheikh Badiane, a retired fisherman who grew up in the neighborhood and still lives there with his children and grandchildren. “We had to walk very far to reach the ocean, but now we have it right in front of our houses.”

Several decades ago, Badiane recalled, the water was half a mile away. Now, it washes up to the houses on the shore, sometimes seeping through the windows.

In 2018, a high-tide event destroyed many houses, mosques and schools in Guet Ndar. About 1,500 people were forced to move to Diougop, a displacement camp funded by the United Nations that’s 5 miles away inland. Most of them still live there.

Back in 2018, a school was destroyed by a high-tide event on the coast of Saint-Louis, Senegal.

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Maria Elena Romero/The World

All the tents at the camp look identical, with white walls, a blue roof and little plastic windows. There are a few trees and everything is surrounded by sand.

“We are here, but that's not what we truly want. We really miss the beachside,” said Sailo Boufal, a mother who has lived in the camp with her kids for four years, after their house was destroyed.

She said the relentless heat is the worst part of it.

“We don't have electricity. We are already dead because of the heat, nobody can go in the tents before 10 p.m.”

Sailo Boufal, a mother at the displacement camp who says she and her kids miss the beachside, lies down on the floor of a grocery shop where she works.

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Maria Elena Romero/The World

Boufal said she doesn’t see a future for her family at the camp, even if the government builds new houses for them. So, she said she’s considering getting on a smuggling boat and trying to make it to the Canary Islands, in Spain, like many of her neighbors have already done.

Cheik Badiane, a retired fisherman in the vibrant fishing village of Guet Ndar.

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Maria Elena Romero/The World

And even though retired fisherman Badiane’s house was not destroyed at the time, he and his neighbors have received notice from local authorities warning them that they might also have to relocate soon.

Badiane said, though, that he’s reluctant to leave.

“We have decided to become a coalition and stand strong against the government who wants to take us away from here,” he said. “This is all we know, and all we have.”

But Mandaw Gueye, director of the Regional Agency for Development in Saint-Louis, said that in the next few years, about 15,000 more fishermen and their families are expected to move into the area close to the Diougop camp.

“Even if they don’t want to,” he stressed.

He said the government is building a more permanent housing solution there, and arranging to provide shuttle buses for fishermen to reach the coast.

There are also plans to build a new sea wall, scheduled to be completed by 2050, after previous ones failed to prevent floodwaters from reaching the village.

But that might be too late.

It's estimated that in West Africa, over 40 million people in these lowest-lying zones, will be exposed to sea level rises by 2030 — less than a decade away.

The sea walls that have been previously built have not been effective in preventing flooding and erosion.

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Maria Elena Romero/The World

Natural barriers at riskSome of the biggest and fastest-growing cities in African countries are on the coasts and vulnerable to rising seas, said Mark Duerksen, a researcher with the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, and an expert on urbanization on the continent.

“It's an open question whether they will all survive and find strategies to host all the people who want to live and work along these bustling shorelines.”

The Diougop camp, where some 1,500 people were displaced by sea level rise, is surrounded by sand.

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Maria Elena Romero/The World

Frequent flooding, storms and coastal erosion are also destroying natural barriers like wetlands, coastal dunes and barrier islands, which create more vulnerability to sea level rise.

“This is compounded in many African cities where there are relatively weak environmental protections and significant shortages of existing and affordable housing,” Duerksen added.

The United Nations predicts that, over the next couple of decades, around 200 million people could be displaced as a result of flooding and shoreline erosion. The situation is particularly bad in West Africa, where a large percentage of the population lives on the Atlantic shore.

Many young people in Saint-Louis have decided to leave for Europe by sea. "No Barca-Barsak" is a common phrase written on walls and ships in the fishing village of Guet Ndar. It roughly translates to “Don’t go to Barcelona because you will end up in the cemetery.”

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Maria Elena Romero/The World

An important cultural legacy that is also threatened by rising seas in Saint-Louis is the city center — a UNESCO World Heritage site, full of colorful architecture, where important jazz and dance festivals take place every year. It includes historical buildings from the 19th and early 20th centuries, which could all disappear with the rising waves.

Local journalist Borso Tall contributed to this story.

Related: Is it time for Senegal to end its romance with the French baguette?

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It’s known as the “Blue Blob”: a mysterious patch of cold water in the North Atlantic Ocean. It’s just a dot in an otherwise vast, and warming, sea.

But the blob has caught the attention of scientists. The cold water is bringing colder weather to Greenland and Iceland, and slowing the melting of their glaciers — at least temporarily. One of Iceland’s largest glaciers is the majestic Langjökull, located about an hour and a half from the capital, Reykjavik.

About 10% of Iceland is still covered by glaciers — what Icelanders call their “white diamonds.”

On the drive up, the ice looks like a great white wave floating between the earth and sky — immense, immaculate and mesmerizing. Langjökull draws tens of thousands of visitors a year, many of whom arrive on tour buses that speed along the rough volcanic track towards the glacier’s base camp.

Millions of tourists come to base camps like this one, at Langjökull, to hike on the glaciers. About 10% of Iceland is still covered in ice.

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Gerry Hadden/The World

The Shah and Chakore families recently visited the area from South Carolina. They’re originally from northern India near the Himalayas, so they know about the importance of glaciers.

“Well, if they all melt it will be a disaster, obviously,” Chandray Shah said.

“If the glaciers are melting,” said Haman Chakore, “the whole world will be underwater.”

In fact, Iceland’s glaciers began melting a long time ago, going back at least to 1890 when ice melt was first measured. From then through 2019, Langjökull lost 29% of its mass.

Langjökull looms like a white wave over Iceland’s volcanic landscape.

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Gerry Hadden/The World

But there may be a glimmer of hope for this so-called Blue Blob region, an area of ocean water more than one degree cooler than the North Atlantic average temperature. That might not sound like a lot, but glaciologist Guðfinna Aðalgeirsdóttir said it matters. The colder water is lowering the air temperatures on land.

“From 1995 to 2010, we had about a meter of the surface thickness of the glaciers disappearing every year,” Aðalgeirsdóttir said. “And after 2010, at the same time as this Blue Blob was appearing, this rate of mass loss actually decreased” by about half. “So, we see that the glaciers actually sense this cooling effect of this Blue Blob.”

People in Iceland have also sensed the cooling temperature.

“We see a rise in people buying warmer clothes later in the year,” said Johannes Johannesson, a salesman at a camping store in Reykjavik. “People are still buying jackets in June.”

He said, though, that he’d never heard of the Blue Blob.

Glacial run-off feeds Iceland’s rivers and hydroelectric plants. The Blue Blob, a mysterious body of cold water in the North Atlantic, has brought colder weather to shore slowing the ice’s melt.

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Gerry Hadden/The World

Slowing glacial meltScientists know little about where the Blue Blob came from. But scientific modeling suggests it will be around for a while, said glaciologist Aðalgeirsdóttir, though not for long. She also stressed that it’s not completely halting glacial melt, just slowing down the rate of loss.

“So, this is like a regional North Atlantic effect,” she said, “that slows down the mass loss of the Icelandic glaciers until about 2050. And after that, it picks up again.”

Cristian Eli Gunnarsson, who is a guide on the Langjökull glacier, has seen the retreat of the frozen giants firsthand. Since 2020, he said, this glacier has retreated a full mile, leaving just a rocky plain behind.

Across the vast plain are a bunch of metal sign posts marking the years where the ice once was as it retreated: 1940, 1960, 1980. It’s a timeline of loss — and it’s accelerating.

“The distance between the 1940 and 1960 [glacial melt] lines is the same distance from the 2020 sign to today. So, it is now 10 times faster. Which is ridiculous.”

Cristian Eli Gunnarsson, a guide on the Langjökull glacier

“The distance between the 1940 and 1960 lines is the same distance from the 2020 sign to today,” Gunnarsson said. “So, it is now 10 times faster. Which is ridiculous.”

A series of signs marking where the Langjökull glacier once stood form a timeline of loss, as the ice retreats due to global warming.

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Gerry Hadden/The World

He wondered how much time the Blue Blob is really buying them. And these days, he said that when he takes groups of people up on the ice, they find something different.

“It’s like walking in wet sugar,” he explained.

He’s worried he may be out of work soon, saying that tourists aren’t likely to come for a slog through the slush.

Related: How the Trump administration's climate denial left its mark on the Arctic Council

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Ali Abbas Hasan has been a wheat farmer in southern Iraq for two decades. Each year, he planted his crops in the fall, and would need to water them four times a day.

Year after year, he said, water became more scarce. His only source was the water coming from two major rivers in Iraq: the Tigris and Euphrates, which run from the north to the south of the country.

Hasan made it work for a while, but he said recently the lack of usable water for his crops became so bad, he decided to sell his farm.

“I loved farming,” he said. “It’s beautiful work. It’s hard to suddenly lose what you worked so hard for.”

Hasan is not the only farmer who has sold his land in recent months. He knows several others who have done the same. Because no water means no crops and no income.

Iraq's Ministry of Water Resources has warned that the country is facing its worst water shortage in a century. It said 7 million people are experiencing reduced access to water. Shrinking water levels, rampant salinity and contamination have left communities with no choice but to migrate.

For centuries, people living in what’s now the state of Iraq have relied on the Tigris and Euphrates, and they are still vital for millions of people. In 2016, the United Nations named the marshes of southern Iraq a UNESCO World Heritage Site. But this ecosystem is in danger, and experts are worried.

“The Tigris and Euphrates will be completely dry by 2040,” Iraqi water expert Jamal Ibrahim al-Halbousi warned on television last month. “I don’t think Iraqi leaders really understand. This is the end of Iraq as a country, as a civilization. Iraq won’t exist without its two rivers.”

Environmental activist Laith Ahmed shared a video that shows a man riding a boat in Iraq’s marshes — in the floodplains between the Tigris and Euphrates — where a thick layer of dead fish is floating on top.

“Our boat is sailing through dead fish,” the man said in the video, adding, “What a shame, what a shame.”

Ahmed said when he sees videos like these, his heart breaks. He explained that people of Iraq’s marshlands, known as the Marsh Arabs, have fished, farmed and raised water buffalos for centuries.

But their troubles began in the 1990s when the government of Saddam Hussein drained large swaths of the marshlands to punish the people for rebelling against him.

A series of canals diverted the water, drying up 90% of the marshes and displacing thousands of people. Over the years, the marshlands have slowly started to recover. But today, the region’s people face a new ecological disaster.

“When they lose the water, they cannot live anymore because they are losing their buffaloes. So, they moved from the marshlands to other cities,” Ahmed explained.

This week, the United Nations cautioned that southern Iraq is experiencing its worst heat wave in four decades. Their water levels have dropped significantly as well, it added.

Ahmed Bayram of the Norwegian Refugee Council, listed several factors that contribute to Iraq’s water crisis, including extreme heat waves, low rainfall and two decades of war that destroyed Iraq’s water infrastructure.

Making things worse is the construction of dams in neighboring Iran and Turkey.

“These farming communities around the marshes have been there for centuries,” Bayram said. “Generation after generation have kept that land, have looked after that land. These families are now rethinking their future and that’s what really worries us: when people leave their land.”

When farmers leave, he added, Iraqis across the country suffer because lack of farming will lead to food insecurity.

Last year, Bayram and his team found that some farmers in southern Iraq had lost up to 90% of their harvests.

The water situation is not much better in cities.

“The tap water is not usable unless you are using it to wash clothes or something like this,” said 39-year-old Zuhair Muhammad, who lives in Basra in southern Iraq, and relies on bottled water for drinking and cooking.

Muhammad, who lives alone, spends about $7-$10 on bottled water per week. He can afford it, but many others can’t. That’s why people are moving to other parts of the country in search of better access to clean water.

Meanwhile, as Iraq dries up and as the impacts of climate change makes life more difficult, people like Ahmed are trying to raise awareness about protecting the environment by posting on social media.

“I’m in love with nature,” Ahmed said. “I want to be part of saving this nature and the biodiversity in Iraq.”

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It was a bright June day in Berlin, and four ultralight solar panels lining the front of a balcony were soaking up the sun. They were hanging from velcro straps just below some flower boxes.

This balcony was at the office of We Do Solar, where co-founder Karolina Attspodina was showing her product: easy-to-install, plug-and-play at-home solar.

“Anyone can actually put it up on their balcony, whether they're tech-savvy or not,” she said, pointing to an extension cord. “And everything works from a normal power socket.”

On a sunny day, these panels can meet about a quarter of an average household’s energy needs. That means, in the long run, huge cuts to energy bills.

In February 2022, We Do Solar launched its product in Germany, and early interest was strong. Then, just a few days later, Russia invaded Ukraine.

“As soon as, I think, the war started, people really panicked,” Attspodina said. “The demand just went sky high. We were sold out for quite some time.”

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year upended energy markets throughout Europe. But no country was hit harder than Germany. At the time, more than half of Germany’s gas came from Russia. The country had to double down on fossil fuels in the short term: keeping coal-fired power plants open longer and building new liquefied natural gas terminals. But in the long term, the war pushed a government falling behind on renewable energy goals to enact some ambitious new policies. Some of those changes are going well, but they face headwinds elsewhere.

For many individuals, soaring gas prices meant bringing solar power home. For the federal government, it meant a new renewable energy target: getting all of the country’s electricity from renewable sources by 2035. To make that happen, Germany adopted a new set of ambitious energy policies last spring. That included removing value-added taxes on solar panels, which has kept We Do Solar busy. Attspodina, who’s Ukrainian, sees these policies as a silver lining to the war.

“Sometimes I feel like something needs to happen for people to move and for people to change.”

Karolina Attspodina, co-founder of We Do Solar

“It is unfortunate that it happened in [the] way that this shift is happening because of the war and because of such a sad situation,” Attspodina said. “But sometimes I feel like something needs to happen for people to move and for people to change. And that's exactly what we're seeing right now.”

Germany’s new energy policy also classified switching to renewable energy as a matter of public safety that can override other public interests, like preserving views that are in place. That means that the government has new power to mandate changes. One being discussed now is requiring electricity-based heat pumps instead of gas boilers in new or updated heating systems.

Henrik Beuster, a spokesperson at the city’s grid operator, Stromnetz Berlin, said switching to heat pumps is necessary to reach Germany’s climate goals. But the policy has been extremely controversial, partly because heat pumps are expensive.

“In Germany, in general, we are not so flexible when it comes to change,” Buster said. “This is something where people said, ‘Okay, I have to do something, and it will be expensive for me.’ So, I think this is what people might fear.”

Beuster said that politicians should take a lesson from the success of solar and offer citizens incentives to opt in. Berlin, for example, is offering a 500 Euro credit for installing at-home solar. By not forcing people but rather offering them an incentive to save money, Beuster said that people would be more willing to make the switch for themselves.

As part of its new renewable energy policy, Germany is also betting big on wind power: In the next decade, they plan to double their onshore wind capacity. That means that outside of cities, the German landscape is undergoing a transformation.

Just two hours from Berlin lies the tiny village of Feldheim: Germany’s first energy-self-sufficient town. After the end of the Cold War, this former communist farm collective decided to pool its resources toward a new shared goal: wind production. By 2010, the town of only 125 people was entirely energy-self-sufficient. Now, they’ve expanded their operations, and residents are reaping the benefits — paying a tiny fraction of the market price for their electricity, and earning a fraction of what’s sold on the national market.

Past acres of massive wind turbines, tour guide Kathleen Thompson says that since the town bought its first turbine in 1995, it’s added 54 more that help keep the lights on throughout Germany.

“We use less than 1% of the electricity that’s being generated here in Feldheim,” Thompson said.

For Germany to reach its goals, more places need to look like Feldheim. The government has committed to covering 2% of its land in wind power by 2032. That may not sound like a lot, but it would more than double the current capacity. But rural Germans have protested the wind intrusion in most nearby towns and nationwide. With hundreds of lawsuits stalling projects, the federal government will likely use its newly mandated power to push wind through.

However, Feldheim’s mayor Michael Knape says there’s another way: If towns can lead their own change, everyone benefits. In the 1990s, he said, it wasn’t so bureaucratic or expensive for a town to produce its own power. Starting in the mid-2010s, new regulations meant a shift in ownership from local citizens to large corporations.

“We chose the right time period with the right laws in place,” Knape said. “I don’t think that if we started today, Feldheim could afford to do the same.”

To Knape, getting local buy-in should mean letting citizens actually buy in. Whether that’s sharing ownership, like in Feldheim, or at least paying neighbors for building near their land.

Germany may be learning that lesson. Its updated renewable energy policy includes new incentives and protections for community-owned renewables. And the government is simplifying the approval process for wind, solar and other projects.

As German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in a speech last year, the country sees “Putin’s war” as an “accelerator of necessary change.”

Related: Renewable energy seen as an answer to Ukraine’s wartime energy woes

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​​Last fall, Oscar Olivares completed what he said is one of the world’s largest ecological murals made entirely out of bottle caps, in Guatire, Venezuela.

It’s 385 square meters, made out of 400,000 bottle caps and took about three months to complete, according to the 26-year-old visual artist from Caracas.

Olivares' mural features colorful birds, including the macaw, found throughout South America.

Credit:

Courtesy of Oscar Olivares

The endeavor would not have happened without community investment — residents of Guatire and neighboring towns collected over 1 million bottle caps for the project and also helped him complete the mural.

In the process, Olivares was able to educate residents on the importance of recycling. He said that there is no real education or policies about living a sustainable lifestyle, so his bottle cap projects have led to more people wanting to recycle and be part of his work.

The World caught up with Olivares to learn how he does it and how fighting climate change is a community effort.

Carol Hills: Oscar, you started your career as an illustrator. Were you already interested in bottle caps as a way to make art, or did you think of them when you started thinking about pointillism and how to replicate that?Oscar Olivares: Well, it was a mixture of a lot of things. I received a proposal from a municipality in Caracas, and they had a lot of bottle caps they had collected, but they didn't know what to do with them. They wanted to make something with art, but they didn't know anything about what could be done with that. And they told me about that. At first, I was thinking about it, but, you know, I wasn't too interested in the project until I went to this museum in France. At the first moment, I thought we were just going to make one mural. When I returned to Caracas, I just took a lot of bottle caps, threw them on the floor, and said, ‘If I can make an eye, we can make everything with bottle caps.’ This is the kind of art that when you are very close to it, you just see the bottle caps of the brands, some bottle caps [are] very ugly or very dirty because they come from the trash, you know. But when you walk a few steps far from the mural, you can see all the art. So, it was a result of a proposal from this municipality, but also because of this visit to the museum that changed my mind about it.

Olivares said that he received over one million bottle caps donations from residents of Gautire, Venezuela and surrounding states. Many people became interested in his project and were looking for ways to learn how to properly recycle.

Credit:

Courtesy of Oscar Olivares

Walk us through the process of planning a mural. How do you know how many bottle caps you'll need? How many different colors? And how do you design them?The first [thing] I need is the size of the wall. With the size of the wall, I know how many bottle caps. In one square meter, you need 1,100 bottle caps. With that, I begin to make the design of the mural. In the design, I have to think about what kind of colors I'm going to find to make these kinds of murals. Because, for example, in Venezuela, you can find more than 16 different tones of blue. That's not common in other countries. For example, in Mexico, you will find more tones of green.

Oscar Olivares

Credit:

Isaac Paniza

Now, one of your murals, you say, is the largest eco mural in the world, and it's made completely out of bottle caps. Tell us about it.Yeah, that's a mural that is in Guatire. It's a town that is 30 minutes by car from Caracas. [The mural] has more than 400,000 bottle caps. In three months, the community of Guatire collected more than 1 million bottle caps for this mural; we have even bottle caps for more projects in the future. It was an amazing experience. I thought it was going to take us more than three months, but the people were so willing to help us. There were days when more than 100 people volunteered to help us with the mural.

Olivares and volunteers are surrounded by the recycled bottle caps that they used to build a colorful mural in Guatire, Venezuela.

Credit:

Courtesy of Oscar Olivares

And what is this mural design of?We have a lot of things because it's very large — 90 meters long. We have the Parranda de San Pedro, which has some people dancing with flags and colors. Then we have four macaws; they’re very beautiful birds with a lot of colors. [They’re] very typical in Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia and the Amazon. After that, we have the troupial, Venezuela's national bird. We have a landscape of the mountains of Guatire, and at the end of the mural, there is the planet Earth because I think this kind of art is not just something for Venezuela, for the kids who are making it, but for the world.

Olivares paid tribute to Venezuela's national bird, the troupial when creating his eco-mural.

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Courtesy of Oscar Olivares

When people recycle bottles in the US, they tend to throw out bottle caps. I'm wondering, is that the case in Venezuela? And is your art, too, kind of a way to tell people, ‘No, don't throw out those bottle caps, save them, and we're going to use them for art.’Yes. Yes. It's very interesting because, in Venezuela, there are very few policies about recycling and very [little] information about how to recycle. There are a lot of people who want to recycle more, but they don't know how to do it. And the murals have been a very good way to collect the bottle caps in every place we go. For example, there are, and there have been murals in Caracas [where] people from another state have sent the bottle caps to help us in the mural.

With volunteers' help, Oscar Olivares completed a 90-meter-long ecological mural made completely of recycled bottle caps. The bottle caps otherwise may have been thrown in the trash. According to Olivares, there are no hardline recycling policies in the country, and many don't know the proper way how to recycle. His project has fostered conversations that are helping lead to sustainable practices.

Credit:

Courtesy of Oscar Olivares

Do you have any future eco murals planned?It's very interesting and exciting because I plan to make the first eco-mural in the US. I'm going to announce it very soon. We also have plans to make some in Panama, Italy and a lot more in Venezuela. We have maybe more than 10 murals confirmed for the next two years. The most special thing is that it's not made just by an artist. It's by the people who collect the bottle caps. That is really taking consciousness about the Earth and recycling.

A mural by Venezuelan artist Oscar Olivares which is set to expand to the floor.

Credit:

Courtesy of Oscar Olivares

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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Last fall and winter, Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure knocked out more than half of the country’s capacity to generate electricity. According to UN estimates, the average Ukrainian household spent five of the final 12 weeks of 2022 without power.

Generators helped keep the lights on in many homes and businesses, but they were noisy, susceptible to breakdown and required a steady supply of diesel to keep them humming along.

“At some point, too many of those generators came to Ukraine,” said Andrii Korol from the Energy Act for Ukraine foundation. “You walk on the street, it’s like a street of generators.”

Widespread blackouts are over for now, but Korol and others in Ukraine say the increased focus on energy security has raised interest and demand for renewable energy.

Energy Act for Ukraine, which launched last April, is outfitting schools and hospitals with what it sees as a better alternative to generators: backup batteries that are charged by solar panels. The foundation aims to deploy 150 of these systems in Ukraine and has completed projects at two hospitals and one school so far.

The school, which serves more than 2,000 students in the city of Irpin, was “able to function non-stop” through the winter thanks to the solar panels on the school’s blue corrugated metal roof, according to director Ivan Ptashnyk.

Solar panels are seen on the school’s blue metal roof.

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Anastasia Vlasova/The World

“There were in-person classes during winter, during blackouts, where students were in classes and were using power thanks to the solar panels,” Ptashnyk told The World through an interpreter earlier this summer.

The rooftop solar panels charge up a bank of batteries in the school’s basement that can meet the school’s critical energy needs for the eight-hour school day, Ptashnyk said, including powering lights in classrooms, the basement bomb shelter and the internet.

The school also has a generator, but the solar energy, Ptashnyk said, is free.

“We don’t pay a dime for it, and this is our future.”

Ptashnyk is not alone in that view.

Ivan Ptashnyk happily shows off the "free" solar energy that keeps his school running.

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Anastasia Vlasova/The World

The Ukrainian government outlined ambitious targets for renewables last year in its national recovery plan. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the country will become “a leader in building modern green energy.”

DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private power producer headed by Alexander Selischev, is also touting its small but growing renewables business.

“Now we understand, especially after this winter, that energy matters,” Selischev said. “And more and more, our authorities, investors, general public understand that energy security and renewables, it’s like the same.”

All eight of DTEK’s traditional thermal power-generating stations have been damaged by Russian strikes or occupation, according to Selischev.

Most of the country’s wind turbines are currently in occupied territory, but at least renewables can be more dispersed, Selischev said, less centralized and vulnerable to attack.

“It’s much harder to destroy thousands of turbines than destroy one thermal block,” Selischev said. “So, it’s more safe.”

A bomb shelter at the school.

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Anastasia Vlasova/The World

The company recently finished construction on the first phase of a new wind farm in southeastern Ukraine, just 60 miles from the front lines. It produces enough energy to power a small city, and Selischev said that completing it amid frequent air attacks sends an important message.

“We believe that our industry, our country, has a future, and we continue construction,” he said.

The Ukrainian government is seeking to align itself more closely with Europe, including its energy sector. But it would need to roughly double its prewar renewable energy capacity to bring it up to the European average. So far, it’s rare to see solar panels on a rooftop in Ukraine, “but that’s already started to change,” said Hanna Rutkovska, a renewable energy expert at a leading Ukrainian environmental organization called EcoAction.

Rutkovska told The World that interest in renewables has spiked since the full-scale invasion started.

“And I think that it changed because people who had money said, ‘Okay, I actually can give these high upfront costs, but I will have [an] energy supply during disruption,’” she said. “‘It will make my life normal — I want to work,’ and renewables became this option for people.”

EcoAction is offering grants to organizations launching renewable energy and energy efficiency projects. It has seen a strong demand for applications. It’s also installed solar panels and a heat pump at a hospital outside of Kyiv.

“I think that during the recovery, we’ll see much more of these projects,” she said.

But to translate these small projects into a national energy transition, Rutkovska believes the national government needs to make clear whether it’s prioritizing renewables over other power sources as it seeks international funding to rebuild.

“We are talking a lot about it, and we see the Ukrainian government talking a lot about it,” Rutkovska said of a renewable-fueled recovery. “But we also need actions, and we need a clear plan and roadmap in our head.”

Some more details emerged last week during a conference at which Ukraine courted international funding for rebuilding in London. The Ministry of Energy announced new targets for expanded wind, solar and energy storage capacity by 2050. But Rutkovska said the government still hasn’t released the kind of renewable energy roadmap that experts like her are watching for.

Related: A year of war in Ukraine: A timeline of key moments

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Trigidia Jiménez was born in an Indigenous village in the Andean mountains of Bolivia at 14,000 feet above sea level.

She grew up in a family of farmers, and she loved working the land.

But like many others in her town, she moved to the Bolivian capital in search of new opportunities and eventually became an agricultural engineer.

She worked and got married, but after 15 years of being in the city, she realized she wanted to return to the mountains.

“I needed to be in touch with the sun, fresh air and work our land,” Jiménez told The World over Zoom.

Trigidia Jiménez said that her ancestors would eat a cup of cañahua for breakfast every day, similar to the way one eats oatmeal.

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Courtesy of Trigidia Jiménez

Back in the Andes, she started thinking about an ancestral green that was almost extinct — cañahua.

It's similar to the quinoa plant and virtually unknown outside of Bolivia and Peru.

“That's what our ancestors used to eat every day. A cup of cañahua for breakfast,” Jiménez said. “We make it like oatmeal.”

Cañahua is "nutritious, high in protein, amino acids and iron.” It has also proven to be very adaptable to climate change, according to Jiménez. Despite unusual and extreme weather conditions, the crop can grow “everywhere around here,” she said.

Jiménez started small, with about an acre of land, producing enough grain for just one family. Two decades later, cañahua is being produced on approximately 5,000 acres.

Bolivia's government offers subsidies to low-income families to buy cañahua, and that's helped build the market.

“Now, this crop provides a source of income for 1,500 families,” she said.

A need for crop diversityAs climate change impacts agriculture in many parts of the world, the need for crop diversity is becoming more urgent.

“We realized that we've been reliant on too few food crops,” Jeff Maughan, a professor of molecular genetics at Brigham Young University in Utah, told The World.

He said it’s a scary idea to just be reliant on five or six plant species when you start to think about diseases or changes in the weather.

“It'd be like having a portfolio for your 401K, but only had five stocks in it,” he said. “Nobody would do that. You need to spread that security.”

Twenty years ago, Maughan and other researchers at BYU got interested in quinoa as a higher protein crop for subsistence farmers in the Andean region. At the time, he recalled, people would ask him, “What is quinoa?”

Today, quinoa is everywhere — from your favorite supermarket to fancy restaurants. Maughan and his team have successfully introduced the South American grain in Morocco, Rwanda and Saudi Arabia.

“It's important to learn from Indigenous communities about foods they've been producing for thousands of years,” said Juan Gonzalez, an expert in sustainable development at Columbia University.

He said that we’re learning from how it's been done during most of human history so that we go back to that.

Cañihua is a nutritious grain originating from the Andes, now with over 200 varieties. It is often likened to the quinoa plant.

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Courtesy of Trigidia Jiménez

“And what I mean by go back is not that everyone has their own plot of land and start producing their own food,” Gonzalez said. “That's not the society we live in, but rather learn from the techniques that are being used by more traditional communities and understand that there's value in that.”

Trigidia Jiménez earned international recognition for helping to revive cañahua cultivation.

“Cañahua made me a stronger woman," she said. “Powerful and happy.”

It's also helped sustain the local communities where it's produced.

Jiménez is now looking at ways to expand her business and export the ancient grain to the United States.

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Half Moon Bay is probably the most famous beach in Antigua and Barbuda. But on a gorgeous day in late May, it was completely empty. The only person on the sand was a tractor worker, removing sargassum, a type of seaweed that was covering the whole beach.

“We got to do what we got to do,” said Avery Henry, the owner of Beach Bum Bar and Grill, a restaurant right at the beach. “In Florida now they are crying, and we have been crying for ages. But now they are starting to feel what we are feeling.”

Avery Henry, the owner of Beach Bum Bar and Grill on Half Moon Bay, said tourists get here and turn around after they see the sargassum covering the sand.

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Gisele Regatão/The World

Those planning a Caribbean trip this summer better check the sargassum forecast. This seaweed has been growing in excessive amounts in the Caribbean since 2011, and now growing in Mexico and parts of Florida, as well. Earlier this year, scientists detected a record bloom.

In late May, the only person at Half Moon Bay in Antigua was a tractor worker, removing sargassum that was covering the whole beach.

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Gisele Regatão/The World

On many islands, locals like Henry have to cope with piles of the macroalgae on the sand — and its stinky smell — which sometimes leaves his restaurant totally empty. Tourists get here and turn around, he said, which is a huge contrast from a few years ago.

“At one point, Half Moon Bay was ranked top five in the world,” Henry said.

Avery Henry, the owner of Beach Bum Bar and Grill on Half Moon Bay, was dealing with an empty restaurant as sargassum filled the sand.

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Gisele Regatão/The World

In the ocean, sargassum is an important nutrient for fish and other sea animals. The problem is when it gets to the beach. As it decomposes, it attracts bacteria and produces a gas that smells like rotten eggs.

Nobody is certain about what brought sargassum to the Caribbean 12 years ago, according to Chuanmin Hu, an oceanography professor at the University of South Florida. “As of today, it's still a mystery,” he said. “But there are some hypotheses, some of which are more plausible than others.”

One viable hypothesis is that, in 2010, there was an ocean current much stronger than usual. It came from the northern Atlantic and pushed sargassum to the tropical Atlantic, where it found perfect conditions to grow. “Light, nutrients, temperature,” Hu said. “In the tropical Atlantic, everything is just right. So, we started to see more and more sargassum.”

Hu’s team detected a record amount of sargassum in the Caribbean in March.

“I was a little scared, because I know the worst is yet to come in the summer,” he said. The May report showed a drop, but Hu said sargassum is still going to be all over the Caribbean, Mexico and parts of Florida, particularly in June and July.

In the ocean, sargassum is an important nutrient for fish, but when it gets to the beach it decomposes, attracts bacteria and produces a bad smell.

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Gisele Regatão/The World

Local authorities can try to collect sargassum in the ocean using boats, he said, but that’s expensive.

“It's hundreds of miles. It's not just a local thing. So, there's no way to stop this phenomenon in nature. This is just like, nobody can really stop a hurricane,” he said.

A few miles from Half Moon Bay, another beach on the island of Antigua was sargassum-free last month.

Fabio Giorgi, the general manager of The Inn at English Harbor, said that at this beach, Freeman’s Bay, it only comes about three times a year.

“You can see even today, there is some out there, there is some brown,” he said, pointing to dark puddles in the ocean. “But they don’t come in, they keep going up, so we are lucky.”

In Freeman’s Bay, also in Antigua, sargassum is a rare appearance, and locals say it only appears on the beach about three times a year.

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Gisele Regatão/The World

When the seaweed does come in, Giorgi said, they can call the environmental department to do the cleaning, but they take care of it themselves. The process takes about three days.

“We clean, but there is still some in the sea when that happens, so then you need to wait until the next day for them to come up,” he said.

While the sargassum keeps coming, local communities are also finding new uses for it. According to Hu, it can be used as fertilizer, and other things.

“A lot of people make bricks, construction material from sargassum, and they make shoes, or even clothes,” he said.

Hu said there might be some pharmaceutical use for sargassum as well, but research is in development.

But for most of the Caribbean, there is still no remedy for it.

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On a bright spring day, Ayyad Mohmmed Ali stood at the edge of his farm, facing a row of about a dozen new construction sites nearby. A river separated his farm and the buildings.

“It’s really painful to see this,” he said. “In Iraq, we don’t like to build vertically and now, you’re seeing all these lands being turned into buildings.”

Mohmmed Ali has planted date palm trees and vegetables at his boostan, which is Arabic for grove, for the past three decades.

This green bit of land is his sanctuary, he explained. It’s where he comes to escape the noise and pollution of the capital Baghdad, a city of roughly 8 million people.

Ayyad Mohmmed Ali says his palm tree grove is his sanctuary, where he can escape the noise and pollution of Baghdad, a city of roughly 8 million people.

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Shawn Yuan/The World

In the early 1980s, Iraq had an estimated 30 million palm trees. It used to be among the top producers of dates in the world. But war, construction and the impact of climate change have taken a toll. By 2009, there were fewer than 9 million date palms left in the country.

“This is like the hair of the Iraqi desert and we’re watching the Iraqi landscape go bald with the stresses of war,”

Kali Rubaii, assistant professor, Department of Anthropology, Purdue University

“This is like the hair of the Iraqi desert and we’re watching the Iraqi landscape go bald with the stresses of war,” said Kali Rubaii, who teaches anthropology at Purdue University, and has researched the environmental impacts of war in Iraq.

As part of her research, Rubaii interviewed date farmers who were displaced after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and she said the lack of date farming told a story of dispossession.

Iraq used to be among the top producers of dates in the world, but war, construction and the impact of climate change have taken a toll on the country's palm trees.

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Shawn Yuan/The World

Palm trees need consistent care: watering, pruning and fertilizing. And when farmers had to leave, the trees suffered.

“So many people are forced to sell their land for very cheap and, oftentimes, farmers have found themselves working on land that they used to own,” Rubaii explained.

Iraq has also been getting hotter and drier. According to the UN, it is the fifth-most vulnerable country to the impacts of climate change.

“There’s a section of the southern part of Baghdad, if you drive through, you can see a lot of trees that look like they’ve been decapitated,” Rubaii added, “because sometimes when trees die, they keel over or, if they’re not surviving, sometimes they get cut from the top.”

Making matters worse is Iraq’s construction boom — especially in bigger cities like Baghdad. It means that more farmers are choosing to cut down palm trees entirely to make way for building projects.

More farmers in Iraq are choosing to cut down palm trees to make way for building projects.

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Shawn Yuan/The World

“The farms have a problem,” explained Labeeb Kashif al-Gitta, “there is no water, there is no commercial income from this farm, so I cut the palm trees and I build buildings instead and get more profits.”

Labeeb Kashif al-Gitta created the startup Nakhla with some friends in 2018 to help landowners maintain their palm trees.

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Labeeb Kashif al-Gitta/The World

In 2018, Gitta and a few of his friends came up with an idea to help address the problem. They created a startup called Nakhla — Arabic for "palm tree."And the concept was this: homeowners with palm trees on their land could sign a contract with Nakhla to have the company take care of the trees.

Many times, Gitta said, people just cut down the trees because they are too much work to maintain.

“Palm trees, for them, is [a] very heavy project. They need to take care of it four times per year,” he said.

Nakhla’s team waters, prunes, fertilizes and vaccinates palm trees — to protect them from things like fungus.

Come harvest time, Nakhla either packages and hands over the dates to the tree owner or takes the product to market, depending on the type of contract.

These types of services are not common in Iraq, but Gitta said the company is growing.

It is expanding its client base and recently signed a contract with the municipality of Baghdad to take care of the city’s many palm trees.

“Last year, in houses, we had 300 palm trees, in farms, we had 1,000 palm trees, and in the street, we had 6,000,” Gitta explained.

The Iraqi government is also funding reforestation projects.

But biologist Ayyad Wajeh al-Shahwany explained that to truly bring back Iraq’s palm trees, a lot more needs to be done.

Private projects like Nakhla and others are good, he said, but they need more support from the government and international organizations.

In the early 1980s, Iraq had an estimated 30 million palm trees. But by 2009, there were fewer than 9 million date palms left in the country.

Credit:

Shawn Yuan/The World

Kali Rubaii, from Purdue, said that many Iraqis see the value in helping to save the country’s iconic palm trees.

“People are stubborn and they are not going to stop. They are finding different grassroots tactics to keep their trees alive and also to keep the date economy alive, and maybe even grow it back.”

Iraqi date palms are incredibly resistant plants, she added. They can cope with all kinds of environmental stress, like storms, wind and drought.

They just need a little help to thrive.

Related: 'It's a mass ecological crisis': Extreme weather in Iraq hits those already struggling the hardest

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Passersby do a double take when they see Kaz Kobayashi and Ikki Goto.

The two men glide through Tokyo’s bustling Ikebukuro district in full-length samurai outfits, while wielding objects that look like swords. They are members of the Gomi Hiroi Samurai or the trash-collecting samurai.

Kaz Kobayashi and Ikki Goto, part of the Gomi Hiroi Samurai group, are actors who perform as samurai who clean up Tokyo.

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Julia Kim/The World 

“Yesterday was Friday so people are smoking and drinking around here, so there’s a lot of trash,” Kobayashi said.

On closer inspection, their samurai swords — or katanas — are actually just very long tongs, used to pick up litter. Kobayashi said the tongs are important for novelty value.

“We’re doing this as entertainment … but it can be tiring sometimes. It’s tough, man.”

The Gomi Hiroi Samurai do this three times a week. There’s four of them, and they’re professional actors. In their spare time, they volunteer to keep the streets of Tokyo clean. Goto formed the group in 2009. Since then, they have become a viral sensation on TikTok, with over 700,000 followers and counting.

 

Kaz Kobayashi and Ikki Goto, part of the Gomi Hiroi Samurai group, are actors who perform as samurai who clean up Tokyo.

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Julia Kim/The World  

Here in Ikebukuro, they target back alleys and parking lots, which are rife with litter. Kobayashi and Goto, working in sync, slice and spin their tongs through the air, meticulously seizing cigarette butts one by one before tossing them into the wastebaskets strapped to their backs.

Manaka Nishibiro, a nursery teacher trainee, watched them from a distance.

“Picking up trash is unpleasant for most people, but their performance makes it look so fun,” Nishibiro said, adding that she hopes it might encourage others to do the same.

Kaz Kobayashi and Ikki Goto pick up litter in Tokyo as part of an acting troupe, the Gomi Hiroi Samurai, who have an environmental mission.

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Julia Kim/The World 

An hour later, Kobayashi and Goto took their wastebaskets to a recycling base. There, they separated out every piece of rubbish they’ve collected. They said that they hope to recruit more Gomi Hiroi samurai  in Japan — and around the world — to spread their message: “We punish immoral hearts.”

It means that trash in and of itself isn’t bad. Instead, it’s people and the actions that stem from their negative mindsets. And a growing sense of negativity is something that Kobayashi said worries him.

“This is a problem in Japan,” he said. “People don’t go outside.”

Kaz Kobayashi and Ikki Goto, actors, use their roles in the Gomi Hiroi Samurai as a way to entertain and encourage people to keep the outdoors clean.

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Julia Kim/The World 

Last month, a government survey showed that 1.5 million people are living as social recluses in Japan. With loneliness and depression on the rise, Kobayashi said he hopes that their fun, zany take on something as mundane as trash-collecting helps people reengage with the outside world.

Kaz Kobayashi and Ikki Goto, part of the Gomi Hiroi Samurai group, are professional actors who volunteer to clean up litter in Tokyo. Their mantra is “clean space, clear mind.”

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Julia Kim/The World  

“Samurai is a warrior,” he said. “Our philosophy is to help people.”

For these eco-warriors, “clean space, clear mind” is more than just a saying — it’s the way of the Gomi Hiroi samurai.

Listen to the other stories in the four-part Waste Pickers series on The World:

Trash sorters in Ghana face health and safety risks

In Mumbai, waste pickers do the heavy lifting of recycling

‘We were treated as disposable beings’: Waste pickers in Colombia fought for their rights after 11 murder

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Back in 1992, security guards at the Universidad Libre in the Colombian city of Barranquilla came up with a way to help the medical school — and themselves.

On quiet nights, they lured waste pickers onto campus to collect old cans and cardboard boxes — it was a trap. The guards beat them with bats, and shot them, according to court documents. Then, they sold the bodies to the medical school, where the students needed cadavers to learn on.

This went unnoticed for weeks, until one waste picker survived. After he was put in a bathtub full of formaldehyde, the man escaped and alerted the police. On March 1, as the city celebrated its annual carnival, officials found the bodies of 11 waste pickers in the university’s morgue.

“It’s something that still makes us feel pain,” said Marisol Mogollon, a waste picker in Bogotá.  “Just to think that we were treated as disposable beings.”

Waste picker Alfredo Rodriguez separates cardboard from plastic at a park in a wealthy area of Bogotá, Colombia.

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Manuel Rueda/The World 

The crime shocked the nation but it also galvanized waste pickers in Colombia. They went from being one of the most marginalized groups in the country to being highly visible, fighting for their rights in the streets and in courts. Nowadays, Colombia is a global leader when it comes to granting rights to these workers, said Federico Parra, an urban anthropologist who specializes in grassroots organizations.

“This [crime] created a huge movement that impulsed the waste pickers' organizations to fight for their rights,” he said.

Many waste pickers in Colombia are now recognized as public service providers, and they can go anywhere in the city to collect goods that can be recycled — without fear.

Miguel Lugo organizes cardboard at a warehouse run by ARAUS, the Usme Waste Pickers Association.

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Manuel Rueda/The World 

A lot of them still get around the city on foot, pulling heavy wooden carts. But they have formed associations that own trucks, and collect their trash at designated points. Previously, waste pickers had to drag their carts for several miles to get to warehouses where they sold items like cardboard, bottles and tin cans.

Alfredo Rodriguez is a waste picker in Chapinero, a wealthy district in the north of Bogotá. As he pulled his wooden cart along a street lined with office buildings and expensive apartments, he said the job still pays little, and requires long hours. But slowly, the conditions have been improving.

“We used to fight over trash bags in the street,” he said. “Now, it’s more orderly, and we also get gloves, face masks and boots with steel tips.”

In Colombia, waste pickers have filed several lawsuits against city governments that have privatized waste collection and given some recycling responsibilities to government contractors.

In 2011, the nation’s Constitutional Court ruled that municipal governments had to take actions to protect waste pickers, because they are a vulnerable group that provides an important service.

Miguel Lugo and William Lugo stop at a school where they are going to collect trash that can be recycled. The ARAUS waste pickers association owns a truck that has helped it to increase its monthly haul. 

 

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Manuel Rueda/The World 

Following that groundbreaking ruling, cities like Bogotá have begun to require that contractors pay waste pickers a portion of the funds that they get from waste management taxes.

So, in Bogotá, waste pickers don’t just get paid for what they sell to warehouses each day. They also get a monthly fee that comes from the waste management tax. It’s known as the tarifa.

“We get anywhere from $30 to $90 from the tarifa, depending on how much [trash] we gathered,” said Sandra Martinez, a waste picker in Usme, a district at the southern edge of Bogotá. “It’s not much, but it helps to pay the bills.”

At the end of the month, waste pickers’ associations also get paid a fee, which varies according to how many tons their members collect.

Waste picker Emiliano Martinez pushes his cart through a neighborhood in Usme, where he collects trash door to door. 

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Manuel Rueda/The World 

Jorge Ospina directs ARAUS, the waste pickers association in Bogotá’s Usme district. His association has 75 members and gets about $5,000 a month from local taxes.

“Thanks to the tariff, our association has enough money to rent three warehouses, and we’ve also bought a truck.” he said.

At one of the warehouses, two employees stripped labels away from hundreds of plastic bottles, so that they could sell them to a local recycling plant.

Thanks to the warehouse, there’s no longer any need to sell trash to middle men. And the association’s members can get better prices for what they collect.

Waste picker Edgar Rodriguez loads cardboard on a truck owned by ARAUS, the Usme Waster Pickers Association. The truck helps the association to collect more trash and makes things easier for waste pickers in the district of Usme. 

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Manuel Rueda/The World

But waste pickers in the city still face many challenges. Prices for some items, like cardboard, have fallen recently. And for some waste pickers it’s also become harder to gather decent amounts of trash.

Martinez said many Venezuelan migrants who are out of work are also roaming the streets of Bogotá looking for items that can be sold to recycling plants.

“They open the trash bags before we can get to them,” she said. “And with the economic crisis, even homeowners are holding on to stuff, and selling it themselves to warehouses.”

But the biggest challenge for Bogotá’s waste pickers are large contractors that are also trying to get a piece of the recycling business.

Jorge Ospina, (center) standing with other waste pickers who are affiliated to the ARAUS association. Ospina has been the group’s director for more than 20 years and under his leadership they have been able to rent warehouses and get their own truck.

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Manuel Rueda/The World 

Ospina, from the ARAUS association, said that some of these companies have even formed dubious associations that are trying to claim some of the monthly payments that are reserved for waste pickers.

“Before the tariff system began, we only had around 40 waste pickers’ associations in Bogotá,” he said. “But now, there are 450. The city government has to eliminate the fake organizations, so that only the authentic waste pickers benefit from the monthly payments.”

Still, for many waste pickers in Bogotá, like Martinez, this is an industry that has changed for the better, even if these transformations were sparked by a horrible set of murders.

“Our job has more recognition now,” she said. “We used to be perceived as junkies, or disposable people. But now, our role in the city is respected.”

Listen to the other stories in the four-part Waste Pickers series on The World:

Trash sorters in Ghana face health and safety risks

In Mumbai, waste pickers do the heavy lifting of recycling

Tokyo’s trash-collecting samurai takes a fun, zany approach to cleanup

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Ali Mohammad, a recycler in Dharavi, an informal settlement in Mumbai, one of India’s largest cities, sorts through a mountain of plastic ice cream cartons, which are destined to become anything from hair combs to water buckets.

“The life of plastic never ends. It breaks, then, in one month or so, it comes back as another thing,” he said.

Ali Mohammad sorts through ice cream containers for recycling.

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Justin Nisly/The World 

After moving here from Uttar Pradesh, a large state in northern India, Mohammad has spent the past four years separating, washing and chopping plastic as part of Dharavi’s bustling recycling operation.

In Mumbai, home to 20 million people, waste ends up in Dharavi ​​with recyclers like Mohammad. A quarter of the people living here are employed in recycling at least 60% of the city’s plastic — a recycling rate far higher than the average in the US.

The recyclables that Mohammad digs through in a one-room, independent shop come from waste pickers who gather the recycling from the landfills and streets. Both groups of workers are crucial — and interlinked — in India, which is grappling with how to manage the rapid growth of plastics and other solid wastes.

Ice cream containers from popular Indian brands wait to be recycled.

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Justin Nisly/The World 

In Mumbai, a city crushed by the amount of garbage discarded each day, waste pickers help make this metropolis livable. And for every bottle and bag collected, that’s less plastic that ends up in the ocean.

The process begins in neighborhoods like Bandra, 20 minutes from Dharavi where Sheikh Salim gathered litter on the side of a road.

Salim, a waste picker, set down an enormous bag and listed the contents so far: “There is paper, these are bottles, this is a metal container, a thin sheet of plastic.”

He added, “I will take this waste to the scrap dealer who will weigh it and whatever, 150 rupees [$1.80], I will get.”

From the scrap dealer, most of the dry waste will eventually go to a recycler. In Mumbai, that could be a small-scale operation in Dharavi.

Though municipalities often also have a centralized, official version of waste management — for instance, garbage trucks that collect each day from households and some recycling centers — they tacitly rely on waste pickers and unlicensed recycling centers to augment their services. 

Separating the recycling

 Swati Singh Sambyal, an independent waste management expert, said that this interconnected waste management process is convoluted: “There’s a formal system of management, there’s an informal system of management, and that’s where the chaos is.”

Sambyal noted that since the Indian government issued its Solid Waste Management Rules 2016, the mindset of many Indians has been changing — and that is a good thing.

Sheik Salim collects recyclables in his bag along a street in Bandra, in Mumbai, India.

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Justin Nisly/The World 

These rules, which mandate that homes and businesses should separate dry, wet and hazardous waste, have sparked a growing awareness about the importance of scientifically managing trash.

Still, many households don’t. Instead, they might toss plastic water bottles in with food scraps and diapers. And Sambyal said that even when families do separate their trash, the city garbage collectors might toss it all together.

“Perhaps, if I’m doing it [waste segregation] as a resident, it’s being collected and then mixed, and then, say, going to a facility where it’s burned. Me segregating then goes down the drain.”

​Or, municipal sanitation trucks might just dump everything into landfills that other waste pickers then dig through, which is dangerous work.

As experts consider ways of improving this system, Sambyal said an important question to ask is: “How do we formalize the informal sector, or if we’re not able to do so, how do we bring them into our processes?”

It’s a question Sushila Sable is also asking. She is part of a women’s empowerment group in Mumbai called Stree Mukti Sanghatana.

For decades, she did the hazardous and difficult work of gathering recyclables from a nearby dumping ground. Now, she works to organize them.

Sable said it is high time that waste pickers be officially recognized for their important role.

Sushila Sable, a former waste picker, now manages a women's empowerment group.

Credit:

Justin Nisly/The World 

“From the year 2008, we have been demanding that we be given an identity card, to be recognized and live a life as humane as possible given the circumstances we work in. But [we] have not got the identity card.”

Official IDs protect them from police harassment, reduce the stigma of the job, and waste pickers say it could improve their access to subsidized housing, health care and education for their kids.

New approaches to a growing challenge

 The good news is some Indian cities have already begun to incorporate waste pickers into their waste management systems. For instance, the city of Ambikapur, in the state of Chhattisgarh, has given several hundred waste pickers ID cards, so they can collect garbage from people’s homes — where it’s been presorted.

Later, the dry waste will be separated into a whopping 156 different items.

In Dharavi, an informal settlement in Mumbai, India, men separate plastic and metal components for reycling.

Credit:

Justin Nisly/The World 

Ritesh Saini, based within the city government, is the local officer for the country’s Clean India mission, Swachh Bharat. Saini explained that they divide their dry waste so carefully because “the more we segregate, the more revenue we can earn.”

As an example, he cited an average water bottle.

“The cap is separated, the plastic wrapper is separated, and the bottle body is separated,” and by selling each piece to a different vendor, Saini said, the city generates a lot more income.

Raju Rajput (left) and his colleagues take a break from recycling plastic car bumpers in his shop.

Credit:

Justin Nisly/The World 

Back in Dharavi, Mohammad said that business is booming for recyclers like him, as Indians throw away more trash than ever. In fact, the Indian government predicts that the country’s plastic use will more than triple in the next decade.

It’s a big reason why waste pickers are asking for more protection and recognition for their role in waste management.

“We work for cleanliness of the surrounding living spaces as well as protecting the environment,” Sable said. “Slowly, the world is recognizing us and our role.”

Listen to the other stories in the four-part Waste Pickers series on The World:

Trash sorters in Ghana face health and safety risks

‘We were treated as disposable beings’: Waste pickers in Colombia fought for their rights after 11 murder

Tokyo’s trash-collecting samurai takes a fun, zany approach to cleanup

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This story was produced with support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Thirty-six-year-old Johnson Doe has worked as a waste picker in the sprawling Kpone Landfill in Accra, Ghana, for 20 years. 

It’s not the type of job he imagined for himself as a young man, but it’s how he supports his wife, two children and his parents.

”I wanted to be a military pilot but, you know, life happens,” he said.

Waste pickers are the largest workforce in the recycling chain responsible for collecting and recovering up to 60% of all plastics. 

 

Credit:

Ridwan Karim Dini-Osman/The World

Doe — and about a thousand other waste pickers there — collects items such as plastic bottles, aluminum cans and scrap metal, which he sells to recycling companies that buy them by weight. The money it brings in depends on market demand, Doe said, but typically, he makes $13 a day.

Doe is among the more than 20 million waste pickers around the world — the largest workforce in the recycling chain — who recover up to 60% of all plastics globally. Additionally, their work helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

And yet, in Ghana and elsewhere, waste pickers like Doe say they are rarely valued for what they do — they barely make a living, and are vulnerable to exploitation and exposure to pollution and toxic chemicals.

“Many people think the mentally ill people are those who work at the dumpsite,” Doe said. “So, that’s how they see us, like we are illiterate. Some people even call us criminals.”

Everyday hazards at the landfill

At the Kpone Landfill, all sorts of insects, including maggots, and other pests can be found on decaying garbage, feasting on scraps of food and nesting in rotting material. 

Then, there’s the medical waste scattered throughout — syringes, blood, pins, needles and other equipment.

Waste pickers collect items such as plastic bottles, aluminum cans, and scrap metal and then sell them to recycling companies who buy them by weight. The prices they get for the materials depend on the market demand.

 

Credit:

Ridwan Karim Dini-Osman/The World

It puts waste pickers at risk of infectious diseases such as HIV and Hepatitis B and C, Doe said.

Still, many of his colleagues sift through the garbage with their bare hands or worn-out gloves; some don’t have any protective gear at all. 

Doe said he remembers a woman who, while sorting, punctured a plastic bag containing a toxic substance. The acid splashed on her body and burned her clothes.

“Now, she’s bedridden at home and looks completely deformed,” he said.

Johnson Doe has been working at the Kpone Landfill in Accra, Ghana, for about 20 years now. He says it is his best option for making a living to take care of his wife, two children and his parents.

 

Credit:

Ridwan Karim Dini-Osman/The World

Emergencies happen a lot at the landfill, Doe said — with people collapsing from exhaustion, or getting dehydrated, or experiencing difficulty breathing. 

But they face stigma when seeking medical help, he said, as health workers often describe them as dirty and refuse to attend to them.

Additionally, waste pickers at the landfill do not have access to clean water, handwashing facilities or sanitation facilities.

Another waste picker, Grace Avemegah, said the situation can be especially problematic for women. 

“There are no washrooms here to change your sanitary towel during that time of the month,” she said. “This means you have to keep your pad on from morning until evening, which is not good for our health. When you become so pressed, you are compelled to do it in the open.”

Challenges of managing medical waste

Solomon Noi, the head of waste management at the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, said that a lot of industries channel harmful substances to the landfill.

Waste picker Grace Avemegah says it’s difficult to practice good hygiene and for women to meet their menstrual needs due to absence of sanitation facilities at the Kpone Landfill in Accra, Ghana.

 

Credit:

Ridwan Karim Dini-Osman/The World

As a result, the air is heavily polluted, which can “choke your respiratory system, and therefore, we cannot rule out upper respiratory tract infections,” he said. 

Waste pickers inhale harmful gas and their skin is “exposed to certain corrosive and carcinogenic elements within the wastes that they are scavenging on.”

Also, plastics leach hazardous chemicals into the environment, including endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), which are linked to reduced fertility, pregnancy loss and irregular menstrual cycles, and other conditions, according to a 2020 report by the Endocrine Society and IPEN (International Pollutants Elimination Network).

Noi said that the health risks faced by waste pickers are rife across the developing world, particularly in Brazil, India, Colombia, Mexico and the Philippines where the amount of waste being generated is rising rapidly, but the technological and financial tools to manage it don't exist.

“That’s why all these countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa record huge cases of waterborne diseases and infections like hepatitis, cholera and the rest,” he said. “So, it is a global problem that should be tackled at the global level through concerted efforts.”

Noi said he would like to see universal health care — but also policy changes in Ghana.

Waste pickers, who collect and sort recyclable materials from garbage, face widespread social stigma that often prevents them from accessing basic services including health care.

 

Credit:

Ridwan Karim Dini-Osman/The World

“We should have a sanitation master plan, and there should be effective and efficient bylaws that will compel particular industries to treat their wastes and render them nonharmful,” he said.

Proper sorting and treatment of waste before it reaches the landfill, coupled with personal protective equipment, is crucial, said Michael Affordefe, a medical waste expert at the Accra School of Hygiene. 

“That is the only way we can break the chain of transmission of some of these infections from the medical waste,” he said.

Ghana’s Health Facilities Regulatory Agency is alarmed by the rate at which untreated medical wastes are being dumped at the Kpone Landfill, but it is challenging to prosecute noncomplying hospitals, according to Agyemang Badu, the agency's head of operations. 

“We know about the plight of the waste pickers, but you see, it is just quite recent that, as an agency, we were given a lawyer,” he said. “Prior to that, we didn't have any attorney to make sure that the enforcement bites.”

Next year, nations are set to develop a legally binding agreement on plastic pollution. The new global plastics treaty aims to put waste pickers at the center of its strategy to curb plastic use and pollution.

Listen to the other stories in the four-part Waste Pickers series on The World:

In Mumbai, waste pickers do the heavy lifting of recycling

‘We were treated as disposable beings’: Waste pickers in Colombia fought for their rights after 11 murder

Tokyo’s trash-collecting samurai takes a fun, zany approach to cleanup

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Last Thursday, the El Fuego (The Fire) volcano in Guatemala took things to another level.

A huge, mushroom-shaped plume of black smoke erupted into the sky as red-hot lava rocks sprayed over the hillside. Authorities took action, ordering more than a thousand residents to evacuate.

Last Thursday, the El Fuego (“The Fire”) volcano in Guatemala took things to another level. A huge, mushroom-shaped plume of black smoke erupted into the sky as red-hot lava rocks sprayed over the hillside. Authorities took action, ordering more than a thousand residents to evacuate.

Credit:

Michael Fox/The World

“It’s best to avoid any problems,” one mother told a local TV outlet, as she sat inside a packed, yellow school bus, waiting to be taken to a shelter. Her toddler son stood on her lap, teething on the seat in front of them.

“I have to be very careful with him,” she said. “He has lung issues, so it’s impossible for me to stay.”

Guatemalan officials said that 280,000 people were impacted by the fallen ash across the country.

Local residents are not the only ones potentially in harm's way. Tour companies guide 100-200 people up the hillside to witness El Fuego each day. It’s not an easy hike.

Credit:

Michael Fox/The World

The mother and son were headed to one of two dozen shelters opened for residents outside of the volcano’s path.

“People are afraid after what happened in 2018,” one evacuee told a news agency, inside of a large gymnasium filled with families and their belongings. “So, they already have their bags ready, and when authorities say they have to evacuate, they are ready to go.”

More than 300 people died in 2018 when El Fuego exploded, spewing smoke and ash, and causing pyroclastic lava flows to pour down hillsides and into populated areas. Shocking videos from that time show people running or racing away in a car as huge plumes of smoke stretch across an apocalyptic sky.

A handful of tourists have perished on El Fuego over the years. But that’s largely been due to the elements and the high altitude, not the volcano.

Credit:

Michael Fox/The World

Local residents are not the only ones potentially in harm's way.

Tour companies guide 100-200 people up the hillside to witness El Fuego each day. It’s not an easy hike.

Polish tourist Tomek Grzeda hiked up Acatenango with his family last month.

“The first, big eruption after we got to the camp, our daughter started crying. Because she was afraid of the noise and how it looks — the lava coming from the volcano. It was incredible. Super powerful, but also scary,” he said. “But after that, we got used to it. We understood how it worked. The guide explained everything. We felt safe on the top.”

El Fuego erupted all night long. But not like it did last week.

More than 300 people died in 2018 when El Fuego exploded, spewing smoke and ash, and causing pyroclastic lava flows to pour down hillsides and into populated areas. 

Credit:

Michael Fox/The World

Pablo Arcón, the head of Pablo’s Tours, said they started to evacuate people off the mountain around 6 a.m.

“We’ve never had a problem like rocks falling on the base camp, or something like that,” he said. “We evacuate because of the high concentration of ash and because of the roads, which can get knocked out and make it hard to get people home.”

He said that’s what happened in 2018. But no hikers died.

A handful of tourists have perished on the mountain over the years. But that’s largely been due to the elements and the high altitude, not the volcano.

Tour companies guide 100-200 people up the hillside to witness El Fuego each day. It’s not an easy hike.

Credit:

Michael Fox/The World

Brayam Mendez is the head of environmental management for the Municipality of Acatenango. He said that you can’t predict volcanoes, but they are used to El Fuego.

“It always does this,” he said. “When there’s a problem or activity increases, and you can’t see through the ash, we close the park and there are no visits. But after a few days, we open it back up.”

That’s where they are now. Most residents have now returned home.

Arcón said that he’s expecting they’ll get the green light from Guatemala’s tourist agency to again start tours up the mountain later this week.

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For most species, a changing climate doesn’t bode well. But there are examples across the animal kingdom of ones that are finding ways to adapt to a warming world.

Scientists all over the globe have been studying the changes in animal physiology and behavior, some going back generations, which they believe is linked to rising temperatures. They say the adaptations are beneficial, but may have limitations in the long term.

Cape ground squirrels in South Africa are adjusting to climate change. Their average foot length has increased by 9% in just 18 years.

Credit:

Courtesy of Miya Warrington

In the dry grasslands of South Africa, Miya Warrington, a conservation biologist at the University of Manitoba, first laid eyes on Cape ground squirrels darting about in 2021. “You see the heat and you see all the human activity,” she said. “So immediately, I start thinking about how these animals might be adapting to climate change.”

And by adapting, she means altering the size of parts of their bodies. So, Warrington set out to measure the squirrels. The first challenge was to catch them.

“They love peanut butter,” she explained. It’s “like manna from heaven for them. We put it out in these traps, and they go, ‘Ooh, peanut butter.’ And then we take them out of the traps and we do the measurements.”

One of these measurements included foot length. “And you take calipers and you just put them on from the toe to the heel,” something her colleagues have been doing for almost two decades.

This gave Warrington the ability to look back through time, compare the data to that of today’s squirrels, and test out her hunch.

What she found was that the average foot length (compared to length) had increased by 9% in just 18 years. Warrington believes that the reason could be because temperatures are getting hotter.

Scientists measure the feet of Cape ground squirrels to track their changing sizes.

Credit:

Courtesy of Miya Warrington

“When their bodies get hot,” she said, “their heat radiates out of big, big feet. So, it’s one way of dissipating heat.”

The cause and effect of this needs more research, however, in part because other changes in squirrel dimensions didn’t seem to correspond to the hotter temperatures. But her work is part of a growing body of evidence that climate change can cause certain animal species to shape-shift, especially those with rapid reproduction rates, like shrews and birds.

In Finland, for instance, as winters have grown milder, the number of brown tawny owls has surged compared to gray ones. That’s because the brown owls are better at blending in with less and less snowy environments.

Anderson Feijó, a zoologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, found that shape-shifting due to climate change is also apparent in fossil records. He studied about a hundred ancient frog species and found that “medium-sized frogs seem to be the most resilient to the climate variation, while those species that are too large or too small are more sensitive” and tended to disappear when temperatures become too hot or too cold.

But adaptation doesn’t always lead to visible changes. Sometimes, the changes happen inside an animal’s body.

The ability of the montane horned lizard to perform a task, such as sprinting or digestion, is optimized over a relatively narrow range of temperatures.

Credit:

Courtesy of Martha Muñoz

Martha Muñoz, an evolutionary biologist at Yale University, has studied the montane horned lizard in Mexico. “Their ability to perform a task, such as sprinting or digestion, is optimized over a relatively narrow range of temperatures,” she explained. “And then decreases at higher and lower temperatures until the animal is immobilized.”

When their environment in Mexico became slightly warmer, Muñoz was curious if the lizards had adapted. So, she gathered up several dozen of them, and then “systematically cool[ed] or heat[ed] the lizards by one degree per minute, flip[ped] them onto their backs, and then determine[d] the temperature at which they los[t] the ability to flip themselves back over, this being the thermal limit to locomotion.”

After crunching the numbers, Muñoz, Saúl Domínguez Guerrero and their colleagues found that the lizards had increased their heat tolerance by about a degree. “They’re less comfortable in the cold, and more comfortable in the heat,” she summarized. And that shift happened over a single year.

While some of it was temporarily induced by the environment, some of the change was also genetic. The lizards had evolved a higher heat tolerance and were passing it down from one generation to the next. Muñoz said that this is to be expected of species with large populations.

Acropora hyacinthus coral in Rarotonga, Cook Islands.

Credit:

Courtesy of Rachael Bay

This combination of genetic evolution and temporary environmental plasticity is also helping other types of species survive warmer temperatures, including the Acropora coral in American Samoa. Some of the corals have seen variations in their genes, allowing them to tolerate warmer water temperatures.

At the same time, it’s also true that “corals that have past experience with warm temperatures are better at living at higher temperatures in the future,” said Rachael Bay, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Davis. And although they may be protected against warming temperatures in the short term, Bay said, “we have no idea what the limits to that capacity are.”

Rachael Bay sampling coral in American Samoa.

Credit:

Courtesy of Rachael Bay

Behavioral changes

Meanwhile, some animals are adapting behaviorally, such as pink-footed geese in the Arctic. These birds have developed new migration routes and breeding grounds, with warming temperatures opening up new habitats. 

Thomas Lameris, an ecologist at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, said that birds like these benefit from their social environments. “The way they behave is they often learn from their parents or from other geese,” he explained, allowing for any adaptive change in behavior to propagate quickly through a population.

He witnessed this firsthand at a remote spot on the tundra in the Western Russian Arctic when studying barnacle geese. The birds winter across western Europe and fly north to the Arctic to breed. They stop along the way, fueling up on fresh, nutritious grass that’s just emerged from the melting snow.

Scientists traveled to the remote tundra in the Western Russian Arctic to study how the migration behavior of barnacle geese has shifted due to snow melting earlier in the year.

Credit:

Courtesy of Thomas Lameris

But Lameris found that in the years when the snow melts early, the geese don’t make stops to feed during their migration, making a mad dash, instead, to the breeding grounds.

In the years that snow melts early, pink-footed geese no longer make stops to feed during their migration, heading straight to breeding grounds instead.

Credit:

Courtesy of Thomas Lameris

“They would really speed up their migration,” he explained. “They would be able to make the journey that would otherwise take two weeks … they could do the same thing in four days.”

And when they arrived, “they would need a longer time to recover before they could lay their eggs,” he said.

But Lameris is heartened by what he sees as an ability for a migratory species to adapt to a warming climate.

Still, adaptation — whether genetic or behavioral — can only get a species so far.

Lotanna Micah Nneji, a conservation biologist at Princeton University, pointed to the Perret’s toad, found only in Idanre Hill in southwestern Nigeria. As rainfall patterns and temperatures shift, the habitat of these toads is shrinking. Nneji has identified other locations in the area where they could live more comfortably. But, unlike birds and mammals that can cover large distances, these toads are pretty much trapped. Those other areas are simply too far from their current range and not within protected areas.

Animal adaptations, though remarkable, are sending us a message.

... "When you’re adapting your physiology ... there's an upper limit to how far that can go ..."

“Everything that organisms do is simply buying time,” said Martha Muñoz of Yale. “But if you’re going up a mountain, there’s only so far you can go. And if you’re going polewards, there’s only so far you can go. And when you’re adapting your physiology, guess what? There's an upper limit to how far that can go, too. And if we don't reverse action, they are truly running out of options because we’re giving them no others.”

Related: Bees face many challenges — and climate change is ratcheting up the pressure

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A handful of surfers were out catching waves at Imperial Beach, California, the first US beach town north of Mexico, when the lifeguard station blasted a panic-inducing announcement.

“The water is currently contaminated, and we are under a 72-hour rain advisory. Lifeguards strongly recommend exiting the water,” the warning said. 

Pollution and trash carried from the Tijuana River to the Pacific Ocean have long plagued swimmers and surfers on both sides of the US-Mexico border. But in recent years, particularly at Imperial Beach, it’s gotten worse. Some locals and experts are hopeful about its cleanup after a recent court settlement.

Surfers in the water at Imperial Beach, California

Credit:

Fabian Garcia/The World

Toni Cunia, who strolled along the pier, said she has seen the issues firsthand.  

“I used to live on the corner over here, so I know how bad it has gotten, and it's breaking everybody’s heart. Because this was our playground,” Cunia said.

She gestured down the beach to where the Tijuana River flows into the Pacific. 

“So much junk comes with it. It’s not just the water. It’s so much trash. So, yeah, it’s a problem, a major problem,” Cunia said.

And not just for swimmers: the paths along the estuary where the Tijuana River flows into the Pacific are a no-go-zone now, Cunia said. 

It all starts with the Tijuana River, which collects rainwater from the surrounding watershed and flows only when it rains, explained Paloma Aguirre, who is the mayor of Imperial Beach and holds a master’s in marine biodiversity and conservation from UC San Diego.  

The river discharges south of Imperial Beach, but it goes through the entire city of Tijuana before releasing into the ocean, Aguirre said. Along the way, it collects tires, trash, and worst of all, sewage. 

As a result, Aguirre said, she has been unable to surf there since last September — which was what drew her to the area in the first place.

Mayor of Imperial Beach, California, Paloma Aguirre

Credit:

Marco Werman/The World

“A lot of us moved to IB because of its waves. It's one of the core reasons I chose to live [here] in 2003,” she said. 

The pollution is so bad that she's actually gotten sick, "not by ignoring the signs, but by getting the impact of the plume that you don't even know is coming sometimes,” Aguirre said.

A plume is a concentration of contaminated water that is prone to being dragged north by the current.

On the US side, the attitude has long been: “Tijuana, just clean up your act.”

But Margarita Diaz, who lives and works in Tijuana as executive director for the Environmental Education Border Project, said she thinks that criticism is unfair and ignores some fundamental differences between how things operate in the US and Mexico.

Tijuana is “a city with two countries, different economies, different politics and different realities,” Diaz said, adding that its economy “[doesn’t] have a lot of money invested for the infrastructure.”

Tijuana has long faced criticisms from the US that little has been done and nothing has changed. But Diaz said that Tijuana has barely kept up, given its rapid growth.

“The population in Tijuana, in 30 years, has increased by millions,” she said. 

According to Diaz, the city has built some infrastructure, and the situation is the same.

“I don’t want to say that it’s OK. It’s bad. It has to be clean. I’m not saying that I’m happy with what Mexico is doing. No, we have to do more,” Diaz said.

The pollution impacts Tijuana’s residents, too. Diaz said the Tijuana city government, just over this past spring break, realized it had to protect its citizens and visitors and shut down its beaches.

The state of the beaches, she said, “is one of the most severe and egregious environmental injustices in the nation.” 

Aguirre said she sees the pollution as a result of free-trade agreements that have led to the rapid development of Tijuana. 

“This is a negative externality from the original NAFTA trade agreement,” she said. “We knew that we were going to see these environmental impacts associated with the free trade that was signed 20, 25 years ago.”

Some hope things may turn around with a recent legal decision.

The International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) and its Mexican counterpart are tasked with settling water disputes between the two countries. In a recent lawsuit by the Port of San Diego and two California border cities, the agency was instructed to do more to stop wastewater from flowing north from Tijuana.

Credit:

Marco Werman/The World

According to the reports and Aguirre, the IBWC is committed now to more rigorously monitoring and mitigating the pollution in the water on the US side and better coordinating cleanup with their counterparts in Mexico.

Aguirre said that at least both sides are starting to listen to one another.

“Communication between both agencies is crucial but not easy,” she said.

“Because you have the most basic barrier, which is language. So, it’s kind of like they’re being compelled to do it. In the past, there wasn’t that much will to do it.”

Diaz said she also is cautiously confident that attitudes are changing in Tijuana and US towns like Imperial Beach.

“I hope that the governments share information and also the NGOs can help and we can move the things to a better place,” she said.
 

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Winners of The Goldman Environmental Prize, the highest award of the year that goes to environmental activists leading grassroots campaigns, were announced on Monday.

One of the recipients, Zafer Kizilkaya, is the first winner ever from Turkey.

Kizilkaya is a trained civil engineer, marine conservationist and underwater photographer. He is being recognized for his work for more than a decade of creating a community-managed, 300-mile-plus marine-protected area along the Turkish coast of the Mediterranean Sea.

Aerial view of Gökova Bay, Turkey

Credit:

Zafer Kizilkaya

In 2007, after returning from maritime work in Indonesia, Kizilkaya saw a problem as he dived into Turkey’s Gökova Bay.

“I noticed that there was a nuclear war that happened underwater,” Kizilkaya told The World. “There [was] nothing. Rocks [were] bare; there [was] no fish or algae.”

What he saw was a result of overfishing, illegal fishing, invasive species, such as the lionfish, and the effects of climate change. The Mediterranean Sea is one of the world’s most overfished bodies of water, and it became apparent to Kizilkaya that action needed to be taken to help protect Turkey’s degraded ecosystem.

This led to him launching his own nonprofit, Akdeniz Koruma Dernği (the Mediterranean Conservation Society), in 2012, with the help of local fishing communities.

But it wasn’t easy at first for Kizilkaya to win over the entire community.

“Nobody believed us,” he said. “The fishing communities are hard people to get, negotiate or even communicate with sometimes.”

He explained that the perception was that he was seeking to close some favorite fishing grounds forever. Though income in fishing areas was already collapsing from the degradation, closing even more areas down from fishing could exasperate the problem.

Invasive lionfish in coastal rocky habitats

Credit:

Zafer Kizilkaya

“One disadvantage I had, there was no good example in front of me for Turkey,” Kizilkaya said. “Even if I am telling them good examples [of marine protected areas] from other parts of the world, it [didn't] mean anything to them at that time.”

Fortunately, other stakeholders, government institutions and certain fishing community members believed what he and his team said.

Cleanup of discarded fishing nets, Bozburun MPA, Marmaris, Turkey

Credit:

Zafer Kizilkaya

With their support and negotiations for over a year, the first protected areas in Gökova Bay were officially established in 2012.

Fishermen have continued to fish in the protected areas knowingly and unknowingly, and much of Kizilkaya’s work has been spent educating local communities on marine-protected areas. He has been able to convert local fishermen and have them work with his organization as marine rangers to help stop fishing in those parts.

Zafer Kizilkaya and team on patrol

Credit:

Goldman Environmental Prize

“It is great to establish those areas and immediately start patrolling [them],” Kizilkaya said. “We don’t have much time to convince all the stakeholders in the world.” 

Because of his work, the Turkish government expanded the network in August 2020 by over 150 square miles, with an additional 27 square miles of no-fishing zones, totaling 310 square miles of marine-protected areas along the Turkish coastline, since Kizilkaya began his grassroots endeavor.

Diverse sponge species in Gökova Bay restoration area

Credit:

Zafer Kizilkaya

There is currently a worldwide campaign for 30% of all oceans to become protected areas by 2030, and that at least 10% within that campaign should be fully protected areas. Kizilkaya said that less time should be spent on negotiation and more immediate action should happen in order to meet this goal.

 “On the Mediterranean scale, the total of fully protected areas is 0.04%,” Kizilkaya said. “It's not even 1% yet, and there’s too [long of a ways] to go."

Related: You can ring this 'fish doorbell' to help marine life in the Netherlands

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Want to do some good for fish in need?  

Then, head to visdeurbel.nl — which literally means "fishdoorbell.nl" in Dutch.

It's a "doorbell" set up by the municipal government of Utrecht, in the Netherlands, and the Waterboard De Stichtse Rijnlanden, to help fish get through a lock in a local canal and reach their destinations. 

Anne Nijs is an urban ecologist for the city of Utrecht who worked on creating the doorbell in 2021.

She explained that people can go to the program's website and watch a livestream of the fish underwater — and then, if they spot a fish, they can click to "ring" the fish doorbell to nudge someone to go and open the lock by hand.

Otherwise, fish swimming upstream have to wait a long time for the 200-year-old lock to be opened, which makes them vulnerable to prey, Nijs said.

Nijs said that for those who want to help the fish, mid-April is the best time of the season to go fish-doorbelling.

To hear the full interview, click on the audio player above.

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Jesus Salvador remembers an area above the city of Granada, in southern Spain, where there used to be a canal flowing with water and a waterfall.

“If the winter was cold, the waterfall would freeze,” he said. “In warmer weather, a mist came off this canal and these hillsides were covered with green moss.”

And below, at the end, he said, there was a great place to swim — known as the “Pool of the Moors.”

Archaeologists and hundreds of volunteers spent months cleaning out and sometimes entirely redigging the acequia de Aynadamar, just above Granada, Spain. It had been abandoned for nearly half a century.

Credit:

Gerry Hadden/The World

The Moors ruled the area for 800 years and built the now-abandoned canal, or acequia as they’re called in Spanish. All told, the canals form a complex network some 1,800 miles long, snaking down from the snowy Sierra Nevada mountains to the plains.

The Moors were master water engineers. But today, much of their knowledge — and the network of waterways they built throughout the region — have been lost. Now, amid drought and water shortages, archaeologists are trying to recover them.

Archaeologist Elena Correa from the University of Granada and her team, along with hundreds of volunteers, spent the last year restoring and cleaning this acequia. Its historical importance is unmatched, she said, as it once provided all the drinking water to the seat of Moorish power in Granada: the Albaicín.

The Albaicín is a hillside maze of cobbled lanes and whitewashed homes, a mix of Moorish and Spanish architecture, with the Alhambra fortress looming just in front. It’s a huge tourist draw.

Elena Correa, an archaeologist at the University of Granada, inspects part of the acequia de Aynamadar before its reopening.

 

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Gerry Hadden/The World

These days, the water that trickles from the Albaicin’s many fountains is pumped in by modern machinery. But a millennium ago, residents relied only on gravity.

Originally, Granada’s water all came cascading down from a natural spring some 10 miles into the mountains. It’s called the Well of Tears, named after the tear-drop shape its creators gave it.

Correa and her team hiked up the canal and opened the sluice. The water began as a gush, but soon it was a trickle. Some half a mile from the city, it disappeared altogether, absorbed into the dirt canal. It’s supposed to reach the University of Granada, to be used for watering the grounds. But this is just the start, Correa said.

Newly released water from the acequia de Aynadamar, which once fed the ancient Moorish quarter of Granada, Spain, called the Albaicín, soaks into the earth a mile short of its destination. Because water levels are low due to drought.

 

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Gerry Hadden/The World

“We inherited this from the Arab farmers,” said Luis Miguel Ortega, head of the region’s irrigation authority. “The know-how most likely came from ancient Persia, Syria and Jordan.”

The Well of Tears is still in use, providing water to a couple of close-by hamlets. Its water is crystal clear, if low due to a lack of rainfall.

The Well of Tears, some 10 miles up the mountain from Granada, Spain, is the source of water for the newly restored canal.

 

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Gerry Hadden/The World

Ortega explained what he calls the real genius behind the acequias. Further up in the Sierra Nevada mountains, he said, there are canals that are not for watering crops directly. They run horizontally along the range until all of their water just seeps away into the earth.

“It might seem wasted, but the water is filtering down the mountainside. That’s why far below the canals, you find fruit trees and crops that normally wouldn’t flourish at such high and dry altitudes,” he said.

To reach the highest of these canals, you drive a dirt switchback a couple of hours to about 7,000 feet above sea level. Here, above the treeline, runs the Acequia de Los Hechos. It’s about 3 miles long and is meant to feed aquifers below.

The Well of Tears, some 10 miles up the mountain from Granada, Spain, is the source of water for the newly restored acequia.

Credit:

Gerry Hadden/The World

Farmer Alejandro Molina tends to his potatoes and chestnut trees on his ranch here.

“The canal here provides water to all the farms you see below,” Molin said. “If you were to cut off the acequia, this place would become a desert.”

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The importance of tackling climate change has never been clearer. But despite all the science that has accumulated over more than 30 years about its perils, planet-warming emissions continue to rise.

The good news is that climate solutions are now more accessible than ever. The cost of wind and solar power, for example, has plummeted in the last decade. Expanding existing efforts to reduce deforestation and increase energy efficiency has the potential to significantly slash emissions. 

In the ongoing series, "The Big Fix," The World reports on what communities, individuals, governments and businesses are doing to cut emissions, as well as adapting to the impacts of climate change that are already being felt.

Check out more reporting on "The Big Fix" here. And tune into The World’s social channels for our monthly video series exploring climate change solutions around the globe. 

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On a hot, windy afternoon in January, Syed Sajjad Ali showed off bunches of juicy, greenish-red tomatoes hanging on rows and rows of vines on his farm in the southern Indian state of Telangana.

The crops are housed inside a covered structure made of sheer, white material.

“This is protected from the sun, protected from the rain, protected from the insects,” Ali, 60, said, standing beneath the white fabric roof which stretched just a few feet above his head. 

Syed Sajjad Ali inspects tomatoes planted inside a Kheyti greenhouse.

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Sushmita Pathak/The World

The crops are planted on a small patch of land about 1/8 of an acre. In India, the average farm size is 3 acres compared to 445 acres in the United States. The vast majority of farmers in India — and worldwide — are small farmers. They own less than 5 acres of land but grow 1/3 of all agricultural produce. 

Small farms are also most vulnerable to climate change. The structure covering Ali’s tomatoes, known as a “greenhouse-in-a-box,” is part of a solution designed to help them cope with the vagaries of a changing climate. The design, essentially a low-cost, scaled-down version of a standard greenhouse, is the brainchild of an Indian startup called Kheyti.

In 2022, it was among the winners of the annual Earthshot Prize that honors environmental solutions. The idea was conceived some 10 years ago when Kheyti’s co-founders were trying to figure out what Indian farmers were struggling with the most.

“We started talking to hundreds of farmers across the country, and all of them said something that was related to climate change,,” said Khetyi co-founder Saumya, who goes by one name.

Across the globe, summers are getting hotter and rainfall is growing less predictable. As the globe warms, storms are expected to grow more intense.

Bunches of juicy, greenish-red tomatoes hang on rows and rows of vines in a farm in the southern Indian state of Telangana. They are planted inside a low-cost greenhouse designed by the Indian startup called Kheyti.

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Sushmita Pathak/The World

To help Indian farmers become more resilient to this less predictable weather, Saumya and her fellow co-founders brainstormed a lot of different ideas.

“We looked at a bunch of things. We looked at insurance, we looked at different seeds. We also came across the greenhouse, which had been around for many centuries,” Saumya said.

Greenhouses help crops grow more efficiently by maintaining a controlled temperature and humid environment. They also protect crops from pests and unpredictable weather. But in India, it’s mostly wealthy farmers who can afford greenhouses. They also don’t come in compact sizes, which would be suitable for India’s majority smallholder farmers. 

Saumya and her colleagues set out to design a much smaller, more affordable greenhouse by getting rid of the extra features that come with standard greenhouses, like height. Greenhouses typically are very tall and reinforced with a lot of steel. 

“So, it was kind of like that whole negotiation where we said, OK, what is the bare minimum, covered structure that we can make? That was the approach,”  Saumya said. 

Along with the greenhouse, Kheyti also provides farmers with seeds, fertilizers, drip irrigation systems and installation help. 

“Small farmers don't have market access. They don't know what inputs to buy,”  Saumya said. 

 

Kheyti's greenhouses are low-cost, scaled-down versions of standard greenhouses designed especially for smallholder farmers. Most Indian farmers are smallholders who are most vulnerable to climate change.

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Sushmita Pathak/The World

Kheyti’s experts keep track of the crops’ status remotely by asking farmers to share regular photos on WhatsApp and advise and train farmers accordingly. The services, bundled with the product, make up the greenhouse-in-a-box, Saumya explained. 

But convincing farmers to come on board can sometimes be difficult, she said. 

“There's a lot of mistrust that farmers have toward companies who sell products and then run away,” she said. 

Financing is another challenge. 

“Banks don't really want to give small-farmer loans because they have no or low credit scores,” she said.

Farmers will save up money to buy a cow or buffalo but are much more skeptical about any new product.

But Saumya is optimistic. She said Kheyti’s greenhouse is in a similar position to where the tractor was about five decades ago.

“It took around 40 years until [the tractor] became mainstream in India. The greenhouse is also a similar sort of an asset, it's expensive, and it takes some time to see the return and get used to it,” she said. 

So far, about 1,000 farmers across India have signed up for Kheyti’s greenhouse.

Ali got his greenhouse seven months ago and he said he is already seeing the results. 

“The size of tomato and the quality of tomato is much better than [those grown in the] open field. Buyers very quickly take my tomatoes because they like this one,” Ali said.

A few miles down the road from Ali’s farm, Renuka, who goes by one name, planted tomatoes in an open patch, not in a greenhouse. Her tomatoes are smaller and haven’t had many takers, she said. 

Farmer Renuka stands inside a Kheyti greenhouse where she planted cucumbers, which wouldn't have been possible to cultivate in the open because of the hot weather conditions in her state.

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Sushmita Pathak/The World

For several weeks now, the going rate for tomatoes at her local village market has been a paltry 5 rupees, or around 6 cents, per kilo, she said. Factoring in transport and labor costs, she figures she will make a loss selling at those prices, so she was not even going to bother harvesting them. 

Anguished, she’s decided to leave them in the field to rot.

“Water wasted, fertilizer wasted, seedlings wasted. I get angry when I look at this,” she said. 

Renuka plucks a few tomatoes from her vegetable patch. She's leaving her harvest to rot in the field because it wasn't able to fetch a substantial rate at her local market.  

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Sushmita Pathak/The World

Kheyti’s greenhouse can help farmers get higher prices by allowing them to grow in the off-season when most people are not growing and the supply is low. 

“For off-season, it will work like a wonder because you can rely on higher prices, your economic viability will be more,” said Anjani Kumar, a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute in Delhi. “We need more and more greenhouses there is no doubt about it.” 

The greenhouse can also help by allowing farmers to grow vegetables that are not commonly grown in the region. That’s exactly what Renuka did a few months ago — she pooled her savings to buy a Kheyti greenhouse for about $600 and planted cucumbers.

It is too hot to grow cucumbers in the open, she said, but in the greenhouse, she got a pretty good harvest. Cucumbers sell for higher prices than the vegetables she usually grows and over two crop cycles, she said, she’s almost recovered her investment.

She hopes to make her first profit soon.

The small greenhouse is a good idea, Kumar said, but there are some limitations. It is only suitable for farmers who grow fruits and vegetables, he said. Farmers who grow other crops may have to take up poultry or livestock to supplement their incomes. 

Syed Sajjad Ali inspects tomatoes planted inside a Kheyti greenhouse.

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Susmita Pathak/The World

As the climate changes, the government should also promote professions other than agriculture in rural areas, he said. 

“So, that they can work on the farm, they can work off the farm and combined they can have better income.”

Whatever the solution, Kumar said government policies must take into consideration the needs of smallholder farmers. 

“The bulk of the production and bulk of the cultivated area comes from the smallholders,” he said. “They are going to be the most significant part for the foreseeable future for Indian agriculture.” 

And Kheyti wants to help these smallholders become climate smart. Over the next couple of years, the startup plans to get its greenhouses to 10,000 farmers. 

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On a Sunday morning, a dozen young children gathered in a small, tin shed with plastic sheets for a roof and no flooring.

This is an informal school for children of all ages near the Hebbal locality in north Bangalore, India, taught by college-aged volunteers. But not much studying happens amid laughter, giggles and chaos.

Children who live here also attend formal government-run schools — but not regularly — because they move frequently to new places when their parents, who collect and segregate trash, have to migrate in constant search of work.

Most of the children came from villages in the eastern state of West Bengal, where their parents say they can not find decent-paying work. Although migrant waste pickers earn more in larger cities, they also face constant harassment from the police and local residents.

College students volunteer to teach children at an informal school in Bangalore, India.

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Raksha Kumar/The World

Agents who arrange migrants' work set up small tin sheds on a large, open field for the families. Police say the flimsy homes were constructed illegally and on government land, so they periodically evict the tenants. The residents say the police will sometimes take bribes to let them stay, which many can not afford.

Waste pickers in north Bangalore separate trash to make a living.

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Raksha Kumar/The World

“With the minimum income they are earning from this, they are having to again pay the police to stay here in these tin sheds,” said Saniya Nourin, who volunteers at the school.

“But, those who are targeted are the ones who speak Bengali, and those who are Muslim,” said Maggie Paul, a scholar from the University of Adelaide who has been documenting Bengali migrants in India.

Bengali migrant Salmina Sheikh came from a village near the city of Kolkata a year ago to rejoin her husband, who makes about $120 a month by selling segregated waste to nearby recycling plants.

“We need this money for our children, we can barely give them nutritious food in our village.”

Salmina Sheikh, who is six months pregnant and has a 2-year-old daughter, said they need the money for their children. "We can barely give them nutritious food in our village,” she said while cooking on an open fire outside her mud hut.

She added that staying in their village means there would be no money left for her children’s education. She said the police sometimes take away their money or phones — the police have denied this. 

Salmina Sheikh sits with her toddler inside her home in an informal settlement in Bangalore, India.

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Raksha Kumar/The World

The Indian state of West Bengal shares a history, culture and language with neighboring Bangladesh. It’s difficult to differentiate Muslims from West Bengal and those from Bangladesh since they all speak Bengali.  And many Indian migrants say they are being harassed merely for being Muslim.

“We all have documents to prove that we are Indian citizens,” said Saeeb Sheikh, a local agent who is not related to Salmina Sheikh. He receives a commission for bringing migrant workers from the poorer regions of West Bengal to Bangalore.

Homes in this informal settlement in Bangalore, India, are made of tin and plastic sheets.

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Raksha Kumar/The World

A 27-year-old agent who asked not to be named to avoid trouble with authorities admitted that some workers from Bangladesh are paid less than workers from India. 

Political climate

Since 2019, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was elected for the second term, his party has spoken out against those they call "illegal immigrants" from Bangladesh.

Home Minister Amit Shah has also addressed the media on the issue several times.

“We will not let even one illegal immigrant stay in the country," Shah said. He has even used derogatory names to describe Bangladeshi immigrants.

Scholar Maggie Paul said that this is an ageold narrative — Muslims from neighboring countries taking away land, jobs and resources —that ultimately galvanizes votes. She traces the issue back to the British division of the subcontinent into Hindu-dominated India and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

Karnataka, the capital of Bangalore, will go to the polls in about two weeks to elect a state assembly. Many candidates are seeking votes by claiming they will rid the city of illegal migrants from Bangladesh.

Trash segregators in Bangalore, India, pile up glass bottles to one side as they separate waste.

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Raksha Kumar/The World

“I get WhatsApp messages congratulating me on my work in removing these Muslim migrants," said a Karnataka politician who asked not to be named because he has not been cleared by his party to speak to the media. 

Paul said that harassment by the authorities serves a two-fold purpose: politicians get electoral gains and migrant labor becomes all the more vulnerable and open to exploitation.

And, in a country ruled by a Hindu nationalist party, their Muslim religion pushes them toward maximum vulnerability,  said author and researcher Govind Kelkar.

The People’s Union for Civil Liberties filed a case in January 2020 in the Karnataka High Court challenging an eviction of a settlement in Bangalore. The following month, the court asked the government to provide alternate housing arrangements and compensate the migrants monetarily for losses caused by evictions.

High-rises seen from a waste pickers colony in north Bangalore, India.

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Raksha Kumar/The World

Ravi Nair, with the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Center, a New Delhi-based nonprofit, explained it this way: 

“If the government resorts to large-scale deportation of Bangladeshi climate and economic migrants, the waste collection, sanitation and scavenging sector would collapse in all major Indian cities." 

Raksha Kumar is a media fellow working on migration with the Asia Pacific Forum On Women, Law and Development. This story was part of her fellowship.

Related: 'India is a tinderbox': Religious tensions come to a boiling point after brutal murder of Hindu tailor

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On Feb. 6, Elçin Ezer’s apartment building collapsed in the massive, 7.8-magnitude earthquake that ripped across southern Turkey. 

She survived underneath the wreckage for four days, hugging her daughter as she died in her arms. Her mother and her son were in the next room, but she never heard their voices. She thinks they both died on impact. 

The shaking destroyed at least 55,000 buildings in Hatay, the province for which Antakya is the capital. Thousands died — including at least 700 in the collapse of a single luxury apartment block. Survivors emerged into a waking nightmare. 

Immediately after the earthquake, Ahmet Sarp used his mechanical lift to rescue survivors from upper-floor apartments in buildings that were still standing, but whose staircases had collapsed. Today, he uses it to help families salvage furniture from their damaged homes. Renting the machine and hiring workers can cost $500 per apartment.  

 

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Durrie Bouscaren/The World

Every day, Ezer walks to the pile of rubble that used to be the home she shared with her two children, who were 8 and 13. She’s haunted by the fact that rescue workers didn’t arrive at the site for days. Her ex-husband drove from Antalya to dig her and their children out, she said. 

“People ask me why I came back, and I don’t know what to tell them,” Ezer said. “My legs brought me here on their own.” 

Antakya today is a city of grief. At least 57,658 people have been confirmed dead in Turkey and northern Syria following the earthquakes, with many still missing. Though many residents have left the city to escape the risk of aftershocks, many remain to mourn, offer support and rebuild. 

“I feel better here,” Mehtap Yılmaz said. “Here, I lost so many friends, relatives — so many close friends. But we’re trying to stick together.” 

A dusty haze hovers above the ruins of buildings as crews tear down wrecked apartments. The Turkish government has promised to rebuild earthquake-damaged cities within the year. But with 1.5 million people across an 11-province disaster region now homeless, that seems impossible. 

Perihan Yüksek prepares tea in a makeshift tent that functions as a kitchen. 

 

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Durrie Bouscaren/The World

These days, almost everyone lives in tents or converted shipping containers — some in formal camps, others in public parks, or among the ruins of their homes and neighborhoods. Children can attend one hour of school per day in tent camps. 

In Antakya’s city center, there are creative solutions for small, daily comforts: Fresh baklava sold from a tent. A mobile ATM fashioned out of a van. A phone store set up in a shipping container. 

“When I see someone who I knew before the earthquake, it’s incredibly emotional … it’s like we didn’t understand the feeling of being sad,” said Onur Aşkar, a barber who offers shaves and haircuts underneath a tarp set up in a street median. 

Sami Joba chopped onions for kebabs, which he grills on a charcoal stove. He lost his restaurant in the earthquake. But his friend, who drives a school van, was also out of work. They converted the van into a setup for an outdoor kitchen, with the slogan that translates in English to: “If I don’t eat, I will die.”

Açeyla Açıkbaş, Ozhan Açıkbaş and Sami Joba run a mobile kebab shop in downtown Antakya. 

 

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Durrie Bouscaren/The World

One kebab, wrapped in a flatbread with onions and tomatoes, costs 50 Turkish lira — about $2.50. For families living in tent cities, it’s a rare chance to eat hot food that they’ve chosen for themselves. 

“It’s cheap, and it has a nice taste,” Joba said, without looking up from his work. “And — we don’t have anywhere to cook now.” 

For Selma Koşar, who waited with her 12-year-old son for their order, it was the first time they had had a kebab since the earthquake. The two are staying in a tent city nearby. 

“It’s always soup, beans and rice,” she said. “But it’s not for me — it’s for my son. We don’t have enough money.” 

After the earthquake, Koşar said, her son couldn’t speak or eat for several days. When she saw him get excited about having a kebab, she couldn’t say no. 

Suleyman, a truck driver, lost his family in the earthquake. He has remained in Antakya to help families salvage furniture from their wrecked homes. 

 

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Durrie Bouscaren/The World

Throughout the daylight hours, debris is cleared and packed onto trucks, which are driven out of town and dumped along the highway. Tall mechanical lifts, which spent the first weeks of the disaster pressed into service to rescue survivors, now line up to the rickety husks of apartment buildings as people salvage furniture from their damaged homes.

Climbing up into these apartment blocks is dangerous work, but it pays well.

Anas Saghir, a Syrian refugee, said that he sent his wife and children to Konya, a city that sits further away from earthquake fault lines. But he stayed behind to work. 

Every day, he said, his kids cry on the phone, asking him to come for them. They were traumatized by the frantic escape from their home in the early morning hours; the staircase of the building collapsed as the family rushed downstairs, hitting Saghir in the head. 

“They’re always saying ‘baba, baba,’” he said, fighting back tears. 

A worker sleeps during a short break while transporting onions in Hatay. 

 

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Durrie Bouscaren/The World

At night, he sleeps in a tent in the ruins of a baklava shop. He’s just grateful they all survived. 

“Thank God for everything,” he sniffed. 

Other families have moved to the hills where villages ring the outskirts of old Antakya. 

Perihan Yüksek used a match to light a propane stove in a makeshift tent that serves as a kitchen. She came to the village after the earthquakes to be with her cousin, Bedia Yüksek, who’s mourning the loss of her daughter, Huliya.

Bedia Yüksek holds a photograph of her daughter, Huliya, who died in Antakya during the earthquakes on Feb. 6. 

 

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Durrie Bouscaren/The World

“Whenever I’m in the tent, it feels like the pain is going to kill me,” Bedia Yüksek said. 

Her daughter was sleeping in her apartment in Antakya when the earthquake hit. Perihan Yüksek’s son, who was also living nearby,  survived, but lost both of his legs.

The Yükseks' home is still standing, but appears as if it could collapse at any moment. Bedia Yüksek and her husband set up donated tents in the garden and wired them with electricity. On a recent visit, several mattresses have been prepared for relatives who will visit in the coming days. A photograph of their late daughter sits next to the television, watching over them. 

“Life continues, because it has to,” Perihan Yüksek said. “Life goes on until God takes it from us.”

Bedia Yüksek and Mehmet Yüksek’s home remained standing after the earthquakes, but is no longer safe to live in. They’ve been staying in tents ever since.  

 

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Durrie Bouscaren/The World

Days are spent washing clothes by hand, cooking outdoors and making improvements to the tents so they stay dry in the rain. They eat eggs from their chickens and oranges from their garden. But the Yükseks are determined to stay until their home is rebuilt. 

It’s like going back in time, Perihan Yüksek mused over a glass of tea. As she finished her cup, she flung the extra out onto the dirt floor.  

“I guess that’s something,” she said. “If you don’t have a living room, there’s nothing to clean.” 

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This analysis was featured in Critical State, a weekly foreign policy newsletter from Inkstick Media. Subscribe here.

New research suggests that elephants may be self-domesticated, which could tell us not only about the similarity between elephants and humans but also about why humans evolved the way we did.

A theory known as the human self-domestication hypothesis suggests part of what is unique about human behavior — our development of cultures, tools, and languages — came about because of an evolutionary process that did not favor aggression. But that theory is hard to test as so few living beings are self-domesticated.

Enter the elephant, joining bonobos as another species that may also be self-domesticated, as suggested by Limor Raviv, Sarah L. Jacobson, Joshua M. Plotnik, Jacob Bowman, Vincent Lynch, and Antonio Benítez-Burraco, writing in a new article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

They write that “elephants indeed exhibit many of the features associated with self-domestication (e.g., reduced aggression, increased prosociality, extended juvenile period, increased playfulness, socially regulated cortisol levels, and complex vocal behavior.)”

This, they say, is reinforced by genetic evidence, insofar as “genes positively selected in elephants are enriched in pathways associated with domestication traits and include several candidate genes previously associated with domestication.”

One particularly interesting point of potential proof is “an extended juvenile period and enhanced play behaviors have been hypothesized to be a crucial outcome of self-domestication, contributing in turn to the behavioral changes associated with self-domestication, particularly to cultural niche construction, in a sort of positive feedback loop.”

Elephants take longer to develop, and more of what they learn is taught, as opposed to innately known. They also note that “enhanced playfulness in adulthood can counteract tendencies toward dominance, promoting more egalitarian and cooperative behaviors and thus contributing to the sophistication of culture.” Every playful adult elephant is (maybe) a sign of evolutionary success.

The socialization patterns of elephants, the authors argue, “parallel what we find in humans.”

Human self-domestication is thought to have been “triggered by several (potentially interacting) factors, including the reliance on more variable and nonlocal food sources that require more cooperation to obtain, and the adaptation to harsh environmental conditions like those resulting from the Last Glaciation, which increase the need for resource sharing.” They theorize that there were also several potential triggers for elephants, too.

The point isn’t just that we now know more about elephants, though, for pachyderm fans, that is exciting, too. It’s that we might know more about ourselves and how we humans came to be as we are.

“If elephants have undergone self-domestication, one can expect to see at least some of human’s unique social and cognitive abilities in elephants as well, especially those associated with cultural niche construction and cultural evolution,” they write.

“Our hypothesis for self-domestication in elephants thus has important implications for studying the process and outcomes of cultural evolution, which is seen as one of the most prominent and powerful hallmarks of humanity.”

Critical State is your weekly fix of foreign policy analysis from the staff at Inkstick Media. Subscribe here. 

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For human beings, Earth is a supremely human place. A world of concrete, steel, glass, plastic, cars, paved streets and highways, and lots of other human beings, generating mountains of waste. Here and there, pockets of nature for human beings.

Dutch chemist Paul Crützen coined a term for Earth’s human age — the Anthropocene. Crützen proposed that it be declared a new epoch in Earth history, terminating the one geologists say we’ve been in for the past 12,000 years, the Holocene.

This summer, a scientific panel will shift Crützen’s proposal up a notch.

The Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) was set up in 2009 by a commission of the International Union of Geological Sciences. Its task — defining the Anthropocene, geologically.

Crützen’s idea was that the Anthropocene began with the 18th-century Industrial Revolution. In 2019, a decade of research under its belt, the AWG decided it actually began around 1950, at the start of what American environmental historian John McNeill dubbed the Great Acceleration, in the wake of World War II; a period marked by massive fossil-fuel burning, resource extraction, pollution, global trade and population growth, and the parallel rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide, surface temperature, biosphere degradation and so on.

The AWG’s next task was to identify one spot on Earth where the telltale signs of human activity are best observed in mid-20th-century sediments. The technical term for this is a mouthful — a Global Stratotype Section and Point. The more popular one: a “Golden Spike.”

To be precise, that Golden Spike would be the thin sequence of layers in a core pulled from the bottom sediments of a lake, bay or estuary, or from a peat bog, ice sheet, coral reef or stalagmite, somewhere on Earth, containing the chemical and material signatures of human activity dating to the mid-20th century. Key among these — spheroidal carbonaceous particles (fly ash) from coal burning, microplastics, heavy metals, isotopes of carbon and nitrogen associated with fossil fuel burning, and radioactive Plutonium-239 from atmospheric nuclear weapons testing that peaked in the 1950s.

After years of investigation, the AWG came up with a list of 12 candidate Golden Spikes — in Japan, China, Canada, the US, Denmark, Italy, Poland, Australia and the Antarctic. Each candidate site assembled a scientific team to study their cores in the minutest detail.

Francine McCarthy, lead scientist for Crawford Lake, in southern Ontario, is proud of her sedimentary cores.

“We do have the best site,” McCarthy said. “I have to accept some kind of maternal pride.”

McCarthy has reason to be proud. Crawford Lake has been recording human activities for thousands of years. That’s because it’s very deep, and its bottom sediments are permanently isolated. Those sediments consist of many layers, laid down year after year, all precisely dated.

They record the history of coal burning, the rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide and atmospheric nuclear weapons tests, all peaking around 1950.

So do sediments from the Baltic Sea, Japan’s Beppu Bay, Sihailongwan crater lake in China and the Śnieżka peat bog at the heart of Poland’s polluted “Black Triangle.” San Francisco Bay estuary cores are rich in invasive species, mercury and SCPs. Coral samples from the Gulf of Mexico and Cairns, Australia, are also competitive.

The competition is tense. To be chosen as the Anthropocene’s Golden Spike, a candidate site must receive 60% of votes from the AWG’s 23 voting members. Multiple rounds of voting have taken place over the past year.

As the AWG prepares to announce its choice, prominent geologists disagree that the Holocene Epoch ended, and the Anthropocene began, a mere 70 years ago.

“In geological terms, that's today. It’s just yesterday morning,” said Phil Gibbard, a geologist at Cambridge University. ”We have no clue about, seen from thousands of years in the future, whether this would be more than a blip.”

Only time will tell if the Anthropocene is a blip, said Simon Turner, AWG’s secretary. Turner, standing in a hallway at University College London, where he works in the geology department, reflects on the popularity of the Anthropocene idea in nonscientific circles.

“The thing with the Anthropocene, people get it,” Turner said. “They get the idea of, like, human activity on the planet. The Holocene … I can probably pull someone over here now and say, 'have you heard of the Holocene?' And they will not have heard of it … and geology is just down the corner, so you would hope someone has.”

The Anthropocene Working Group will announce its winning Golden Spike sometime this summer, or in the early fall, in Berlin. Its proposal will then pass up the geo-bureaucratic hierarchy — first to the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy, then the International Commission on Stratigraphy and finally, the International Union of Geological Sciences.

However, approval of that Golden Spike — either as the base of a new epoch, the Anthropocene, or just the latest stage of the Holocene (in which case, it would be named after its Golden Spike; the Crawfordian, for instance) — could take years.

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Environmental activist Windel Bolinget remembers what it was like to end up on a government list for the first time.

It was 2018 and his name was included on a petition to designate the Communist Party of the Philippines a terrorist group — he wasn’t even a member of the group.

“My name was just included there,” said Bolinget, an Indigenous Igorot and the chairperson of the Cordillera Peoples Alliance. “There were more than 600 names just deliberately included there as terrorists.”

This happened, he said, because of his activism in opposing development projects in the Cordillera region — a mountainous, landlocked area on northern Luzon Island, the Philippines’ largest island.

The country has long been one of the most-dangerous places in the world for environmentalists. The international nonprofit Global Witness has, for years, ranked the Philippines in the top slots of its annual list as deadliest countries to be an eco-activist. Dozens of environmentalists and land defenders also die each year. 

“In the Cordillera, our ancestral domains are targeted for big hydropower or dam projects, large-scale mining,” Bolinget said. “And our communities are resisting these projects because it violates our collective rights to our ancestral lands.”

Windel Bolinget is an environmental activist who ended up in a petition to designate the Communist Party of the Philippines a terrorist group, a group he is not a member of.

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Ashley Westerman/The World

The Cordillera region is chock-full of natural sources. It is also a prime target for development.

Although Bolinget’s name, and hundreds of others, were eventually removed from the petition, the intimidation against them continued.

In 2020, Bolinget was falsely accused of murder and a warrant was issued for his arrest. A manhunt ensued and a shoot-to-kill order was placed on his head. The whole thing was completely fabricated, Bolinget said, which is how his lawyers were again able to get the warrant dropped.

But earlier this year, another arrest warrant was issued. This time, for Bolinget, five other Indigenous activists and a community journalist — all from northern Luzon.

“We are called the Northern Luzon 7, charged with rebellion or insurrection,” he said. “Again, there was no due process.”

Currently, the seven are out on bail. Bolinget and others traveled to the capital, Manila, last week to tell the government about their experiences, as well as to bring up the recent spate of bombings happening in the Cordillera region.

Since early March, people there have reported that up to nine bombs were dropped near their communities. Bolinget said this has disrupted their economic livelihoods and “brought terror.”

He added that he is afraid, but remains defiant.

“Of course, that's normal for a human being [to be afraid], but their intent is to silence us. But what we are doing, it's our duty. We cannot be silent. We owe this to our children.”

'Development aggression'

The struggles of environmental activists in the country go back decades, explained Carlos Conde, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch based in Manila.

There was a term for it in the 1970s: “development aggression.” 

The Philippines has been ranked as one of the most dangerous places in the world for environmental activists.

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Ashley Westerman/The World

“This mainly refers to development projects that tend to displace environment and Indigenous people's communities,” Conde said. “And this has resulted in conflict.”

He said that much of the conflict stems from the government ignoring the requirement to get consent for projects from Indigenous communities called the Free, Prior and Informed Consent: a guiding, international human rights principle that basically says governments must consult and work with Indigenous communities before making decisions — such as building developments — that affect them.

The Philippines government often ignores the requirement to get consent for development projects from Indigenous communities.

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Ashley Westerman/The World

Meanwhile, increased activity by communist insurgents in some of the same areas is creating a volatile situation, he added.

“That's why, now, with the Philippine government and national security's establishment, basically, they're targeting Indigenous people’s communities. But in many instances, these Indigenous people’s communities who are against the project are not necessarily insurgents.”

Conde said there is middle ground between development that the country sorely needs and the rights of Indigenous communities, but it comes down to the government making a deliberate effort to listen to them.

‘We are not anti-development’

The current administration of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. has so far been silent on both the Luzon 7 and recent bombings.

Some analysts say that’s just part of keeping up the facade that Marcos has united support in the north, where he hails from. His home province Ilocos Norte is a picturesque place where the Cordillera Mountains meet the waves of the West Philippine Sea.

It is also rich in natural sources, both on the land and in the sea, said activist Genaro Dela Cruz, who is from the same province and is head of the Ilocos Human Rights Alliance.

“Illocos Norte actually was named as the center for renewable energy in Southeast Asia, not only in the Philippines, because of the windmill and solar farms that generate electricity.”

Protesters say they're not anti-development, but want to protect Indigenous lands in the Philippines.

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Ashley Westerman/The World

But these developments threaten the communities there, said the veteran environmental activist, who has also experienced harassment by authorities for his activism.

Dela Cruz said the idea that activists are against development is a misunderstanding.

“We are not anti-development, but we want to put up development projects for the people and not for a few ones, or the rich ones.”

He said he hopes that including his community in conversations about development will ensure the projects benefit everyone.

Related: Record-breaking inflation rates in the Philippines are pushing people to take on extra jobs

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Spain’s Institute of Science and Concrete Technology laboratory sits inside a cavernous, concrete hanger on the campus of Valencia’s Polytechnical University. It hosts one of Europe’s largest disaster simulators — all kinds of them, according to lead scientist José Adam.

“Earthquakes, explosions, fire, landslides, floods,” he said. “These are the events we work on.”

Adam’s lab is getting attention after the deadly earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria in February, which killed at least 50,000 people. 

The experimental lab looks like a massive construction site. But there’s some high-tech gadgetry among the pallets of building materials and the steel cabling: a hydraulic jack in one corner that can apply tons of pressure on, say, a bridge pillar; another contraption tests how well a concrete wall stands up to fire; yet another jack applies seismic pressure against a recently erected brick hut.

Inside the Institute of Science and Concrete Technology, construction materials and machinery are stored everywhere. It looks like a real-life construction site.   

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Gerry Hadden/The World

The main aim here is to make buildings more resilient by improving “continuity” — how well the different parts of a building hold together. 

“Continuity is a key aspect because if one of the columns collapses, the load of that column should be transferred to other elements,” Adam said.

Think of a building as a group of mountain climbers all connected by a safety rope. If one climber slips, the others can collectively stop the fall and prevent the climber from sliding away.

Dr. José M. Adam, chief researcher at the Institute of Science and Concrete Technology, stands next to a hydraulic jack capable of applying tons of load pressure on simulated bridges and buildings. The tests help researchers understand how structures break, which can lead to better design and building techniques.

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Gerry Hadden/The World

Adam’s team tests for continuity on full-scale buildings outside the city. 

On a recent afternoon, they sent in a remote-controlled forklift to deliberately punch out a column on a two-story structure. The building sagged for a second, but didn't collapse. The team of some 50 people erupted in applause.

But sometimes, collapse is unavoidable, the scientist explained. Take the truck bomb that brought down a full third of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in 1995.

That tragedy was a seminal moment in structural design — the homemade bomb, he said, took out just three of the building’s many columns, yet it led to structural catastrophe due to the domino effect of collapsing sections. After that, engineers came up with the idea of a so-called “last line of defense” for buildings. 

Buckets of microfibers sit at the ready inside the experimental lab. The fibers are mixed with concrete to give it incredible strength and resistance.   

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Gerry Hadden/The World

Adam is working on what is called “fuse segmentation,” essentially structural break points in the building. It’s a safety measure, and works just like electrical fuses in a home. 

“You won't see these fuses, because they are inside the structure.”

Under normal conditions, the fuses are structurally sound. But if one corner of a building begins to collapse, say, after a flash-flood, metaphorically speaking, the fuses will blow. 

“It breaks this segment, separating the collapsing area from the rest,” he said. “This is a smart switch device.” 

In other words, you can cut your losses. Almost like a lizard that can detach its own tail to escape predators.

The lab is still perfecting these structural fuses, but part of their genius is that they cost virtually nothing because it does not require bringing new materials or mechanisms to the construction process.

It’s a matter of strategically weakening certain parts of the building, which hold up under normal conditions but collapse under high stress. 

“The construction sector is very conservative,” he said. “If you want to convince people to use a device, they won't pay for it.”

The entrance to Valencia’s Polytechnical University, home to the lab trying to make buildings and bridges more resilient to catastrophic stress.

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Gerry Hadden/The World

Adam said he hopes this low-cost solution can be used everywhere one day, and not just in earthquake prone areas — with climate change, no building’s safety is guaranteed, because no one can predict the weather.

“For example, storms in places where you didn't didn't have storms in the past, or strong rainfalls or landslides in a place where maybe nothing happens now but in the future.” 

But no matter how good building technology gets, if contractors don’t use it, then disasters like the quake in Turkey will continue to topple towers, and kill people, in large numbers.

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Australian Roberto D’Andrea, a guest conductor on a streetcar in Kolkata, India, wore the green uniform of a Melbourne “connie,” or tram conductor, as he punched tickets and called out the name of each stop.

D’Andrea, a retired tram conductor, was part of the festivities last month for the tramway’s 150th anniversary, also marked by cake, music and a parade of gaily decorated old trams, led by a 100-year-old green wooden car.

D’Andrea’s love of trams has brought him back to the city again and again since he first visited 30 years ago. The “ding ding ding” noise the streetcar made, said D’Andrea, who belongs to the Calcutta Tram Users Association, reminded him of the trams in Melbourne.

Australian Roberto D’Andrea, a guest conductor on a streetcar in Kolkata, India, wore the green uniform of a Melbourne “connie” or tram conductor as part of the festivities last month for the tramway’s 150th anniversary.

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Sandip Roy/The World

Melbourne and Kolkata have two of the longest-running tramways in the world.

But Kolkata’s tram system is limping along. It's down to just two lines, and despite a loyal band of supporters advocating for it, there is little political will, or room in the city's crowded streets, to bring the streetcars back to their former glory days.

Snehasis Chakrabarty, the West Bengal state transport minister, kicking off the celebrations, said that the trams face a lot of practical problems: Roads aren’t getting any wider and the number of cars on the street keeps rising.

A streetcar in Kolkata, India.

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Sandip Roy/The World

“We are not here to say goodbye to trams,” Chakrabarty said. “Although, it is not possible today to run[a] tram [on] every route in [the] Kolkata metropolitan city due to congestion.”

Kolkata has far less road space compared to other Indian cities like Mumbai. So, trams have to share the road with cars, trucks, rickshaws, buses, three-wheelers and millions of pedestrians.

Many old tram routes have also been taken over by buses and three-wheelers.

Ongoing construction of the underground metro railway system also disrupted old tram routes.

Kids ride a streetcar in Kolkata, India. 

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Sandip Roy/The World

But the transport minister promised that trams will remain at least as a heritage ride for tourists.

Transport consultant Suvendu Seth, sitting in a bustling, new cafe in a tram depot, argued that trams should be for mass transport, not heritage.

“Why don’t we make those roads which are narrow for pedestrians and trams only? Why allow vehicles there?”

Many cities in Europe, Australia and the US got rid of streetcars during the automobile boom of the 1950s and ’60s, he said. Now, with a push toward sustainability and green transport, many cities are bringing streetcars back, often at great expense.

“And we had it all the time, and we are neglecting it,” Seth said. “That’s not a very nice thing. We should encourage it.”

Especially in a city where the air quality index is routinely over 200 during the winter months.

Art students paint a streetcar in Kolkata, India, for a celebration marking the tramway's 150th anniversary.

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Sandip Roy/The World 

But there’s a misconception that trams “are from another century,” he said.

The double-bogeyed streetcars of Kolkata do feel old — they have not been updated in decades and rattle noisily down the middle of the street, sometimes losing the overhead electric connection.

But tram workers have not given up. During the anniversary event, a group of streetcar workers raised slogans demanding that more services be resumed.

The festivities last month for the tramway’s 150th anniversary in Kolkata, India, were marked by cake, music and a parade of gaily decorated old trams, led by a 100-year-old green wooden car.  

Credit:

Sandip Roy/The World

 

One streetcar driver, Gopal Ram, reminisced about how his family had worked for the tramways for generations.

His great-grandfather, Antu Ram, worked on trams when it was still steam-powered. His grandfather, Mahavir Ram, and his father, Jagannath Ram, both spent their lives working on trams.

When Hindu-Muslim riots engulfed Kolkata in the 1940s, tram workers drove empty trams to restore confidence in a shattered city.

The tramway in Kolkata, India, turned 150 years old last month.

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Sandip Roy/The World 

“My father, himself, helped save people from a mob,” Gopal Ram said.

Gopal Ram just retired after 39 years of service. He said that he sees no future in the trams of Kolkata. For Gopal Ram, it is the end of the line.

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Businessman Kizito Tinarwo said he has many orders for products from his small steel and aluminum factory, but power blackouts have hit production hard in Zimbabwe. 

He uses a gasoline-powered generator when the power goes out, but this is expensive and has its limits. 

“It cuts into profits because we add to our costs of doing business,” he said. “The generator cannot run forever; it has its prescribed running hours. We switch it on and off. In the process, our lead times are affected.” 

This has been the case since he started his business about four years ago. But the latest outages have been longer — sometimes lasting 19 hours a day.  

Along the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia sits Lake Kariba, where low water levels have interrupted power supply to both countries. The world’s largest manmade lake by volume is on the Zambezi River, with hydroelectric power generators on both sides. Zimbabwe gets 70% of its power from Lake Kariba. But plunging water levels have worsened a yearslong power crisis — profoundly impacting the economy.

Below the Kariba dam wall, with Zambia border in the background. 

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ish Mafundikwa/The World

And Tinarwo is not the only one impacted by the power outages. Zimbabwe’s many minerals include platinum, gold, chrome and lithium, and mining accounts for the bulk of Zimbabwe’s export earnings. 

Collin Chibafa, president of the Zimbabwe Chamber of Mines, said some 88% of the country's mines experience outages of as long as 12 hours. 

He said some mining companies are now taking matters into their own hands by building solar plants.

“Obviously, those only work maybe four or five hours a day [that] we get peak production. Some of our members run diesel generators, but that's an expensive and the least-viable option. If you have people underground, they need ventilation, they need oxygen, it's really crucial that you can safely get people up from underground,” he said.

Households are not spared the inconvenience as power goes without prior notice. People with enough discretionary income may use generators, solar energy and inverters — but these options are beyond reach for the majority. Gas for cooking has become the go-to option for those who can afford it. For those who can’t, charcoal is readily available and affordable. And the sprawling, open-air market in Mbare, Harare's oldest working-class neighborhood, is the place to buy it. 

Bags of charcoal at Mbare market in Harare, Zimbabwe. 

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ish Mafundikwa/The World

Nyarai Mupesa, who has sold charcoal there for the past five years, said business is good whenever there is no power. 

“When there are power cuts, sales are good, people need charcoal for cooking and to keep warm,” she said.

The problem is that charcoal, and the other low-cost option, kerosene, both contribute to deforestation and pollution. Chopping and burning trees for charcoal is illegal in Zimbabwe. But that has not stopped the practice. And most of the charcoal sold at Mbare is imported from Mozambique because, according to Mupesa, it is better quality. 

“You pay the required duties and are issued with a receipt that enables you to get to Harare with your charcoal,” she explained. 

Nyarai Mupesa prepares her charcoal for sale.

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ish Mafundikwa/The World

Besides the hydroelectric plant on Lake Kariba, Zimbabwe's other main power source, the Hwange thermal power station is old and breaks down frequently. New units at the power plant are set to start generating power soon. But even if it and Kariba operate at capacity, they cannot meet Zimbabwe's power needs.

Energy expert Victor Utedzi runs a solar farm. 

He sees renewable energy as a solution to Zimbabwe’s power problems. So does the government. In a bid to attract more local and private investors to set up solar and hydropower plants to sell to the national grid or direct to some consumers, the government recently announced new policies. 

Solar water heaters are now standard features on new houses as well as some old houses in Zimbabwe.

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ish Mafundikwa/The World

“The government has given a guarantee that if the utility is unable to pay, the government will step in and make the payment. The government has also opened the space even further; they allow you to sell directly to some of the largest industrial and commercial clients in the country,” Utedzi said.

 The government also imports power from neighboring countries but that doesn’t always work due to currency shortages. 

Building another hydropower station upstream from Kariba is seen as the best hope for solving Zimbabwe's power woes. But two decades after it was proposed, no action has been taken.

Until it becomes a reality, the rolling blackouts will continue. 

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Guyana has discovered nearly 11 billion barrels of offshore crude reserves, and the country is hoping that oil can help transform its economy and offset its ongoing poverty crisis.

The South American country is readying itself for its next round of oil auctions in April, with all the major oil companies expected to bid. Exxon Mobil Corp. is already heavily involved and has been since the late '90s when offshore exploration there began.

But what might sound like striking gold may not actually be the case. With agreements that 75% of oil revenue belongs to Exxon and partners, little is expected to reach citizens.

Lack of major oil gains are not foreign to South America; since 1980, countries in the region reap short-term gains but tend to be worse off in the long run.

Citizens have polarized opinions on the discovery with some rallying behind oil extraction in hopes of a soaring economy and new jobs. Others remain wary of the environmental drawbacks and risks of catastrophic oil spills.

While oil companies are seeking opportunities, climate-change activists are concerned. Guyana has thus far been hailed as a world leader on climate change.

The discovery means a potential release of millions of tons of greenhouse gases from a climate globally known for absorbing millions of carbon emissions each year.

Amy Westervelt is a journalist and host of “Drilled,” a true-crime podcast that looks at climate change — it's focusing on Guyana this season.

“It's worth noting that since 1980, no 'global south' country that's gotten into the oil business has ended up better off for it, not one,” Westervelt said. “So, it has this tendency to kind of bring short-term gains and ultimately, leave countries worse off or, at best, about the same as they were before oil.”

She shared some images with The World from around Guyana’s capital, Georgetown.

The Guyana Shop was put together by the attorney general and business boards to help small food businesses in Guyana package and sell their wares.

Credit:

Courtesy of Amy Westervelt

The Stabroek Market is a farmers market in Georgetown, Guyana.

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Courtesy of Amy Westervelt

A canal in Georgetown, Guyana. Citizens have polarized opinions, with some rallying behind oil extraction in hopes of a better economy and  others remaining wary of the environmental drawbacks and risks of catastrophic oil spills.

Credit:

Courtesy of Amy Westervelt

Guyana is hoping that newly discovered offshore crude reserves can help transform the country's economy and offset its ongoing poverty crisis.

Credit:

Courtesy of Amy Westervelt

Guyana has thus far been hailed as a world leader on climate change, but new plans for extracting oil has environmental activists concerned.

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Courtesy of Amy Westervelt

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At Monster Project Kitchen in Soweto, South Africa, the staff prepare daily for the power to go off, switching off the music and lights and readying the gas stoves.

“Load-shedding affects us very badly,” said Fana Khumalo, who runs the restaurant, along with a number of other businesses in Orlando East, a part of South Africa’s biggest township, Soweto.

The lights may be off, but crisis mode is definitely switched on in South Africa. Despite a national state of disaster and a new minister of electricity, scheduled power outages — known as load-shedding — are heavily impacting ordinary citizens.

Businessman Fana Khumalo stands in front of Monster Project Kitchen and talks with staff in Orlando East, Soweto, Johannesburg. 

 

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Elna Shütz/The World

The average American might experience about 7 hours without electricity a year, mostly due to major weather events like hurricanes and snowstorms. But for South Africans, who have endured daily blackouts for the last four years, this is the norm.

Power gets switched off according to a particular area on a scheduled basis, in stages. For instance, at stage six, 6,000 megawatts are taken from the national grid, meaning lights out for about 9 hours a day. The government implemented load-shedding for about 43% of last year.

In mid-February, President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a national state of disaster to respond to the electricity crisis, granting the government broader powers, like exempting critical infrastructure from load-shedding. It also allowed for new electricity producers to skip through environmental regulations and unlock extra finances.

They also established a new transitory Ministry of Electricity, led by Kgosientsho “Sputla'' Ramokgopa, the new minister, who has a background in civil engineering. He hopes to end load-shedding, he said, but cautioned South Africans to be patient.

'We serve our people'

People like Khumalo feel the pressure on a daily basis. The kitchen is tucked off a busy road and serves food to up to 100 people a day. 

“With traditional food, you need to prepare it in the morning, because you have to cook it for long hours,” he said.

One of their main dishes is cow heart, served alongside a stiff, staple maize porridge pap, usually shared and eaten by hand.

“Pap and mogodo, pap and heart, liver, and cow head. That's what we do. We cook here, we serve our people, we have a sit in, or you can do a takeaway.”

Employees of Monster Project Kitchen prepare cow’s heart and other traditional South African foods over gas during scheduled power cuts. 

 

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Elna Shütz/The World

Khumalo said they have become used to working on a schedule and will get by — but it’s been hard.

“You lose customers, because sometimes when they come in, there is no gas as a backup,” he said. “So, we lose money in that way.”

His businesses have also had to let go of staff and deal with excess stock. “We eat the food, what can we do? Or we give it to the orphans in the neighborhood or we share it with our friends.”

Businessman Fana Khumalo stands in front of Monster Project Kitchen in Orlando East, Soweto, Johannesburg.

 

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Elna Shütz/The World

He feels that the government is failing ordinary South Africans and small businesses. Khumalo said he worries about corruption and that too many people in power are making decisions that only serve their interests.

“You are working on a break-even point just to keep the business going, just to think that maybe things will be better, the load-shedding will be over, so that we can go back to business normally, and give people the service that we’ve always given them.”

An eatery next door to Monster Kitchen Project in Soweto, South Africa.

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Elna Shütz/The World

Of course, these problems didn’t happen overnight. Since 2007, there have been increasing bouts of load-shedding for a few months at a time, often because of compromised or failing infrastructure.

Independent energy analyst Clyde Mallinson said that a few decades ago, the country had a surplus of coal-powered electricity, based in part on Apartheid-era sanctions.

“So, what's actually happened is the coal fleet has deteriorated faster than they thought it would and we haven't put a new generation in place at a rate that can take over the job of what the coal fleet has been doing.”

He said that the current working capacity of about 100 coal-fired power production units is closer to about 40 units. 

A coal truck, right, passes the coal-powered Duvha power station, near Emalahleni (formerly Witbank) east of Johannesburg, Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022. South Africa's ever-worsening power crisis, in which homes and businesses go without electricity for up to 10 hours per day, is strangling Africa's most developed economy. 

Credit:

Denis Farrell/AP/File

“So, we really, really are in big trouble at the moment, we've run out of time,” Mallinson said. 

He warns that there’s looming electricity inequality ahead. 

“The economic engine of the country is in small-to-medium-sized business operations in all of the towns and cities. And it's those that are bleeding at the moment, by virtue of not being able to have electricity or have money to backup,” he said, adding that the rest of the population has to pick up the load of “very expensive, very dirty electricity coming from a gasping, dying utility.”

The government’s current Energy Action Plan includes new, renewable energy, more imported power and improved existing power plants. The different scenarios place the end of load-shedding anywhere between a few months to a few years.

For now, load-shedding continues, and with it, the resilience of South Africans to adapt.

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The sun isn’t fully up, but Pedro Salas Díaz is already hard at work carrying 100-pound sacks of salt down the hillside to be stored for sale. He navigates his way along the rock walls that separate hundreds of small pools that have been here for centuries.

Salas Díaz is only 23, but he’s been working here for the majority of his life. 

“This has been passed down from generation to generation,” he said. “From my grandfather, to my father and now, me.”

But here in this Oaxacan town of Zapotitlan Salinas, migration and climate change may spell the end of salt farming in Mexico. 

Pedro Salas Díaz has worked as a salt farmer most of his life in a tradition passed down for generations. 

Credit:

Michael Fox/The World

Salas Díaz works alongside his father as one of the youngest in a group of less than 100 traditional salt farmers left here. 

Visiting this salt farm is like stepping back in time. Even the salt-makers don’t know how many hundreds of years ago the stairs and the rock walls of the mineral springs were built.

Their salt farming technique has remained roughly the same for generations.

They use the spring water to fill the salt pools. It can take two months of watering, washing, rewashing, and breaking up the crystals, for each pool to produce a few hundred pounds of salt.

The mineral spring near the Oaxacan town of Zapotitlan Salinas.

Credit:

Michael Fox/The World

Back before industrialized production, the salt here was a coveted commodity that Indigenous people called “white gold.” Popoloca peoples produced and traded it widely long before the arrival of the Spanish.

Those days are over, but it’s still a huge source of pride for the local community. 

“It’s our identity,” local tour guide Leonardo Noé said. 

“Our town is named Zapotitlán Salinas, or Zapotitlán 'of the salt farms.' It’s our unique identity and puts us on the map.”

But still, Noé said, many youth are leaving in search of easier, better-paying jobs elsewhere. Many have migrated to the United States.

"We need to incorporate more youth, and more people who want to learn the skill of being a salt farmer," he said. 

Pedro Salas Díaz and his dad work on the salt farms that their family has done for generations. 

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Michael Fox/The World

In town, huge baskets holding bags of salt sit outside the shop of resident Marcelo Salas. 

“When I opened this store, the first thing I wanted to do was sell this salt, because it’s part of our culture,” Salas said. “We sell about a ton of it a week.” 

Across the street, Maria del Carmen Cruzalas owns and runs a taco shop. 

"We are the children of salt farmers,” she said. “And there is a huge difference between refined salt and the salt we produce here. Our salt gives another flavor to the meat and sauces." 

Their salt is also good for one's health. A recent study from the nearby Tehuacán Technological University found that it has 65% less sodium and is rich with 200 minerals.

That’s because this whole region used to be underwater. The ancient sea left behind salt and minerals, which the rains collect when they fall during the summer months — and replenish the mineral springs that feed the salt farms.

Migration and climate change may spell the end of salt farming in the Oaxacan town of Zapotitlan Salinas.

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Michael Fox/The World

But farmer Pedro Salas Díaz said those springs aren’t filling up like they used to, and he’s concerned for the future. 

"With climate change, there are times when it’s not supposed to rain and it does, and times when it’s supposed to rain, when it doesn’t. It is very concerning,” he said.

Pedro Salas Díaz, 23, has worked as a salt farmer most of his life.

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Michael Fox/The World

Salt farmers here need the summer rains to fill the springs, but a rain during the dry season, right now, could ruin months of work. 

But Díaz said they will weather the storm. And when his toddler son is ready, he’ll be bringing him along, too — teaching him the trade that he learned from his father and his grandfather before him.

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In Villa de Leyva, Colombia, dozens of people lined up this past weekend during the 26th-annual Astronomy Festival to look at the stars through giant telescopes set up in the town's colonial-era square.

This Andes town's dry weather makes it one of the best spots in the country to go stargazing — drawing around 5,000 people to its festival every year.

“This is really cool,” said Valentina Galvis, an eighth-grade student who attended the festival with her family. “You can talk to people who know about the stars, and they’re very eager to share their knowledge.”

Every year, about 5,000 people attend Villa de Leyva's Astronomy Festival, which is held in the town's colonial-era square.

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Manuel Rueda/The World

Across the globe, cities have become a lot brighter. Suburban sprawl and urban skyscrapers, some lit with neon lights, make it harder to see the stars. But some places, like Villa de Leyva, are now trying to dim their lights in the hopes of promoting positive health benefits for locals while also attracting more visitors.

The popularity of the annual three-day festival has encouraged organizers to push for lasting improvements for the town. They’re working with the local government to modify Villa de Leyva’s streetlights so that it's easier to see the night sky.

“What we really want is to defend the right of all humans to see the stars.”

“What we really want is to defend the right of all humans to see the stars,” said Diana Rojas, the festival’s director. “So, we have to teach people about the importance of preserving dark skies and ask our governments to be smarter about artificial lighting.”

The Belt of Orion constellation, as seen from Villa de Leyva's central square. 

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Manuel Rueda/The World

Villa de Leyva has a population of 20,000 and is currently trying to get certified by the Starlight Foundation, an organization that runs a list of the world’s best stargazing destinations. Among the town’s plans is to change the direction of its streetlights so that they only point downward. And it is also planning to use light bulbs with lower-colored temperatures that emit softer lighting.

With tourism being one of Villa de Leyva’s main industries, Mayor Josue Castellanos hopes the certification will attract more people.

During the day, experts calibrate their telescopes at the Astronomy Festival and place special filters on them, so that visitors can also watch the sun, Villa de Leyva, Colombia.

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Manuel Rueda/The World

A growing number of enthusiasts are among the younger generations.

“Children love astronomy, and our festival attracts many families,” Castellanos said.  “So, we want to keep our skies dark and turn that into another attraction.”

Third grader Andres Camilo Morales from Bogotá looked at the sky through a white telescope as he shared his excitement.

“It’s so much easier here to see the beautiful stars,” Morales said. “There’s so many people here doing this, and it’s been a lot of fun.”

Third grader Andres Camilo Morales looks at the Orion nebula through a telescope placed in Villa de Leyva's central square.

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Manuel Rueda/The World

Health benefits

Managing artificial lighting also has health benefits.

Studies have shown that the excess of artificial lighting, known as light pollution, can be bad for humans.

“When we sleep in the dark, we produce a hormone called melatonin,” said Cristian Goez, an astronomy professor from Bogotá. “But if we are exposed to too much artificial lighting, melatonin production decreases, and that can generate diseases.”

And Goez said that he hopes starlight certification for Villa de Leyva could also prompt other towns across Colombia to tackle their own light pollution.

To make the stars more viewable, the Andes town of Villa de Leyva plans to change its streetlights, so that they only point downward, and use light bulbs with warmer color temperatures. 

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Manuel Rueda/The World

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Syria has become a pariah state under the government of President Bashar al-Assad. He's been accused of gassing his own civilians, and bombing hospitals and schools.

But the catastrophic earthquake that hit northwestern Syria last week is opening some doors.

Arab leaders who once shunned him are reaching out with aid, and assistance from the United Nations is trickling in. It took seven days for the UN to strike a deal with Syria to open two additional border crossings into the region.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations, speaks during a Security Council meeting on the maintenance of peace and security of Ukraine, Monday, Feb. 6, 2023, at United Nations headquarters. 

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John Minchillo/AP

US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield addressed the United Nations' reasoning behind the delay in a conversation with The World's host Marco Werman.

"I wouldn't put the blame on the UN," Thomas-Greenfield said.

"The US made very clear on day one that we would provide assistance directly to the Syrian people through any means possible. Where the blame lies [is] with the Syrian government. They took seven days to reopen the border. NGOs, the UN, donors were all working desperately to get assistance to the people of Syria. It is the Syrian government, the Assad regime, that let the Syrian people down."

This interview was lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

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Last week, the government of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva kicked off a widespread operation to stop illegal mining on Yanomami Indigenous territory.

Videos of the operation have gone viral over social media over the last week. In one, officers from Brazil’s environmental protection agency IBAMA approach a boat of illegal miners trying to motor into the area. The officers wear bulletproof vests over tan and camouflage uniforms. Their guns are raised.

“Stop,” they yell. “Stop. Turn around now.”

The officers pull alongside the boat. "Get your hands on your heads,” they yell. “You're going to come with us.”

The miners comply without a word. There are eight of them in the boat that is packed with bags and supplies.

Since the operation kicked off, IBAMA officers have found and destroyed a plane, a helicopter and other heavy machinery.

In a press conference last week, Justice Minister Flavio Dino said they were confiscating and destroying equipment so that it can’t be reused in illegal activities and those people who refuse to leave may be arrested.

Removing 20,000 illegal miners is not an easy task. Yanomami territory along Brazil’s northern border is remote and huge — roughly two times the size of Switzerland. Wildcat gold mining on Yanomami territory increased 300% in the last four years under ex-president Jair Bolsonaro.

Last week, a delegation of Yanomami leaders traveled to the US to raise further attention to their cause.

“They want to steal our land and destroy our nature, our water,” Leader Davi Kopenawa told the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at the opening of a Yanomami photography exhibit in New York. "They are bringing disease. That’s why we’re here."

Fiona Watson traveled with the delegation in the United States. She's worked with the Yanomami for decades, and she’s the director of research and advocacy at the London-based NGO Survival International.

"We had political meetings in Washington with the Organization of American States, with the State Department, USAID and various Congress people, and I think that was really important,” she said.

“Because, Lula met with Biden last Friday, and it really put the Yanomami crisis into the spotlight.”

The news reports and images of starving Yanomami children have shocked the world in recent weeks. At least 570 Yanomami children are reported to have died from malnutrition and curable diseases under the Bolsonaro government. Dozens more have been flown to hospitals in recent days. The communities are battling malaria, mercury poisoning from the wildcat gold mines, hunger and constant threats from the miners who are backed by criminal groups.

President Lula visited the region on Jan. 20, where he promised to turn the tide.

“I am here to say that we are going to treat our Indigenous peoples as first-class human beings. Not like fourth or fifth-class people,” he said. "What I have seen here is inhumane.”

Lula has declared a humanitarian crisis for Yanomami territory.

The Brazilian military has been delivering aid, food and supplies to Yanomami villages.

Yanomami leaders blame former President Jair Bolsonaro for empowering illegal miners, gutting Indigenous and environmental protection agencies and ignoring their pleas for help.

"Many teams came from Bolsonaro's government to see our reality,” Junior Hekurari, the president of the Yanomami Health Council, told the Brazilian news outlet Brasil de Fato. "I took them around and showed them first hand, but unfortunately they just turned their backs or closed their ears."

Brazil’s Supreme Court has called for an investigation into allegations of genocide by the Bolsonaro government against the Yanomami people.

But in an interview last week, Bolsonaro’s former environment minister Ricardo Salles denied any wrongdoing by the former president.

"The responsibility for that situation is in the hands of all of Brazilian society,” he said. "All of Brazilian society has ignored the situation for the Indigenous in northern Brazil for a very long time."

Salles further applauded Bolsonaro’s attempts to legalize wildcat mining on Indigenous lands, which he said could have regulated the activity and its impact.

Meanwhile, numerous videos shared online last week showed groups of miners voluntarily packing up and leaving their camps in Yanomami territory. 

"This is all very positive,” Fiona Watson said. "But what I fear, is that the intentions are there. They’ve hit the ground running. But time and time again, we've seen [this] in the past with the Yanomami and indeed other Indigenous territories. It's so easy for these illegal miners to go back and of course all the politicians and big economic interests behind something like the gold industry are still there.”

Yanomami land is only one of numerous Indigenous territories that have been invaded by illegal miners in recent years. In other words, Indigenous leaders say, the government efforts are an important first step. But there is a long way to go.

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A 27-year-old university student in Syria, who didn’t want to share his name for security reasons, said that there have been so many aftershocks over the past week that it’s hard to tell when the earth is shaking or if he’s imagining it.

“I keep a bottle of water next to me … or a small cup or whatever liquid based, just to make sure if I’m right or [not],” said the student, who lives in the port city of Latakia, which is controlled by the Syrian government.

The 7.4-magnitude quake left a lot of damage, he explained. Homes that are still standing are not safe to return to, so people are sleeping in mosques or churches. Help has been trickling in.

“There are so many [nongovernmental organizations] that are trying to help; other than NGOs, there are individuals who are making so much effort to give the people what they need,” he said.

How fast and how much Syrians have received aid following the earthquake depends on where people live. The response has highlighted that there really are two Syrias: one under the government’s control, where international relief organizations are helping out. Another, the opposition-controlled northwest, mostly isolated from the rest of the world.

On Sunday, the US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, urged the security council to open another border crossing from Turkey into northwest Syria.

But Russia, an ally of Syria’s government, has veto power on the council. And so far, the Kremlin has said that one border crossing into Syria is enough.

The UN said on Monday that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has agreed to open two crossing points from Turkey to northwest Syria for an initial period of three months “to allow for the timely delivery of humanitarian aid.”

Warm food, baby formula, diapers and clothes are some of the items being shipped to Latakia. Most are coming from the capital, Damascus.

That’s where Charlotte Streinger, a French teacher, has been organizing donation drives.

“I teamed up with three of my colleagues from the school. Spontaneously, we created this team, and we started gathering trustful contacts throughout the country with people that we know,” she said.

Streinger started an online fundraiser and she said in just three days, she managed to raise about $7,500.

“But the problem is that as with everything that is linked to Syria, it was then blocked,” she added.

Syria is under strict economic sanctions. Last Thursday, the US Treasury made a temporary exemption for aid related to the earthquake. Yet, the sanctions are still being felt on the ground.

Streinger said she could have used the money to buy things such as food, hygiene products and blankets, some of the most-needed items. Instead, she said, she is left with no cash and having to apologize to those who donated. She is trying to find a way to return their money.

“It made me feel horrible. Horrible,” she said.

The Syrian city of Aleppo — also under government control — was heavily damaged in the earthquake. Over the weekend, the head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Ghebreyesus, visited the city.

“We have just come today with supplies and look forward to continuing to support,” he told reporters.

Ghebreyesus came with a planeload of medical supplies. A second one is scheduled this week, WHO said.

Aleppo saw widespread destruction during Syria’s civil war, and filmmaker Youssef Saba said the earthquake “finished the job.”

In a series of WhatsApp messages, he explained that help is beginning to pour into Aleppo, some coming from inside Syria, and some from outside.

Aleppo even got the attention of the Syrian president himself.

Bashar al-Assad and his wife, Asma al-Assad, visited a hospital on Friday. It was all smiles and hugs in videos shared online. But for Syrians living in areas not under government control, things have been very different.

The northwest province of Idlib was hit hardest by the earthquake and more than a week later, people there said they still don’t have the equipment needed to pull victims from under the rubble.

“We want the UN to apologize. They’re making the people of … the Syrian people disappointed,” Raed al-Saleh, head of the White Helmets, told reporters last Friday.

Martin Griffiths, the UN’s emergency relief coordinator, tweeted as much on Sunday.

“We have failed people in northwest Syria,” he wrote, adding that “my duty and our obligation is to correct this failure as fast as we can.”

Karam Kellieh, a photographer working in the northwest part of the country, said that people have lost hope of rescuing victims trapped under the rubble and that those who survived have no shelter.

“People [were] refugees before the earthquake. Now, they’re [living] in the roads, in hospitals, in schools,” he said.

Some have camped under olive trees and have been spending nights in the frigid temperatures.

"No picture of video can explain what happened in north of Syria,” Kellieh said.

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Thousands left homeless by a massive earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria a week ago packed into crowded tents or lined up in the streets for hot meals Monday, while the desperate search for anyone still alive likely entered its last hours.

One crew wrested a 4-year-old girl from rubble in hard-hit Adiyaman, 177 hours after the 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck. Thousands of local and overseas teams, including Turkish coal miners and experts aided by sniffer dogs and thermal cameras, are scouring pulverized apartment blocks for signs of life.

While stories of near-miraculous rescues have flooded the airwaves in recent days — many broadcast live on Turkish television and beamed around the world — tens of thousands of dead have been found during the same period. Experts say given temperatures that have fallen to minus 21 degrees Fahrenheit — and the total collapse of so many buildings — the window for such rescues is nearly shut.

The quake and its aftershocks, including a major one nine hours after the initial temblor, struck southeastern Turkey and northern Syria on Feb. 6, killing more than 35,000 and reducing whole swaths of towns and cities inhabited by millions to fragments of concrete and twisted metal.

Damage included heritage sites in places like Antakya, an important ancient port and early center of Christianity historically known as Antioch. Greek Orthodox churches in the region have started charity drives to assist the relief effort and raise funds to eventually rebuild or repair churches.

Some 62 miles from the epicenter, almost no houses were left standing in the village of Polat, where residents salvaged refrigerators, washing machines and other goods from wrecked homes.

Not enough tents have arrived for the homeless, said survivor Zehra Kurukafa, forcing families to share the tents that are available.

“We sleep in the mud, all together with two, three, even four families,” said Kurukafa.

Turkish authorities said Monday that more than 150,000 survivors have been moved to shelters outside the affected provinces. In the city of Adiyaman, Musa Bozkurt waited for a vehicle to bring him and others to western Turkey.

“We’re going away, but we have no idea what will happen when we get there,” said the 25-year-old. "We have no goal. Even if there was (a plan) what good will it be after this hour? I no longer have my father or my uncle. What do I have left?”

But Fuat Ekinci, a 55-year-old farmer, was reluctant to leave his home for western Turkey despite the destruction, saying he didn’t have the means to live elsewhere and had fields that need to be tended.

“Those who have the means are leaving, but we’re poor,” he said. “The government says, go and live there a month or two. How do I leave my home? My fields are here, this is my home, how do I leave it behind?”

Volunteers from across Turkey have mobilized to help millions of survivors, including a group of volunteer chefs and restaurant owners who served traditional food such as beans and rice and lentil soup for survivors who lined up in the streets of downtown Adiyaman.

Other volunteers continued with the rescue efforts. After rescuers pulled out the 4-year-old, a relative told HaberTurk television that more loved ones were inside the building.

As the scale of the disaster comes into view, sorrow and disbelief have turned to rage over the sense there has been an ineffective response to the historic disaster. That anger could be a political problem for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who faces a tough reelection battle in May.

Meanwhile, rescue workers, including coal miners who secured salvage tunnels with wooden supports, found a woman alive Monday in the wreckage of a five-story building in Turkey's Gaziantep province.

Syrian authorities said a newborn whose mother gave birth while trapped under the rubble of their home was doing well. The baby, Aya, was found hours after the quake, still connected by the umbilical cord to her mother, who was dead. She is being breastfed by the wife of the director of the hospital where she is being treated.

Such tales have given many hope, but Eduardo Reinoso Angulo, a professor at the Institute of Engineering at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, said the likelihood of finding people alive was “very, very small now.”

David Alexander, a professor of emergency planning and management at University College London, agreed. But he added that the odds were not very good to begin with.

Many of the buildings were so poorly constructed that they collapsed into very small pieces, leaving very few spaces large enough for people to survive in, Alexander said.

“If a frame building of some kind goes over, generally speaking we do find open spaces in a heap of rubble where we can tunnel in,“ Alexander said. “Looking at some of these photographs from Turkey and from Syria, there just aren’t the spaces.”

Wintery conditions further reduce the window for survival. In the cold, the body shivers to keep warm — but that burns a lot of calories, meaning that people also deprived of food will die more quickly, said Dr. Stephanie Lareau, a professor of emergency medicine at Virginia Tech.

Many in Turkey blame faulty construction for the vast devastation, and authorities have begun targeting contractors allegedly linked with buildings that collapsed. Turkey has introduced construction codes that meet earthquake-engineering standards, but experts say the codes are rarely enforced.

Turkey’s death toll from the quake has exceeded 31,000. Deaths in Syria, split between rebel-held areas and government-held areas, have risen beyond 3,500, although those reported by the government haven’t been updated in days.

Visiting the Turkish-Syrian border Sunday, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths said that the international community has failed to provide aid.

Griffiths said Syrians "rightly feel abandoned.” He added: “My duty and our obligation is to correct this failure as fast as we can.”

In the Syrian capital of Damascus Monday, the UN special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, told reporters that “troubles” regarding the flow of aid to Syria’s rebel-held northwest are “now being corrected.”

The Kurdish-led administration in northeast Syria, meanwhile, said that 53 trucks carrying aid had crossed from Kurdish territory into earthquake-damaged areas controlled by rival Turkish-backed rebels in northwest Syria who had previously prevented convoys from crossing. Turkish authorities consider the Syrian Democratic Forces to be a terrorist group, along with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, a Turkey-based Kurdish separatist group.

By Associated Press writers Mehmet Guzel, Suzan Fraser and Sarah El Deeb.. Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey, and El Deeb from Adana, Turkey. Tanya Titova in Malatya, Turkey, and Ben Finley in Norfolk, Virginia contributed.

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A magnitude 7.8 earthquake emanated from southeast Turkey early Monday morning, toppling buildings and killing thousands of people in the country and in neighboring Syria.

The death toll has now surpassed 12,000, with tens of thousands of injured. Search teams from around the world have joined local emergency personnel in Turkey and Syria to look for victims.

But what caused the devastating quakes that are among the deadliest this century?

Most of Turkey, experts explain, sits on a slab of the Earth’s crust called the Anatolian Plate, which ends near the border with Syria.

“We have in the eastern Mediterranean a number of plates like a jigsaw puzzle,” said Tuncay Taymaz, a seismologist at Istanbul Technical University in Turkey.

This jigsaw puzzle is in constant motion. For instance, the massive, Arabian Plate to the south of Turkey is pushing northward, “which is mostly squeezing Turkey and the Anatolia[n] plate,” explained USGS seismologist Susan Hough.

Early Monday morning, the pressure along the East Anatolian fault zone running between the Anatolian Plate, to the north, and the Arabian Plate, to the south, had become too high for the crust to sustain, according to Zoë Mildon, an earthquake geologist at the University of Plymouth.

At a certain moment, “this rock cannot anymore withstand or resist this big energy,” said Marleine Brax, director of the National Center of Geophysics in Lebanon. “And it will slip. And this is what we call an earthquake.”

In the southern Gaziantep province of Turkey, at 4:17 a.m. local time, the part of the Anatolian Plate along the fault line slipped, lurching westward. The resulting earthquake measured 7.8 on the Richter scale, and it unleashed a ferocious amount of energy — the equivalent of detonating 8 million tons of TNT. The quake’s sheer power played a big role in making it so lethal.

Much of that energy emanates as waves.

“So, any earthquake, you can think of it as a symphony,” Hough said. “It’s releasing energy with a range of tones, or frequencies.”

Some of those frequencies cause more damage than others. There are the booming low tones — low-frequency waves like ocean swell that travel great distances but tend not to be too troublesome. And then, there are the higher-frequency waves, like choppy seas, that cause a lot of jitter.

“If you’re shaking the ground up and down every one second, that's the energy that tends to be damaging to most buildings,” Hough said.

These are the vibrations that pancaked multistory buildings and reduced high-rises to heaps in southern Turkey, and northern Syria next door.

After Turkey’s major 1999 quake, the country updated its building codes. But a lot of construction predates that change, and that’s another reason this quake was so damaging. Buildings fashioned largely from concrete unfortified with steel rebar crumble more easily when shaken.

Taymaz blames faulty ethics in his country for a good share of the destruction.

“If you do everything by the book,” like earthquake-proof housing, he said, “you will be alright. But [there are] not many obeying the rules. There are, of course, a lot of corrupted engineers, scientists, manufacturers, you name it.”

Meanwhile, as buildings were collapsing, the seismic waves rippled away from the fault line. Tremors were picked up on seismographs thousands of miles away. People actually felt the shaking in neighboring countries.

By the time the energy reached places like Lebanon, Egypt, and Israel, Hough said it was mostly made up of the low-frequency waves. The more damaging, higher-frequency waves just don’t travel that far.

“Just like if you were listening to a distant symphony, you wouldn’t hear the piccolo, you might hear the bass drum,” she said.

Some nine hours after the 7.8 earthquake, an unusually large 7.5 aftershock rang out.

Seismic processes like these can take centuries to build up, but they can change human lives in a matter of seconds. Now, the window of rescue, complicated by the bitter cold, is rapidly closing.

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Measuring the dimensions of an asteroid hundreds of millions of miles in outer space is not an easy task — but there is a way.

The asteroid needs to pass in front of a bright star. When that happens, you snap a picture and you can see its silhouette. When NASA wanted to do this for one particular asteroid, the angle for the photo was elusive. But they knew that the asteroid was passing directly above Senegal. So, they got in touch with astronomers there.

Maram Kaire, a top Senegalese astronomer aspiring to build a space agency for his country, was one of them. His story, "Star Chasers of Senegal," is airing on NOVA, produced out of GBH in Boston.

Kaire discussed the project, and his personal journey, with The World's host Marco Werman.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Related: NASA’s iconic image of Earth still inspires 50 years later. Fmr astronaut Mae Jemison reflects on it.

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Rescuers are racing against time to pull survivors from the rubble before they succumb to cold weather after an earthquake tore through southern Turkey and war-ravaged northern Syria on Monday. 

The death toll has now surpassed 12,000, with tens of thousands of injured. Search teams from around the world have joined local emergency personnel in Turkey and Syria to look for victims.

The last three days have brought dramatic rescues, including small children emerging from mounds of debris more than 30 hours after Monday's predawn quake. There’s also been widespread despair and growing anger at the slow pace of rescue efforts in some areas.

To support the relief efforts underway, here are some organizations working to support victims of the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, below.

(Before you donate, it is always advised to do some research. Sites like Charity Navigator can provide information on some lesser-known organizations. If you suspect any individual or organization committing fraud, you can report it to the National Center for Disaster Fraud, part of the US Justice Department.)

• AFAD, Turkey's official disaster/emergency response authority.
• AKUT, Turkish nongovernmental rescue and relief organization. 
• Union of Medical Care & Relief Organizations, a coalition of humanitarian, nongovernmental, and medical organizations.
• AHBAP, a local, voluntary network of philanthropists and volunteers.
• Syrian American Medical Society, a global medical relief organization.
• Molham Team, a volunteer organization.
• They Choose Love, a campaign supported by Syrian filmmaker Waad al-Kateab.
• Oxfam, an international humanitarian relief organization.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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Abdul Kafi Alhamdo first felt the tremors at around 4 in the morning. He thought that there was another bombing.

Syria has been at war for more than a decade and the sound of airstrikes are not all that unusual.

“But a bombing wouldn’t last for that [long],” he said. “[After] 10 seconds, no, it’s still moving, so I knew it’s an earthquake.”

Alhamdo and his wife scooped up their two kids and started to leave the house but there was nowhere to turn. In the confusion, he recounted, he wasn’t sure if outside was any safer, so they decided to stay inside. Thankfully, their home wasn’t destroyed.

Alhamdo and his family are among those who survived the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck southern Turkey and northwest Syria on Monday. Alhamdo and other witnesses described a “doomsday” scene. Entire neighborhoods have been leveled. This region of Syria is home to millions of people displaced by years of civil war. Even before the quake, they had been living in already dire conditions.

It was only when Alhamdo stepped out of his home to survey the damage that he realized the scale of devastation.

He drove around nearby cities and recorded videos, which he shared with The World.

In one, he is standing on top of a pile of rubble where the city’s market once stood.

“This area five years ago witnessed a very harsh attack from war planes,” he said into the camera. “A lot of houses were destroyed. Those houses that were affected are now on the ground.”

Behind him, no structure is intact. There’s a large excavation vehicle nearby. But people are seen using their bare hands to search for survivors.

“There were screams from everywhere,” he said. “I saw some people who [were] putting their ears on the rubble, waiting [for] any response from under the rubble to know that their relatives or beloved are still alive.”

Later, Alhamdo shared another video that showed rescuers rushing a newborn away from a collapsed building and to safety.

Alhamdo messaged on WhatsApp that the baby’s mother had just given birth amid the rubble.

Meanwhile, hospitals in that part of Syria are overwhelmed.

“When I tell you this is the worst I have seen, I literally mean that,” Dr. Shajul Islam, who works at the Shafi hospital in Idlib, said in a series of voice messages to The World.

Over the last seven years, Islam, a British-born anesthesiologist, said that he has seen a lot suffering from the fighting. But this is much worse, he said.

“We’re literally at the entrance of the hospital deciding which patients we’re going to try to save, which patients we’re not going to make an attempt to save.”

At the hospital, they are putting several patients in one bed and triaging who gets a ventilator, because they have so few.

Most other hospitals in the area are closed, Islam said, either because of the war, or because they don’t have the supplies to continue operating.

Before the earthquake, Islam’s hospital used to send some patients across the border to Turkey to get treatment. They can’t do that now.

“Unfortunately, because Turkey is overstretched with the amount of casualties they have, they’ve closed the border, so they’re not accepting any of our patients,” Islam explained.

An earthquake of this magnitude would be hard to deal with for any functioning state. But this part of Syria is controlled by a rebel group. The Syrian government has fought to take back Idlib over the years, but it hasn’t succeeded.

About 3 million people have fled from other parts of the country to Idlib.

“These are communities that have been living in perpetual conflict zones,” said Jennifer Higgins, policy, advocacy and communications coordinator for Syria at the International Rescue Committee.

“They’ve witnessed multiple atrocities, and many of them are already living with life changing, not only physical, but also emotional wounds and they’ve already been displaced multiple times.”

There is only one UN-mandated border crossing that is open for humanitarian aid to get through.

“The main response for northwest Syria fundamentally moves through this Bab al-Hawa crossing checkpoint,” said Higgins, who is based in Amman, Jordan.

The vote at the United Nations to keep that border crossing open was renewed last month and is only good for six months.

“The main amount of medical supplies that are going into northwest Syria are also [going] through this crossing and we really have to think about the capacity now for that health system to be able to scale up and respond as necessary,” Higgins said.

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As the death toll continues to climb beyond 3,400 after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck large parts of southeastern Turkey and northern Syria on Monday — with tremors felt in neighboring countries — rescue efforts are underway to help those affected and retrieve people trapped under the rubble.

Thousands of others have been injured. And scores of aftershocks have rattled the region, including a second 7.5-magnitude tremor.

Rescue teams are facing frigid winter temperatures. Ankara has formally requested help from NATO. Meanwhile, the Syrian government is not in control of its quake-stricken areas because of its ongoing civil war. Global leaders have offered condolences and assistance to both countries.

The World's Durrie Bouscaren discussed the unfolding situation with host Marco Werman.

"People are desperately trying to reach survivors," she said. "They're trapped under the rubble and rescuers know they're facing a ticking clock. But rescue crews are spread out over an impossibly large area. The worst damage is spread over 10 Turkish provinces as well as northern Syria. And even getting to these victims is hard."

Emergency teams search for people in a destroyed building in Adana, Turkey, after a powerful quake knocked down multiple buildings, Feb. 6, 2023.

Credit:

Khalil Hamra/AP

She explained that there are road closures and electricity and cellphone services are down in many areas, and multiple airports have suspended their flights. The Turkish disaster agency has asked for donations of blankets, electric generators and warm clothes. In places like Gaziantep, people with cars are trying to stay warm in their vehicles in an attempt to stay away from buildings and other structures that could collapse. They've been told not to leave the city because roads are badly damaged.

In the southeastern part of Turkey, home to minority groups and Syrian refugees, "A lot of people live in small towns and villages," she said. "They're spread out. It's an incredibly vulnerable population. People don't have a lot of savings to fall back on. They live in homes that often don't have a lot of up-to-date construction. And this just happened in probably the most-vulnerable section of the country."

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More than a third of Spaniards light up on a daily basis. And when they’re done, many of their cigarette butts land in the street.

“Seven out of 10 cigarette butts in Spain get flicked to the ground,” said Rosa Garcia, the director of a nongovernmental organization called Rezero in Barcelona.

A lot of cigarette butts reach the coast when beachgoers drop them into the sand, she said, adding that more than 25% of the waste collected on Spanish beaches consists of plastic cigarette butts. 

The cost each year to remove the tiny toxic nubs around Spain totals hundreds of millions of dollars, according to Garcia. A Rezero study suggests that it breaks down to anywhere between $15 to $25 per person every year.

“And even if you don’t smoke, you’re still paying for that cleanup — through your taxes,” Garcia said.

A recent decision, however, changed all of that. Spanish lawmakers have said that enough is enough — they passed legislation this month that would require cigarette makers to pay for the cleanup, but smokers worry that they’ll end up footing the bill. 

Cigarette makers declined to speak to The World about their plans. But the most likely scenario is that they will reimburse individual town halls for the costs they already incur in street-cleaning. And smokers are worried that the companies might turn around and hike prices to compensate for the losses. 

Barcelona has issued fines, at least on beaches, charging about $33 for dropping a cigarette butt in the surf. And last year, the city even banned smoking there altogether.

The fine was minimal, but another city initiative could hit smokers harder.

Barcelona’s City Hall is proposing a 20-cent tax per cigarette butt — which would be another $4 per pack, essentially doubling the price — but consumers would get that money back if they turn in the butts. It’s a similar scheme to getting some money back for returning soda cans for recycling.

The logistics for carrying out such a plan are still unclear.

Questions remain as to where people would return the cigarette butts. One logical choice would be at one of Spain’s 16,000 state-licensed tobacco shops, called estancos. But one estanco operator, Dani Perez, said he wouldn’t even touch them.

“In terms of hygiene it’s disgusting,” he said. “I am not going to start counting cigarette butts that have been lying on the ground, or sucked on by others.”

Nor would he have the time to do it, he said.

Cigarette butts are also filled with toxic residue from the tobacco, making them virtually impossible to recycle.

“A single cigarette butt can contaminate up to 1,000 liters [264 gallons] of water,” Garcia of Rezero said. “They are chemical bombs.”

Some startups are experimenting with biodegradable cigarette butts. But as they decompose, they’d still be releasing the dozens of toxic chemicals injected into them.

As far as cleanup goes, tobacco companies have a couple of months to roll out their plans. 

Barcelona resident Andrés Conde, a 56-year-old who smokes, wonders just how companies like Winston, Camel and others will actually tackle the problem.

“What are they going to do, send brigades of tobacco employees moving down the streets of every single Spanish town?” he raised.

If they do end up passing the cost along to consumers, Conde said he knows what he’ll do.

“I won’t pay double for cigarettes,” he said. “That’s nuts. I’m going to emigrate to Latvia.” Conde normally spends his summers there — where, he said, no one would dare to even toss a cigarette butt to the curb.

And anti-smoking activists say there’s really only one longterm, viable plan: it’s not finding a way to deal with dropped cigarette butts, but getting people to quit smoking altogether.

Related: French nonprofit warns 'COVID waste' could harm the environment

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When Indigenous activists, leaders and allies gathered on Jan. 2, at Brazil’s National Indian Foundation, FUNAI, it was finally time to celebrate.

This was an agency that had previously protected Indigenous rights and native land, but which, under former President Jair Bolsonaro, had been defunded, gutted and turned against them.

“It’s so great to be back here. We haven’t had a meeting here for a long time,” the new director Joenia Wapichana told a packed crowd. "And let’s remember,” she added, "from now on, the National Indian Foundation will be named the National Foundation of Indigenous Peoples."

Wapichana was Brazil’s first Indigenous lawyer and its first female Indigenous lawmaker. She was elected in 2018, and served in Congress over the last four years.

She said that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had invited her personally to head the agency as its first Indigenous director.

“It will be a challenge,” she said. But Wapichana will have help.

FUNAI will now fall under the jurisdiction of Brazil’s first Indigenous People’s Ministry, led by prominent Indigenous activist Sonia Guajajara. 

Brazil's President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva holds the hand of the his newly-named Minister of Indigenous Peoples Sonia Guajajara, during a meeting where he announced the ministers for his incoming government, in Brasilia, Brazil, Dec. 29, 2022.

Credit:

Eraldo Peres/AP/File photo

Guajajara was Lula's first cabinet minister to be sworn in on inauguration day, and wore a feather headdress, carrying an Indigenous shaker in her right hand. Lula embraced her when she reached the podium.

"It’s a moment of such great emotion,” she said in her first speech to supporters. “I’ve been telling a lot of people that I've never felt this excited. Never in my life.”

Challenges facing the ministry

Indigenous territories have been devastated in recent years by fires, clear cutting, mining and logging. Amazon deforestation is at a 15-year high. More than half of the destruction in recent years has been on conservation areas and native territories.

A tree stump on Indigenous land in the Amazonian state of Rondônia.

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Michael Fox/The World

Indigenous peoples blame Bolsonaro for pushing for Amazon development and empowering illegal land grabbers.

Nowhere is this clearer than on Karipuna territory in the Amazonian state of Rondônia.

Walking through the jungle a few months ago, Chief André Karipuna pointed out the latest destruction of Indigenous land.

"This was all just burned," he said, staring out over the charred remnants of a once-pristine stretch of jungle. "You can still see the smoke. Less than a week ago, this was all green forest."

Chief André Karipuna points out destruction of Indigenous land in the Amazonian state of Rondônia.

Credit:

Michael Fox/The World

But Lula has promised to stop the land invasions and the deforestation.

"The Indigenous peoples need to have their land demarcated and free from the threats of illegal and predatory economic activities,” Lula said during his inauguration speech.

“They're not obstacles to development. They are guardians of the rivers and forests and a fundamental piece of the greatness of our nation."

André Karipuna said he is excited about Lula’s victory, but concerned for what lies ahead.

"The invasions are really advanced,” he said. "We are hopeful that they'll be able to remove these invaders. But there's a lot to be resolved."

Destroyed trees in the Amazonian state of Rondônia, Brazil.

Credit:

Michael Fox/The World

That's why the new Indigenous leaders in Lula’s government are hoping to take action — and fast. 

At the top of their agenda is restructuring the new agencies, removing land invaders and demarcating new Indigenous land, something Bolsonaro refused to do.

Meanwhile, this month, the Brazilian government is expected to recognize 13 new Indigenous territories.

"This is a moment to rewrite the history of the Indigenous peoples of Brazil."

"This is an historic moment,” said Indigenous rights defender Ingrid Sateré Mawé. "This is a moment to rewrite the history of the Indigenous peoples of Brazil."

They have a long way to go, but Indigenous leaders say now, like never before, is a moment of relief, of celebration and hope, for them and for the protection of the Amazon rainforest. 

Related: Lula vows to end illegal mining in the Amazon. But legal mining is more complicated.

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Cleyson Juruna stands at the edge of the Xingu river, staring out over the water. He's the young chief of the Juruna people, who have lived in the Amazonian state of Pará for generations. 

“The Xingu River is our life,” he said. "She's our mother. Our arms and legs. It’s our means of transportation and our food."

But in recent years, times have been hard.

In 2016, a new hydroelectric dam began to wreak havoc on the river, decreasing water levels by 80% and killing tons of fish, a major source of food for Cleyson and his people. 

Now, the Juruna face yet another threat.

Cleyson Juruna stands at the edge of the Xingu river.

Credit:

Michael Fox/The World

Just upstream from their territory, the Canadian mining company Belo Sun hopes to open the largest open-pit gold mine in the Amazon. The company says the location contains almost 4 million ounces of gold, worth more than $8 billion.

Belo Sun general manager Rodrigo Costa told The World in an email that the operation would "promote sustainable development" by providing 7,000 jobs, tax revenue, infrastructure and socio-environmental projects.

But Cleyson Juruna said the mine would be a disaster.

“Belo Sun is here to practically end the lives of the native peoples who live here: the Juruna and the Arara,” he said. He pointed to a map. Roughly 6 miles divide the location of the planned mine from Paquisamba Indigenous land, where Cleyson and his people live. In the middle is the Xingu River.

“If there were any type of tragedy,” he said, “any leak of something toxic, it would contaminate the entire region, the communities and Indigenous territories. Ours and others downstream."

The Juruna people live within the Paquisamba territory in the Brazilian Amazon. 

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Michael Fox/The World

Belo Sun says the mine was designed to have zero environmental impact. General manager Rodrigo Costa told The World that "there will be no discharge of effluents into the environment, which is an industrial practice in organized and responsible gold mining."

But environmental and Indigenous activists are not taking chances. In December, the San Francisco-based nongovernmental organization Amazon Watch released a report underscoring the dangers of the project. It accused Belo Sun executives of spreading misleading information and downplaying risks.

Indigenous leaders protested against the mine at a Biodiversity Conference in Montreal last month.

"People need to understand that this mine will not just impact the state of Pará and the Indigenous peoples, it will impact the world,” Indigenous leader Puyr Tembé said at the conference. "You will feel the impact. Humanity needs to wake up.”

Indigenous leader Cleyson Juruna says the gold mining project would be a disaster for his people. 

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Michael Fox/The World

But not all community members are against the mine.

In a 2017 video from Belo Sun’s Facebook page, residents of the town of Ressaca, near the mining site, rallied in favor of the project. “We have miners, farmers and fishermen who depend on development,” said a man in a white cowboy hat. Behind him, someone held a sign reading,"Make our opinion count."

Belo Sun officials say local communities approved the project in a series of local consultation processes held over the last decade. But Indigenous and environmental activists say those meetings were flawed, with residents pressured, and local Indigenous communities never gave the green light for the project.

Mining in the Amazon comes in the form of both large-scale projects like Belo Sun’s Volta Grande mine, and from illegal wildcat miners who have pushed onto Indigenous territories in recent years.

Brazil’s new President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has called for sustainability and vowed to end wildcat mining.

“We're going to stop any possibility of illegal mining. We need more than just a law. It needs to be a declaration of faith,” Lula said on the campaign trail.

A gold store in Boa Vista, Brazil, Wednesday, Nov. 3, 2021. Gold illegally mined in the rainforest mixes into the supply chain and melds with clean gold to become almost indistinguishable.

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Andre Penner/AP

But Lula's relationship with legal mining in the Amazon will likely be more complicated. Some operations are deeply rooted. The largest iron-ore mine in the world, for instance, has been located in the southern Amazon for half a century.

Hundreds of companies have mining applications pending across the Brazilian Amazon.

"This mining might be legal, in that there is a supposed consultation process and such,” said Gisele Costa, a professor at Amazonas Federal University, who specializes on the impacts of mining in the region, "but the extraction of that ore will still pollute the rivers, kill people and so on.”

Belo Sun is awaiting a pair of licenses for the mine to proceed. They hope they can get the green light this year. Indigenous and environmental activists have vowed to do everything in their means to ensure that that approval never comes.

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Valdemar de Assis corralled his herd of cattle back into their pen after a day in the field.

He’s a family farmer whose land runs alongside the Trans-Amazon highway in the Amazonian state of Pará. The lush forest here was cut decades ago amid a government push to open up the jungle. Assis grew up here on a farm. Today, he said, he has about 300 cows.

He provides milk to the local community. His farm is about 100 acres. That’s small for the Amazon, still considered a family farm. He raises pigs, sheep, chickens, corn and vegetables. Even fish. Assis' cows are his life.

“It’s so beautiful to see them walking in front of you, and also, knowing that tomorrow, you are going to have a little more income. It’s good.”

Brazilian Valdemar de Assis is a family farmer whose land runs alongside the Trans-Amazon highway in the Amazonian state of Pará. 

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Michael Fox/The World

Assis said that he makes about 6,000 reais, or just over $1,000 a month. That’s not bad for Brazil. Six times the minimum wage.

Farmers like him are likely to get a boost from Brazil's new president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (referred to simply as “Lula"). In office for the third time, Lula promised to promote sustainable development for the Amazon — stopping deforestation while at the same time, keeping agribusiness thriving.

This is not an easy task. The Brazilian Amazon is huge and diverse, stretching across nine different states, and deforestation runs rampant.

Agronomist Anderson Borges said that small family farmers in the Amazon are responsible for roughly three-quarters of the products that feed local Brazilians. And as many as 90% of the jobs in agriculture here.

For Borges, sustainable development in areas that have already been deforested can look a lot like Assis’ land. The key ingredient, he said, is raising a variety of crops and animals.

”Having a diversity of many products means you don't need to intensify the production of just one crop, so you don't need a lot of pesticides and you don't need to deforest,” Borges said.

Lula's past actions on agriculture  

During Lula's second presidential term in 2008, he launched the program, Mais Alimentos, or More Food. The program supported small producers and family farmers with technical assistance, loans and government contracts to increase local agricultural production. Lula has again promised to back small producers.

Family farms are likely to get a boost from Brazil's new president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (referred to simply as “Lula"). In office for the third time, Lula promised to promote sustainable development for the Amazon — stopping deforestation while at the same time, keeping agribusiness thriving.

Credit:

Michael Fox/The World

But in the Amazon, family farmers make up just a small slice of the economy. And they have less than a quarter of farmland in the region. Another group is king: big ag — driven by multinational companies. Brazil leads the world in exports of both beef and soy beans. They are also the top two drivers of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.

Lula has promised to stop deforestation. It's something he's done before. In his first term in office 20 years ago, he enacted new strict regulations, inspections, land registries, and wood- and meat-tracking systems. Those policies helped to cut deforestation rates in half within two years.

“We don't need to cut down even a meter of forest to continue to be one of the biggest food producers in the world,” Lula said at the COP27 summit in November.

The president wants to roll back deforestation without kneecapping the industry. But that’s not without its challenges.

A large cow pasture alongside Brazil's Trans-Amazon highway in the Amazonian state of Pará.

Credit:

Michael Fox/The World

"You can’t amputate the arm of an important source of production, demanding sustainable practices without offering the necessary elements for them to be implemented,” said André Cotrim, an economics professor at Pará Federal University.

Suely Araújo is the former head of Brazil’s environmental protection agency, IBAMA. She said that Lula has to have a two-pronged approach against deforestation: fighting criminal actions like clear cuts and fires, while also supporting the local economy.

"We have to have a regional development plan for the Amazon, which shows that the government wants to generate income for residents of the region, but [which] does this with the forest still standing, with economic options that protect the forest.”

Araujo said that Lula did this well in 2004. And, she said, he's poised to do it again.The future of the Amazon rainforest largely depends on Lula’s success. 

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Science agencies in the US and Europe this week released their temperature data for 2022, revealing what has become an annual headline: Last year was one of the hottest on record. 2022 tied for fifth hottest, according to NASA. The US National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration, which uses slightly different data, said it came in sixth.

That’s even though La Niña cooled the equatorial Pacific, which typically turns down global temperatures.  

“This was, in fact, the warmest La Niña year in the whole record,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Earlier this week, Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service revealed 2022 was that continent’s second-hottest year ever, and hottest summer.

Last year was about 2 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than the preindustrial average, or 1.1 or 1.2 degrees Celsius, depending on whose data you use. That’s edging closer and closer to 1.5 degrees Celsius, a limit most countries in the world have pledged not to exceed. That goal is written into the 2015 Paris climate change agreement, alongside a less-ambitious target of limiting warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius. But it’s the lower target that has taken hold in recent years as both a goal and a rallying cry for aggressive climate action. 

Keeping 1.5 “alive” became the mantra of Alok Sharma, the UK politician who served as president of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in late 2021. UN Secretary General António Guterres also frequently references the figure, among many others.  

A coalition galvanized by low-lying island nations lobbied to get the more-ambitious target written into the Paris climate deal, arguing that exceeding that threshold represented an existential threat for their counties.

"It means we are dead. Just simply dead," former Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed told The World in 2021. “A whole country gone. A whole people gone. A whole society gone. A whole community gone. And this is the case with many, many low-lying islands.”

That target has always been wildly ambitious. But in the last seven years, as carbon emissions have continued to rise, it has gotten even more so. Global greenhouse gas emissions would need to be slashed 45% by the end of this decade to meet it, and a UN report published in October said there was no “credible” pathway to 1.5 in place.

Many climate scientists say that they don’t believe the target will be met.  

“I'm pessimistic for the 1.5,” said Thomas Stocker, a climate scientist at the University of Bern who co-led an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report on the physical basis of climate change in the years leading up to the Paris agreement’s creation. 

“We're not on the pathway to actually keep the warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius,” he said. “We [would] be extremely lucky to hold the temperature warming below 2 degrees.”

Three scientists involved in tracking the global temperature data that was released this week also said they saw limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius as unlikely.  

“I think it's very challenging to stay below 1.5,” said Schmidt, saying he was speaking only for himself, not NASA.  

“My expectation is that we will hit 1.5 degrees sometime in the 2030s,” said Samanath Burgess, deputy director of Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.

“I think it's very unlikely that we avoid overshooting that level of warming,” said Zeke Hausfather, with Berkeley Earth, an independent research group that also released its 2022 temperature data on Thursday.

It’s technically still possible to keep warming at 1.5 degrees, according to the science of atmospheric warming. But a recent IPCC report shows it would require a massive shift away from coal, oil and gas at a speed that’s hard to imagine. And it almost certainly would require overshooting the 1.5 limit for a time, then removing carbon from the atmosphere again before the end of the century to bring the globe’s average temperature back down.

Still, Hausfather said he thinks that the goal itself has been useful.

“Even if it's a target we don't hit, I feel like the fact that we are trying means we'll probably end up in a better place than if we were aiming higher,” he said.

Hausfather points out countries responsible for around 80% of emissions now have targets to reach net-zero emissions by midcentury. Whether they meet them, of course, is an entirely different question, but the goal itself is based on the science behind the 1.5-degree goal.  

The target being written into an international agreement “holds political leaders accountable,” Burgess said.  

Even as 1.5 continues to be held up as the goal by political leaders and activists, scientists aren’t exactly shouting from the rooftops how much of a stretch it really is.

Swiss scientist Thomas Stocker said there’s a concern that doing so would stymie ambition.

“I disagree,” he said, arguing it should instead galvanize even faster action.“The consequence should be that under no circumstances will we lose the second target and make the same mistakes again.”  

Some scientists worry that the 1.5-limit has been framed as a kind of tipping point, a make-or-break goal.

“The reality is that every single fraction of a degree matters; 1.5 isn't a cliff edge where bad things will happen. Bad things are already happening,” Burgess said.

Keeping warming below 1.7 degrees, say, would be better than 1.8 — 1.9 would be better than 2. 

Each 10th of a degree could cause more extreme rainfall, like the kind flooding California right now, and worsen heat waves, droughts and hurricanes, and further push up sea levels imperiling low-lying island nations.  

Leaders and activists in those vulnerable countries largely are not ready to talk about a post 1.5-world, at least to reporters. 

"I can't afford to think that 1.5 degrees is not attainable," former Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed said in 2021. “That would be a death sentence on our countries, and many low lying islands and coastal regions.”

With current pledges made under the Paris agreement, the UN Environment Program estimates the world is on track for 2.4 to 2.6 degrees Celsius of warming by century’s end.   

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This analysis was featured in Critical State, a weekly foreign policy newsletter from Inkstick Media. Subscribe here.

In the frozen waters and still-extant ice at the top of the world, it is easy to imagine that the environment is harsh enough for humans to leave conflict behind. While the fate of the warming North Pole is relevant to the whole of the world, international cooperation in the region, in recent decades at least, has been led by the countries north of the Arctic Circle. These eight nations, the United States, Canada, Denmark (through its possession of Greenland), Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia, joined the Arctic Council in 1996. 

The organization, which began as the Cold War ended, also consists of Indigenous Peoples as permanent participants, and has many non-member observers (like Germany and the Republic of Korea) who share a concern for the region. But following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Arctic Council has been on hiatus, and its once exceptional nature as a durable model of international cooperation is in question.

In “Can Exceptionalism Withstand Crises? An Evaluation of the Arctic Council's Response to Climate Change and Russia's War on Ukraine,” Gabriella Gricius and Erin B. Fitz look at the history of the council and examine what, if any, of its fair-weather functionality is durable in crisis.

To start, the authors look at two distinct, compounding crises for the council. The first is climate change, which expands human activity in the Arctic while also imperiling the climate, life, and lifeways in the region. Second, the authors look at Russia’s war on Ukraine, an acute and entirely voluntary geopolitical crisis brought about by one of the council’s member states, and which has an impact on its ability to cooperate with all other countries, especially with the council.

The authors sought to understand the perception of the council’s stability. Todo so, they conducted a literature review of scholarly articles about the Arctic Council. One finding was notable specifically for what was absent.

“Although the publications included in our review largely failed to mention actual geopolitical crises, Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea had an unequivocal impact on global and Arctic politics,” the authors write. Much of the work of the council continued, even as Russia did not participate in “annual meetings of the Chiefs of the Armed Forces of Arctic States, an independent cooperative institution from the Arctic Council.”

The course of action was normal enough that Russia could assume its role as council chair in 2021, though any expectations  at preceding normally were lost with the invasion.

“Although it is likely that Arctic Council activities would have halted in response to the 2022 Russia-Ukraine war regardless of who held the chairmanship, the fact that the Council did not shut down during previous crises suggests that the other seven Arctic states viewed this conflict as a more significant, state-driven stimulus,” the authors write. While the cooperation among other states and partners is beneficial, it suggests that the institution's previous decades of smooth operation hinge largely on the absence of geopolitical headwinds. At best, they conclude, it’s the lack of dispute that has made the Arctic Council durable, rather than the council ensuring a lack of disputes.

Related: Arctic alternatives: Part I

Critical State is your weekly fix of foreign policy analysis from the staff at Inkstick Media. Subscribe here. 

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Just across the Arizona border lies the dry, hot northern Mexico state of Sonora. It’s known for its abundant minerals, and it sees more than 300 days a year of clear sky and sunshine — prime real estate for something like a massive solar plant,  or several of them.

Mexico plans to do just that, building solar plants across Sonora, and it hopes to inaugurate the first project next month.

But that’s just the first stage. Within a few years, officials say it will be generating a gigawatt of energy, roughly the output of a nuclear power plant. Once completed, it’ll be the eighth-largest solar plant in the world.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said it’s just the beginning.

"We’ve already begun the solar plant in Puerto Peñasco and the idea is to replicate it. Make five plants, and at the same time, run those electric lines to the border,” he told press late last year, adding that Mexico could even supply energy to the United States.  

But there's a problem. These solar projects are to be run by Mexico’s state-owned company. The US and Canada say it is a violation of trade agreeements — an issue that’s central to the talks between the leaders of Canada, the US and Mexico, which are underway in Mexico City this week.

In recent years, López Obrador has pushed an energy policy that, in short, has prioritized largely coal-powered energy from the state electricity company, sidelining renewables and private and foreign energy firms. 

Mexican energy consultant Arturo Carranza said the move has been harshly criticized "not only by opposition political parties, but also by private companies already involved in Mexico's electricity sector. For them, this reform represented a change in the rules under which they had decided to bring their investments."

The US and Canada have demanded that Mexico rescind the priority status of the state electricity company and treat all firms equally. López Obrador responded by saying that his government has a right to prioritize Mexican state companies.

Last July, the US and Canada filed a complaint against Mexico for breaking rules under the North American free trade deal, known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). It states that Mexico cannot prioritize state businesses over the private sector. They also accused López Obrador of disincentivizing investment in clean energy.

Energy consultant Carranza said the Sonora plan is Mexico’s way of offering a carrot to the United States and Canada — a promise of clean energy. The plan would also include the extraction of lithium, in part, for the US microchip industry and for car manufacturing.

Analysts say it's a step in the right direction, but it only partially resolves the root of the energy conflict. Plus, it's not clear that Mexico could even get the full plan off the drawing board. 

"As a Mexican, I would love it if Plan Sonora could generate, transform, drive and supply 40% of the country with clean energy,” said Miriam Grunstein, chief energy counsel at Brilliant Energy Consulting. "But that's just a fantasy." 

Even if Mexico could muster the funds to build the plants, Grunstein said, Mexico’s electricity grid would have to be updated to carry the new load, something that Mexico is not investing in. 

University of Mexico economist Juan Carlos Moreno-Brid said not to expect anything substantial from this week’s summit.

"There will be nice words for the public,” he explained. "But behind the scenes, Canada and the United States are going to pressure Mexico hard to continue to change its energy policy.”

And that pressure may have an impact. Mexico imports roughly 70% of its natural gas, gasoline and diesel from the United States. And the US receives 80% of Mexico’s exports, which is a huge driver of the Mexican economy.

Moreno-Brid said that means the US has huge leverage to force Mexico to eventually bring its energy policy into line, negotiating power that will likely eventually have an impact, with or without Plan Sonora. 

Related: In the north of Mexico, water cuts to cope with shortages hit poor communities hardest

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Farmer Gilbert Butau appreciates his maize, but in recent years, he said, he has had to accept reality: Climate change is making it harder to grow enough maize for his family. 

"In the past, if I planted 10 kilograms of maize seed, I would get at least 2 tons, but now we get 150 kilograms from the same amount of seed. The rain is now erratic — it is getting less every year," said Gilbert Butau, who farms on several hectares of land in Mudzi, a hot, dry district in northeastern Zimbabwe. 

Farmer Gilbert Butau holds some red and white sorghum and sunflower, which also grows well in drier regions.

 

Credit:

ish Mafundkiwa/The World

Zimbabwe has had to import maize, a staple food, for the past several years as the country struggles to produce enough to feed its population of 15 million people. Experts blame more frequent droughts and erratic rainfall, which has led to poor harvests and chronic food insecurity. 

Over the past decade, the government has tried to wean Zimbabweans off maize in arid parts of the country, encouraging them instead to grow traditional small grains like sorghum and millet, which are more drought-resistant.  

But making the switch has not been easy. Producing small grains is more labor-intensive, and most Zimbabweans still prefer the taste of corn to sorghum or millet. 

Europeans introduced maize to Africa in the 16th century, and Africans quickly took to it because it was easy to grow. It could also be eaten on the cob before being harvested. Small-grain crops, on the other hand, attract pests, mainly birds, which means someone has to guard the fields against them. They also require more processing, including threshing, the act of separating the grain from the plant. Done on the ground, this often gets sand in the grain, making it unattractive to eat. 

Now, diesel-powered threshers are making the chore less labor-intensive, making it more manageable to produce clean grain. 

Subsistence farmer Zvanyadza Karima, also from Mudzi, owns one. He uses it to thresh his grain — and his neighbors’— for a fee. 

"Using the thresher, we do not deal with bits of stone or sticks or sand; it is now clean," he said.  

He added that guarding the fields against the voracious quelea birds that can quickly destroy a whole field is now a shared community activity. 

Zvanyadza Karima uses a thresher, which makes small grain production much easier. 

Credit:

ish Mafundikwa/The World

More farmers are turning to drought-tolerant small grains. But convincing Zimbabweans to make the switch is challenging: Most people favor ground white cornmeal to prepare a thick porridge, a staple dish eaten all over the country. 

Gilbert Butau's wife, Faina Butau, is originally from a predominantly maize-growing area. She said that developing a taste for the small grains was more challenging for her than it was for her six children. 

"When I moved here after getting married, it was difficult for me, but I am now used to them and prefer sorghum and millet to maize," she said. 

But Nomuhle Moyo, 26, said she’s sticking to maize because the one time he tried sorghum and millet, she didn’t like the taste. And the high price of sorghum and millet is discouraging. 

Sorghum meal on a supermarket shelf in Zimbabwe. 

Credit:

ish Mafundikwa/The World

Many Zimbabweans also hold a common belief that maize is nutritionally superior to traditional gains, but UNICEF nutritionist Mara Nyawo dispelled this myth. 

"They are higher in fiber, and the B vitamin, are good for immunity, and reduce the risk of chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure,” she said, adding that small grains also reduce the risk of obesity, a growing issue in Zimbabwe. 

The government has been working to persuade more farmers in drought-prone areas to grow small grains with incentives. This year, an agricultural program that targets some 3 million households is changing the contents of its free seed packs.

"Because of climate change, farmers in those [vulnerable] areas will get traditional grains that do very well in those areas,” explained Stancilae Tapererwa, a senior Agriculture Ministry official. 

Maize is a popular meal for most Zimbabweans, but more are turning to sorghum and millet as alternatives.

Credit:

ish Mafundkiwa/The World

The Ministry of Agriculture also encourages the uptake of small grains with a program that encourages farmers to sell their small grains and buy maize at Grain Marketing Board depots across the country, according to Vangelis Haritatos, the ministry's deputy minister. 

"So, we will take that burden away so that farmers can be confident that even though I have grown traditional grains, I can still get the bag of maize."

With these efforts, attitudes toward growing and consuming small grains are slowly changing in Zimbabwe. These types of grains now appear on menus at most restaurants and they’re available at the supermarket alongside other so-called healthy foods.

They are, however, priced at a premium compared to cornmeal, putting them beyond the reach of the not-so-well-off. If prices come down, more farmers will grow more small grains and put them out into the market. 

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The extreme weather that has battered much of the US in 2022 doesn’t just affect humans. Heat waves, wildfires, droughts and storms also threaten many wild species — including some that already face other stresses.

I’ve been researching bee health for over 10 years, with a focus on honey bees. In 2021, I began hearing for the first time from beekeepers about how extreme drought and rainfall were affecting bee colony health.

Drought conditions in the western US in 2021 dried up bee forage — the floral nectar and pollen that bees need to produce honey and stay healthy. And extreme rain in the Northeast limited the hours that bees could fly for forage.

In both cases, managed colonies — hives that humans keep for honey production or commercial pollination — were starving. Beekeepers had to feed their bees more supplements of sugar water and pollen than they usually would to keep their colonies alive. Some beekeepers who had been in business for decades shared that they lost 50% to 70% of their colonies over the winter of 2021-2022.

These weather conditions likely also affected wild and native bees. And unlike managed colonies, these important species did not receive supplements to buffer them through harsh conditions.

Each year, the US Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency host federal pollinator experts to share the latest scientific findings on bee and pollinator health, and assess the status of these important insects, birds, bats and other species. One clear takeaway from this year’s meeting was that climate change has become a new and formidable stressor for bees, potentially amplifying previously known issues in ways that scientists can’t yet predict but need to prepare for.

The scourge of Varroa mites

Pollinators contribute an estimated $235 billion to $577 billion yearly to global agriculture, based on the value of the crops they pollinate. Understanding and mitigating the impacts of climate change on pollinators is key for supporting healthy ecosystems and sustainable agriculture.

Bee health first attracted widespread attention in 2006 with the emergence of Colony Collapse Disorder, a phenomenon where the majority of adult worker bees in a colony disappeared, leaving their honey and pollen stores and some nurse bees behind to care for the queen and remaining immature bees. In the past five years, reported cases have declined substantially. Now, researchers are focusing on what beekeepers call the “four Ps”: parasites, pathogens, pesticides and poor nutrition, as well as habitat loss for wild and native bees.

One of the most severe threats to honey bees over the past several decades has been Varroa destructor, a crablike parasitic mite that feeds on honey bees’ fat body tissue. The fat body is a nutrient-dense organ that functions much like the liver in mammals. It helps bees maintain a strong immune system, metabolize pesticides and survive through the winter.

These are vital functions, so controlling mite infestations is essential for bee health. Varroa can also transmit deadly pathogens to honey bees, such as deformed wing virus.

A honey bee carrying two Varroa mites, one above its leg and one on its back. 

Credit:

USGS

Controlling mite populations is challenging. It requires using an insecticide in an insect colony, or as beekeepers say, “trying to kill a bug on a bug.” It’s hard to find a formula strong enough to kill mites without harming the bees.

Monitoring Varroa takes significant skill and labor, and mites can build up resistance to treatments over time. Researchers and beekeepers are working hard to breed Varroa-resistant bees, but mites continue to plague the industry.

Pesticide microdoses

Pesticides also harm bees, particularly products that cause sublethal or chronic bee health issues. Sublethal pesticide exposures can make bees less able to gather forage, grow healthy larvae and fight off viruses and mites.

However, it can be hard to document and understand sublethal toxicity. Many factors affect how bees react to agrochemicals, including whether they are exposed as larvae or as adult bees, the mixture of chemicals bees are exposed to, the weather at the time of application and how healthy a bee colony is pre-exposure.

Researchers are also working to understand how soil pesticides affect ground-nesting wild bees, which represent over 70% of the US native bee population.

A ground-nesting bee (Colletes inaqualis) emerging from its burrow. 

Credit:

Rob Cruickshank/Flickr, CC BY

Junk food diets

Like many other species, bees are losing the habitat and food sources that they depend on. This is happening for many reasons.

For example, uncultivated lands are being converted to farmland or developed worldwide. Large-scale agriculture focuses on mass production of a few commodity crops, which reduces the amount of nesting habitat and forage available for bees.

And many farmers often remove pollinator-friendly plants and shrubs that grow around farm lands to reduce the risk of attracting animals such as deer and rodents, which could spread pathogens that cause foodborne illness. Research suggests that these efforts harm beneficial insects and don’t increase food safety.

As diverse and healthy bee forage disappears, beekeepers feed their bees more supplements, such as sugar water and pollen substitutes, which are not as nutritious as the nectar and pollen bees get from flowers.

Climate change is a force multiplier

Researchers don’t know exactly how climate change will affect bee health. But they suspect it will add to existing stresses.

For example, if pest pressures mount for farmers, bees will be exposed to more pesticides. Extreme rainfall can disrupt bees’ foraging patterns. Wildfires and floods may destroy bee habitat and food sources. Drought may also reduce available forage and discourage land managers from planting new areas for bees as water becomes less readily available.

Climate change could also increase the spread of Varroa and other pathogens. Warmer fall and winter temperatures extend the period when bees forage. Varroa travel on foraging bees, so longer foraging provides a larger time window for mites and the viruses they carry to spread among colonies. Higher mite populations on bee colonies heading into winter will likely cripple colony health and increase winter losses.

Studies have already shown that climate change is disrupting seasonal connections between bees and flowers. As spring arrives earlier in the year, flowers bloom earlier or in different regions, but bees may not be present to feed on them. Even if flowers bloom at their usual times and locations, they may produce less-nutritious pollen and nectar under extreme weather conditions.

Research that analyzes the nutritional profiles of bee forage plants and how they change under different climate scenarios will help land managers plant climate-resilient plants for different regions.

Creating safe bee spaces

There are many ways to support bees and pollinators. Planting pollinator gardens with regional plants that bloom throughout the year can provide much-needed forage.

Ground-nesting native bees need patches of exposed and undisturbed soil, free of mulch or other ground covers. Gardeners can clear some ground in a sunny, well-drained area to create dedicated spaces for bees to dig nests.

Another important step is using integrated pest management, a land management approach that minimizes the use of chemical pesticides. And anyone who wants to help monitor native bees can join community science projects and use phone apps to submit data.

Most importantly, educating people and communities about bees and their importance to our food system can help create a more pollinator-friendly world.

Jennie L. Durant is a research affiliate in human ecology at the University of California, Davis. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization dedicated to unlocking the knowledge of experts for the public good. 

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Christine Harrison has taken to sitting outside, barefoot, on the balcony of her chalet in the French Alps, and soaking up the sunshine.

Harrison, from Liverpool in the UK, has been visiting the French ski resort of Praz De Lys every winter for the past 25 years. The family-friendly resort is located at an altitude of 4,921 feet and boasts 31 miles of Nordic ski slopes for sports enthusiasts.

This year, she said, just finding a slope with snow has been her biggest challenge: “There’s no snow, literally, you can't ski here. There's just grass everywhere.”

Praz de Lys, like numerous ski resorts across the Alps and French Pyrenees, is struggling to cope with the unprecedented warm temperatures this month. Some resorts like A x 3 Domaines, located close to the French border with Andorra, have shut completely.

Others, like Le Gets and Morzine, in the Portes du Soleil area, have closed several of their ski runs.

Harrison said that she, along with her partner and two teenage children, went to Les Contamines that's nestled at the foot of Mont Blanc in search of better skiing conditions earlier this week. At the top of the slopes, Harrison said, they finally found snow but as they descended below 2,000 meters, the rain started to pour down and the ski run quickly turned to slush.

“It was horrible. We managed to do about four hours and it was like, what are we even doing here? It was carnage,” she said.

Le Praz De Lys in the French alps is shown on a more wintry day in 2017. 

Credit:

Courtesy of Christine Harrison

The conditions are not just challenging for winter sports enthusiasts, but they could prove risky, too.

Klaus Dodds, a professor of geopolitics at Royal Holloway University of London, said skiers and snowboarders will notice that piste (downhill ski trails) and snow conditions become more uncertain in warmer temperatures.

“There's more chance of avalanches, and skiing just becomes more dangerous because snow and ice is less settled,” he said.

Dodds said he isn’t surprised by the rise in temperatures at European ski resorts this winter. After all, he said, several EU countries experienced record-breaking heat waves last summer. Scientists have been warning about this for years, he said.

“We’re not just talking about climate change now, it’s climate breakdown,” Dodds said.

It’s not only winter ski resorts that are seeing unprecedented temperature hikes this month. Cities in Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary and France have all smashed records for the hottest start to the new year.

Warsaw, Poland, where the mercury usually hovers around freezing at this time of year, clocked up 66 degrees Fahrenheit on Jan. 1. Residents of Bilbao in northern Spain headed to the beach earlier this week as temperatures soared to highs usually seen in midsummer.

Snow loss or ice loss also has implications for water supply, according to Dodds.

Many of Europe's major rivers, such as the River Po in Italy or the Rhine in Germany, are dependent on alpine meltwater to replenish water levels. Low water levels have a negative impact on agriculture and endanger river transport, he said.

Christine Harrison (middle), with daughter Sophie and son Jack are shown at the French ski resort in snowier times in February 2020.

Credit:

Courtesy of Christine Harrison

Countries like France and Switzerland have also been expressing concern that they will not have enough water to act as coolant for their nuclear power stations, Dodds said.

The high winter temperatures also pose a challenge to communities in alpine towns that are dependent on winter tourism.

Sara Burdon, communications manager at the Morzine tourist office, said local businesses are worried.

“While the summer is an important and very much growing part of the tourism here, the winter is still the main season and the one in which businesses make most of their income,” Burdon said.

For the last few years, the town of Morzine has tried to address the negative impact a ski resort can have on the environment. Ski holidays can produce a large carbon footprint between visitor flights and the use of gas-guzzling equipment like artificial snow machines and ski lifts.

Sara Burdon works in the Morzine tourism office in France said that businesses are worried about the impact of warm winter temperatures on seasonal tourism.

Credit:

Sam Ingles

Burdon said the town has now installed solar panels on some of the chair lifts, while workers have adopted more sustainable ways of looking after the ski pistes, including using GPS systems to target exactly where artificial snow is required.

Last year, Morzine was awarded the Flocon Vert sustainability award — an environmental honor recognizing green development policies in European ski resorts.

Burdon said that they are still working hard to combat the heavy carbon cost of the flights.

A local environmental charity, Montagne Verte, has created a special train pass called the AlpinExpress Pass, which gives those who arrive by rail cut-price offers on their journey as well as cheaper accommodation and discounts on ski hire.

Burdon said they try to encourage their European visitors to make the journey by train whenever possible.

One silver lining from the unexpected balmy conditions this season has been lower heating bills. Last summer, the German government warned of a possible fuel shortage in the winter along with soaring energy costs — caused by the lack of a gas supply from Russia.

In December, the German economy minister, Robert Habeck, said he is optimistic the country has enough fuel to see it through the winter.

But Dodds pointed out that warmer temperatures have also been responsible for the catastrophic flooding in parts of Europe last year that devastated homes, particularly in Germany. The climate scientist said he believes that governments can still do more to prevent further temperature rises. For starters he said, nations need to stick to the targets laid out in the 2015 Paris Agreement which vowed to prevent global temperatures from rising 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels this century, and in particular, limit the increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

“We’re already 1.2 degrees past, so there’s little wriggle room left before we reach the 1.5 degree limit,” Dodds said. “That’s why we talk about a climate emergency.”

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A bakers’ rebellion is looming in France as they prepare to defend their beloved baguettes. Making bread, croissants and other pastries has become next to impossible, they say, due to soaring electricity prices. 

Now, they’re demanding help from the government. And if it doesn’t arrive soon, they’re threatening the unthinkable — to turn off their ovens.

Take French baker Phillipe Mendez. The sound of his electric ovens whirring to life used to be music to his ears. Now, it’s a source of stress.

“My electricity bill has gone up four-fold in the last eight months,” he said. “That’s besides the price hikes for my basic ingredients. The situation,” he added, “is becoming very complicated.”

Mendez opened his artisanal bakery nine years ago in the small Alpine village of Embrun. Business was good, until now. Inflation, the war in Ukraine and the Europe-wide energy crunch have Mendez at wit's end.

"My wife, Nathalie, has had to come in to work," he said, "as we’ve been forced to reduce our staff."

"What’s happening is a real shame," Nathalie said as she sliced bread on the electric slicer. "All of our bread is homemade. We strive for quality. But because of what’s happening,” she said, “our hands are tied."

"The French, deprived of their bread, would die,” jokes French baker Phillipe Mendez. Mendez is one of thousands of artisanal bakers warning they may need to unplug their ovens because it's too expensive to operate due to rising electricity costs. 

Credit:

Gerry Hadden/The World

At the end of this week the Mendezes said they’ll have to raise prices by about 10%. They said they can only hope their customers will still come by. Because it's France, good bread isn’t some luxury item — it’s like water — you have it with every meal.

Local worker Julien Breniere picked up two baguettes on his way home from work. He said he can’t start his day without them.

“They’re actually mini-baguettes,” he said. “Ficelles. In the morning,” he said, rubbing his stomach, “I toast them and eat them with butter and jam.”

“Our bread is very important,” 80-year-old customer Giselle Van Overberk said. “It’s well known,” she said, “that the French baguette is the best in the world.”

You could chalk up such comments to national pride. But French bakers sell some 6 billion baguettes a year. In December 2022, the United Nations granted baguette-baking world heritage status. And each week on French TV, there’s a reality show — just for baking bread.

On the latest episode of “The Best Bakeries in France,” two stern-looking judges weigh in on a spinach and Brebis cheese loaf baked somewhere in the Pyrenees — 8 points out of 10, they declared  — with room for improvement.  

Beloved bakers in France are not immune to the energy woes gripping the country. Electricity prices are set to rise further this winter, as the government struggles to compensate for the loss of natural gas from Russia. In fact, the government warns, there could be temporary blackouts later this month. But its message to bakers is, “We’ve got your backs.”

“We will not let our bakeries fail,” said France’s Minister of Finance Bruno Le Maire on the radio this week. “We’ll stand by them,” he said. “Helping with concrete measures.”

Those measures include tax breaks and emergency subsidies. But French bakers say they need more. 

“They speak of an emergency bail-out check,” baker Mendez said. But red tape is a problem. 

“I had to file an application about 6 inches thick,” he said. “And I still don’t know if I’m getting anything.”

Mendez said he can hang on for another couple of months. After that, he said, he’ll bake up his last batch of baguettes, then unplug his ovens for good. And that, he said, would be an existential catastrophe.

"The French,” he half-jokes, “will die without their bread."

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At Ráječek Farm in the southern Czech Republic, bright, red hydroponic tomato plants tower more than 10 feet tall inside greenhouses. 

The Sklenář family has worked the land on Ráječek Farm for four generations. The family once lost the farm to the state under communist rule. But several years after the Czech Republic switched to a market economy, the family regained control of the farm and launched a successful business growing hydroponic tomatoes.

“My parents had to reinvent the whole business again because if they did the same [farming] model as our grandparents, it wouldn’t have been economically sustainable,” said Matěj Sklenář, 28, the head agronomist at Ráječek Farm.

But last year, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — a war aimed at pulling a large swath of Eastern Europe back into Russia’s influence — once again disrupted the growing season on Ráječek Farm.

Some fertilizers Sklenář uses on his hydroponic tomatoes come from Russia. But last year, those fertilizers became 10 times more expensive. 

The drastic rise in fertilizer prices is a huge problem for hydroponic farmers because they mostly don’t use organic fertilizers like compost or manure.  

“If you grow in soil and you don't add fertilizer you can still do a season with decreased yield, but with hydroponics, if you don't have fertilizers, it's just not possible to grow anything,” Sklenář said.

Matěj Sklenář, 28, the head agronomist at Ráječek Farm in the south of the Czech Republic, stands in one of the farm's hydroponic greenhouses. The farm, which has been operated by the same family for four generations, previously relied on a brand of Russian fertilizer that became about ten times more expensive last year after the war in Ukraine began.

Credit:

Courtesy of Ráječek Farm

Fertilizer is used by most commercial farming operations. And industrially produced fertilizers are often credited with providing sufficient yields to feed a planet with a growing population that is projected to have reached 8 billion people.

Russia is the world’s largest producer of fertilizers. There are no sanctions against Russian agricultural products, but many shipping companies now refuse to transport Russian products, including fertilizers. 

Belarus is also a large fertilizer supplier, but sanctions against Belarus for its participation in the war in Ukraine have also severely limited the country’s contributions to the global fertilizer supply. 

These restrictions are causing fertilizer prices to skyrocket. 

Common nitrogen fertilizers found at the store are made from ammonia, which is produced from natural gas. Russia used to export a lot of ammonia to the fertilizer market through a pipeline in Ukraine. But that’s been closed since the war started. 

Fertilizer companies in Europe also make their own ammonia with natural gas from the European grid. But Europe is trying to wean itself off Russian gas right now, so fuel prices are rising. 

“The war caused the price of natural gas to increase, so that’s one of the reasons why fertilizer is so expensive,” Sklenář said.

Last year, major fertilizer companies like Norway’s Yara International had to temporarily curtail production of nitrogen fertilizers because of the war. 

Yara was eventually able to reroute their ammonia supply from other sources to increase production speed again. But fertilizer prices remain high, driving up food costs.

“What we’ve seen with the Russian invasion of Ukraine is that, sadly, the situation with food production has turned to the worst,” said Lars Røsæg, deputy chief executive officer of Yara International.

After the war started last year, Sklenář’s farm was hit with a double whammy because many of the workers are Ukrainian. They were back in Ukraine on holiday when the war started, and men who were old enough to serve were no longer allowed to leave the country. Sklenář has struggled to find new workers. 

Six sisters from Ukraine stand in a greenhouse at Ráječek Farm in the Czech Republic, four of whom are employees at the farm and two of whom sought refuge there after the war started. Many of the farm's workers come from Ukraine, however, some of their male workers cannot leave Ukraine and return to the Czech Republic because men young enough to serve in the military can't leave the country. The farm has struggled to find workers to replace them. 

Credit:

Courtesy of Ráječek Farm

It’s also more expensive to heat his greenhouses now. 

“We are pretty sure that this season, the profit will not be as big as past seasons,” Sklenář said.

Fertilizer costs have forced farmers all over Europe to make difficult decisions.

Kieran McEvoy, a farmer south of Dublin who grows wheat and barley, said that he usually buys all of his fertilizer around Christmas. But this time, he’s waiting.

“It’s not really a great plan I suppose, but we’re just hoping maybe there might be a little bit of a relaxation in the price of gas,” McEvoy said.

Hydroponic vegetables grow in long troughs year round inside greenhouses at Ráječek Farm in the Czech Republic. The price of natural gas used to heat the greenhouses rose so high after the war in Ukraine that the farm now plans to transition to solar power.

Credit:

Courtesy of Ráječek Farm

Redistribution of power

The war has made it hard on farmers, but some fertilizer companies have increased their profits. Now, they’re looking to new sources far away from Russia. 

Morocco, which holds an estimated 72% of the world’s phosphate — a key ingredient in another common fertilizer — started ramping up production this year. 

In the Sahara desert, miners blast the earth with explosives to mine phosphate, sending clouds of red dust barreling across the desert.

Damian Berger, co-founder of Ishtar Analytics, a think tank focusing on North Africa and the Middle East, said that Morocco uses its mighty fertilizer reserves as a tool for soft power by helping countries throughout sub-Saharan Africa increase their food production. Less Russian fertilizer is a potential opportunity for a country like Morocco. 

“Morocco has been building up its fertilizer diplomacy and industry for a situation like the one we're facing right now,” Berger said.

Morocco now plans to open a new fertilizer plant in Brazil, a country that once relied heavily on Russian fertilizer. 

Russia also extends its influence in both South America and Africa. But with the war grinding on, Berger said that Morocco is becoming a safer trading partner than Russia. 

The shift in the global fertilizer market is giving African countries greater power in global food production at a time when hunger is on the rise.

“There is the potential for Morocco to assume a leading role as the spokesperson of African food security concerns,” Berger said.

The war is also giving more importance to new projects aimed at creating so-called green fertilizers that don’t require fossil fuels to produce. 

Yara International, the Norwegian fertilizer company, is currently building a new facility with the capacity to produce green fertilizer that they hope will be ready later this year. 

“[Last year] opened the eyes of the whole world to the importance that we accelerate the green transition of the food chain in a way where we reduce the dependency on Russia, so that we can have a sustainable and secure food supply,” Yara International’s Røsæg said. 

The fertilizer company Yara International's production plant in Le Havre, France. Last year, Yara International had to temporarily curtail production of nitrogen fertilizers because of the war in Ukraine, although they eventually were able to get their production up to speed again. Production problems caused by the war have made fertilizer prices skyrocket.

Credit:

Courtesy of Yara International

The fertilizer shortage, and other difficulties related to the war in Ukraine, are pushing some farmers to pursue more sustainable practices. 

Sklenář in the Czech Republic is now investing in solar panels so he doesn’t have to heat his greenhouses with natural gas. 

For Sklenář, the difficulties associated with the war aren’t all negative.

“It hurts a little bit, but it’s worth the pain to get out of this and become independent from Russia,” Sklenář said.

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This analysis was featured in Critical State, a weekly foreign policy newsletter from Inkstick Media. Subscribe here.

The Arctic is one of the least hospitable places on the planet, but that has never meant inhospitable. For Indigenous people who have survived and thrived in the coldest reaches of the Northern hemisphere, the Arctic can be a world of abundance, with deep knowledge and practiced skill, making it a life-sustaining home. Yet, the Arctic is warming, thanks to human-caused climate change. It also has the misfortune of being located between the United States and Russia, two nuclear powers who have spent decades anticipating the danger of surprise war blowing in like a cold wind from the north.

In “Pulling back the curtain: coloniality-based narratives of wilderness in US Arctic policy,” Gabriella Gricius examines 21st-century US policy on the Arctic, and specifically how the language used to discuss the region constrains thinking about policy.

To start understanding US Arctic policy, Gricius examined Arctic policy statements from across the George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump administrations, all with an eye toward how the country handled anxiety over the region.

"Anxiety, here, is the ordering principle of how states interact with the world and what they must manage to feel secure. States can never solve anxiety, but they can manage it through routines and narratives," Gricius writes. 

Here, the Arctic anxiety was threefold: that climate change is making its resources more exploitable, that the resources would go unexploited, or worse, that other nations would exploit the resources of the Arctic faster and better than the United States. To justify aggressive investment in and policy to control the region, successive US administrations all adopted the language of “wilderness” to justify their policies.

“Importantly, wilderness in the American Arctic is not diminishing in any material way. Rather, its character is fundamentally changing because of climate change from a region that was relatively difficult for extraction purposes to one that is significantly more accessible,” Gricius writes. 

While the planet is warming from human-caused climate change, the Arctic is warming the fastest, drastically changing life in the thawing north. But when US policy statements talk about the risk of a diminished Arctic, these statements largely sidestep climate change and instead highlight that reduced sea ice means easier access for drilling the ocean.

“In short, removing responsibility takes away settler blame and treats this diminishing as a blameless event rather than connecting this to capitalist and colonialist practices that are intrinsically connected to climate change. Furthermore, by treating the wilderness as a disappearing object with no subject, these policies even more so reinforce older American conservation narratives,” Gricius writes.

“This has implications for Indigenous People, who still live in Arctic wilderness, and are not diminishing with the region, but in fact require more funding, visibility, and assistance in dealing with food and energy insecurity.”

By seeing the Arctic as unsettled, and thus open for settler exploitation, US policy across administrations treats the area as an untapped resource, rather than a lived-in and inhabited place. Adopting a different policy for the Arctic, including one of preservation versus exploitation, requires a different narrative among US policymakers. To get there, presidents and analysts likely need to abandon the notion of the Arctic as available for exploitation.

Critical State is your weekly fix of foreign policy analysis from the staff at Inkstick Media. Subscribe here. 

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It was 5:30 on a Sunday morning and Antonio Lopez was up before the sun, walking along Algodones beach in San Carlos Nuevo Guaymas, in Mexico. 

“I still get excited when I find a nest or if I see tracks, you know,” the 65-year-old said as he walked through the damp sand, with his walking stick squeaking every few steps.

The tracks he mentioned were left by Olive Ridley sea turtles making their slow way onto San Carlos beaches during nesting season.

“When you see the tracks it’s hard to miss. It kind of looks like a cooler, somebody dragging a cooler. It’s flat and it has little indentations on each side of the track,” Lopez said.

Those indentations are from the turtle’s flippers pulling it through the sand.

Lopez, who moved to San Carlos four years ago from Colorado, walks two miles along the stretch of beach every morning from June through December in search of those markings.

He gets there early — in time to see the sun glow orange as it rises over the iconic Tetakawi peaks, and to reach any nests before other beachgoers arrive, potentially putting the ping-pong-ball-sized eggs in harm’s way.

“I carry my backpack with everything that I need,” the long-time volunteer said. 

Known as a first responder, he has years of experience and training on how to find and register nests and make sure the eggs are protected, and he has his system down.

A metal rod fastened to his walking stick helps him gently test for loose sand where the turtle laid eggs. A small plastic rake allows him to cover the turtle's tracks once the eggs are located. And a white Styrofoam cooler strapped to his back can be carefully packed with eggs if the nest needs moving.

Lopez is part of a volunteer group working to help as many eggs as possible to hatch. And then, his favorite part:

“The first release I saw, watching all the little turtles scuttling out to sea, that hooked me hard.”

“Releasing the turtles,” he said with a chuckle. “The first release I saw, watching all the little turtles scuttling out to sea, that hooked me hard.”

Elsa Coria Galindo holds up a tiny desert tortoise CRRIFS is caring for after its shell was painted.

Credit:

Kendal Blust/KJZZ

All creatures of desert and sea

In San Carlos, the efforts to protect sea turtles is led by a wildlife rescue known as CRRIFS.

"It’s called the Centro de Rescate, Rehabilitación e Investigación de Fauna Silvestre [Wild Fauna Rescue, Rehabilitation and Research Center], or CRRIFS,” said veterinarian Elsa Coria Galindo, the co-founder and director. 

“We take care of all kinds of wildlife,” she said. “Both land and marine animals.”

In the office, there were a pair of baby squirrels; a palm-sized desert tortoise; an orphaned opossum joey scratching at its box, demanding milk.

Outside, a pelican with an injured foot shuffled around a shaded pen, and nearby, a sickly sea turtle floated in a shallow pool.

“It’s sad,” Coria said as she refilled the turtle’s pool with fresh, cool water. “It’s a really sad case.”

A young green sea turtle receives care from the CRRIFS team.

Credit:

Kendal Blust/KJZZ

There’s not much they could do for the young, green sea turtle but make her comfortable.

But while not every rescue can have a happy ending, Coria said, when her team is able to release animals back into the wild, “it’s priceless.”

And it’s the only compensation that Coria gets as a volunteer. 

A veterinarian's dream

Five years ago, she and her husband put their family savings into the project, a decades-long dream.

“In reality, this project has been thought about and planned for decades,” she said.

Since she moved to nearby Guaymas more than 20 years ago, Coria and her husband have often cared for injured and sick wildlife, filling what she calls a major gap.

“This is a special place, because we have contact with a great number of animals,” Coria said.

San Carlos, nestled between the desert and the sea of the Gulf of California, is rich with biodiversity. But human activities here can sometimes harm wildlife — which get caught in fishing gear, hit by cars or attacked by pets.

CRRIFS, Coria said, is the only organization in the region that attends to both land and sea animals.

“You could say that our work is really unique in this entire region of the Gulf of California,” she said.

Government agencies often seek the team’s expertise when whales or dolphins are beached; they are the sole resource for large marine mammal autopsies, and they run a program to free sea lions trapped in nets.

Still, Coria wants to do more.

“Our goal is to grow and have a quality facility to care for many more animals, and to train students and professionals to work with wildlife,” she said. “We want to be a big, robust center, with many employees. And we want to inspire others to do this work as well.”

Currently, construction is underway on a new, larger building that will be shared with a domestic animal rescue. It will have surgery and exam rooms, and classrooms and lodging for guests and visiting students. In time, new animal enclosures will be installed, and perhaps someday, a second location right on the beach.

For now, though, the highlight of their office is the small, temperature-controlled incubation room.

Elsa Coria Galindo is the co-founder and director of CRRIFS.

Credit:

Kendal Blust/KJZZ

Sea turtle incubation

As the only sea turtle incubation in Sonora, its shelves are lined with Styrofoam coolers. Inside each, a nest with some 100 eggs.

“There have been nests where 100% of the eggs have hatched,” said biologist Eduardo Perez, who runs CRRIFS’ sea turtle program.

He said that overall between 90% to100% of eggs hatch in the incubation room — about 20% more than in nests on the beach, which face a lot of risks — like vehicles.

Four wheelers and trucks sometimes crush the baby turtles, he said. Or they leave ruts in the sand that can present an insurmountable barrier for tiny hatchlings trying to reach the water. In other cases, nests are accidentally cooked by nearby bonfires or dug up by dogs.

So, Perez and his crew of well-trained volunteers move the ones they can to the incubation room to increase their chances of survival.

“The volunteers are so important, because, as you can see, this is a lot of work,” he said. “And our volunteers, they do all of it out of their love for the animals, for the turtles.”

Each cooler contains a nest of sea turtle eggs, usually about 100, that were carefully transferred here from San Carlos beaches.

Credit:

Kendal Blust/KJZZ

From the heart

Once hatched, baby turtles are released with the help of supporters who adopt the nests by providing a donation.

“Fortunately, there are now many people who know our work and want to help,” Coria said. “It wasn’t always that way. When we first started people thought it was crazy to try to save injured birds and turtles. Now, dozens of people join us to watch the turtles crawl out to sea.”

Coria said the releases help bring attention to the rescue’s work. Each year, more nests are adopted, volunteers signed up and wildlife in need are reported to the CRRIFS crew. In 2021, the team attended to about 63 animals, in addition to their sea turtles and sea lion projects. Last year, she said, they were on track to more than double that number.

For Coria, that’s proof that when you do something from the heart, it’s bound to succeed.

“Even when it’s hard — and it has been hard —,” she said, “you know you’ll do whatever it takes.”

This story first appeared on KJZZ.org.

Related: Kino Bay’s Becerra family gave up traditional fishing to focus on saving sea turtles

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On a recent morning just outside of Barcelona, Spain, six kids and their parents, all clad in bright yellow traffic vests, gathered on their bikes in a small square.

For the first leg of their trip to school, about a 45-minute commute, they’re taking a rural road — a long, winding descent with fast-moving cars.

This is the group’s maiden voyage. But all across Spain's Barcelona province, children are getting to school in convoys of bikes dubbed the “bicibus,” or  bicycle-bus, organized, often by schools, as an answer to the push for fewer cars on the road.

More than 700 people joined the different routes during the 2020-21 school year, organizers estimate.

As with traditional bus lines, each bicibus route has stops where other cycling students can join along the way. Parents, teachers and other volunteer adults ride, too, to ensure the kids’ safety.

In the year and a half since the grassroots bici-busing began with the backing of the Barcelona City Council, these two-wheeled convoys have appeared all over the city. There are now at least 15 routes and similar bicibuses have popped up in Glasgow, Scotland, and Portland, in the US, according to Reuters.

“I’m doing this because I don’t want to pollute,” said 7-year-old Pau Barrios.

His mom, Berta Barrios, one of the chaperones, said the environmental benefits are only part of the draw of the bicibus.

“We’re here for a lot of reasons,” Berta Barrios said. “First, for safety. Second, for the sense of community it offers. We’re getting together with other families from the neighborhood.”

Before the group set off, a police escort arrived to block the traffic. He wanted the bicyclists all closer together — if they get too spread out, they’re just a bunch of people on bikes. Together, they’re a single unit. More like a bus, and cars respect buses more than bikes.

On this four-lane artery, there are cars and buses aplenty. Volunteer Berta Palau said that sometimes, their police escort is a no-show. When that happens, harried commuters honk at the riders. Let them, she said.

“This is a protest,” she said. “Even if the impact is small. At least we’re no longer a shock to people on the road.”

The Vallvidrera “mountain” bicibus stops for a group selfie on a dirt road high above Barcelona. They were halfway to school on their inaugural run.

Credit:

Gerry Hadden/The World

She said the bicibuses had become part of the urban landscape. Bike lanes, though, are still lacking, she said. But Barcelona is working on it. It now has over 120 miles’ worth. It’s not Berlin, or Copenhagen, but it’s adding more each year.

Eventually, the bicibus enthusiasts say, they’re hoping to get dedicated lanes for the groups, so they won’t need police protection.

To keep up the momentum, the chaperones focus on the fun of the bicibus.

Like Berta Vazquez, a mom, who strapped a big speaker to her bike with bungee cords and blasted “Sympathy for the Devil,” by the Rolling Stones.

“We play music to create a festive atmosphere,” Vazquez said. “We’re free compared to the people crammed together in those cars and buses.”

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On the morning of July 13, Boota Messaih ate breakfast at his home in Karachi, Pakistan, like always.

Then, the pastor and grandfather walked out his front door, and slipped into the Gujjar Nala, a drainage ditch flooded by this year’s historic monsoon rains.

The ditch, now carrying stormwater, sewage and trash, was 20 feet deep that day, according to his family.

“We were helpless,” said his wife, Parveen Messaih, last month, standing near where her husband fell and died. “No one was able to take him out because the water level was so high.”

Boota Messaih had lived in the informal settlement on the banks of the drainage ditch for 50 years. The church where he served as pastor was just a few doors down, and his family remembers him as a loving man, a good provider, and well-respected in the community.

More than a billion people around the world are estimated to live in informal settlements, or slums, in homes that are built illegally — and precariously — on floodplains or steep slopes not connected to basic infrastructure like sewage systems.

As climate change fuels stronger storms and more intense rainfall, a UN climate report released this year warns, the poor and those living in informal settlements are the urban-dwellers most vulnerable to the impacts of global warming.

Flooding deaths alone from this year provide plenty of examples. In April, flooding in Durban, South Africa, hit the city’s townships particularly hard, and in August, flooding in Seoul, South Korea, killed a family living in a basement apartment. Many such apartments in the capital were originally built as bunkers and were not designed for permanent living, but are comparatively cheap in the expensive city. 

‘His body was in front of us’

The two-story house that Boota Messaih shared with his extended family always flooded a little during the monsoons, but the Messaih family said they had never considered it dangerous before.

“Before this incident, nothing had happened like this,” Boota Messaih’s son, Sohail Messaih said.

Emergency responders eventually came. The water was so black with sewage, it took over an hour for them to retrieve Boota Messaih’s body, according to the family.

“His body was in front of us,” Sohail Messaih, said. “But we couldn’t get it out of the water.” 

Sohail Messaih holds a photo of his father. 

Credit:

Carolyn Beeler/The World 

Now, the Messaih family said they would like to leave their neighborhood near the open drainage ditch, but they can’t afford to rent or buy a house anywhere else. Like their neighbors, they’re members of Pakistan’s Christian minority, one of the poorest in the country, and they don’t legally own the land their house is on.  

An earth-mover at work in front of their house is providing some measure of hope. It’s widening the drainage ditch and building a wall to separate it from the neighborhood. 

But until Karachi builds formal sewage and trash systems in this area, people here fear clogging will keep causing flooding. For now, the family has built a homemade barrier of corrugated metal along the drainage ditch.

“After this incident, we think this might happen again,” Sohail Messaih said. “So, we put this barricade up, and then, other people followed.”

The drainage ditch in front of the Messaih house is being moved, widened, and separated by surrounding neighborhoods by a wall. 

Credit:

Carolyn Beeler/The World 

They say it won’t stop floodwaters from breaching the banks of the drainage ditch, but it might, at least, stop someone else from slipping in. 

Unsafe housing 

David Satterthwaite, a lead author on a section on urban adaptation in a 2014 UN climate report, said illegally built homes are themselves often unsafe, and often also built in risky areas. 

“It cheapens the cost of the house,” he said. “So, they’re doubly disadvantaged.”

Satterthwaite said that in the 1970s and 1980s, cities would frequently bulldoze these communities. He’s worried that it may become a trend again.

“You can see people concerned with climate change looking at these informal settlements and thinking, ‘OK, we've got to move these people. It's too dangerous for them,’” Satterthwaite said.  “[And] then, [they] adopt the same techniques [to] forcibly move the people.”

But he argued this is a bad idea. 

“Government schemes to try and move people living in some of the most-dangerous sites have almost never worked because they impose solutions on the inhabitants,” he said.

This is true for the Messaih family's next-door neighbor near the Gujjar Nala in Karachi. 

Elizabeth Younus lives in the back rooms of her house, after the front rooms were demolished in an effort to clear flood-prone land near a Karachi, Pakistan, drainage ditch. 

Credit:

Carolyn Beeler/The World

The government recently demolished the front rooms of Elizabeth Younus’ house in a bid to clear more land around the flood-prone drainage ditch. But now, she’s just living in the back rooms that are still standing. Land elsewhere in the city is too expensive, she said. 

“We can’t even afford food, how can we pay the expensive rents in other parts of the city?” she said. 

Satterwaithe said community-driven solutions to climate risk tend to work better.

He points to a different informal settlement in Karachi — Manzoor Colony — where authorities planned to demolish about 1,000 flood-prone homes. In 2021, the community mapped the area, revealing dozens of drains clogged by sewage and trash that made flooding worse. 

“They made a whole plan,” said architect Arif Hasan, who advised on the project. 

Hasan said the communities argued those drains could be cleared, and most of the homes then spared.  

“The decisions that were taken after this reduced the number of affected families from over 1,000 to about 58,”  he said.

The latest UN climate report highlighted another success story of a community-led effort: a coastline community in Freetown, Sierra Leone, that chose to limit new building and construct new drainage ditches to limit future flooding. 

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Reindeer noses may not glow red, but these creatures of cold climes have evolved the ability to change the color of their eyes to help them thrive in dark, northern winters.

For an episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, Glen Jeffery, a professor of neuroscience at the Institute of Opthamology at UCL (University College London) in the UK, spoke about what makes reindeer eyes truly unique in the animal kingdom. He shared his findings with The World.

Most people have seen the gold, glowing eyes of a cat, a raccoon or some other nocturnal animal staring back at them during a nighttime drive. The part of the eye that produces that golden reflection, as Jeffery explained, “is a mirror that lots of animals have called the tapetum lucidum.” A taptetum helps animals see better in the dark by bouncing light from the back of the eye through the retina a second time. In most mammals, the tapetum is a “standard golden,” as Jeffery described the color, and that color doesn’t change.

Many animals’ eyes shine in the darkness because of a reflective layer called the tapetum lucidum that is usually gold.

Credit:

 Bowlhover/Wikimedia Commons

One day, Jeffery received a box in the mail out of the blue. It contained two jars filled with reindeer eyes from a slaughterhouse in Norway. One jar was labeled summer and one was labeled winter.

“I opened up the summer ones first and I thought, ‘I’m wasting my time here,’” Jeffery said. He saw golden eyes, just what he expected.

“But then we opened up the other eyes, and that was when there was a shock, because the winter eyes were blue,” he said. “I’d never seen anything like that in my life.”

Jeffery and his colleagues spent years studying the biology of reindeer eyes and the environment they are made for — the dim, blue-hued months of the Arctic winter. What they discovered is a marvelous bit of evolution that has given reindeer some of the most interesting eyes on Earth. 

Daniel Merino is an associate science editor and co-host of The Conversation Weekly Podcast at The Conversation.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a global nonprofit news organization dedicated to spreading the knowledge of academic experts, under a Creative Commons license.

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Flying over the sprawling region of Yakutia — also known as the Republic of Sakha — in Russia's Far East, the landscape below fans into a flat expanse of tundra pockmarked with small lakes that formed by thawed permafrost.

Yakutia is a remote, sprawling region of Russia, nearly the size of India. Much of it rests on permafrost — essentially ground that remains frozen for multiple years. Yakutia is one of the coldest places on the planet, but it’s also one of the fastest warming ones. The changing climate thaws permafrost, releasing climate-changing carbon and methane gasses that increase global temperatures even further.

Scientists estimate thawing permafrost could eventually warm the climate by as much as all of the emissions produced by the United States combined.

Most of the world’s permafrost lies in Russia, but the war in Ukraine is now disrupting critical research there.

“When we do our analysis of where the environmental and ecological gaps are, Russia just lights up,” said Sue Natali, the Arctic program director of the Woodwell Climate Research Center.

For decades, scientists from the US and Europe traveled to faraway parts of Russia, like Yakutia, each year to launch new permafrost research in collaboration with Russian scientists.

But since the war started last February, many Western universities and research institutions have stopped funding permafrost research in Russia. A combination of moral opposition to the war, fear that foreign researchers might face safety issues while traveling in Russia, and the practical impossibility of funding research projects in the face of sanctions that make it impossible to transfer money, have all played into the decisions.

Russian scientists have also been banned from attending some scientific conferences.

Current permafrost research now focuses heavily on Alaska and Canada. 

“I’m very sad, the world is losing a great opportunity for exchange between the international research community,” said Alexander Kholodov, a permafrost researcher at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, who has been restricted from visiting his research sites in Russia.

In the past, Kholodov and other researchers helped their Russian colleagues by bringing scientific equipment to Russia that was either not available in the country or too expensive.

Meanwhile, foreign researchers doing fieldwork in places like Siberia benefited immensely from Russian scientists’ local knowledge. Russia has a deep tradition of permafrost research dating back well into the Soviet era.

“Historically, in terms of permafrost science, Russia is one of the pioneers,” Kholodov said. 

In this photo taken on Sunday, March 15, 2015, a Nenets family in the city of Nadym, in northern Siberia, Yamal-Nenets Region, about 1,553 miles northeast of Moscow, Russia. In a study published Wednesday Jan. 16, 2019, scientists working on the Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost, say the world’s permafrost is getting warmer, with temperatures increasing by an average of .54 Fahrenheit over a decade.

Credit:

Dmitry Lovetsky/File/AP

Remote science

As the climate changes, rainfall will likely increase in Yakutia. That could make permafrost thaw even faster and speed up global warming.

Each summer, Gabriela Schaepman-Strub, a professor of earth systems science at the University of Zurich, would travel to Yakutia to research how increased rainfall might affect permafrost. Schaepman-Strub set up testing sites with sprinkler systems on the tundra, including elaborate shelters with gutters and water pumps, to study the impact. 

This kind of research can present quite a few obstacles. Schaepman-Strub’s research site, located in the Kytalyk National Park, is only accessible by a boat ride up the winding Indigirka River. Clouds of ravenous mosquitos swarm in the summer air and researchers sleep in large tents.

But after nearly 15 years of traveling regularly to Russia, her university also prohibited her from working in the region after the war broke out in Ukraine.

“We invested a lot of money and manpower to assemble the systems on site, so this is a huge effort that is just being totally lost.”

“We invested a lot of money and manpower to assemble the systems on site, so this is a huge effort that is just being totally lost,” Schaepman-Strub said.

This year, she attempted to continue her experiments remotely, by having Russian colleagues check in on her research sites during the summer. But they weren’t able to devote the same amount of time and quality control. Some of the equipment at the research site malfunctioned, ruining parts of the experiments.

Schaepman-Strub had planned to run the experiment for at least three more years. But to continue, she needs to send new water pumps to Russia, which is now difficult, given the restrictions on sending money or importing goods to Russia from the West.

If she fails to get the failed part of her experiment running again next year,  it will be destroyed due to overexposure to natural elements. 

Her Russian colleagues have also been unable to send her this year’s data on soil moisture and temperature, since Russian authorities have implemented new restrictions on sharing data with scientists outside Russia.

“We always needed permission to export the data, but this year, permission is not being granted,” Schaepman-Strub said.

Many other scientists have also been denied the ability to receive scientific data or samples for experiments, like rocks used in geological studies. 

Russian authorities have not officially stated why the scientific data is being withheld.

Meanwhile, Russian researchers are now having to do fieldwork alone.

Alexander Fedorov, deputy director of the Melnikov Permafrost Institute in Yakutsk, Yakutia's capital, said his institute had to reduce the amount of fieldwork they did this year by about half, in part because they lost so much foreign funding in 2022. They’ve had to redirect their work to things like creating computer models that can be done from an office.

“Global warming increases because of permafrost degradation and it’s a problem that’s continuing, so it will be very bad if we lose several years of data,” Fedorov said.

In this Oct. 27, 2010 file photo, Russian scientists Sergey Zimov and his son Nikita Zimov extract air samples from frozen soil near the town of Chersky in Siberia, 4,000 miles east of Moscow, Russia. Scientists say the world’s permafrost is getting warmer, with temperatures increasing by an average of .54 Fahrenheit over a decade.  between 2007 and 2016.

Credit:

Arthur Max/AP

Permafrost misunderstandings

Most current climate models don’t fully account for how permafrost could contribute to global warming, which means current predictions about climate change might be incorrect. 

“The big issue with greenhouse gas emissions from permafrost thaw is that we're not counting them,” said Sue Natali of the Woodwell Climate Research Center.

Natali has been working with an international team to establish a network of towers across the Arctic that monitor greenhouse gas emissions from permafrost zones. The valuable data they collect can improve climate models and allow the global community to make better-informed plans to prepare for climate change.

But this year, plans to send a new tower to Russia were also put on hold because of the war.

Natali’s institute hasn’t completely banned her from working in Russia, but many logistical complications remain. Natali and her collaborators plan to put up 10 new towers over the next three years across the Earth's permafrost regions. This year, they pivoted their plans from Russia and put up a new tower in Canada.

Their project continues to expand even with temporary changes. 

And there’s still hope that they will be able to continue working with Russian scientists to correct inaccuracies in today’s climate models.

Related: A heat wave in Siberia signals dangerous Arctic warming

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After eluding scientists for decades, a new owl has been described: Officially a distinct species, the Príncipe scops-owl is known for its unique call and genetic make-up.

It was found on Príncipe Island, a small island off the western coast of central Africa.

The Príncipe scops-owl is active at night. Its brown plumage helps it hide from predators while it sleeps in the trees during the day.

Credit:

Courtesy of Philippe Verbelen

PhD candidate Bárbara Freitas was part of the international team of scientists who finally have a description of the new owl in the journal ZooKeys. 

“It was a special feeling being in the field and recording a new species,” Freitas said. “It has a super unique call.”

The Príncipe scops-owl is active at night. Its brown plumage helps it hide from predators while it sleeps in the trees during the day.

Credit:

Courtesy of Martin Melo

Freitas, who is with the Museum of Natural Sciences, collaborated with Martim Melo, a researcher at the University of Porto, who had been looking for the owl for decades.

They gave the owl the Latin name Otus bikegila, named after a park ranger working in Príncipe Island’s nature reserves. Freitas said the discovery would not have been made without his help, so it was only fitting to name the owl after him. 

Ceciliano do Bom Jesus (right) , nicknamed Bikegila was an essential partner in finding the owl. To honor his efforts, researcher Martim Melo (left) proposed they give the owl the Latin name Otus bikegila.

Credit:

Courtesy of Barbara Freitas

“It’s an acknowledgement to all of the field assistants all over the world who go with the researchers and help them find the species that they want and to walk in the places they don’t know,” Freitas said.

The Príncipe scops-owl was found deep in a nature reserve on Príncipe Island. The owls are confined to uninhabited areas, in the only remaining old growth forests of the island.

Credit:

Courtesy of Martim Melo

Because the owl habitat is so small, and isolated to an oceanic island, its numbers are small. Freitas said they have proposed that the species should be classified as “critically endangered.”

The Príncipe scops-owl was heard by locals, but eluded scientists for decades. It's now been described officially as its own unique species.

Credit:

Courtesy of Martin Melo

“Unfortunately this is common,” she said. It reflects the predicament of many biologists looking for unique species around the world, “we discover a species that is already under threat. Maybe we saw the last individuals of that species.”

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Paris city officials are weighing a ban on the city’s fleet of 15,000 electric scooter rentals, primarily over safety concerns and complaints that the scooters are clogging up the city’s streets.

“It’s truly an urban jungle,” said David Belliard, the Paris deputy mayor in charge of transport and public spaces.

There have been more than 300 e-scooter related accidents in the last year alone and four deaths all tied to people using the electric ride-sharing services.

While Paris was the first European city to break into the e-scooter rental market in 2018, it has now imposed what operators say are the strictest regulations in the world.

Last month, the three operators authorized in Paris — Tier, Lime and Dott — sent city officials a list of proposed changes they plan on making, including adding license plates so that police can track traffic offenses, and adding ID checks to make sure all users are over the age of 18.

They’re hoping to convince the city to renew their contracts to operate in Paris, which expire next February. But David Belliard said proposals aren’t necessarily enough.

“It’s also about the responsibility of the people using these apps, or rather the irresponsibility of the operators,” Belliard said.

Garence Lefevre, a senior director of public policy at Lime, says popularity for her company’s services has skyrocketed since the pandemic.

According to Lefevre, Lime has an average of 400,000 riders every month in Paris alone.

She also said Lime has put forward additional safety proposals, including ride discounts for people wearing helmets and fines for those who don’t park their bikes in designated parking zones.

“If these measures and all the proposals that we have made to the city are implemented in Paris, it would make Paris the most regulated market,” Lefevre said.

Many Parisians say the city’s concerns are legitimate. 

“It’s very dangerous, there are a lot of accidents,” said Juliette, a 27-year-old Paris resident who added that the city’s tiny streets aren’t equipped to accommodate so many scooters.

“Maybe if we were in Denmark where you have a specific place for bikes it would be better, but in Paris there’s no room for them.”

Others are concerned about the lack of respect e-ride users have for the rules of the road, ignoring stoplights and traffic flow.

But even with all the concerns, their overall popularity continues to skyrocket. 

Lime said one person uses one of their bikes every four seconds in Paris alone. 

The city says it will make a final decision on whether to proceed with a ban within the next few weeks.

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Fifty years ago, on Dec. 7, 1972, the crew on the Apollo 17 moon rocket took a photograph of planet Earth. That famous image of Earth would become widely known as the "blue marble."

With that image, people could actually see what this small, life-sustaining planet looks like from afar.

The photo captured the imagination of engineer and physician Mae Jemison when she was in high school. Jemison would later become a NASA astronaut herself — and the first woman of color to travel into space. She served as mission specialist on board the space shuttle Endeavor in 1992.

These days, Jemison leads the 100 year Starship project, a nonprofit whose hope is to launch interstellar travel within a hundred years. Jemison joined The World's host Marco Werman to talk about that famous Earth image and how it has inspired her. 

This interview was lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

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The floodwaters have largely receded in Pakistan since they inundated large swaths of the country in late summer, but the waters triggered a health crisis that is still unfolding.

Flooded areas have seen surges in malaria and other waterborne illnesses. More than 1 in 9 kids in impacted areas suffer from life-threatening malnutrition, according to the UN children’s agency.

“The crisis in Pakistan has become an acute child survival crisis,” said George Laryea-Adjei, UNICEF regional director for South Asia, after a recent visit.

At a camp for displaced people in the hard-hit Dadu district in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province, Dr. Junaid Ahmed said he’s seen a progression of illnesses since late summer.

When the floods started, drinking water and sanitation systems were damaged, meaning that people often had little choice but to drink contaminated water. Diarrheal disease quickly followed, Ahmed said.

Next came “huge numbers of patients with skin diseases,” from swimming or wading through floodwaters.

After mosquitoes started to multiply in the standing water covering much of the region, Ahmed said malaria cases shot up. He’s worked more than 200 mobile clinics since the floods started, and said he’s now seeing more cases of respiratory illness as winter sets in and displaced people continue to live in tents.

On a recent morning, Ahmed checked patients lining up at the clinic tent’s entrance with an electronic thermometer, sometimes using the flashlight on his phone to peer into their throats.

Sumerran Vighio was at the front of the line when the clinic opened, reporting that her 2-day-old daughter had stomachaches, fever and wasn’t eating.

A line forms outside a health clinic held at a camp for displaced people in Dadu district, Pakistan, which was hard hit by this summer’s historic flooding.

Credit: Carolyn Beeler/The World

“There’s not enough milk in my breast to feed her,” Vighio said, blaming the camp rations of two plates of rice a day.

In another corner of the tent, 8-year-old Imran Khan Jamali, who’d been shivering with fevers and refusing food and water, tested positive for malaria.

“There are lots of mosquitoes around here. Many of them,” said his uncle, Ali Khan Jamali.

The family of eight shares a tent at the camp and has only one mosquito net, which the youngest kids use.

Malaria cases in Sindh province were more than three times higher in August than a year earlier, and in the hardest-hit districts in the country cases went up again in September.

Climate change made the historic monsoon rains in Pakistan more intense this year, and it’s expected to play an increasing role in human health.

The World Health Organization expects an additional 250,000 people a year by the 2030s to die from malaria malnutrition, heat stress and diarrhea.

Pathogens that cause illnesses such as malaria and cholera tend to reproduce faster and survive longer in warmer temperatures, “so, average increased temperatures favor transmission of these diseases,” said Diarmid Campbell-Lendrom, head of the World Health Organization’s climate change and health unit.

No one is immune to the health impacts of climate change, he said, pointing to the more than 70,000 people who died during a European heat wave in 2003. But the most exposed populations will still have it the worst as temperatures warm.

“If you live in Pakistan and you don't have a safe water supply or a good sanitation system, then, increasing temperatures and floods which overflow your sanitation are going to hit you more than somebody living in a good quality house,” Campbell-Lendrum said. “So, across the board, it's those that are most vulnerable, which are most at risk from climate change.”

In Pakistan, the floods have also destroyed health infrastructure and made it harder for people to access care.

The August floods damaged 800 miles of roads and 38 health centers in the hard-hit Dadu district, where hundreds of thousands of people were still displaced this month.

Last month, patients were spending up to two days navigating floodwaters to get to a hospital, according to one physician.

Ali Khan Jamali at a health clinic for people displaced by Pakistan’s historic floods.

Credit: Carolyn Beeler/The World

At the Dadu district hospital, which serves a population of about 1.5 million, the head of pediatrics, Dr. Allah Korejo, said his unit is overcrowded, with two children in each bed in some wards.

“We need more beds,” he said.

His biggest concern is climbing rates of malnutrition as more families in this farming region fall into poverty.

“Most of the lands and crops are underwater, and the main source of income of our villagers is land,” he said. “So, their source of income is totally finished.”

Malnutrition and infectious diseases were already a big problem here, said his colleague Dr. Tasmine Panhwer.

“This flood crisis has multiplied these already existing problems to huge numbers,” she said.

She’s already seeing babies being born underweight to malnourished mothers, which can have lasting impacts on infant health.

“I think in the long term, it will affect us in terms of compromised health conditions, and it may increase neonatal mortality rate as well.”

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The Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee's first mandated conference (INC-1) is underway in Uruguay, where negotiators have begun early talks in building a global treaty that would essentially eliminate all plastic waste.

With a 2024 completion deadline that was voted on in March, the future treaty aims to reduce plastics pollution on a global scale. Organizers plan to mitigate the costs and effects of plastic production as a whole and engage workers’ concerns within the industry.

"We hear a lot of urgency from the folks living and working on the front lines of the crisis."

Jane Patton, campaign manager for plastics and petrochemicals, Center for International Environmental Law

"We hear a lot of urgency from the folks living and working on the front lines of the crisis," said Jane Patton, campaign manager for plastics and petrochemicals at the Center for International Environmental Law.

"We have folks who are waste-pickers from India, Kenya [and] from the United States. And then, of course, we have folks living and working on the front line of the plastics production, the petrochemicals build out, who are here talking about both ends of the plastic lifecycle."

Stakeholders engage in dialogue at the 1st Session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution.

Credit: Courtesy of Angeles Estrada Vigil/IISD/ENB

Significant stakeholders also include plastics producers who say that caps on production could affect their economic turnover and their customers, as well. This includes large companies like Amazon, that rely on these materials to distribute its products to consumers.

Still, there is growing awareness that plastics producers are really at the root of the crisis, Patton said.

"There is an expanding understanding of what plastic pollution or pollution from plastics actually is," Patton said.

Stakeholders are learning more about emissions from plastic production as a part of the pollution lifecycle, including carbon, greenhouse gas and methane gas, she said.

The weeklong conference in Uruguay is only the first of five meant to carve out what the global treaty will include and how countries will enforce it.

"There's a lot of space between the treaty itself being legally binding and then its actual provisions and requirements being mandatory or binding," Patton said.

"My hope is that all of us who are working on this treaty can go back to working on something that's not this," she said, adding that she hopes the problem can be solved in a way that supports local communities and workers everywhere who are affected by it.

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The San Jose ranch is located on a remote stretch of Colombia’s eastern plains. It has its own runway for small aircraft — and 5,000 cows — which are fed with a special kind of grass called Koronivia.

This kind of pasture is more efficient at feeding cattle. And it’s also better for the environment, according to Jacobo Arango, a biologist from the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, which bred Koronivia at its seed bank, and is now testing how it performs at the 20,000-acre ranch.

“The key to this plant is that it’s able to grow deep root systems,” Arango said during a recent visit to Hacienda San Jose. “We have calculated that it is able to store 15% more carbon than the natural pasture that grows in this region.”

The San Jose Ranch is located in Vichada, a remote region of Colombia that is covered by grasslands and small forests that grow next to local rivers.

Credit:

Manuel Rueda/The World

The beef industry is responsible for 9% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to a recent study by the University of Illinois. And its practices are coming under greater scrutiny from customers and governments looking for ways to slow down global warming.

In the remote Colombian province of Vichada, which is mostly covered by savannah and small forests that grow along the region’s rivers, the San Jose ranch is trying to show that there are ways for cattle ranching to be more environmentally friendly — and still be profitable.

One of its most successful projects so far has been planting its fields with Koronivia. This kind of grass doesn’t just sequester more carbon from the atmosphere. A study published in November also found that it can capture and store large amounts of nitrogen after cows release it in their urine, slowing down emissions of nitrous oxide.

“We have calculated that there’s a 1 1/2- to 10-fold reduction in terms of nitrous oxide emissions,” Arango said.

Thanks to its use of Koronivia — and other improvements like using cattle that are ready for slaughter in less time — the San Jose Ranch currently soaks up more greenhouse gases than its cattle emit. And it also needs less space for its cows. This hacienda can feed 17 times more cattle per acre than its neighbors, according to Paolo Moreira, the ranch’s chief executive officer.

“In terms of emissions, it is true and always will be true that the animals emit gases,” like methane, which cows emit when they burp, he said. “But when you combine that with a system that is able to sequestrate more gases than what the animals are emitting, then, it becomes very interesting.”

Moreira is not the only one trying to reduce the beef industry’s environmental hoofprint.

Paolo Moreira is the CEO of Colombia's San Jose Ranch.

Credit:

Mnauel Rueda/The World

In the United States, some ranchers are promoting a system known as regenerative grazing: Instead of planting a monocrop of grass for feed, cattle are rotated on fields of native species. This helps cows to be healthier while reducing emissions, said Allen Williams, a rancher and consultant from South Carolina.

“It sequesters a lot more carbon. Just like the prairies and the native grasslands once did,” he explained. “They were carbon sinks. So, we’re recreating the carbon sinks by recreating the diversity of plant species.”

In Colombia, Moreira and his business partner, a former banker, have raised millions of dollars to launch their eco-friendly ranch.

Buying and planting the Koronivia grass is more expensive than the traditional methods of cattle ranching used in places like Vichada province.

So, Moreira said the ranch will be profitable by selling its meat in the United States where customers are paying premium prices for grass-fed beef.

“You go to Whole Foods markets today, and you see cage-free, animal well-being, no use of preventive hormones,” he said. “What we are trying to do here is to put all those attributes into the meat that we produce.”

Currently, most cows in the US are grain-fed and spend the latter part of their lives in feedlots. But that’s changing as customers seek more natural alternatives.

Williams said that sales of grass-fed beef have “grown exponentially” in the US over the past two decades. According to his estimates, they jumped from $3 million in 2003 to $8 billion last year.

The San Jose Ranch uses a type of cow called the short cycle Nelore, which grows up faster than other cows commonly used in Colombia.

Credit:

Manuel Rueda/The World

“People like the richness and robustness of the flavor profile that a grass-fed beef has, that a grain-fed beef does not,” Willliams said. “Most grain-fed beef in the US has sort of a bland flavor due to the finishing rations that they’re on. And you have to marinate it or add sauces to it to add more flavor.”

The San Jose ranch needs to boost production for its eco-friendly but costly business model to work. So, the company is looking for 200 investors to buy plots of land in Colombia’s eastern plains.

Moreira said the plan is for each ranch to sustain 900 cows that will be raised with Koronivia grass.

“I think Colombia has a jewel in its hands,” Moreira said. “There’s this huge area that is very appropriate for cattle without the need to cut trees.”

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The village of Kijumba sits surrounded by tall banana trees and cassava plants just off the newly constructed roads of the oil-rich Hoima district in Uganda.

This is where 49-year-old Hope Alinatiwe has spent her entire life, cultivating the land to feed herself and her eight children.

Like many rural Ugandans, she is cash-poor but land-rich – meaning her small plots of land are her only assets.

But recently that land has come up for grabs because of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), an ambitious project that will run more than 800 miles from western Uganda to neighboring Tanzania.

In 2018, Alinatiwe said she was told she would need to sell some of her land to make room for the construction of the new pipeline.

“I was told to sign the contract and to stop using the land,” she said.

So, she did. For the next four years, Alinatiwe waited for compensation, and in the meantime, her land went to waste.

By the time she was paid this past September, she had lost out on four years of farm earnings for what she said was meager compensation.

“The money we were given was too little,” for the land, based on its current value, Alinatiwe said.

Now, having lost her primary source of earning, she can no longer afford to send her kids to school and struggles to find work to feed her family.

Alinatiwe's experience highlights what has become a flashpoint in these early days of development for Uganda’s ambitious oil development: land.

Rachel Tugume, also from Kijumba, has a similar story.

"They told me, ‘Rachel, the pipeline will go through your land.’ So, I waited for them to come, and in 2019, they came and stopped me from using my land,” she said.

“If you have cassava in our place, you are a good farmer and you are a rich person,” Tugume said.

Rachel Tugume in front of her land that she was ordered to sell to EACOP to make room for the oil pipeline. She continues to negotiate for a fairer settlement.

Credit:

Halima Gikandi/The World

She was offered about $130 for her land — the amount determined by her land size at the time. She said she can make twice that amount per year by farming. And as time passes, the land has become increasingly valuable due to the nearby oil and infrastructure development.

“The price only keeps going up every year,” she said.

Up to now, Tugume has held out on selling, instead trying to negotiate with the EACOP company for a better deal for her land.

In the meantime, her demarcated land has become full of weeds as Tugume continues to abide by the terms of sale, which include ceasing to grow crops that take time to harvest. She estimates she has lost millions of Ugandan shillings in profits by not cultivating the land for years.

She said her issue isn’t with the oil pipeline itself, but with the impact it has on locals like her.

"We are near the oil and gas, we are near the airport, and we are the people who are affected,” Tugume said, estimating she has lost out on millions of Ugandan shillings of earnings by not using her land that has been earmarked for construction.

“At least they can help us,” she said. “So, we can also benefit from the oil and gas."

Rachel Tugume shows a letter from EACOP about reevaluating the value of her land.

Credit:

Halima Gikandi/The World

Displaced by oil In other parts of Hoima, construction for the oil project has already begun.

In Buliisa, on the shores of Lake Albert, a central oil processing facility is in the works.

That’s where John has lived all of his life, until he was told to sell his land to make room for oil construction. He asked to only use his first name, fearing harassment.

“I requested for land compensation,” he said, rather than getting meager monetary compensation.

When that didn’t work out, he said he refused to sell the land.

“We were taken to court,” he said, and lost.

John said he was later forced to leave his land, which he relied on as a source of income.

"My children are not in school. I cannot have money to earn my living,” he said.

Since then, he has relocated to his relative’s property, which is adjacent to another construction site.

“There is a lot of noise, a lot of sand, dust, a lot of floods of water,” John said.

Uganda’s government has said that they are compensating people fairly. “There is no area in the country that has been assessed for oil and gas development before full and adequate compensation of the project affected persons,” said Gloria Sebikari of the Petroleum Authority of Uganda, who acknowledged there were some delays in payment due to COVID-19.

But for activists, the ongoing disputes over land compensation in the areas closest to the oil development project is proof that the oil project will not benefit ordinary Ugandans.

"There is no way you can expect these huge projects to benefit the poor people, the average people,” said Dickens Kamugisha of the Africa Institute for Energy Governance (AFIEGO).

“The money will be earned and only the rich and the powerful will be the ones to take that money,” he said.

This month, AFIEGO and other organizations sued Uganda and Tanzania over the oil pipeline project at the East African Court of Justice, arguing that the project violates international law and regional environmental treaties.

Threats to vital wildlifeIn nearby Bugoma forest, conservationist Nazario Asiimwe walks through the dense bush, pointing out the diverse biodiversity.

Environmental activists are concerned that the pipeline project could potentially impact forests like this one, which is home to protected species like the chimpanzees.

Asiimwe, who works on forest conservation, worries the species could be harmed by the construction.

"Because chimpanzees, they move everywhere. They can move to where they want to construct the pipelines,” Asiimwe said.

Conservationist and tour guide Nazario Assimwe in Bugoma forest, the Hoima district, Uganda.

Credit:

Halima Gikandi/The World

Both the Ugandan government and the oil companies involved have responded to critics by saying they have taken measures to mitigate any potential negative social and environmental impact of this development project.

But AFIEGO’s Dickens Kamugisha said that is not enough, and that fossil fuels are not the answer for Uganda.

"I don't think we should be saying let's also destroy this nature for us to make money,” he said.

“We can harness our nature and ensure that we get money but we also sustain our environment.”

Related: Why African countries like Uganda are investing in fossil fuels, Part I

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In the far ends of western Uganda, surrounded by lush green farms, the city of Hoima has taken on a new name: Oil City.

It got the name after commercial quantities of oil were discovered in Uganda in 2006.

According to the country's government, there are 6.5 billion barrels of oil underground — 1.4 billion of which can be recovered.

Now, Uganda is seeking to develop and refine that oil in partnership with the French energy company Total, and a state-owned Chinese corporation.

"People will benefit directly, others indirectly," said 22-year-old Nicholas Aheebua, who works at a local market.

He pointed out the sleek new roads that have been built in the district, and the nearly finished international airport.

"Like us, youths, who are still looking for work,” he added. “People who have benefited directly will start up businesses and we shall work there. We'll be employed."

The Ugandan government is banking on these prospects of employment and development as they promote, and defend, this oil project in the face of domestic and international criticism about the environmental and social costs.

"We estimate that the country will be earning close to $2 billion annually, and this is a significant addition to our GDP," said Gloria Sebikari of the Petroleum Authority of Uganda (PAU).

She said it will also help boost Uganda's energy security.

Downtown Hoima, Uganda, November 2022.

Credit:

Halima Gikandi/The World

"Uganda plans to construct a 60,000-barrels-per-day refinery in Hoima to produce petroleum products like petrol, diesel, jet fuel and the like to be consumed in the Ugandan market," Sebikari said.

Crude oil from the projects will also be exported internationally through the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) that will run more than 890 miles from western Uganda to the Tanga port in neighboring Tanzania.

Concerns and pushbackBut some have raised concerns about the oil development project.

In September, the European Parliament adopted a resolution condemning human rights violations and environmental dangers they said have been brought by the fossil fuel projects in Uganda.

But Uganda disagrees with the assessment.

"Some of these people are insufferable. You need to control yourself not to explode. So shallow, so egocentric. So wrong," said Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni in response.

This flashpoint is emblematic of a bigger showdown taking place on the continent, as many African countries seek to benefit from new fossil fuel discoveries despite global calls for a movement away from it.

While those calls were repeated once again at the UN Climate Conference in Egypt, Sebikari of PAU noted how investment in new fossil fuel projects remains a reality globally.

"This begs the question, why should the pressure to stop oil and gas or to delay projects be for projects in developing countries, countries that have not yet reached a certain level of development?" she asked.

"A lot of the [developed] countries developed on the back of oil and gas and other natural resources,"

Gloria Sebikari, Petroleum Authority of Uganda

"A lot of the [developed] countries developed on the back of oil and gas and other natural resources," she added.

Uganda's government argues that it should be able to do the same, especially when many people in the country do not even have access to electricity.

Instead, both the rural and urban poor rely on burning charcoal and firewood, which has led to deforestation across Uganda's protected forest and carbon emissions.

Liquefied petroleum gasSebikari of PAU said that one of the expected byproducts of the oil refining process will be liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) — or cooking gas — which can be used as an alternative to charcoal and wood.

“So, if the oil and gas sectors can support a bigger part of the population to transition away from the use of charcoal and wood fuel [toward the] use of gas, which is much cleaner than wood fuel, then we are contributing to the fight against climate change. We are reducing our emissions as a country," she argued.

This year, Uganda's Ministry of Energy launched a program to give canisters of cooking gas to poor families in anticipation of growing the domestic market in the future.

"Gas is more efficient, faster and cleaner than using charcoal or wood," said 37-year-old Noowe Kazo, one of the recipients.

"The government told us that we should stop using charcoal, because the smoke is bad for us, and because it’s damaging our environment," she said.

She added that she would be willing to buy gas with her own money if it were more affordable.

Noowe Kazo shows off the new gas stove she recieved from the government, Bukasa, Uganda, November 2022.

Credit:

Halima Gikandi/The World

For Uganda's government, Kazo exemplifies its argument that oil development can be part of the country's energy transition.

But for environment and social activists, the costs of the country's oil development are too high.

The World has more on the pushback against this oil pipeline in Part 2 of this report. Listen to the story here.

Related: 'The system is broken': At COP27, developing countries push for more money to adapt to climate change

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In the wake of Pakistan’s catastrophic flooding this year, the World Bank estimated it will cost the country $152 billion over the next eight years to adapt to the impacts of climate change.

As warming temperatures push up sea levels, bring more intense storms and fuel deadly heat waves, the costs of readying infrastructure and populations for this onslaught in developing countries will tally into hundreds of billions of dollars each year.

Yet funding flowing to those countries is five to 10 times less than what’s actually needed, according to the UN.

At the COP27 climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh this month, developing nations have been pushing for more funding, canceled debt and changes to the global financial system to help them address this funding gap.

“I understand that we all have to do more, Pakistan has to do more to reinvent itself,” said Pakistan’s Climate Minister Sherry Rehman, speaking about the need for adaptation. “I also appreciate and think that all our partners have to do the same.”

The need for adaptation is clear in the coastal megacity of Karachi, Pakistan’s commercial hub.

“Karachi is vulnerable when we think about all the possible four scenarios that you relate to climate change: flooding, drought, extreme heat and sea-level rise.”

Farhan Anwer, urban planner and academic in Karachi

“Karachi is vulnerable when we think about all the possible four scenarios that you relate to climate change: flooding, drought, extreme heat and sea-level rise,” said Farhan Anwer, an urban planner and academic in Karachi specializing in sustainable cities.

Critical infrastructure on Karachi’s coast now stands vulnerable to rising sea levels. Monsoon rains already cause annual flooding, including in the informal settlements built on the banks of the city’s stormwater drainage ditches.

Without a proper sewage or solid waste management system, those ditches become choked with both trash and human waste, Anwer said.

Standing near one of those ditches, Anwer explained that adapting to increasingly intense monsoon rains will require a range of infrastructure and policy upgrades.

“Unless we have an efficient sewage system, it will again be flooded with sewage water. If we don’t have a proper solid waste management system, people will continue to dump their garbage here,” he said. “If we don't have affordable housing schemes for the urban poor, they will continue to have settlements built along these areas.”

Anwer, who wrote an adaptation plan for Karachi a decade ago and consults with the World Bank, stressed that better governance in the city is essential to adapting to climate change.

But it also requires money.

Urban forestsIn response to a deadly heat wave that struck his city in 2015, Karachi resident Shahzad Qureshi launched an urban forest in his neighborhood.

Since then, he founded the organization called Urban Forest and has gained international acclaim for creating 20 small, densely planted forests across Karachi — and more around the country — largely at the invitation of private landowners.

With a positive response, he said he thought he’d landed on a model that could be scaled up to help cool the city and alleviate monsoon flooding.

Shahzad Qureshi’s first urban forest, three densely planted acres in the Clifton neighborhood of Karachi, Pakistan.

Credit:

Carolyn Beeler/The World

“This is going to be a great respite,” he thought. “We're going to change the microclimate of Karachi!”

Quershi has since been working for years to gain support to scale his forests up, with a target of covering 25% of Karachi with trees. He’s shopped this idea around to government representatives and private citizens, but said he hasn’t yet gained much traction.

“The only thing actually stopping us is money,” he explained. “That's it.”

In 2010, developed countries pledged to raise and mobilize $100 billion a year in climate finance for developing countries by 2020. They missed that target by nearly $20 billion, and don’t appear on track to meet it until 2023.

And most of that money goes toward mitigation, or projects like renewable energy plants that help slash emissions.

Shahzad Qureshi at his first urban forest, in the Clifton neighborhood of Karachi, Pakistan.

Credit:

Carolyn Beeler/The World

Only 34%, or $28.6 billion, went to adaptation in 2020, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Chiara Falduto, who tracks climate finance for the OECD, said that’s partly because adaptation projects, like beefing up a city’s disaster response systems or helping farmers adapt to climate change, typically don’t offer a return on investment. And they’re largely funded by governments.

“In the case of mitigation projects, this is different,” Falduto said.

Investors at a new solar power plant, for example, can expect a direct return on their investment when electricity is generated and sold.

At the COP27 summit in Sharm el-Sheikh this month, many developing countries are pushing for wealthy nations to strengthen pledges to double adaptation finance and achieve a balance between funding for adaptation and mitigation.

And Pakistan is calling for debt relief.

“I think we need partnerships for the future where the financial burdens on debt-ridden countries need to be reduced to deal with the post-existential climate crisis world,” climate minister Sherry Rehman said at the summit.

Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Mottley is gaining traction for an initiative that would provide hundreds of billions of dollars in grants and low-interest loans to developing countries.

In G-7 countries, she told reporters at Sharm el-Sheikh, countries can borrow at interest rates between 1% and 4%.

“In most of the Global South, the average borrowing rates are now between 12 and 14%,” she said. “So, you begin to see the disparity.”

Mottley argues that these rates mean the so-called "Global South" countries rack up high levels of debt when borrowing to recover from climate-fueled disasters, and are then unable to invest in other priorities, including adaptation.

“The system is broken, and what we need to ensure is a more level playing field for the cost of capital, because it’s the cost of capital that will be borne and will crowd out our ability to finance other aspects of our development.”

Related: A Pakistani family sees firsthand the effects of climate change, as negotiators at COP27 battle over how to pay for them

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In the salty waters beneath the world’s driest desert, lie vast reserves of a valuable mineral: lithium.

This metal is crucial for the planet’s energy transition. It is used to power electric vehicles and store solar and wind energy, which bring some hope to a world faced with a rapidly changing climate.

The lithium mines, which occupy more than 30 square miles of Chile’s Atacama Desert, are operated by two private companies, Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile (SQM) and Albemarle. They both have rental contracts with the Chilean government.

In these facilities, salty ground water rich in minerals gets pumped to the surface. The liquid, called brine, is then stored in huge evaporation ponds that are exposed to the desert heat.

“During [a span of] 18 months, the water in the brine evaporates, and [the] lithium becomes more concentrated,” said Oswaldo Yáñez, SQM's manager of innovation and development.

This region has some of the highest solar radiation levels on Earth, and it almost never rains. “The water evaporates incredibly fast here,” Yáñez added.

The process ends at a closed plant, where lithium is turned into carbonate and shipped abroad, to places like China or the US.

In the past 10 years, the global demand for lithium has skyrocketed. And the increase in production of electric vehicles is expected to raise this demand by at least 300% in the next 10 years.

This is good news for Chile’s economy. The South American country meets about a third of the globe’s lithium demands, and plans to boost lithium production in the next few years.

Close to 60% of the world’s 86 million tons of identified lithium resources are in Bolivia, Chile and Argentina, according to the US Geological Survey, in an area known as the “Lithium Triangle.”

Indigenous people in Chile are concerned that the amount of water used in lithium operations is threatening desert irrigation and farming methods they have relied on for centuries.

Credit:

Tibisay Zea/The World

While Chile has successfully transformed the majority of its available resources into reserves available for commercial production, Argentina and Bolivia have not yet done so. This is largely because of unfavorable investment climates and more challenging geographic conditions, according to Juan Carlos Zuleta, a Bolivian researcher who has been following the lithium business for decades.

“This metal will soon be a game changer for this region’s economy,” Zuleta said.

But for him, the real opportunity is not in extracting and selling lithium. He is researching a possible association between six countries in South America to fabricate and sell lithium batteries and electric vehicles, which the country now imports from abroad.

“My idea is basically to create a hub of electric vehicles in South America for the regional market,” Zuleta said. “If we are able to produce the next generation of EVs [electric vehicles] in South America, then we could become a superpower.”

Lithium will be crucial in the transition to clean energy, but the extraction method used in the Lithium Triangle presents several environmental problems, according to James Blair, an anthropologist at Cal Poly Pomona, who has done research on lithium mining’s impact on Atacama's Indigenous communities.

“The main concern is its impact on water use and water availability,” Blair said.

“When a large percentage of the water from the brine evaporates, yes, this is exacerbating what is already a major problem of depleted water in one of the driest areas of the world.”

Indigenous peoples also worry that the amount of water used in lithium operations threatens desert irrigation and farming methods they have relied on for centuries.

Rudencindo Espíndola, an Indigenous topographer in this area, and an activist with the National Observatory of Salt Flats in Chile, said there is a conflict over the way that the industry has presented impacts as benign versus what the Indigenous communities experience.

“Brine should be treated as water. ... It’s part of our hydrogeological ecosystem and it has a lot of ancestral value for us, so it’s worth preserving.”

Rudencindo Espíndola, Indigenous topographer

“Brine should be treated as water,” Espíndola said. “It’s part of our hydrogeological ecosystem and it has a lot of ancestral value for us, so it’s worth preserving.”

He acknowledged that green energies that demand lithium are good for humanity, “but the price to produce them will be paid by Chile’s environment.”

Lithium mining is not the only industry that uses groundwater from the Atacama salt flat. Two other companies also mine copper in the region.

“Any mining has an impact,” Espíndola said. “The question is, how much impact is acceptable?”

Blair said there needs to be more independent research on local biodiversity, water flows and local communities’ concerns to find out how to reduce damage.

Chile’s Atacama desert is one of the driest areas in the world.

Credit:

Tibisay Zea/The World

A recent study linked lithium operations with a decrease in the number of flamingos in the Atacama salt flat.

Oswaldo Yáñez, a manager at the SQM mine, said the company is already working on improvements regarding water utilization.

“The idea is to extract lithium directly from the brine, without having to evaporate groundwater,” Yáñez said. He added that it will take at least five years to research, develop and implement this method.

In the meantime, he said, the tradeoff is worth it, in the name of a greener future.

As global demand for lithium keeps rising, anthropologist Blair points out that governments and consumers should do their part, too, “by encouraging battery recycling, and really just reducing car dependency, which is especially a problem in the United States.”

There are about 16 million electric cars on the roads around the world now, which is three times more than in 2018. And by 2030, that number is estimated to reach around 350 million.

Related: Chileans have long struggled with a water crisis. Management practices are partly to blame, study says.

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In the salty waters beneath the world’s driest desert, lie vast reserves of a valuable mineral: lithium.

This metal is crucial for the planet’s energy transition. It is used to power electric vehicles and store solar and wind energy, which bring some hope to a world faced with a rapidly changing climate.

The lithium mines, which occupy more than 30 square miles of Chile’s Atacama Desert, are operated by two private companies, Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile (SQM) and Albemarle. They both have rental contracts with the Chilean government.

In these facilities, salty ground water rich in minerals gets pumped to the surface. The liquid, called brine, is then stored in huge evaporation ponds that are exposed to the desert heat.

“During [a span of] 18 months, the water in the brine evaporates, and [the] lithium becomes more concentrated,” said Oswaldo Yáñez, SQM's manager of innovation and development.

This region has some of the highest solar radiation levels on Earth, and it almost never rains. “The water evaporates incredibly fast here,” Yáñez added.

The process ends at a closed plant, where lithium is turned into carbonate and shipped abroad, to places like China or the US.

In the past 10 years, the global demand for lithium has skyrocketed. And the increase in production of electric vehicles is expected to raise this demand by at least 300% in the next 10 years.

This is good news for Chile’s economy. The South American country meets about a third of the globe’s lithium demands, and plans to boost lithium production in the next few years.

Close to 60% of the world’s 86 million tons of identified lithium resources are in Bolivia, Chile and Argentina, according to the US Geological Survey, in an area known as the “Lithium Triangle.”

Indigenous people in Chile are concerned that the amount of water used in lithium operations is threatening desert irrigation and farming methods they have relied on for centuries.

Credit:

Tibisay Zea/The World

While Chile has successfully transformed the majority of its available resources into reserves available for commercial production, Argentina and Bolivia have not yet done so. This is largely because of unfavorable investment climates and more challenging geographic conditions, according to Juan Carlos Zuleta, a Bolivian researcher who has been following the lithium business for decades.

“This metal will soon be a game changer for this region’s economy,” Zuleta said.

But for him, the real opportunity is not in extracting and selling lithium. He is researching a possible association between six countries in South America to fabricate and sell lithium batteries and electric vehicles, which the country now imports from abroad.

“My idea is basically to create a hub of electric vehicles in South America for the regional market,” Zuleta said. “If we are able to produce the next generation of EVs [electric vehicles] in South America, then we could become a superpower.”

Lithium will be crucial in the transition to clean energy, but the extraction method used in the Lithium Triangle presents several environmental problems, according to James Blair, an anthropologist at Cal Poly Pomona, who has done research on lithium mining’s impact on Atacama's Indigenous communities.

“The main concern is its impact on water use and water availability,” Blair said.

“When a large percentage of the water from the brine evaporates, yes, this is exacerbating what is already a major problem of depleted water in one of the driest areas of the world.”

Indigenous peoples also worry that the amount of water used in lithium operations threatens desert irrigation and farming methods they have relied on for centuries.

Rudencindo Espíndola, an Indigenous topographer in this area, and an activist with the National Observatory of Salt Flats in Chile, said there is a conflict over the way that the industry has presented impacts as benign versus what the Indigenous communities experience.

“Brine should be treated as water. ... It’s part of our hydrogeological ecosystem and it has a lot of ancestral value for us, so it’s worth preserving.”

Rudencindo Espíndola, Indigenous topographer

“Brine should be treated as water,” Espíndola said. “It’s part of our hydrogeological ecosystem and it has a lot of ancestral value for us, so it’s worth preserving.”

He acknowledged that green energies that demand lithium are good for humanity, “but the price to produce them will be paid by Chile’s environment.”

Lithium mining is not the only industry that uses groundwater from the Atacama salt flat. Two other companies also mine copper in the region.

“Any mining has an impact,” Espíndola said. “The question is, how much impact is acceptable?”

Blair said there needs to be more independent research on local biodiversity, water flows and local communities’ concerns to find out how to reduce damage.

Chile’s Atacama desert is one of the driest areas in the world.

Credit:

Tibisay Zea/The World

A recent study linked lithium operations with a decrease in the number of flamingos in the Atacama salt flat.

Oswaldo Yáñez, a manager at the SQM mine, said the company is already working on improvements regarding water utilization.

“The idea is to extract lithium directly from the brine, without having to evaporate groundwater,” Yáñez said. He added that it will take at least five years to research, develop and implement this method.

In the meantime, he said, the tradeoff is worth it, in the name of a greener future.

As global demand for lithium keeps rising, anthropologist Blair points out that governments and consumers should do their part, too, “by encouraging battery recycling, and really just reducing car dependency, which is especially a problem in the United States.”

There are about 16 million electric cars on the roads around the world now, which is three times more than in 2018. And by 2030, that number is estimated to reach around 350 million.

Related: Chileans have long struggled with a water crisis. Management practices are partly to blame, study says.

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Before catching his flight on Monday to Egypt for the COP27 climate conference, Brazil’s President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva sent out a tweet: “We are returning to the world,” he wrote.

The tweet was accompanied by a video in which world leaders were seen congratulating Lula on his electoral victory, and in which Lula said he’s going to protect the environment.

“You all know that we are going to undertake a big fight against deforestation,” Lula told world leaders in a speech on Wednesday.

“Brazil can’t remain isolated like it was these last four years. [Officials from Brazil] didn’t travel to any other countries, and no other countries traveled to Brazil."

Amazon deforestation can be seen here on Indigenous territory in the state of Rondônia.

Credit:

Michael Fox/The World

Under current President Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil went from being a leader in the international battle against climate change, to a pariah. Lula said on election night that “it’s time to turn the page.”

"Brazil is ready to resume its leading role in the fight against the climate crisis, protecting all of our biomes, especially the Amazon rainforest. Brazil and the planet need a living Amazon,” he said.

"A tree standing is worth more than a ton of illegally harvested timber by those who think only of easy profit."

That was music to the ears of the members of Brazil’s environmental communities, including Juliana Kerexu — a Guarani leader who is representing Brazil’s Indigenous peoples at COP27.

"The Bolsonaro government had no dialogue with the Indigenous peoples of the country,” Kerexu said, during a press conference at the summit this week.

"In this moment of transition, we are hopeful for more democratic days.”

Small boats move in front of an island where trees have fallen in the Bailique archipelago district of Macapá, in the state of Amapa, in northern Brazil, Sept. 12, 2022.

Credit:

Eraldo Peres/AP

At COP27 on Nov. 15, Lula met with US Climate Envoy John Kerry, who said he was glad Lula was pushing for "once-and-for-all getting it right, pulling people together in order to preserve the Amazon.”

Indigenous communities and environmental advocates say Bolsonaro’s government has been a disaster. State agencies were gutted and defunded.

The country’s emissions of greenhouse gasses are at a nearly two-decade high, largely due to out-of-control fires and deforestation. The week following Lula’s electoral win, there were more than 1,300 blazes in just the Amazonian state of Rondônia, a 10-fold increase over last year.

Federal University of Amazonas ecology professor Henrique Pereira said Bolsonaro set the country back 50 years in terms of environmental protection, and it could take Lula some time to turn the tide.

But he will have help. Back when he was president of Brazil in the mid-2000s, Lula’s chief environmental ally was his then-environment minister Marina Silva — a former union leader of Amazonian rubber tappers. She later broke with Lula's government over political differences. Now, she’s back.

“That really has brought me a lot of hope," said Suely Araujo, the former head of Brazil’s environment agency and senior specialist at the Climate Observatory, a Brazilian nongovernmental organization.

"That really touched me when I saw Marina joining Lula’s campaign.”

Marina Silva poses for a photo with a Lula supporter in São Paulo, Brazil.

Credit:

Michael Fox/The World

Following a Lula rally last month, Marina Silva said she had already given Lula a series of documents with clear proposals about how to get to zero deforestation.

"We are going to recuperate our environmental agencies that were destroyed and we are going to create a national agency against climate change," she said.

Lula is not starting anew. When he came to power 20 years ago, deforestation rates in the Amazon were even worse than today. Lula enacted a series of landmark measures. They cut deforestation rates in half within two years. And Brazil hit its 2020 goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation ahead of schedule.

"It was proven that Brazil can produce food and also conserve forests and its people. So, we know how to do it,” said Ane Alencar, science director at the Amazon Environmental Research Institute. "However, I think it's going to be difficult to do it again."

That’s because there are new complicated challenges. Above all, the complete lawlessness in the Amazon under Bolsonaro has empowered illegal loggers, miners and land grabbers.

In many areas, they've joined forces with powerful narco-trafficking groups, who are likely to push back on government measures to protect the forest.

But Lula says he’s ready.

Former environment agency director Suely Araujo said Lula’s participation in COP27 is a sign that Brazil is once again going to become a world leader in the fight against climate change.

"Lula is going to lift Brazil into a key role in the climate negotiations,” she said, and become “a leader in decreasing climate emissions and greenhouse gasses."

Lula is not even president yet, and at COP27, he has received invitations to 10 bilateral meetings. Unlike his predecessor, who outright rejected international support in Amazon protection, Lula has welcomed the world's help in protecting Brazil’s forests.

At COP27, he called for the 2025 climate conference to be held in the Amazon, saying it was time for “people who defend the Amazon and defend the climate to get to know the region, close-up.”

View Details

Before catching his flight on Monday to Egypt for the COP27 climate conference, Brazil’s President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva sent out a tweet: “We are returning to the world,” he wrote.

The tweet was accompanied by a video in which world leaders were seen congratulating Lula on his electoral victory, and in which Lula said he’s going to protect the environment.

“You all know that we are going to undertake a big fight against deforestation,” Lula told world leaders in a speech on Wednesday.

“Brazil can’t remain isolated like it was these last four years. [Officials from Brazil] didn’t travel to any other countries, and no other countries traveled to Brazil."

Amazon deforestation can be seen here on Indigenous territory in the state of Rondônia.

Credit:

Michael Fox/The World

Under current President Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil went from being a leader in the international battle against climate change, to a pariah. Lula said on election night that “it’s time to turn the page.”

"Brazil is ready to resume its leading role in the fight against the climate crisis, protecting all of our biomes, especially the Amazon rainforest. Brazil and the planet need a living Amazon,” he said.

"A tree standing is worth more than a ton of illegally harvested timber by those who think only of easy profit."

That was music to the ears of the members of Brazil’s environmental communities, including Juliana Kerexu — a Guarani leader who is representing Brazil’s Indigenous peoples at COP27.

"The Bolsonaro government had no dialogue with the Indigenous peoples of the country,” Kerexu said, during a press conference at the summit this week.

"In this moment of transition, we are hopeful for more democratic days.”

Small boats move in front of an island where trees have fallen in the Bailique archipelago district of Macapá, in the state of Amapa, in northern Brazil, Sept. 12, 2022.

Credit:

Eraldo Peres/AP

At COP27 on Nov. 15, Lula met with US Climate Envoy John Kerry, who said he was glad Lula was pushing for "once-and-for-all getting it right, pulling people together in order to preserve the Amazon.”

Indigenous communities and environmental advocates say Bolsonaro’s government has been a disaster. State agencies were gutted and defunded.

The country’s emissions of greenhouse gasses are at a nearly two-decade high, largely due to out-of-control fires and deforestation. The week following Lula’s electoral win, there were more than 1,300 blazes in just the Amazonian state of Rondônia, a 10-fold increase over last year.

Federal University of Amazonas ecology professor Henrique Pereira said Bolsonaro set the country back 50 years in terms of environmental protection, and it could take Lula some time to turn the tide.

But he will have help. Back when he was president of Brazil in the mid-2000s, Lula’s chief environmental ally was his then-environment minister Marina Silva — a former union leader of Amazonian rubber tappers. She later broke with Lula's government over political differences. Now, she’s back.

“That really has brought me a lot of hope," said Suely Araujo, the former head of Brazil’s environment agency and senior specialist at the Climate Observatory, a Brazilian nongovernmental organization.

"That really touched me when I saw Marina joining Lula’s campaign.”

Marina Silva poses for a photo with a Lula supporter in São Paulo, Brazil.

Credit:

Michael Fox/The World

Following a Lula rally last month, Marina Silva said she had already given Lula a series of documents with clear proposals about how to get to zero deforestation.

"We are going to recuperate our environmental agencies that were destroyed and we are going to create a national agency against climate change," she said.

Lula is not starting anew. When he came to power 20 years ago, deforestation rates in the Amazon were even worse than today. Lula enacted a series of landmark measures. They cut deforestation rates in half within two years. And Brazil hit its 2020 goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation ahead of schedule.

"It was proven that Brazil can produce food and also conserve forests and its people. So, we know how to do it,” said Ane Alencar, science director at the Amazon Environmental Research Institute. "However, I think it's going to be difficult to do it again."

That’s because there are new complicated challenges. Above all, the complete lawlessness in the Amazon under Bolsonaro has empowered illegal loggers, miners and land grabbers.

In many areas, they've joined forces with powerful narco-trafficking groups, who are likely to push back on government measures to protect the forest.

But Lula says he’s ready.

Former environment agency director Suely Araujo said Lula’s participation in COP27 is a sign that Brazil is once again going to become a world leader in the fight against climate change.

"Lula is going to lift Brazil into a key role in the climate negotiations,” she said, and become “a leader in decreasing climate emissions and greenhouse gasses."

Lula is not even president yet, and at COP27, he has received invitations to 10 bilateral meetings. Unlike his predecessor, who outright rejected international support in Amazon protection, Lula has welcomed the world's help in protecting Brazil’s forests.

At COP27, he called for the 2025 climate conference to be held in the Amazon, saying it was time for “people who defend the Amazon and defend the climate to get to know the region, close-up.”

View Details

Beekeeper Samuel Ramal’s hives just outside the town of Sabadell in northeast Spain look fine. But Ramal often has to defend them against hornets.

He runs back and forth in front of his hives, swinging a bamboo pole with a piece of bright yellow glue paper attached to the top of it.

“I spend all of my free time here defending my hives,” Ramal said. “We’re losing money because we’re not making honey. And, he said, "there are more hornets every day.” Ramal said he’s lost a honey harvest this fall worth more than $3,000.

In the US, there’s a huge effort underway to stop the spread of the Asian giant hornet, which preys on insects, including honeybees. Meanwhile, Europeans have been battling its close cousin, the Velutina hornet, for about 15 years. Many Spanish beekeepers have sent out a mayday for help, but so far they’ve been left to defend their hives on their own.

Samuel Ramal manages to keep smiling, despite having lost 20 out of his 100 hives to the Velutina hornets.

Credit:

Gerry Hadden/The World

The Velutina hornet often hovers in groups of two or three right outside the entrances to Ramal’s hives. In a flash, one caught a bee in mid-flight. Typically, it would cut the bee’s head off and take the body home as food. But Ramal was ready.

About 10 Velutinas stuck to Ramal’s swatter. They’re roughly four times the size of the bees. They have black bodies with orange bands, with giant heads and mandibles. They bite hard but their sting is worse.

“I’m used to bee stings but not these hornets,” he said. “I’ve been bitten twice. The wound swells up and hurts for days on end. Some people have to go straight to the hospital,” he said.

Ramal fashioned a hornet-trap out of glue-paper normally used to catch mice. He stalks the hornets who stalk his bees in front of his hives.

Credit:

Gerry Hadden/The World

The Velutina hornet arrived accidentally in Europe from China by ship about 15 years ago, wreaking havoc on honeybee populations.

Ramal said that in Spain, there’s currently no national plan or even a hotline to report the invasive Velutina.

He said he’s lost 20 out of his 100 hives this year. For now, it’s up to each town hall to come up with a plan to fight the predators. In small villages, that means, well, it's better to stock up on glue-paper than wait for the cavalry.

Beekeeper Samuel Ramal has set up electric fencing at the entrance to his hives to zap the hornets who come to catch and behead his honey bees. He also fashioned a trap from a plastic bottle. Still, he spends hours a day swatting at the invadors.

Credit:

Gerry Hadden/The World

But it’s hardly much better in cities. For one, the nests are not easy to spot. They’re high up in trees, or sometimes underground.

On a recent morning, a retired school teacher named Paco Navarro showed The World a Velutina nest in an oak tree near his home in Barcelona. He said he reported the nest in late August to the police and city hall. The exterminators didn’t arrive until early November.

The two men, Mauro and Pere, wore hornet-proof padding and carried a giant can of insecticide. They didn’t give their last names as they weren’t authorized to speak to the media. Mauro also assembled a paint-ball style gun loaded with frozen globs of poison.

He warned to stay alert in case the hornets swarmed.

A Velutina hornets’ nest in a tree just behind this reporter’s house, on the outskirts of Barcelona. Exterminators destroyed this one, but local police say the park is replete with Velutina nests and that people will just have to learn to live with them.

Credit:

Gerry Hadden/The World

Within 15 feet of the tree, he let loose a volley of poisonous balls that pierced the nest. Angry hornets zoomed everywhere. Mauro said the poison will kill most of them, but not all, and the ones that survive will settle down again and return to the nest.

“Each season we lose ground against the Velutina,” he said. “We can’t get them all. Various queens, he said, "are sure to escape." And then they start new colonies.

The Spanish government estimates the Velutina giant hornet is extending its territory southward by some 60 miles a year, putting more honeybees and other pollinators at risk.

The entrance to Ramal’s bee hive zone. The sign warns visitors.

Credit:

Gerry Hadden/The World

But not all hope is lost. Some honeybees have learned to swarm on top of the giant hornets "cooking" them until they overheat and die.

Back in Sabadell, beekeeper Ramal said his bees have at least started banding together.

“Look how the bees form a solid block just outside the entrance of their hive,” he said. “The hornets won’t attack the group. This gives returning bees a safe landing pad.”

But that doesn’t mean Ramal can let down his guard. He is quick to pick up his homemade hornet swatter and try to take down the Velutina, one swing at a time.

View Details

Beekeeper Samuel Ramal’s hives just outside the town of Sabadell in northeast Spain look fine. But Ramal often has to defend them against hornets.

He runs back and forth in front of his hives, swinging a bamboo pole with a piece of bright yellow glue paper attached to the top of it.

“I spend all of my free time here defending my hives,” Ramal said. “We’re losing money because we’re not making honey. And, he said, "there are more hornets every day.” Ramal said he’s lost a honey harvest this fall worth more than $3,000.

In the US, there’s a huge effort underway to stop the spread of the Asian giant hornet, which preys on insects, including honeybees. Meanwhile, Europeans have been battling its close cousin, the Velutina hornet, for about 15 years. Many Spanish beekeepers have sent out a mayday for help, but so far they’ve been left to defend their hives on their own.

Samuel Ramal manages to keep smiling, despite having lost 20 out of his 100 hives to the Velutina hornets.

Credit:

Gerry Hadden/The World

The Velutina hornet often hovers in groups of two or three right outside the entrances to Ramal’s hives. In a flash, one caught a bee in mid-flight. Typically, it would cut the bee’s head off and take the body home as food. But Ramal was ready.

About 10 Velutinas stuck to Ramal’s swatter. They’re roughly four times the size of the bees. They have black bodies with orange bands, with giant heads and mandibles. They bite hard but their sting is worse.

“I’m used to bee stings but not these hornets,” he said. “I’ve been bitten twice. The wound swells up and hurts for days on end. Some people have to go straight to the hospital,” he said.

Ramal fashioned a hornet-trap out of glue-paper normally used to catch mice. He stalks the hornets who stalk his bees in front of his hives.

Credit:

Gerry Hadden/The World

The Velutina hornet arrived accidentally in Europe from China by ship about 15 years ago, wreaking havoc on honeybee populations.

Ramal said that in Spain, there’s currently no national plan or even a hotline to report the invasive Velutina.

He said he’s lost 20 out of his 100 hives this year. For now, it’s up to each town hall to come up with a plan to fight the predators. In small villages, that means, well, it's better to stock up on glue-paper than wait for the cavalry.

Beekeeper Samuel Ramal has set up electric fencing at the entrance to his hives to zap the hornets who come to catch and behead his honey bees. He also fashioned a trap from a plastic bottle. Still, he spends hours a day swatting at the invadors.

Credit:

Gerry Hadden/The World

But it’s hardly much better in cities. For one, the nests are not easy to spot. They’re high up in trees, or sometimes underground.

On a recent morning, a retired school teacher named Paco Navarro showed The World a Velutina nest in an oak tree near his home in Barcelona. He said he reported the nest in late August to the police and city hall. The exterminators didn’t arrive until early November.

The two men, Mauro and Pere, wore hornet-proof padding and carried a giant can of insecticide. They didn’t give their last names as they weren’t authorized to speak to the media. Mauro also assembled a paint-ball style gun loaded with frozen globs of poison.

He warned to stay alert in case the hornets swarmed.

A Velutina hornets’ nest in a tree just behind this reporter’s house, on the outskirts of Barcelona. Exterminators destroyed this one, but local police say the park is replete with Velutina nests and that people will just have to learn to live with them.

Credit:

Gerry Hadden/The World

Within 15 feet of the tree, he let loose a volley of poisonous balls that pierced the nest. Angry hornets zoomed everywhere. Mauro said the poison will kill most of them, but not all, and the ones that survive will settle down again and return to the nest.

“Each season we lose ground against the Velutina,” he said. “We can’t get them all. Various queens, he said, "are sure to escape." And then they start new colonies.

The Spanish government estimates the Velutina giant hornet is extending its territory southward by some 60 miles a year, putting more honeybees and other pollinators at risk.

The entrance to Ramal’s bee hive zone. The sign warns visitors.

Credit:

Gerry Hadden/The World

But not all hope is lost. Some honeybees have learned to swarm on top of the giant hornets "cooking" them until they overheat and die.

Back in Sabadell, beekeeper Ramal said his bees have at least started banding together.

“Look how the bees form a solid block just outside the entrance of their hive,” he said. “The hornets won’t attack the group. This gives returning bees a safe landing pad.”

But that doesn’t mean Ramal can let down his guard. He is quick to pick up his homemade hornet swatter and try to take down the Velutina, one swing at a time.

View Details

Eight billion: That's the number of people now living on planet Earth, according to a UN report. And it took only 11 years for the world's population to grow from 7 billion to 8 billion.

In a symbolic move, a baby girl born today in the Philippines was welcomed as number 8 billion, especially since it's difficult to accurately calculate the number of people in the world, with sums possibly being off by a year or two.

Meanwhile, India is projected to become the world's most populous country by next year, surpassing China.

The World's host Carol Hills discussed the issue of population growth and what it means for society with Jennifer Sciubba. She is a demographer and author of the book, "8 Billion and Counting: How Sex, Death, and Migration Shape Our World," and joined the discussion from Washington, DC.

Carol Hills: Jennifer, you've said the focus should not just be on the number of babies being born — that that's the wrong way to frame things. I wonder why and what is the right way?Jennifer Sciubba: Well, if we were in the last century, it would make a lot of sense for us to think about numbers overall, because we started last century with only 1.6 billion people and ended it with 6.1 billion. It was a century of exponential population growth. This century, even though we've already added 2 billion people, that's not what will characterize this moment for us. Instead, it's a story of differential population trends. We've never been further apart around the world in terms of births, deaths and migration. And that's where we really need to keep our focus as we go through this century, toward a time when actually global population trends will be converging.

A graphic showing global human population milestones.

Credit:

Courtesy of Jennifer Sciubba

Living standards is a big issue on this topic. And living standards for Americans — we consume a tremendous amount of resources. If the whole world lived like us, would we just be totally sunk?I think we would be. I think that where we really need to focus our innovation and our attention over the next few decades is places in the world that have standards of living that are rising to meet those in America. It's not necessarily places that actually have high fertility. I think the really remarkable place to look at is India, for example. On average, for the whole country, the fertility rate is actually below replacement, below the number needed just to replace who's already born. But we know that this is one area of the world that is about to be the most populous country in the world, really, any day now will surpass China, and standards of living there are rising. So, how do we equip Indians to have a rising standard of living, a better quality of life, but in a way that will be sustainable for them and their environment?A lot of the future growth in population is projected for Africa. What specific countries have the highest birthrate there and what are the implications of that?We might look at Nigeria. Nigeria's population is looking to double between now and mid-century, and Nigeria will replace the United States as the third most-populous country. And the leadership in Nigeria has not shown quite the level of commitment needed to rights-based family planning and reproductive health, girls education, ending child marriage, those kinds of policy measures that would help lower fertility. They lower preferences for the number of children, and they also allow people to exercise those preferences.Isn't there an inherent tension between living standards and population, meaning the higher the living standard, the fewer kids people have? Is that correct?Yes. So, when we think about 'why do people start to have fewer children?' — it's not just one thing. So, we know that with more educational opportunities, people will delay the time when they have their first child. And of course, when you delay the time you have your first child, eventually, biologically for women, you end up running out of time. We know when there are other economic opportunities outside the home, and we also know that there are some real negative pressures on fertility. I think something for us to watch out for are places where total fertility rates are very low. We're talking in South Korea, for example, less than one child per woman on average. And South Korea is not alone. It may be the lowest, but I think that a lot of countries are really seeing that very low pressure on fertility.

A graphic breaking down the difference between healthy and overall life expectancy at birth.

Credit:

Courtesy of Jennifer Sciubba/Data from World Health Organization

I want to turn to climate change. Many people worry that global population growth is bad for the fight against global warming. Others say that's not necessarily the case. Break down those two camps and how do you see it?Two out of every three people on the planet live somewhere with the low replacement fertility, meaning the number needed to just replace who's already born. So, if we want to frame the issue of population as one of overpopulation, that doesn't work when you're talking about places where people are already having few children. So, to frame it as overpopulation can be really ethically a quagmire. Certainly, there are places in the world that still have high fertility, and those places, we need to double down on our efforts to have education and family planning.We've talked about regions where populations are growing fast and regions where birthrates are crashing. There's a third dynamic, too, which is regions where populations are physically moving. How does global migration factor into understanding how 8 billion people fit together on this planet?Migration is the third pillar of population change and it's just as important as trends in births or deaths. But the impact of it is uneven. If we look globally, over 96% of us stay put. We don't move. The effect globally is that, while there are millions, hundreds of millions of people who move, the proportion of the world population who lives outside the country in which they were born has actually been steady and been quite low — below 4% — over the last several decades. But where these people move, and where they move from, is uneven around the globe.Bottom line, how many people can the planet feed and sustain?The planet can feed and sustain billions more. It is a matter of whether or not we have the political will and the know-how and the innovation to do so. This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.AP contributed to this report.

Related: China now allows 3 kids per family, but many couples say they can’t afford it

View Details

Eight billion: That's the number of people now living on planet Earth, according to a UN report. And it took only 11 years for the world's population to grow from 7 billion to 8 billion.

In a symbolic move, a baby girl born today in the Philippines was welcomed as number 8 billion, especially since it's difficult to accurately calculate the number of people in the world, with sums possibly being off by a year or two.

Meanwhile, India is projected to become the world's most populous country by next year, surpassing China.

The World's host Carol Hills discussed the issue of population growth and what it means for society with Jennifer Sciubba. She is a demographer and author of the book, "8 Billion and Counting: How Sex, Death, and Migration Shape Our World," and joined the discussion from Washington, DC.

Carol Hills: Jennifer, you've said the focus should not just be on the number of babies being born — that that's the wrong way to frame things. I wonder why and what is the right way?Jennifer Sciubba: Well, if we were in the last century, it would make a lot of sense for us to think about numbers overall, because we started last century with only 1.6 billion people and ended it with 6.1 billion. It was a century of exponential population growth. This century, even though we've already added 2 billion people, that's not what will characterize this moment for us. Instead, it's a story of differential population trends. We've never been further apart around the world in terms of births, deaths and migration. And that's where we really need to keep our focus as we go through this century, toward a time when actually global population trends will be converging.

A graphic showing global human population milestones.

Credit:

Courtesy of Jennifer Sciubba

Living standards is a big issue on this topic. And living standards for Americans — we consume a tremendous amount of resources. If the whole world lived like us, would we just be totally sunk?I think we would be. I think that where we really need to focus our innovation and our attention over the next few decades is places in the world that have standards of living that are rising to meet those in America. It's not necessarily places that actually have high fertility. I think the really remarkable place to look at is India, for example. On average, for the whole country, the fertility rate is actually below replacement, below the number needed just to replace who's already born. But we know that this is one area of the world that is about to be the most populous country in the world, really, any day now will surpass China, and standards of living there are rising. So, how do we equip Indians to have a rising standard of living, a better quality of life, but in a way that will be sustainable for them and their environment?A lot of the future growth in population is projected for Africa. What specific countries have the highest birthrate there and what are the implications of that?We might look at Nigeria. Nigeria's population is looking to double between now and mid-century, and Nigeria will replace the United States as the third most-populous country. And the leadership in Nigeria has not shown quite the level of commitment needed to rights-based family planning and reproductive health, girls education, ending child marriage, those kinds of policy measures that would help lower fertility. They lower preferences for the number of children, and they also allow people to exercise those preferences.Isn't there an inherent tension between living standards and population, meaning the higher the living standard, the fewer kids people have? Is that correct?Yes. So, when we think about 'why do people start to have fewer children?' — it's not just one thing. So, we know that with more educational opportunities, people will delay the time when they have their first child. And of course, when you delay the time you have your first child, eventually, biologically for women, you end up running out of time. We know when there are other economic opportunities outside the home, and we also know that there are some real negative pressures on fertility. I think something for us to watch out for are places where total fertility rates are very low. We're talking in South Korea, for example, less than one child per woman on average. And South Korea is not alone. It may be the lowest, but I think that a lot of countries are really seeing that very low pressure on fertility.

A graphic breaking down the difference between healthy and overall life expectancy at birth.

Credit:

Courtesy of Jennifer Sciubba/Data from World Health Organization

I want to turn to climate change. Many people worry that global population growth is bad for the fight against global warming. Others say that's not necessarily the case. Break down those two camps and how do you see it?Two out of every three people on the planet live somewhere with the low replacement fertility, meaning the number needed to just replace who's already born. So, if we want to frame the issue of population as one of overpopulation, that doesn't work when you're talking about places where people are already having few children. So, to frame it as overpopulation can be really ethically a quagmire. Certainly, there are places in the world that still have high fertility, and those places, we need to double down on our efforts to have education and family planning.We've talked about regions where populations are growing fast and regions where birthrates are crashing. There's a third dynamic, too, which is regions where populations are physically moving. How does global migration factor into understanding how 8 billion people fit together on this planet?Migration is the third pillar of population change and it's just as important as trends in births or deaths. But the impact of it is uneven. If we look globally, over 96% of us stay put. We don't move. The effect globally is that, while there are millions, hundreds of millions of people who move, the proportion of the world population who lives outside the country in which they were born has actually been steady and been quite low — below 4% — over the last several decades. But where these people move, and where they move from, is uneven around the globe.Bottom line, how many people can the planet feed and sustain?The planet can feed and sustain billions more. It is a matter of whether or not we have the political will and the know-how and the innovation to do so. This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.AP contributed to this report.

Related: China now allows 3 kids per family, but many couples say they can’t afford it

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Abdul Ghani and his extended family fled to the roof of a nearby girls’ school in August when the floodwaters came to his town in southern Pakistan’s Sindh province. His family was still there two weeks later, without tents or any other shelter, when waves whipped up in the floodwaters destroyed their house.

“Our hearts sank,” Ghani said from the sun-scorched school roof, where the one remaining room of his home is still visible and surrounded by water. “The house that was our shelter, our children’s home, was destroyed.”

Ghani, a mason, built the nine-room home in a small farming town in the Dadu district himself. He lived there with his wife and three kids, along with his seven brothers and their families.

Heer Mallah with her children Zulgar Non, 5, Zakia, 3, and Aurong Zeb, 1.

Credit:

Carolyn Beeler/The World

Unprecedented rains in Pakistan that began in mid-June led to flooding that impacted 33 million people and killed more than 1,700 others, causing an estimated $30 million in damages and economic losses.

Some two months after the rains stopped, 7,000 square miles of land in Sindh are still submerged under water.

Five million of the 8 million people displaced by the floods are still unable to return home.

Paying for damages

The question of who should pay for damages like these wrought by climate-fueled disasters has been one of the most contentious issues at the UN climate summit this month in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, with Pakistan’s floods a focal point of discussions.

“We are paying the price for other people's carbon usage,” said Sherry Rehman, Pakistan’s climate minister, who is at the summit. In recent months, she’s often cited the statistic that Pakistan has contributed far less than 1% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, even though it’s among those bearing the brunt of the consequences.

Pakistan is leading a negotiating bloc of 134 developing countries in calling for a dedicated pot of money to be established for “loss and damage” funding.

“Countries on the frontline of the climate crisis are facing accelerated catastrophes, and are not getting the relief and rehabilitation funding they need,” Rehman said.

For decades, developed countries have resisted calls for direct climate aid, partially out of fear of exposing themselves to claims of financial or legal liability, not to mention the complexities of defining which damages should be included.

In the floods in Pakistan, for example, it’s difficult to tease out how much climate change contributed to the estimated $30 million in damages and economic losses.

What used to be a road in Pakistan's Sindh province before it was inundated by floodwaters.

Credit:

Carolyn Beeler/The World

Warming contributed to the torrential rains that triggered these floods. An attribution study published by an international group of scientists in September found that rainfall in Sindh and neighboring Balochistan is 50% more intense now than it would have been without climate change.

But the researchers say that other factors also drove the damages, including development on flood plains, inadequate infrastructure, an outdated river management system, high poverty rates and a lack of adequate early warning systems.

Early momentum at COP27

For the first time, this year, countries have started to volunteer funds specifically for losses and damages. Several European countries, along with New Zealand, announced tens of millions of dollars in aid in the first week of the summit.

Also for the first time, negotiators at the climate summit have a mandate to discuss an official mechanism for loss and damage funding through the UN, “with a view to adopting a conclusive decision no later than 2024.

It’s not yet clear what shape any funding will take.

Developed countries want to discuss options for funding at COP27 and decide on a solution by 2024. Developing countries want to agree to a loss and damage fund this year, and hammer out the operational details until 2024, when it would then go into effect.

US climate envoy John Kerry said “not a lot of people want to sign off on something that is not yet fully defined.”

“The well-known fact is that the United States and many other countries will not establish some sort of legal structure that is tied to compensation or liability,” Kerry added.

The European Union’s head of delegation, Jake Werksman, said last week that the negotiations aim to start a broad conversation, not focus on a single solution like a fund for losses and damages.

The US and EU also favor funding to flow through existing programs and institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund or the Green Climate Fund.

Insurance and disaster protection

The G-7, meanwhile, spearheaded by Germany with a $173 million commitment, launched a “Global Shield” program on Monday, based on insurance and disaster protection for vulnerable countries.

But developing countries insist that a loss and damage fund — not just insurance or loans, which would trap them in further debt — is essential, and must be agreed to this year.

Proponents of such a fund argue that post-disaster aid, which currently seeks to address events like Pakistan’s floods, comes at the whim of donors.

So far, a UN appeal for Pakistan has brought in only a third of its goal, and that itself is only a fraction of the $16 billion the government estimates it will take to rebuild.

“International aid is given for charity. Rich people feel bad that this event is happening in poor countries, and they give money,” saidSaleemul Huq, a Bangladeshi scientist who’s attended every UN climate summit and is a longtime adviser to the Least Developed Countries coalition.

“Loss and damage is not that,” Huq added. “It is polluters taking responsibility for having caused the problem, recognizing that there are victims of the problem who they have the responsibility to help.”

Meanwhile, aid that does follow disasters can be slow to arrive, exacerbating health and economic problems.

Water-born illnesses spiked in Pakistan with the floods. Officials fear widespread increases of malnutrition — which impacted nearly 1 in 2 Pakistani children even before the floods — and upticks in child marriage rates.

Back at the girls’ school where Abdul Ghani now lives with five of his brothers and their families, it’s hard to keep the kids out of the floodwaters.

“We try to stop them, but they won’t listen,” Heer Mallah, Ghani’s wife, said while cooking stewed spinach and potatoes in the hallway of the school.

Children from Abdul Ghani’s own family and extended family play together in a courtyard in Pakistan.

Credit:

Carolyn Beeler/The World

“The children are not healthy here,” she said. “But what can we do? We’re helpless until we return home.”

Her 5-year-old son has a persistent cough. He and his 3-year-old sister have malaria, with fevers that broke after more than a week.

“We dream that our kids will get educated and become doctors. But how are they going to do that if they can’t go to school?”

Heer Mallah, Pakistani mother

“We dream that our kids will get educated and become doctors,” Mallah said with a smile. “But how are they going to do that if they can’t go to school?”

Fatima Mullah, 12, shelters with her family in a classroom just a few doors down from where she used to study as a student.

Credit:

Carolyn Beeler/The World

Ghani’s niece, 12-year-old Fatima Mallah, now sleeps in a classroom a few doors down from where she used to be in second grade. She likes playing with her cousins there, including gleeful games of tag in the school’s courtyard, but she misses school.

“She cries and says, 'bring back my books,' but we can’t, because we don’t have money,” said her mother, Shaahzadi Mallah, sitting on a traditional wood and woven rope bed in the courtyard. “We can’t even eat three meals, how can we buy books?”

The family is down to two meals a day. The cow whose milk they used to sell is tied up in the school’s courtyard, under a line of drying laundry. The cow’s grazing land is flooded, so she’s not producing enough milk for the family to sell.

Most of the places where Abdul Ghani used to work as a mason are flooded, too. He recently bought nets to start fishing the floodwaters.

Farmers are perhaps even worse off, as flooding ruined their rice crop for the year and, in many places, will prevent them from sowing wheat this month.

In affected areas, pumps powered by tractor engines are working to “de-water” towns, which often means moving water to agriculture fields or other less populated areas.

Pumps powered by tractor engines work to “de-water” flooded towns in Pakistan.

Credit:

Carolyn Beeler/The World

Government and military officials are going door-to-door conducting damage assessments. Sindh’s information minister Sharjeel Inam Memon said only when that’s complete will money be distributed to help people rebuild.

“Once the assessment figures come, then the rehabilitation work will start,” Memon said.

Related: Loss and damage: Who is responsible when climate change harms the world’s poorest countries?

View Details

Abdul Ghani and his extended family fled to the roof of a nearby girls’ school in August when the floodwaters came to his town in southern Pakistan’s Sindh province. His family was still there two weeks later, without tents or any other shelter, when waves whipped up in the floodwaters destroyed their house.

“Our hearts sank,” Ghani said from the sun-scorched school roof, where the one remaining room of his home is still visible and surrounded by water. “The house that was our shelter, our children’s home, was destroyed.”

Ghani, a mason, built the nine-room home in a small farming town in the Dadu district himself. He lived there with his wife and three kids, along with his seven brothers and their families.

Heer Mallah with her children Zulgar Non, 5, Zakia, 3, and Aurong Zeb, 1.

Credit:

Carolyn Beeler/The World

Unprecedented rains in Pakistan that began in mid-June led to flooding that impacted 33 million people and killed more than 1,700 others, causing an estimated $30 million in damages and economic losses.

Some two months after the rains stopped, 7,000 square miles of land in Sindh are still submerged under water.

Five million of the 8 million people displaced by the floods are still unable to return home.

Paying for damages

The question of who should pay for damages like these wrought by climate-fueled disasters has been one of the most contentious issues at the UN climate summit this month in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, with Pakistan’s floods a focal point of discussions.

“We are paying the price for other people's carbon usage,” said Sherry Rehman, Pakistan’s climate minister, who is at the summit. In recent months, she’s often cited the statistic that Pakistan has contributed far less than 1% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, even though it’s among those bearing the brunt of the consequences.

Pakistan is leading a negotiating bloc of 134 developing countries in calling for a dedicated pot of money to be established for “loss and damage” funding.

“Countries on the frontline of the climate crisis are facing accelerated catastrophes, and are not getting the relief and rehabilitation funding they need,” Rehman said.

For decades, developed countries have resisted calls for direct climate aid, partially out of fear of exposing themselves to claims of financial or legal liability, not to mention the complexities of defining which damages should be included.

In the floods in Pakistan, for example, it’s difficult to tease out how much climate change contributed to the estimated $30 million in damages and economic losses.

What used to be a road in Pakistan's Sindh province before it was inundated by floodwaters.

Credit:

Carolyn Beeler/The World

Warming contributed to the torrential rains that triggered these floods. An attribution study published by an international group of scientists in September found that rainfall in Sindh and neighboring Balochistan is 50% more intense now than it would have been without climate change.

But the researchers say that other factors also drove the damages, including development on flood plains, inadequate infrastructure, an outdated river management system, high poverty rates and a lack of adequate early warning systems.

Early momentum at COP27

For the first time, this year, countries have started to volunteer funds specifically for losses and damages. Several European countries, along with New Zealand, announced tens of millions of dollars in aid in the first week of the summit.

Also for the first time, negotiators at the climate summit have a mandate to discuss an official mechanism for loss and damage funding through the UN, “with a view to adopting a conclusive decision no later than 2024.

It’s not yet clear what shape any funding will take.

Developed countries want to discuss options for funding at COP27 and decide on a solution by 2024. Developing countries want to agree to a loss and damage fund this year, and hammer out the operational details until 2024, when it would then go into effect.

US climate envoy John Kerry said “not a lot of people want to sign off on something that is not yet fully defined.”

“The well-known fact is that the United States and many other countries will not establish some sort of legal structure that is tied to compensation or liability,” Kerry added.

The European Union’s head of delegation, Jake Werksman, said last week that the negotiations aim to start a broad conversation, not focus on a single solution like a fund for losses and damages.

The US and EU also favor funding to flow through existing programs and institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund or the Green Climate Fund.

Insurance and disaster protection

The G-7, meanwhile, spearheaded by Germany with a $173 million commitment, launched a “Global Shield” program on Monday, based on insurance and disaster protection for vulnerable countries.

But developing countries insist that a loss and damage fund — not just insurance or loans, which would trap them in further debt — is essential, and must be agreed to this year.

Proponents of such a fund argue that post-disaster aid, which currently seeks to address events like Pakistan’s floods, comes at the whim of donors.

So far, a UN appeal for Pakistan has brought in only a third of its goal, and that itself is only a fraction of the $16 billion the government estimates it will take to rebuild.

“International aid is given for charity. Rich people feel bad that this event is happening in poor countries, and they give money,” saidSaleemul Huq, a Bangladeshi scientist who’s attended every UN climate summit and is a longtime adviser to the Least Developed Countries coalition.

“Loss and damage is not that,” Huq added. “It is polluters taking responsibility for having caused the problem, recognizing that there are victims of the problem who they have the responsibility to help.”

Meanwhile, aid that does follow disasters can be slow to arrive, exacerbating health and economic problems.

Water-born illnesses spiked in Pakistan with the floods. Officials fear widespread increases of malnutrition — which impacted nearly 1 in 2 Pakistani children even before the floods — and upticks in child marriage rates.

Back at the girls’ school where Abdul Ghani now lives with five of his brothers and their families, it’s hard to keep the kids out of the floodwaters.

“We try to stop them, but they won’t listen,” Heer Mallah, Ghani’s wife, said while cooking stewed spinach and potatoes in the hallway of the school.

Children from Abdul Ghani’s own family and extended family play together in a courtyard in Pakistan.

Credit:

Carolyn Beeler/The World

“The children are not healthy here,” she said. “But what can we do? We’re helpless until we return home.”

Her 5-year-old son has a persistent cough. He and his 3-year-old sister have malaria, with fevers that broke after more than a week.

“We dream that our kids will get educated and become doctors. But how are they going to do that if they can’t go to school?”

Heer Mallah, Pakistani mother

“We dream that our kids will get educated and become doctors,” Mallah said with a smile. “But how are they going to do that if they can’t go to school?”

Fatima Mullah, 12, shelters with her family in a classroom just a few doors down from where she used to study as a student.

Credit:

Carolyn Beeler/The World

Ghani’s niece, 12-year-old Fatima Mallah, now sleeps in a classroom a few doors down from where she used to be in second grade. She likes playing with her cousins there, including gleeful games of tag in the school’s courtyard, but she misses school.

“She cries and says, 'bring back my books,' but we can’t, because we don’t have money,” said her mother, Shaahzadi Mallah, sitting on a traditional wood and woven rope bed in the courtyard. “We can’t even eat three meals, how can we buy books?”

The family is down to two meals a day. The cow whose milk they used to sell is tied up in the school’s courtyard, under a line of drying laundry. The cow’s grazing land is flooded, so she’s not producing enough milk for the family to sell.

Most of the places where Abdul Ghani used to work as a mason are flooded, too. He recently bought nets to start fishing the floodwaters.

Farmers are perhaps even worse off, as flooding ruined their rice crop for the year and, in many places, will prevent them from sowing wheat this month.

In affected areas, pumps powered by tractor engines are working to “de-water” towns, which often means moving water to agriculture fields or other less populated areas.

Pumps powered by tractor engines work to “de-water” flooded towns in Pakistan.

Credit:

Carolyn Beeler/The World

Government and military officials are going door-to-door conducting damage assessments. Sindh’s information minister Sharjeel Inam Memon said only when that’s complete will money be distributed to help people rebuild.

“Once the assessment figures come, then the rehabilitation work will start,” Memon said.

Related: Loss and damage: Who is responsible when climate change harms the world’s poorest countries?

View Details

Horacio Ocon, an Argentine tourist who’s been visiting the city of Oaxaca in southern Mexico with his family, woke up one morning with a headache. His throat burned. He smelled smoke. 

"I couldn’t breathe. It was really intense,” he said. 

He followed the smoke to a heap of trash burning in a huge metal waste bin nearby. “It was really thick smoke. And I was surprised that they were burning it so close. It was terrible. A ton of trash and, in particular, plastics,” he said. 

Since early October, burning trash has become the main means of disposing waste for the roughly 700,000 residents of Oaxaca and the surrounding municipalities. That’s around the time when the city closed its trash dump. 

In the days following lively Day of the Dead celebrations in early November, the evening skies turned an apocalyptic orange, as smoke from the burning leftover trash tinged the air.

Mayor Francisco Martínez Neri has told residents in several announcements that he's working hard to find a solution. He hopes to acquire land for a new trash dump and, in the meantime, he’s asking residents to sort their organic waste and recycling in order to reduce trash.

But Oaxacans say solutions should have been implemented years ago.

“The only answer is to open the dump back up,” lawyer and environmentalist Eduardo Reyes Santiago said last week.

"Because for years, they have not taken the necessary measures. Today, you have this bomb that’s going off."

Meanwhile, trash is building up. The city of Oaxaca alone generates 1,000 tons of trash a day, which triples during its tourist season. But trash collection has been suspended since early October.

On Nov. 4, the trash collector’s union protested the situation by dumping truckloads of garbage across the city’s historic center and inviting residents to do the same.

Videos, like this one, have been shared widely over social media, showing mounds of garbage piled up in front of government buildings.

“We are fighting for the citizens,” a union representative told a local news outlet. 

"They've been the most impacted. It’s been over three weeks. And months before the dump was closed, we knew what was coming, but nothing was done.”

This is particularly relevant as the world’s leaders discuss the big picture at COP27, the United Nations’ global climate conference meeting in Egypt this week. 

"This is a sign on a small scale that government actors aren’t worried about issues related to the environment,” said Ingrid Sánchez , a Mexican journalist who has been following the situation in Oaxaca closely. "Above all, when there are financial costs."

Open waste burning produces 11% of global emissions of black carbon, a fine particulate that significantly contributes to global warming.

But today in Oaxaca, much of the trash that isn’t burned is ending up polluting the local environment.

“I live close to a river. And now everyone is dumping their trash there,” said Abril Villegas Garcia, an 18-year-old street vendor in the municipality of Tlalixtac, which shared the trash dump with the state capital Oaxaca.

"Maybe burning impacts the environment, but it’s better than just dumping it,” she said. "The river is really bad now. It’s really polluted. And the mentality of many people is just to keep making it worse."

In an agreement with the city, trash collectors have now cleaned the city center and begun to collect garbage on one side of town. But there's still no place to put it. The municipal government says it's shipping some waste out of state. It’s also begun dumping trash at a former factory in the neighborhood of San Juan Chapultepec.

On Nov. 10, residents responded by protesting and blocking roads.  It is clear there is little end in sight to the problem.

“The people are being forced to do what we did before. Burn trash. Burn plastic. The pollution is getting worse. People are throwing it all on the outskirts of the city, into the rivers. A lot of people are tired. So, they are leaving it in the streets,” said Jesús García Santiago, who runs a convenience store to the east of the city.

"We have no answer from the local government. … But we also need to be conscious about all of the trash that we produce and consume."

View Details

Horacio Ocon, an Argentine tourist who’s been visiting the city of Oaxaca in southern Mexico with his family, woke up one morning with a headache. His throat burned. He smelled smoke. 

"I couldn’t breathe. It was really intense,” he said. 

He followed the smoke to a heap of trash burning in a huge metal waste bin nearby. “It was really thick smoke. And I was surprised that they were burning it so close. It was terrible. A ton of trash and, in particular, plastics,” he said. 

Since early October, burning trash has become the main means of disposing waste for the roughly 700,000 residents of Oaxaca and the surrounding municipalities. That’s around the time when the city closed its trash dump. 

In the days following lively Day of the Dead celebrations in early November, the evening skies turned an apocalyptic orange, as smoke from the burning leftover trash tinged the air.

Mayor Francisco Martínez Neri has told residents in several announcements that he's working hard to find a solution. He hopes to acquire land for a new trash dump and, in the meantime, he’s asking residents to sort their organic waste and recycling in order to reduce trash.

But Oaxacans say solutions should have been implemented years ago.

“The only answer is to open the dump back up,” lawyer and environmentalist Eduardo Reyes Santiago said last week.

"Because for years, they have not taken the necessary measures. Today, you have this bomb that’s going off."

Meanwhile, trash is building up. The city of Oaxaca alone generates 1,000 tons of trash a day, which triples during its tourist season. But trash collection has been suspended since early October.

On Nov. 4, the trash collector’s union protested the situation by dumping truckloads of garbage across the city’s historic center and inviting residents to do the same.

Videos, like this one, have been shared widely over social media, showing mounds of garbage piled up in front of government buildings.

“We are fighting for the citizens,” a union representative told a local news outlet. 

"They've been the most impacted. It’s been over three weeks. And months before the dump was closed, we knew what was coming, but nothing was done.”

This is particularly relevant as the world’s leaders discuss the big picture at COP27, the United Nations’ global climate conference meeting in Egypt this week. 

"This is a sign on a small scale that government actors aren’t worried about issues related to the environment,” said Ingrid Sánchez , a Mexican journalist who has been following the situation in Oaxaca closely. "Above all, when there are financial costs."

Open waste burning produces 11% of global emissions of black carbon, a fine particulate that significantly contributes to global warming.

But today in Oaxaca, much of the trash that isn’t burned is ending up polluting the local environment.

“I live close to a river. And now everyone is dumping their trash there,” said Abril Villegas Garcia, an 18-year-old street vendor in the municipality of Tlalixtac, which shared the trash dump with the state capital Oaxaca.

"Maybe burning impacts the environment, but it’s better than just dumping it,” she said. "The river is really bad now. It’s really polluted. And the mentality of many people is just to keep making it worse."

In an agreement with the city, trash collectors have now cleaned the city center and begun to collect garbage on one side of town. But there's still no place to put it. The municipal government says it's shipping some waste out of state. It’s also begun dumping trash at a former factory in the neighborhood of San Juan Chapultepec.

On Nov. 10, residents responded by protesting and blocking roads.  It is clear there is little end in sight to the problem.

“The people are being forced to do what we did before. Burn trash. Burn plastic. The pollution is getting worse. People are throwing it all on the outskirts of the city, into the rivers. A lot of people are tired. So, they are leaving it in the streets,” said Jesús García Santiago, who runs a convenience store to the east of the city.

"We have no answer from the local government. … But we also need to be conscious about all of the trash that we produce and consume."

View Details

You may be hearing the phrase “loss and damage” in the coming weeks, as government leaders meet in Egypt for the 2022 UN Climate Change Conference.

It refers to the costs, both economic and physical, that developing countries are facing from climate change impacts. Many of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries have done little to cause climate change, yet they are experiencing extreme heat waves, floods and other climate-related disasters. Now, they want wealthier nations — historically the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions — to pay for the harm.

One example is Pakistan, where extreme rainfall on the heels of a glacier-melting heat wave flooded nearly one-third of the country in the summer of 2022.

The flooding turned Pakistan’s farm fields into miles-wide lakes that stranded communities for weeks. More than 1,700 people died, millions lost their homes and livelihoods and more than 4 million acres of crops and orchards, as well as livestock, drowned or were damaged. This was followed by a surge in malaria cases as mosquitoes bred in the stagnant water.

Pakistan contributes only about 1% of the global greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change. But greenhouse gases don’t stay within national borders — emissions anywhere affect the global climate. A warming climate intensifies rainfall, and studies suggest climate change may have increased Pakistan’s rainfall intensity by as much as 50%.

The question of payments for loss and damage has been a long-standing point of negotiation at UN climate conferences, held nearly every year since 1995, but there has been little progress toward including a financial mechanism for loss and damage in international climate agreements.

Many developing countries are looking to this year’s COP27 conference as a crucial moment for making progress on establishing that formal mechanism.

Africa’s climate conferenceWith Egypt hosting this year’s UN climate conference, it’s not surprising that loss and damage will take center stage.

Countries in Africa have some of the lowest national greenhouse gas emissions, and yet, the continent is home to many of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries.

To deal with climate change, these countries — many of them among the world’s poorest — will have to invest in adaptation measures, such as seawalls, climate-smart agriculture and infrastructure that’s more resilient to high heat and extreme storms. The UN Environment Program’s Adaptation Gap Report, released Nov. 3, 2022, found that developing countries need five to 10 times more international adaptation finance than wealthier countries are providing.

When climate disasters strike, countries also need more financial help to cover relief efforts, infrastructure repairs and recovery. This is loss and damage.

Egypt is emphasizing the need for wealthy countries to make more progress on providing financial support for both adaptation and loss and damage.

Climate injustice and loss and damageThe conversation on loss and damage is inherently about equity. It evokes the question: Why should countries that have done little to cause global warming be responsible for the damage resulting from the emissions of wealthy countries?

That also makes it contentious. Negotiators know that the idea of payments for loss and damage has the potential to lead to further discussions about financial compensation for historical injustices, such as slavery in the United States or colonial exploitation by European powers.

At COP26, held in 2021 in Glasgow, Scotland, negotiators made progress on some key issues, such as stronger emissions targets and pledges to double adaptation finance for developing countries. But COP26 was seen as a disappointment by advocates trying to establish a financial mechanism for wealthier nations to provide finance for loss and damage in developing countries.

What a formal mechanism might look likeThe lack of resolution at COP26, combined with Egypt’s commitment to focus on financing for adaptation and loss and damage, means the issue will be on the table this year.

The nonprofit Center for Climate and Energy Solutions expects discussions to focus on institutional arrangements for the Santiago Network for Loss and Damage, which focuses on providing technical assistance to help developing countries minimize loss and damage; and on fine-tuning the Glasgow Dialogue, a formal process developed in 2021 to bring countries together to discuss funding for loss and damage.

The V20 group of finance ministers, representing 58 countries highly vulnerable to climate change, and the G-7 group of wealthy nations also reached an agreement in October 2022 on a financial mechanism called the Global Shield Against Climate Risks. The Global Shield is focused on providing risk insurance and rapid financial assistance to countries after disasters, but it’s unclear how it will fit into the international discussions. Some groups have raised concerns that relying on insurance systems can overlook the poorest people and distract from the larger discussion of establishing a dedicated fund for loss and damage.

Two elements of developed countries’ reluctance to formalize a loss and damage mechanism involve how to determine which countries or communities are eligible for compensation and what the limitations of such a mechanism would be.

What would a threshold for loss and damage eligibility look like? Limiting countries or communities from receiving compensation for loss and damage based on their current emissions or gross domestic product could become a problematic and complicated process. Most experts recommend determining eligibility based on climate vulnerability, but this can also prove difficult.

How will world leaders respond?Over a decade ago, developed countries committed to provide $100 billion per year to fund adaptation and mitigation in developing countries. But they have been slow to meet that commitment, and it does not cover the damages from the climate impacts the world is already seeing today.

Establishing a loss and damage mechanism is considered one avenue to provide recourse for global climate injustice. All eyes will be on Egypt from Nov. 6-18, 2022, to see how world leaders respond.

Bethany Tietjen is a Research fellow in climate policy at Tufts University.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization dedicated to unlocking the knowledge of experts for the public good.

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You may be hearing the phrase “loss and damage” in the coming weeks, as government leaders meet in Egypt for the 2022 UN Climate Change Conference.

It refers to the costs, both economic and physical, that developing countries are facing from climate change impacts. Many of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries have done little to cause climate change, yet they are experiencing extreme heat waves, floods and other climate-related disasters. Now, they want wealthier nations — historically the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions — to pay for the harm.

One example is Pakistan, where extreme rainfall on the heels of a glacier-melting heat wave flooded nearly one-third of the country in the summer of 2022.

The flooding turned Pakistan’s farm fields into miles-wide lakes that stranded communities for weeks. More than 1,700 people died, millions lost their homes and livelihoods and more than 4 million acres of crops and orchards, as well as livestock, drowned or were damaged. This was followed by a surge in malaria cases as mosquitoes bred in the stagnant water.

Pakistan contributes only about 1% of the global greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change. But greenhouse gases don’t stay within national borders — emissions anywhere affect the global climate. A warming climate intensifies rainfall, and studies suggest climate change may have increased Pakistan’s rainfall intensity by as much as 50%.

The question of payments for loss and damage has been a long-standing point of negotiation at UN climate conferences, held nearly every year since 1995, but there has been little progress toward including a financial mechanism for loss and damage in international climate agreements.

Many developing countries are looking to this year’s COP27 conference as a crucial moment for making progress on establishing that formal mechanism.

Africa’s climate conferenceWith Egypt hosting this year’s UN climate conference, it’s not surprising that loss and damage will take center stage.

Countries in Africa have some of the lowest national greenhouse gas emissions, and yet, the continent is home to many of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries.

To deal with climate change, these countries — many of them among the world’s poorest — will have to invest in adaptation measures, such as seawalls, climate-smart agriculture and infrastructure that’s more resilient to high heat and extreme storms. The UN Environment Program’s Adaptation Gap Report, released Nov. 3, 2022, found that developing countries need five to 10 times more international adaptation finance than wealthier countries are providing.

When climate disasters strike, countries also need more financial help to cover relief efforts, infrastructure repairs and recovery. This is loss and damage.

Egypt is emphasizing the need for wealthy countries to make more progress on providing financial support for both adaptation and loss and damage.

Climate injustice and loss and damageThe conversation on loss and damage is inherently about equity. It evokes the question: Why should countries that have done little to cause global warming be responsible for the damage resulting from the emissions of wealthy countries?

That also makes it contentious. Negotiators know that the idea of payments for loss and damage has the potential to lead to further discussions about financial compensation for historical injustices, such as slavery in the United States or colonial exploitation by European powers.

At COP26, held in 2021 in Glasgow, Scotland, negotiators made progress on some key issues, such as stronger emissions targets and pledges to double adaptation finance for developing countries. But COP26 was seen as a disappointment by advocates trying to establish a financial mechanism for wealthier nations to provide finance for loss and damage in developing countries.

What a formal mechanism might look likeThe lack of resolution at COP26, combined with Egypt’s commitment to focus on financing for adaptation and loss and damage, means the issue will be on the table this year.

The nonprofit Center for Climate and Energy Solutions expects discussions to focus on institutional arrangements for the Santiago Network for Loss and Damage, which focuses on providing technical assistance to help developing countries minimize loss and damage; and on fine-tuning the Glasgow Dialogue, a formal process developed in 2021 to bring countries together to discuss funding for loss and damage.

The V20 group of finance ministers, representing 58 countries highly vulnerable to climate change, and the G-7 group of wealthy nations also reached an agreement in October 2022 on a financial mechanism called the Global Shield Against Climate Risks. The Global Shield is focused on providing risk insurance and rapid financial assistance to countries after disasters, but it’s unclear how it will fit into the international discussions. Some groups have raised concerns that relying on insurance systems can overlook the poorest people and distract from the larger discussion of establishing a dedicated fund for loss and damage.

Two elements of developed countries’ reluctance to formalize a loss and damage mechanism involve how to determine which countries or communities are eligible for compensation and what the limitations of such a mechanism would be.

What would a threshold for loss and damage eligibility look like? Limiting countries or communities from receiving compensation for loss and damage based on their current emissions or gross domestic product could become a problematic and complicated process. Most experts recommend determining eligibility based on climate vulnerability, but this can also prove difficult.

How will world leaders respond?Over a decade ago, developed countries committed to provide $100 billion per year to fund adaptation and mitigation in developing countries. But they have been slow to meet that commitment, and it does not cover the damages from the climate impacts the world is already seeing today.

Establishing a loss and damage mechanism is considered one avenue to provide recourse for global climate injustice. All eyes will be on Egypt from Nov. 6-18, 2022, to see how world leaders respond.

Bethany Tietjen is a Research fellow in climate policy at Tufts University.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization dedicated to unlocking the knowledge of experts for the public good.

View Details

After canvassing recently during a voting registration drive ahead of the voter registration deadline for this year’s midterm elections, volunteers gathered at the Museum of Graffiti in Miami for a game of dominoes — the national pastime played by most Cubans.

The game was hosted by a group called the Miami Freedom Project, a grassroots organization formed by Cuban American progressives that promotes civic engagement in cultural spaces in Miami — a city facing increasing housing costs and rising sea levels.

“You can talk about things that you love and care about. In this case it was, you know, climate in the city and what issues need to be addressed. And like, candidates who are related to kind of driving things forward in terms of climate since we're at ground zero,” said Leilani Bruce, who attended the domino tournament after canvassing.

People gather to play dominoes, Cuba's national past-time, at the Museum of Graffiti in Miami.

Credit:

Virginia Lora/The World

In Florida, almost a third of Latinos are Cuban or Cuban American, with a particular history of escaping Cuba's communist authoritarian rule. For many, that has meant a stronger alignment with the Republican Party's hardline stance against communism. Now, progressives in Miami are trying to break the grip that Republicans have had on the state’s Latino voters by making cultural connections to Cubans in the US ahead of Nov. 8 midterms.

Bruce said politics was never a big deal for her Cuban Jamaican family, but through events like this, she has become more politically active.

Community gatherings such as domino game nights, art workshops and community dinners create spaces for progressives to try to change the narrative that to be politically involved as a Cuban American means voting Republican and advancing conservative policies.

Leilani Bruce has attended several events organized by the Miami Freedom Project, including the dominoes tournament. She has recently become more engaged thanks in part to the cultural events she has attended through the Miami Freedom Project and other progressive organizations in Miami.

Credit:

Virginia Lora/The World

The Miami Freedom Project recently hosted an event with Cuban artists from the San Isidro movement, who recently fled the island after an increase in government censorship.

Speaking to the group, co-founder Ana Sofia Pelaez made connections between the Communist regime and authoritarian impulses many progressives see in the American right.

Some Miami progressives who worked for Democratic campaigns in 2016 and 2018 were disenchanted by the disconnect they saw between the liberal political establishment and the individuals they were trying to reach.

“You can't just show up every two to four years and just assume, when you need something, that people are going to be there for you,” Pelaez said.

Ana Sofia Pelaez (in blue), founder of the Miami Freedom Project and Iris Ruiz (in black), Cuban artist and coordinator for the San Isidro movement lead an art workshop at La Esquina de Abuela, a cultural center in Miami. Cuba’s Movimiento San Isidro is a group of Cuban artists, activists, journalists and academics that came together to protest against Cuba’s authoritarian regime.

Credit:

Virginia Lora/The World

She hopes that promoting civic engagement in cultural spaces will encourage community dialogues around local issues facing Miamians today, such as affordable housing and climate change — not just when there’s an election on the line.

“We start with the community and identify what they need and then have that lead us to the advocacy, to the campaign, to the candidate,” she said.

South Florida Republicans have been doing a version of this for a long time, and have reaped the rewards.

Giancarlo Sopo is a political strategist and founder of public relations and marketing agency, Visto Media.

“These Republican national committee, these RNC community centers, in places where Hispanics can come in, they get information about an upcoming election, they can sign up to volunteer, but they also do things like host citizenship classes, teach them small business skills,” said Sopo, who led Donald Trump’s National 2020 Hispanic advertising, much of which was focused in Florida.

“People who come from Latin America and escaped left-wing dictatorships,, they are not going to align with the left-of-center political party. They're gonna want to align more with the conservative party.”

Ana Sofia Pelaez (in blue), founder of the Miami Freedom Project and Iris Ruiz (in black), Cuban artist and coordinator for the San Isidro movement lead an art workshop at La Esquina de Abuela, a cultural center in Miami.

Credit:

Viriginia Lora/The World

In the 2000 election, George W. Bush narrowly won Florida, thanks, in part, to the large turnout of Cuban voters. In 2004, his support among Cuban Americans was 78%. While Barack Obama made some gains with Cuban voters, in 2016 and 2020, more than half supported Donald Trump.

In South Florida, the Cuban American establishment has deep roots and influence in local institutions and the media, so progressives’ efforts to sway voters will likely be an uphill battle.

Guillermo Grenier is professor of sociology at Florida International University who studies Cuban American ideology and immigration in Miami. Cubans are 35.6% of the population in Miami, but according to Grenier, it’s more than just the numbers. Newcomers build on the foundation of the Cuban American establishment, which has had a stronghold on Miami institutions from the media to local politics since the 1980s.

Grenier has been conducting FIU’s Cuba Poll, a survey on Cuban American political attitudes, since 1991, and he’s seen a pattern over the years. Newer immigrants and younger Cubans tend to be more liberal, but eventually, they fall in line.

Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Marco Rubio, the country’s highest-ranking Cuban American in politics, are on the ballot again.

A strong majority of Cuban Americans are expected to back their reelection bids on Tuesday. Progressives hope their conversations with voters this year will be laying the foundation for future elections.

Editor's note: Virginia Lora comes to us from “Feet in 2 Worlds,” a project that brings the work of immigrant reporters to public radio.

View Details

After canvassing recently during a voting registration drive ahead of the voter registration deadline for this year’s midterm elections, volunteers gathered at the Museum of Graffiti in Miami for a game of dominoes — the national pastime played by most Cubans.

The game was hosted by a group called the Miami Freedom Project, a grassroots organization formed by Cuban American progressives that promotes civic engagement in cultural spaces in Miami — a city facing increasing housing costs and rising sea levels.

“You can talk about things that you love and care about. In this case it was, you know, climate in the city and what issues need to be addressed. And like, candidates who are related to kind of driving things forward in terms of climate since we're at ground zero,” said Leilani Bruce, who attended the domino tournament after canvassing.

People gather to play dominoes, Cuba's national past-time, at the Museum of Graffiti in Miami.

Credit:

Virginia Lora/The World

In Florida, almost a third of Latinos are Cuban or Cuban American, with a particular history of escaping Cuba's communist authoritarian rule. For many, that has meant a stronger alignment with the Republican Party's hardline stance against communism. Now, progressives in Miami are trying to break the grip that Republicans have had on the state’s Latino voters by making cultural connections to Cubans in the US ahead of Nov. 8 midterms.

Bruce said politics was never a big deal for her Cuban Jamaican family, but through events like this, she has become more politically active.

Community gatherings such as domino game nights, art workshops and community dinners create spaces for progressives to try to change the narrative that to be politically involved as a Cuban American means voting Republican and advancing conservative policies.

Leilani Bruce has attended several events organized by the Miami Freedom Project, including the dominoes tournament. She has recently become more engaged thanks in part to the cultural events she has attended through the Miami Freedom Project and other progressive organizations in Miami.

Credit:

Virginia Lora/The World

The Miami Freedom Project recently hosted an event with Cuban artists from the San Isidro movement, who recently fled the island after an increase in government censorship.

Speaking to the group, co-founder Ana Sofia Pelaez made connections between the Communist regime and authoritarian impulses many progressives see in the American right.

Some Miami progressives who worked for Democratic campaigns in 2016 and 2018 were disenchanted by the disconnect they saw between the liberal political establishment and the individuals they were trying to reach.

“You can't just show up every two to four years and just assume, when you need something, that people are going to be there for you,” Pelaez said.

Ana Sofia Pelaez (in blue), founder of the Miami Freedom Project and Iris Ruiz (in black), Cuban artist and coordinator for the San Isidro movement lead an art workshop at La Esquina de Abuela, a cultural center in Miami. Cuba’s Movimiento San Isidro is a group of Cuban artists, activists, journalists and academics that came together to protest against Cuba’s authoritarian regime.

Credit:

Virginia Lora/The World

She hopes that promoting civic engagement in cultural spaces will encourage community dialogues around local issues facing Miamians today, such as affordable housing and climate change — not just when there’s an election on the line.

“We start with the community and identify what they need and then have that lead us to the advocacy, to the campaign, to the candidate,” she said.

South Florida Republicans have been doing a version of this for a long time, and have reaped the rewards.

Giancarlo Sopo is a political strategist and founder of public relations and marketing agency, Visto Media.

“These Republican national committee, these RNC community centers, in places where Hispanics can come in, they get information about an upcoming election, they can sign up to volunteer, but they also do things like host citizenship classes, teach them small business skills,” said Sopo, who led Donald Trump’s National 2020 Hispanic advertising, much of which was focused in Florida.

“People who come from Latin America and escaped left-wing dictatorships,, they are not going to align with the left-of-center political party. They're gonna want to align more with the conservative party.”

Ana Sofia Pelaez (in blue), founder of the Miami Freedom Project and Iris Ruiz (in black), Cuban artist and coordinator for the San Isidro movement lead an art workshop at La Esquina de Abuela, a cultural center in Miami.

Credit:

Viriginia Lora/The World

In the 2000 election, George W. Bush narrowly won Florida, thanks, in part, to the large turnout of Cuban voters. In 2004, his support among Cuban Americans was 78%. While Barack Obama made some gains with Cuban voters, in 2016 and 2020, more than half supported Donald Trump.

In South Florida, the Cuban American establishment has deep roots and influence in local institutions and the media, so progressives’ efforts to sway voters will likely be an uphill battle.

Guillermo Grenier is professor of sociology at Florida International University who studies Cuban American ideology and immigration in Miami. Cubans are 35.6% of the population in Miami, but according to Grenier, it’s more than just the numbers. Newcomers build on the foundation of the Cuban American establishment, which has had a stronghold on Miami institutions from the media to local politics since the 1980s.

Grenier has been conducting FIU’s Cuba Poll, a survey on Cuban American political attitudes, since 1991, and he’s seen a pattern over the years. Newer immigrants and younger Cubans tend to be more liberal, but eventually, they fall in line.

Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Marco Rubio, the country’s highest-ranking Cuban American in politics, are on the ballot again.

A strong majority of Cuban Americans are expected to back their reelection bids on Tuesday. Progressives hope their conversations with voters this year will be laying the foundation for future elections.

Editor's note: Virginia Lora comes to us from “Feet in 2 Worlds,” a project that brings the work of immigrant reporters to public radio.

View Details

With the world on "a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator," the United Nations chief on Monday told dozens of leaders to "cooperate or perish," to avoid further climate catastrophe, singling out the two biggest polluting countries, China and the United States.

He was not the only one preaching with tones of fire and brimstone, alternating with pathos and tragedy, trying to shake up the world's sense of urgency at this year’s annual UN climate conference. “Choose life over death,” former US Vice President Al Gore urged. “It is not time for moral cowardice.”

In calling for a massive overhaul of international development loans and a 10% tax on fossil fuel companies that made “$200 billion in profits in the last three months,” Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley said, “Our people on this Earth deserve better.’’

“I don’t need to repeat the horror and the devastation wrecked upon this Earth over the course of the last twelve months since we met in Glasgow,” Mottley said. “Whether the apocalyptic floods in Pakistan or the heat waves from Europe to China or indeed in the last few days in my own region, the devastation caused in Belize by Tropical Storm Lisa or the torrential floods a few days ago in St. Lucia.”

Ahead of this year’s conference, known as COP27, leaders and experts have been ringing alarm bells that time is fast running out to avert catastrophic rises in temperature. But the dire warnings may not quite have the effect as they have had in past meetings because of multiple other challenges of the moment pulling leaders’ attention — from midterm elections in the US to the Russia-Ukraine war.

More than 100 world leaders will speak over the next few days at the gathering in Egypt, most from developing countries demanding greater accountability from the richest, most polluting nations. Much of their focus will be on telling their stories of being devastated by climate disasters, culminating Tuesday with a speech by Prime Minister Muhammad Sharif of Pakistan, where summer floods caused at least $40 billion in damage and displaced millions of people.

"Is it not high time to put an end to all this suffering," the summit’s host, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, told his fellow leaders. “Climate change will never stop without our intervention... Our time here is limited and we must use every second that we have.’’

El-Sissi, who called for an end to the Russia-Ukraine war, was gentle compared to a fiery United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who said the world “is on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator.”

He called for a new pact between rich and poor countries to make deeper cuts in emissions with financial help and phasing out of coal in rich nations by 2030 and elsewhere by 2040. He called on the United States and China — the two biggest economies — to especially work together on climate, something they used to do until the last few years.

“Humanity has a choice: cooperate or perish,” Guterres said. “It is either a Climate Solidarity Pact – or a Collective Suicide Pact.”

Guterres insisted, “Today’s urgent crises cannot be an excuse for backsliding or greenwashing.”

But bad timing and world events hang over the gathering.

Most of the leaders are meeting Monday and Tuesday, just as the United States has a potentially policy-shifting midterm election. Then the leaders of the world’s 20 wealthiest nations will have their powerful-only club confab in Bali in Indonesia days later.

Leaders of China and India — both among the biggest emitters — appear to be skipping the climate talks, although underlings are here negotiating. The leader of the top polluting country, US President Joe Biden, is coming days later than most of the other presidents and prime ministers on his way to Bali.

“There are big climate summits and little climate summits and this was never expected to be a big one,” said Climate Advisers CEO Nigel Purvis, a former US negotiator.

United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was initially going to avoid the negotiations, but public pressure and predecessor Boris Johnson’s plans to come changed his mind. New King Charles III, a longtime environment advocate, won’t attend because of his new role. And Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin, whose invasion of Ukraine created energy chaos that reverberates in the world of climate negotiations, won’t be here.

“We always want more” leaders, United Nations climate chief Simon Stiell said in a Sunday news conference. “But I believe there is sufficient (leadership) right now for us to have a very productive outcome.”

In addition to speeches given by the leaders, the negotiations include “innovative’’ roundtable discussions that “we are confident, will generate some very powerful insights,” Stiell said.

The leaders showing up in droves are from the host continent Africa.

“The historical polluters who caused climate change are not showing up,’’ said Mohammed Adow of Power Shift Africa. “Africa is the least responsible, the most vulnerable to the issue of climate change and it is a continent that is stepping up and providing leadership.”

“The South is actually stepping up,” Adow told The Associated Press. “The North that historically caused the problem is failing.’’

For the first time, developing nations succeeded in getting onto the summit agenda the issue of “loss and damage” — demands that emitting countries pay for damage caused by climate-induced disasters.

Nigeria’s Environment Minister Mohammed Abdullahi called for wealthy nations to show “positive and affirmative” commitments to help countries hardest hit by climate change. “Our priority is to be aggressive when it comes to climate funding to mitigate the challenges of loss and damage,” he said.

Monday will be heavily dominated by leaders of nations victimized by climate change — not those that have created the problem of heat-trapping gases warming up the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuel. It will be mostly African nations and small island nations and other vulnerable nations that will be telling their stories.

And they are dramatic ones, droughts in Africa and floods in Pakistan, in places that could least afford it. For the first time in 30 years of climate negotiations, the summit “should focus its attention on the severe climate impacts we’re already seeing,” said World Resources International’s David Waskow.

“We can’t discount an entire continent that has over a billion people living here and has some of the most severe impacts,’’ Waskow said. “It’s pretty clear that Africa will be at risk in a very severe way.’’

Leaders come “to share the progress they’ve made at home and to accelerate action,’’ Purvis said. In this case, with the passage of the first major climate legislation and $375 billion in spending, Biden has a lot to share, he said.

While it’s impressive that so many leaders are coming to the summit, “my expectations for ambitious climate targets in these two days are very low,” said NewClimate Institute’ scientist Niklas Hohne. That’s because of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine which caused energy and food crises that took away from climate action, he said.

By Associated Press writer Seth Borenstein.

View Details

With the world on "a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator," the United Nations chief on Monday told dozens of leaders to "cooperate or perish," to avoid further climate catastrophe, singling out the two biggest polluting countries, China and the United States.

He was not the only one preaching with tones of fire and brimstone, alternating with pathos and tragedy, trying to shake up the world's sense of urgency at this year’s annual UN climate conference. “Choose life over death,” former US Vice President Al Gore urged. “It is not time for moral cowardice.”

In calling for a massive overhaul of international development loans and a 10% tax on fossil fuel companies that made “$200 billion in profits in the last three months,” Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley said, “Our people on this Earth deserve better.’’

“I don’t need to repeat the horror and the devastation wrecked upon this Earth over the course of the last twelve months since we met in Glasgow,” Mottley said. “Whether the apocalyptic floods in Pakistan or the heat waves from Europe to China or indeed in the last few days in my own region, the devastation caused in Belize by Tropical Storm Lisa or the torrential floods a few days ago in St. Lucia.”

Ahead of this year’s conference, known as COP27, leaders and experts have been ringing alarm bells that time is fast running out to avert catastrophic rises in temperature. But the dire warnings may not quite have the effect as they have had in past meetings because of multiple other challenges of the moment pulling leaders’ attention — from midterm elections in the US to the Russia-Ukraine war.

More than 100 world leaders will speak over the next few days at the gathering in Egypt, most from developing countries demanding greater accountability from the richest, most polluting nations. Much of their focus will be on telling their stories of being devastated by climate disasters, culminating Tuesday with a speech by Prime Minister Muhammad Sharif of Pakistan, where summer floods caused at least $40 billion in damage and displaced millions of people.

"Is it not high time to put an end to all this suffering," the summit’s host, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, told his fellow leaders. “Climate change will never stop without our intervention... Our time here is limited and we must use every second that we have.’’

El-Sissi, who called for an end to the Russia-Ukraine war, was gentle compared to a fiery United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who said the world “is on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator.”

He called for a new pact between rich and poor countries to make deeper cuts in emissions with financial help and phasing out of coal in rich nations by 2030 and elsewhere by 2040. He called on the United States and China — the two biggest economies — to especially work together on climate, something they used to do until the last few years.

“Humanity has a choice: cooperate or perish,” Guterres said. “It is either a Climate Solidarity Pact – or a Collective Suicide Pact.”

Guterres insisted, “Today’s urgent crises cannot be an excuse for backsliding or greenwashing.”

But bad timing and world events hang over the gathering.

Most of the leaders are meeting Monday and Tuesday, just as the United States has a potentially policy-shifting midterm election. Then the leaders of the world’s 20 wealthiest nations will have their powerful-only club confab in Bali in Indonesia days later.

Leaders of China and India — both among the biggest emitters — appear to be skipping the climate talks, although underlings are here negotiating. The leader of the top polluting country, US President Joe Biden, is coming days later than most of the other presidents and prime ministers on his way to Bali.

“There are big climate summits and little climate summits and this was never expected to be a big one,” said Climate Advisers CEO Nigel Purvis, a former US negotiator.

United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was initially going to avoid the negotiations, but public pressure and predecessor Boris Johnson’s plans to come changed his mind. New King Charles III, a longtime environment advocate, won’t attend because of his new role. And Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin, whose invasion of Ukraine created energy chaos that reverberates in the world of climate negotiations, won’t be here.

“We always want more” leaders, United Nations climate chief Simon Stiell said in a Sunday news conference. “But I believe there is sufficient (leadership) right now for us to have a very productive outcome.”

In addition to speeches given by the leaders, the negotiations include “innovative’’ roundtable discussions that “we are confident, will generate some very powerful insights,” Stiell said.

The leaders showing up in droves are from the host continent Africa.

“The historical polluters who caused climate change are not showing up,’’ said Mohammed Adow of Power Shift Africa. “Africa is the least responsible, the most vulnerable to the issue of climate change and it is a continent that is stepping up and providing leadership.”

“The South is actually stepping up,” Adow told The Associated Press. “The North that historically caused the problem is failing.’’

For the first time, developing nations succeeded in getting onto the summit agenda the issue of “loss and damage” — demands that emitting countries pay for damage caused by climate-induced disasters.

Nigeria’s Environment Minister Mohammed Abdullahi called for wealthy nations to show “positive and affirmative” commitments to help countries hardest hit by climate change. “Our priority is to be aggressive when it comes to climate funding to mitigate the challenges of loss and damage,” he said.

Monday will be heavily dominated by leaders of nations victimized by climate change — not those that have created the problem of heat-trapping gases warming up the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuel. It will be mostly African nations and small island nations and other vulnerable nations that will be telling their stories.

And they are dramatic ones, droughts in Africa and floods in Pakistan, in places that could least afford it. For the first time in 30 years of climate negotiations, the summit “should focus its attention on the severe climate impacts we’re already seeing,” said World Resources International’s David Waskow.

“We can’t discount an entire continent that has over a billion people living here and has some of the most severe impacts,’’ Waskow said. “It’s pretty clear that Africa will be at risk in a very severe way.’’

Leaders come “to share the progress they’ve made at home and to accelerate action,’’ Purvis said. In this case, with the passage of the first major climate legislation and $375 billion in spending, Biden has a lot to share, he said.

While it’s impressive that so many leaders are coming to the summit, “my expectations for ambitious climate targets in these two days are very low,” said NewClimate Institute’ scientist Niklas Hohne. That’s because of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine which caused energy and food crises that took away from climate action, he said.

By Associated Press writer Seth Borenstein.

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Angela Astudillos grew up in Iquique, a coastline city in northern Chile. It's known for its sandy beaches, surfing waves and tax-free zone that attracts both domestic and international tourists. But it's also where thousands of tons of secondhand clothes are imported and resold all over Chile and South America.

Astudillos, an environmental activist who runs the environmental organization Desierto Vestido, has been following the used clothing market for years, said it is a big business.

Some 59,000 tonnes of unwanted clothing arrive in Chile each year from places like Europe, Asia and the United States.

Credit:

Tibisay Zea/The World

Some 59,000 tons of unwanted clothing arrive each year from places like Europe, Asia and the United States. They are then classified into four different categories: new, like new, fair and trash, she said.

“Trash, because it comes in dirty, stained, torn or rotten, so it’s impossible to sell.”

The clothes that are considered trash are picked up in trucks and dumped onto a massive landfill, right in the backyard of a poor municipality called Alto Hospicio, Astudillo explained. That's about 6 miles south of Iquique into the Atacama Desert, and it’s home to some of the poorest residential neighborhoods in northern Chile.

It is unclear who is in charge of hiring the vehicles.

“The trucks usually come at night, when it’s easier to hide,” Astudillo said.

“The Chilean government doesn’t allow clothes in landfills,” so, many of the clothes often end up in the desert, too. It’s also illegal to dump them there, but the authorities do little about it.

Last June, Astudillos conducted a study with the group SumOfUs to identify the clothing brands dumped in this area of the desert. She said that on-site investigations required researchers to wear hazmat suits, given the preexisting pollution in the area.

Hundreds of packages of clothes, known as "fardos", arrive every day at Iquique Port, Chile.

Credit:

Tibisay Zea/The World

The group reported that many of the most world-renowned fashion brands were discovered within an hour's search.

Toxic smoke reaches neighborhoodsDuring her studies of the area, Astudillos also discovered a fire in a dumping ground close to an area called Paso de la Mula, located in Alto Hospicio.

“About 100,000 tons of clothes were on fire,” she said.

A fire at a dumping ground near the Paso de la Mula favela, in Alto Hospicio, Chile.

Credit:

Courtesy of Yubisay Mosqueda

And the fire burned for two whole weeks, but it remains unclear what caused it. City workers started to dump sand on the burning clothes to try to contain the flames.

“It was terrible for the environment,” she said.

Toxic smoke from the burning clothes reached into nearby communities, polluting the air among large sectors of Alto Hospicio.

Astudillo said that it was difficult for her to breathe, and that she and her neighbors were forced to stay home with the windows closed.

Part of the clothes were burned, and the rest still remain underneath the sand. Some fabrics can take up to 200 years to biodegrade, she said.

Astudillos worries about the environmental impact and said that no one is taking responsibility for it.

The town’s mayor, Patricio Ferreira Rivera, sent a statement to The World:

“There are no legal places in Chile to dump clothes, so my city has been sacrificed for years; importers [bring in] too much ‘garbage’ and do not take responsibility for the trash they produce,” he said.

Educating youthFrustrated and angry, Astudillos is now embarking on a new mission to educate young people across local neighborhoods about recycling.

Activist Angela Astudillos teaches a group of children how to recycle at Escuela Nirvana in Alto Hospicio, Chile.

Credit:

Tibisay Zea/The World

On a recent morning, Astudillo brought a pile of washed jeans that she had picked from the dumpster to the Nirvana school in Alto Hospicio. Along with the students, they started to make decorations for the school building with denim.

Martina Martin, an 8-year-old girl from the area, said she’d been to the landfill many times with her mother.

“If you like clothes that you see over there, you can pick it up to create new outfits,” she told a friend.

And then she said she had a message for people everywhere: Don’t buy clothes that you don’t need.

Hans Gotterbarm contributed to this report as a producer for the radio version of this story.

Related: Chile tries to protect its 'flowering desert' from climate change, tourists

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Angela Astudillos grew up in Iquique, a coastline city in northern Chile. It's known for its sandy beaches, surfing waves and tax-free zone that attracts both domestic and international tourists. But it's also where thousands of tons of secondhand clothes are imported and resold all over Chile and South America.

Astudillos, an environmental activist who runs the environmental organization Desierto Vestido, has been following the used clothing market for years, said it is a big business.

Some 59,000 tonnes of unwanted clothing arrive in Chile each year from places like Europe, Asia and the United States.

Credit:

Tibisay Zea/The World

Some 59,000 tons of unwanted clothing arrive each year from places like Europe, Asia and the United States. They are then classified into four different categories: new, like new, fair and trash, she said.

“Trash, because it comes in dirty, stained, torn or rotten, so it’s impossible to sell.”

The clothes that are considered trash are picked up in trucks and dumped onto a massive landfill, right in the backyard of a poor municipality called Alto Hospicio, Astudillo explained. That's about 6 miles south of Iquique into the Atacama Desert, and it’s home to some of the poorest residential neighborhoods in northern Chile.

It is unclear who is in charge of hiring the vehicles.

“The trucks usually come at night, when it’s easier to hide,” Astudillo said.

“The Chilean government doesn’t allow clothes in landfills,” so, many of the clothes often end up in the desert, too. It’s also illegal to dump them there, but the authorities do little about it.

Last June, Astudillos conducted a study with the group SumOfUs to identify the clothing brands dumped in this area of the desert. She said that on-site investigations required researchers to wear hazmat suits, given the preexisting pollution in the area.

Hundreds of packages of clothes, known as "fardos", arrive every day at Iquique Port, Chile.

Credit:

Tibisay Zea/The World

The group reported that many of the most world-renowned fashion brands were discovered within an hour's search.

Toxic smoke reaches neighborhoodsDuring her studies of the area, Astudillos also discovered a fire in a dumping ground close to an area called Paso de la Mula, located in Alto Hospicio.

“About 100,000 tons of clothes were on fire,” she said.

A fire at a dumping ground near the Paso de la Mula favela, in Alto Hospicio, Chile.

Credit:

Courtesy of Yubisay Mosqueda

And the fire burned for two whole weeks, but it remains unclear what caused it. City workers started to dump sand on the burning clothes to try to contain the flames.

“It was terrible for the environment,” she said.

Toxic smoke from the burning clothes reached into nearby communities, polluting the air among large sectors of Alto Hospicio.

Astudillo said that it was difficult for her to breathe, and that she and her neighbors were forced to stay home with the windows closed.

Part of the clothes were burned, and the rest still remain underneath the sand. Some fabrics can take up to 200 years to biodegrade, she said.

Astudillos worries about the environmental impact and said that no one is taking responsibility for it.

The town’s mayor, Patricio Ferreira Rivera, sent a statement to The World:

“There are no legal places in Chile to dump clothes, so my city has been sacrificed for years; importers [bring in] too much ‘garbage’ and do not take responsibility for the trash they produce,” he said.

Educating youthFrustrated and angry, Astudillos is now embarking on a new mission to educate young people across local neighborhoods about recycling.

Activist Angela Astudillos teaches a group of children how to recycle at Escuela Nirvana in Alto Hospicio, Chile.

Credit:

Tibisay Zea/The World

On a recent morning, Astudillo brought a pile of washed jeans that she had picked from the dumpster to the Nirvana school in Alto Hospicio. Along with the students, they started to make decorations for the school building with denim.

Martina Martin, an 8-year-old girl from the area, said she’d been to the landfill many times with her mother.

“If you like clothes that you see over there, you can pick it up to create new outfits,” she told a friend.

And then she said she had a message for people everywhere: Don’t buy clothes that you don’t need.

Hans Gotterbarm contributed to this report as a producer for the radio version of this story.

Related: Chile tries to protect its 'flowering desert' from climate change, tourists

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In Chile's Atacama Desert, it almost never rains. The area is so dry that it even serves as a practice site for expeditions to Mars. But once or twice every decade, the skies open up and it rains, causing dormant seeds underground to grow.

As a result, a spectacular “flowering desert” of plants that are mostly endemic to the Atacama region attract tourists and botanists from around the world. But the great interest in the flowers is also the same thing that’s endangering them.

Pata de guanaco

A caterpillar moves along flowers in the Atacama Desert, Chile.

Credit:

Tibisay Zea/The World

This natural phenomenon of the blooming desert usually happens every 5 to 7 years, and it’s difficult to predict.

“There needs to be a perfect combination of precipitation and temperature for the flowers to bloom,” said Monserrate Barrientos, a tour guide for the flowering desert in Copiapó.

The most emblematic of the plants is a little pink flower — known as pata de guanaco, or “guanaco’s foot” — that carpets large swaths of the desert during the bloom. Guanaco is a wild llama native to the area, whose feet look similar to the leaves of the flower.

“The leaves are thick, to [be able to] store water,” Barrientos said.

For many scientists, the flowering desert is an exciting event, because it proves the resilience of certain types of flora, like the pata de guanaco, in the world's driest desert.

Benito Gomez Silva, a microbiologist at the University of Antofagasta, is studying microorganisms that are very resistant to extreme water scarcity.

“If a plant can resist long periods of drought, its genetic material has useful information for people who work on genetically modified plants,” he said.

But the flowering desert is facing several threats. One of them is climate change, according to Cesar Pizarro, a biologist with the Chilean Department of Conservation.

"Longer droughts or heavier rains could affect the frequency of the desert bloom,” he said. "And, eventually, it could even stop happening."

Flora grows in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile.

Credit:

Tibisay Zea/The World

Another threat is traffickers who collect the native plants, as well as visitors who pluck flowers to bring home with them.

During his first visit to the Atacama region earlier this month, Chile’s President Gabriel Boric announced the creation of the Desierto Florido National Park for the first quarter of 2023 in an attempt to preserve the area.

Flowers bloom in the Atacama Desert in Chile once every 5-7 years.

Credit:

Tibisay Zea/The World

Environmental organizations have raised concerns in recent years about the possible negative effects of large numbers of tourists visiting the flowering desert, as well as the illegal trade of native flower species and the development of motorsport in the region.

Boric said that unscrupulous people are damaging this desert.

“We need to protect the region and educate people about it,” he declared while standing in front of a field of pink flowers.

An increased level of protection will ensure that tourists behave responsibly.

Chilean tourists Carlos Silva and Ana Maria Acuña drove 23 hours from across the country just to see the flowering desert.

“This is a birthday gift for my wife, Ana,” Silva said.

And Ana said that she’s been inspired by the visit.

“Humans have a lot to learn from nature. It’s so resilient to scarcity, to difficulties.”

Professor Benito Gomez-Silva agreed that there is a lot to learn.

“It’s like translating the information that our little brothers, the microorganisms in the desert, provide for us,” he said.

A tourist poses in a field of flowers in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile.

Credit:

Tibisay Zea/The World

Especially with our changing climate, Gomez-Silva said that these desert plant species could have a lot to teach us, humans.

Related: Fire and climate change are altering Patagonia’s ecosystems

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On a crisp October afternoon, Bakhadir Fazilov approached a tall walnut tree, wrapped his legs and arms around the trunk and began climbing toward the top — more than 40 feet above ground.

At the top of the tree, Fazilov nimbly stepped out onto a flimsy branch and began shaking the limbs until the walnuts came crashing down to the ground.

Kyrgyzstan is home to the largest natural walnut forest on Earth. It’s a unique ecosystem with more than 30,000 acres that rises above the bustling town of Arslanbob, not far from the Uzbekistan border. But climate change and increased cattle farming have created intense pressure on the walnut forest.

Bakhadir Fazilov, 44, climbs a walnut tree and shakes the nuts off the branches. In southern Kyrgyzstan, locals harvest walnuts by climbing the trees themselves or waiting until storms blow the precious nuts onto the ground.

Credit:

Levi Bridges/The World

Every fall, locals like Fazilov camp out in the ancient, shadowy walnut forest in southwestern Kyrgyzstan for up to two months. In a good year, harvesters can pick literally a ton of nuts, and buyers come from as far away as Turkey and Russia to purchase the crop. But this year, the harvest was so poor that few locals even bothered to lug their tents up into the mountains to pick the walnuts.

“Last summer, the weather was really hot, so all the nuts fell off,” Fazilov said.

The walnut forest where Fazilov sets up camp with his wife and four children each fall is government land. Fazilov rents about 10 acres for about $80. In a good year, he can earn more than $1,200 for the season. But this year, he might only make of half that.

Bakhadir Fazilov and Nuribat Fazilova spend up to two months camped out in the walnut forests of southern Kyrgyzstan each fall harvesting the nuts with their four children. They shell the nuts during the cold winter months when work becomes scarce and sell them to wholesalers.

Credit:

Levi Bridges/The World

Livestock present an even more pressing challenge to the walnut forests than climate change.

Many Kyrgyz make a living herding cows and sheep that graze on pastures in the nearby mountains that rise above the walnut trees. Most of those pastures also belong to the government, but authorities don’t put many limits on livestock grazing.

In the region surrounding the walnut forest, livestock numbers have been increasing by 3% to 4% annually, and the pastures are getting depleted. Now, herders let animals roam the walnut forests in search of food.

The thick forest also provides a shade for animals and herders during the sweltering summer months. Cows eat the little walnut saplings, which means there’s no new growth. And horses roaming through the forests also eat the bark, which kills the old trees.

“Just look at all the wounds on this tree,” Fazilov said, pointing at the yellow wood where a horse had stripped the bark. “We can’t pick a good harvest because of this [damage].”

A cow searches for food in the walnut forests of southern Kyrgyzstan. As the summers become hotter because of climate change, herders increasingly spend the hot months in the shade of the walnut forests with their cattle. The cows eat up the new saplings so the forests no longer rejuvenate.

Credit:

Levi Bridges/The World

Fazilov said he would like to put up fencing in this stretch of forest that he rents to keep the animals out, but he said that he can’t afford it.

In rural Kyrgyzstan, many have few economic opportunities besides migrating to Russia or staying at home and working the land — which often means herding animals.

Environmental workers there say that many Kyrgyz are distrustful of banks, so people invest what savings they have in animals. The idea is that selling animals for meat is a better investment than the meager interest earned in a savings account.

But herding animals has led to severe environmental problems, such as increasing desertification and a loss of plant diversity.

On a hill in the pastureland high above the walnut forest, livestock have eaten all the plant life down to the dirt. The only vegetation that remains is bits of dry chaff and grass lying on the ground above black dust.

“This hill is naked, the animals ate everything,” said Nurgazy Nurbaev, a manager at the Kyrgyz environmental organization CAMP Alatoo, as he gazed out at the desiccated pasture. “There’s 2 ½ times more animals grazing here than the pasture can support,” Nurbaev said.

Dust trails up behind a line of cattle. In some parts of Kyrgyzstan, cattle have overgrazed the land so much researchers believe they are contributing to desertification.

Credit:

Levi Bridges/The World

At the top of the hill, CAMP Alatoo has installed two big metal cages secured with padlocks. Inside there’s grass and shrubs growing.

“This is what the pasture would look like if there were no animals,” Nurbaev said, gesturing toward the cages.

CAMP Alatoo’s researchers collect data in these cages to gauge how much grazing the land can actually support. They make recommendations to herders about how to better manage the land. But CAMP Alatoo’s project manager, Jyrgal Kozhomberdiev, said that not enough herders are following their advice.

“Many people are just continuing [on], [with] business as usual,” Kozhomberdiev said.

The environmental organization CAMP Alatoo uses cages to monitor Kyrgyzstan's pastureland. Livestock can't graze inside the cages, allowing researchers to monitor plant life and form plans to better manage the pastures.

Credit:

Levi Bridges/The World

Kozhomberdiev hopes that technology can be part of the solution. CAMP Alatoo helped to digitize different pasture management programs around the country. Local pasture committees can use this information to figure out where to move herds to less congested pastures and gauge their environmental impact.

And this year, CAMP Alatoo helped develop a new smartphone app called Pasture Monitoring that herders and researchers can use to document the changing environment.

Available in Kyrgyz, Russian and English, the app requires users to take a picture of the landscape they see and then select from checklists that describe characteristics, such as plant species and soil quality. Users also tag their location and can choose to link the information they collect to a server that scientists can access.

“This type of information was not collected since the Soviet Union collapsed, due to a lack of funding, so we think that this mobile app can facilitate the process [of data collection],” Kozhomberdiev said.

Scientific research on Kyrgyzstan’s pastureland has been virtually nonexistent for several decades. It's the herders who have some of the most in-depth knowledge about how the changing climate is affecting local ecosystems. While they have exacerbated recent environmental problems, they can now be a key part of the solution.

During harvest time in southern Kyrgyzstan, walnuts are served in dishes alongside most meals.

Credit:

Levi Bridges/The World

There are actually two ways to harvest a walnut in Kyrgyzstan — some may wait until a strong storm blows through and knocks the nuts to the ground. But many locals hope to continue to camp out in the walnut forest, climbing up the trees to shake the nuts free each fall.

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Colombia's capital city is hundreds of miles away from the Amazon rainforest. In September, the city’s air was heavily polluted with carbon particles that came from fires in the rainforest. And local authorities told people to avoid exercising outdoors.

These kinds of warnings are becoming more common, said Carolina Urrutia, Bogotá’s secretary for the environment.

“It's frustrating because it's something we can’t control.” she said. “But at the same time, it's a chance for us to show people how forests and urban areas are connected.”

Urrutia and other environmentalists across South America are holding their breath as Brazil stages the second round of its presidential election later this month.

The nation’s conservative President Jair Bolsonaro is running for another four-year term and has promised to continue facilitating mining and agro industry in Brazil’s portion of the Amazon.

Colombia's capital city Bogotá fills with fog after fires in the Amazon.

Credit:

Manuel Rueda/The World

Under Bolsonaro’s watch the rate of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has doubled, as his government promotes the expansion of industries like soy, timber and cattle ranching in the region.

So far this year, more than 7,000 square kilometers of the Amazon rainforest have been cleared in Brazil, or an area that is 10 times the size of New York City.

That worries Urrutia and other environmentalists in South America who have been studying the connection between the Amazon and other ecosystems on the continent that are home to tens of millions of people.

“For us in the Andes, this progressive deterioration of the Amazon is a life threatening situation,” Urrutia said.

That’s because destruction of the Amazon doesn’t just affect air quality. It also jeopardizes the water supply of many countries in South America.

On the western side of the continent, countries including Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia depend on rain that originates in the Atlantic Ocean. This rain lands on the Amazon jungle, which soaks up the water and then releases some of it back into the atmosphere through evaporation. Eventually, air currents carry this moisture west, toward the Andes mountains.

If the rainforest is destroyed, this critical cycle can be altered, said Paola Arias, a climate researcher at the University of Antioquia, in Medellin.

“When you have a lot of deforestation, you have less moisture that is transported toward our region,” Arias said. “And then, if you start having less moisture, it will be more probable to have less precipitation.”

In Bolivia, meanwhile, the Amazon’s deforestation reduces the amount of snow falling on glaciers that supply water to many cities and villages in the high altitude area known as the altiplano, said Marcos Andrade, the director of the atmospheric physics lab in La Paz.

He explained that the snow, which is formed with moisture coming from the Amazon, protects the glaciers from melting too fast.

“If we deforest the lowlands, we could have problems having moisture arriving in this region,” Andrade said.

Arias called Bolsonaro’s efforts to develop the Amazon a “nightmare.”

“I think we have to change the way we see the economy, where we are thinking that all these ecosytems, all these things that we call nature are under our service, but we really don’t think that we are coexisiting with other species. This large scale production of everything has to stop.”

Brazil’s president said that the residents of the Amazon need jobs and the region must be integrated into the global economy.

His administration has made it possible for companies to avoid fines for clearing the rainforest. And it's also pushing for a law that would allow gold mining inside Indigenous reserves.

“There are 20 million people in the Amazon including Indigenous people and river dwellers whose survival depends on using the resources the forest provides,” Bolsonaro said at the UN’s General Assembly last month, where he insisted that much of the rainforest remains untouched.

Bolsonaro has also backed infrastructure projects that worry some of Brazil’s neighbors. Like a plan to build a road between Brazil and Peru, which would cut through a largely untouched area of the Amazon, and reach the city of Pucallpa.

Felix Ochavano is a leader of the Iskonawa tribe in Peru. He said the road would put uncontacted tribes at risk.

“It’s going to bring more migration into the region,” Ochavano said. “And that can increase gold mining, and also expose our relatives to new diseases.”

Ochavano said that governments across South America should consult with Indigenous people before they make new plans for the rainforest.

He’s hoping for a change in Amazon policies regardless of who wins the election in Brazil and other countries.

“The people in the Amazon have rights just like anyone else,” he said. “We need to develop the rainforest so that it benefits everyone’s survival."

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On a chilly October morning outside the main hospital in the capital Riga, an elderly woman, wrapped in a shawl, sold wool socks to people heading inside.

“Have a look,” she said. “Dig around in the pile for the warmer ones.”

Extra wool clothing for the cold — indoors. That makes sense for Latvia right now, because the government has capped heat in health facilities at about 65 degrees Fahrenheit.

Latvia is among several European countries scrambling to find ways to stay warm this winter without having to depend on Russian energy. Time is running especially short in the northern Baltic states, where winter sets in early. So, residents there are bracing for the cold months ahead.

An elderly entrepreneur hawks socks near the entrance to Latvia's largest hospital. The socks could come in handy; to save on heating costs this winter, the hospital must keep temperatures below 65 degrees Fahrenheit.

Credit:

Gerry Hadden/The World

School teacher Anastasija Buškevachkevah didn’t stop to purchase the wool socks on her way in to the hospital— but winter was on her mind.

“I was in hospital in [the] summer,” she said. “It was OK. But now in [the] winter, no one knows. Really we are afraid.”

Buškevachkevah has lymphoma. The hospital is scary enough, she said, without having to worry about staying warm. Winters in Latvia are long and harsh. Temperatures can stay below zero for weeks. The government’s austerity plan, in an attempt to maximize on savings, also applies to other public spaces — including schools and universities.

This winter, University of Latvia’s natural sciences campus is closing down one of its two big buildings, keeping it just warm enough so the pipes won’t freeze over, professor Juris Paiders said.

“We now accept the lower standard for heating. You should use warm underwear, for example, like me,” he added, while opening a button on his dress shirt and tugging on his longjohns underneath.

But there are also bigger problems than having to stay warm, according to Samanta Zvagule, an undergraduate environmental science student. Closing half the campus means that half the laboratories are now off limits.

“I’m really sad and disappointed,” she said. “We have a lot of laboratory work, like twice a week. We cannot do that.”

But Zvagule said she’s taking the situation in stride, especially when she thinks of all the suffering among Ukrainians as they defend themselves against Russia.

Russia is Latvia’s giant neighbor to the east, and it supplies the nation with most of its electricity and natural gas. But like the rest of Europe, Latvia’s is trying to change that. One of the ways is by importing liquified natural gas through other Baltic states, and ramping up renewables. But the transition will take time. For Latvians, who number about 2 million people, this winter is likely to be tough.

That’s especially true for people who live in places like Riga’s Khrushchyovkas — Soviet-era housing blocks that are now drab, dilapidated and poorly insulated.

On a recent evening, resident Evita Rozenfelde said that she’s worried about her next few utility bills, and keeping her children comfortable.

One of many Khrushchyovkas in Riga, Latvia. The Soviet-era apartment blocks were built cheap and meant to last just 50 years. They're badly insulated to boot, and more expensive to keep warm — which is bad for residents who are seeing their energy bills soar.

Credit:

Gerry Hadden/The World

“I haven’t turned on the heat yet,” she said. “But when I do, the government won’t let me turn up the thermostat above 65 degrees.”

At another Soviet-era building, office worker Marika Šūtele said she and her husband are steeling themselves for the worst.

“As for our two teenage boys,” she joked, “they both play hockey. They’re used to ice. So, for them, the apartment won’t be so cold.”

Šūtele does worry, however, that the factory where her husband works might close down due to the high heating costs. The big question, she said, is what the government will do to help.

So far, authorities have announced some limited subsidies. It also said that it has enough natural gas reserves to get everyone through this winter — if people are careful with their usage.

Stacks of traditional firewood and pressed sawdust bricks. They used to be a cheap way to heat your home in Latvia, but with inflation and soaring demand, wood heat has already tripled in cost so far this year.

Credit:

Gerry Hadden/The World

With fuel prices already so high, many people are falling back and relying on firewood. Latvia is mostly made up of forest areas, and more than half of its homes are heated with wood, or by-products, such as compressed blocks made from sawdust. But another problem is that wood prices are also skyrocketing.

“One bag is six euros [about $6]. I’m not sure how anyone could afford it,” said interpreter Imants Liepiņš, pointing out all kinds of wood products for heating at a store.

Keeping his house warm until May with sawdust blocks would run him about 3,600 euro, or roughly $3,500, more than three times what he would normally pay during the season.

Wood pellets, another popular fuel, have also shot up in price. At a Riga hardware store, a bag of pellets sells for $9.

“Well, if you need heat, you have to buy it,” office worker Artis Strautiņš said. “There’s no choice.”

No choice but to pay more for less heating, as the country braces for a cold winter.

Related: The invasion in Ukraine could mean less reliance on energy from Russia, analyst says

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A new study has found that between 11% and 16% of American trees are threatened with extinction.

Hundreds of scientists from botanic gardens and research institutions across the US collaborated on the study, published in the journal Plants People Planet, which assessed the extinction risk of all 881 known American tree species.

The top threats to trees in the US and across the world are pests and disease — and climate change is expected to increase the risk from these threats.

“The impacts of climate change, on average, are warmer temperatures, droughts, more intense storms and natural disasters, and that makes species and entire ecosystems more stressed and more vulnerable,” says Abby Meyer, executive director of Botanic Gardens Conservation International US and a lead author on the study.

Climate change can accelerate the invasion of pests and diseases into weakened forests, Meyer adds. Bark beetles, for example, which are one of the largest animal families in the world, often attack weakened trees first.

The study identified 165 threatened tree species in the US, many of them some of the most well-known, including oak, ash, Fraser fir (which is a common Christmas tree) and iconic old-growth trees like the California redwood and the Giant Sequoia. For these two species, stress from fire and drought have caused decline and die-off of older trees and prevented the regrowth of younger seedlings in the understory.

“California redwood and Giant Sequoia are both fire-adapted species; they evolved with seasonal fire,” Meyer notes. “But with the intensity of fires that we've been seeing, and also the rapid rate of change that we've been seeing with our climate, plant species just can't keep up.”

The loss of tree species has broader implications for the entire natural world, Meyer says. She thinks of a forest, or any other type of ecosystem, as a tapestry.

“If you start pulling out one thread and then another, soon the fabric is not going to be as strong — you can see through it and it could be torn more easily,” she explains. “Ecosystems are very similar. And each thread is depending on the other one for strength and durability. So if some species start to disappear, the remaining species become more vulnerable.”

Other plants and animals rely for their survival on specific species of trees. If a species is lost, the forest or ecosystem may lose a lot more than just that tree species.

“Half of the world's animal and plant species rely on trees as their habitat,” Meyer points out. “A single oak, for example, can support hundreds and even thousands of different species on a single tree. … So, in general, the consequences of forest decline are pretty catastrophic.”

Unfortunately, trees and plants don’t receive as much protection under the Endangered Species Act as animals do. The new study found that over 160 tree species may be endangered or threatened, but the federal government recognizes only about eight.

It can take years to get a plant species onto the list and those listed by the Endangered Species Act receive federal protections only on federal land. A species that exists only on private land or on non-federal land doesn’t get the same protection.

“There is a tendency…to sort of ignore plants,” Meyer says. “We call that ‘plant awareness disparity.’ Some people call it ‘plant blindness.’ Really, it comes down to some of the psychological characteristics of humans and how we are drawn to relatable organisms. If we can relate to an animal that moves, that maybe looks like they're expressing emotion, then it makes us care about them.”

Plants don't have that advantage, so they're often overlooked — when, in fact, there are more threatened plants than threatened vertebrates and invertebrates combined, she points out. And the world is counting on trees to offset greenhouse gas emissions, so the loss of major species could affect how well the Earth survives changes to its climate.

Forests provide 50% of current carbon storage, so mass tree planting has in recent times been seen as “sort of a silver bullet solution to the climate crisis,” Meyer says. But often, tree planting initiatives don't factor in biodiversity —and diverse, native tree communities are the most resilient type of forest environment.

“To allow for a dynamic and adaptable future forest, each species in [a] forest needs to have a full set of genetic tools to adapt to any future scenario,” Meyer says. “So our goal right now is to get the right trees in the right places and encourage diversity — that’s both species diversity and genetic diversity.”

Conservation can take other forms, too, Meyer adds: Seed banking, in which seeds are frozen for up to hundreds of years to buy the world some time and to preserve genetic lineages; growing living plants in a garden or conservation grove that can later be used for reintroduction in the wild or for breeding; and long-term management of existing species in wild populations.

“Management of these species through time — and that includes genetic management — is really crucial as these threatened species populations are dwindling,” Meyer maintains. “We need society to value plants and nature, so that it gets the conservation attention that it needs.”

Related: 'Finding the Mother Tree' explores the intricate communication networks within a forest

This article is based on an interview by Bobby Bascomb that aired on Living on Earth from PRX.

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In Spain, local mussels are a summer delicacy. But this year’s Mediterranean harvest was nearly wiped out by unusually warm seas. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the entire crop of baby mussels seeded for next year’s harvest has also died off.

Most Mediterranean mussels are grown in the Ebro Delta, in Spain’s northeast, and often enjoyed by consumers nearby.

At typical Spanish mussel joints, waiters place rubber buckets on the floor around the tables where customers can chuck their empty shells. One such place is called Avi Agustí, a wooden hut held up by vertical pilings. At outdoor tables, tourists can sample the local haul, steamed and usually as fresh as they come.

The mussel "docks" in the Ebro Delta support thousands of submerged ropes on which the mussels grow. The shallow water here became too hot this summer, killing tons of mature mussels and all of the newly-seeded ones destined for harvest next year.

Credit:

Gerry Hadden/The World

This year, however, the mussels had to be trucked in from Italy, according to owner Jonah Gomez.

“We’d reserved this entire mussel dock for these tourist tastings. But all of the mussels on our 75 lines have died.”

Jonah Gomez, Avi Agustí mussel joint

“We’d reserved this entire mussel dock for these tourist tastings,” she said. “But all of the mussels on our 75 lines have died.”

Jonah’s son, Eric, pulled up one of the thick ropes dangling from the dock into the 10-foot-deep water. It was caked with the mollusks. Each was hand-glued to the line a year ago. They look like they’re fine, but, in reality, they’re not.

One of thousands of mussel ropes populated with dead mussels that must now be cleaned off.

Credit:

Gerry Hadden/The World

Holding up the batch, Eric said they’re “all dead, due to the water temperature.”“This summer’s heat was uncommon,” Jonah said. “The sea is always warmer in August, but once it gets above 82 degrees [Fahrenheit], the mussels die.”

Spain had a record 42 days of water temperatures over that 82-degree line. It was an unprecedented underwater heat wave.

“It climbed past 86 degrees, then all the way to 90,” Jonah said. “Not the air temperature, but the water. It’s unacceptable.”

Unacceptable, but also uncontrollable. Seawater is influenced by air temperature, among other things. And in Spain, this summer was very hot. And day after day, week after week, that heat warmed the sea.

Spain does produce mussels in other regions. But Delta mussels are loved for their small size, and unique flavor — one that they get from the brackish waters where the Ebro River spills into the Mediterranean — and mussel-enthusiasts really love them.

So, it’s become a problem for restaurants like Pepe’s Bar, a nearby beachside spot. In the kitchen a cook watched over mussels steaming in a cauldron. But like Avi Agustí’s, they were also imported, these ones from Greece.

Dead mussels to be removed from a mussel rope. 8 millions pounds of the molluscs were lost this year due to warm waters.

Credit:

Gerry Hadden/The World

Waitress Sandra Teayazco said that diners will often ask whether her mussels are from the Delta.

“When you tell them the Delta mussels are finished, many customers say ‘forget it,’” she said.

Lluisa Ripoll is a fifth-generation fishmonger who owns a food stand at Barcelona’s iconic Boqueria market. It’s where tourists and locals can be seen rubbing shoulders as they shuffling past each other. These days, Ripoll said she has only Atlantic mussels on ice, which are bigger and saltier than their Mediterranean cousins. They’re delicious in their own way, she she explained, but she worries about the loss of biodiversity, and how that could affect sales.

Mussel ropes hang in the 12-foot-deep waters of the Ebro Delta.

Credit:

Gerry Hadden/The World

“If there are no Delta mussels, the price of other mussels goes up due to supply and demand,” she said. “It’s a problem for us, because we can no longer offer them.”

Spain has lost roughly 8 million pounds of Mediterranean mussels this season. But Ripoll’s family has survived thus far by adapting. Just a couple years ago, she said, she never dreamed that customers would buy seafood online. It’s now a big part of her business. She adds that she’s confident she’ll make it through the mussel shortage, because sells a variety of fish and other seafood.

For the Gomez family down at the Ebro Delta, however, the outlook is grimmer.

“You just lose your entire investment like that,” said Jonah, tossing her lifeless mussel line back in the water. “Even the imported ones died,” she said. “So now, we have to go back and import again.”

Jonah Gomez and her son Eric own a major mussel concession on the Delta. They had to import mussels from Italy this year for their tourist 'tastings.'

Credit:

Gerry Hadden/The World

She said she can only hope that, in October, the water temperature drops enough.

“But you never know,” she said. “We’re forever vulnerable to these conditions.”

Growers worry that, with climate change, this summer’s heat wave could now be the new normal. The only solution they can think of is moving their docks farther out to sea into deeper, cooler and saltier waters. Even if that were to alter the flavor of their mussels, they say, it would be better than having none at all.

Related: A UN report says Earth faces 'unprecedented' threat to biodiversity

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In eight years, Noreen Dertinger had never seen a loon chick on Lake Kennebec.

She purchased her lakeside property, located about two hours southwest of Ottawa, Ontario, in 2002. A few years later, she started collecting data on her local loons for the Canadian Lakes Loon Survey.

For Dertinger and countless other “cottagers,” the common loon is an icon of the North American wilderness. The large water bird has a haunting cry, a graceful dive and sleek black-and-white feathers. But over the past few years, research in both Canada and the US has begun to show that a new generation of loons in the central part of the continent is in jeopardy.

Noreen Dertinger was delighted to spot a loon chick on her lake in 2010, after eight years without seeing a single one.

Credit:

Courtesy of Noreen Dertinger

Dertinger was seeing this decline with her own eyes. Every year, she recorded information about the loons on her lake. And every year, she reported that she had not seen a chick.

Until in 2010, one finally hatched. “It had a bit of a sad ending,” Dertinger said.

That summer, the chick caught a fishing lure in its beak. Dertinger and her neighbors rallied in an attempt to save it, but they believe it died.

“That was pretty sad, considering that it was the very first one that we knew about,” she said.

Dertinger is one of thousands of volunteers who have collected survey data on the loons in Canada over the past 40 years. And she wasn’t the only volunteer who noticed the lack of chicks. So in 2019, researchers at Birds Canada stopped to analyze all four decades of data. And they found a major decline in loon chicks.

They weren’t alone. That same year, a researcher in Wisconsin found the exact same thing.

Noreen Dertinger captured an image of this loon on its nest in 2021, on Lake Kennebec in Ontario.

Credit:

Courtesy of Noreen Dertinger

The Wisconsin parallelWalter Piper, a biologist at Chapman University in California and a scientist at the National Loon Center, started studying the loons in a targeted area of Wisconsin in 1993.

In recent years, he noticed that something seemed off.

“I got this sinking feeling that chick mass was lower than it had been,” he said. “That we weren't getting those big, strapping, healthy chicks as often.”

So in 2019, Piper also sat down and crunched the numbers.

“That's when all of these dramatic patterns dropped out,” he said.

Loons were having fewer chicks. The chicks were getting smaller and less likely to survive. And most surprisingly, young, non-breeding adults were declining dramatically.

“I was stunned, and still am kind of stunned and shocked,” Piper said. “Because you don't expect your study animal to suddenly begin to vanish.”

Walter Piper is a biologist at Chapman University in Orange, California, and a scientist at the National Loon Center.

Credit:

Courtesy of Walter Piper

For Piper and the researchers in Canada, each study confirmed the validity of the other. Now they’re sharing data and forming working groups, as they try to figure out the cause.

“There's so many possibilities,” Piper said.

His newest, unpublished data suggests heavier rains are reducing water clarity, making it harder for loons to hunt. The rain also boosts black fly populations, which drive parents away from their nests.

In Canada, researchers believe acid rain and mercury in the water are driving factors.

All these issues are caused or aggravated by climate change — a threat that knows no borders.

That’s why collaboration will be key to learning more, Piper said.

A new effort in Minnesota“Oh, look at it,” said Jodi Eberhardt, watching a loon through her binoculars on one of the last warm days of fall.

“It's flapping its wings,” she said. “That's a nice wing stretch.”

Eberhardt was on board the StewardShip, a “floating classroom” operated by the National Loon Center in Crosslake, Minnesota.

Eberhardt volunteers with the National Loon Center, and she also collects data from her own Lake Ossawinnamakee in Minnesota.

That lake is part of a new study by Piper to see if Minnesota faces the same declines as Wisconsin and Canada.

Eberhardt was lucky to have a loon chick in her bay in this spring.

“It's just neat to see them go from being little and protected by the parents,” she said, “to be on their own and independent, and get ready to take off.”

But it’s after they head south where the biggest mystery still lies.

Natasha Bartolotta, communications and outreach coordinator for the National Loon Center (left) and volunteer Jodi Eberhardt (right) search for banded loons on Cross Lake.

Credit:

Emily Haavik/The World

The next research frontierThe strong, healthy juvenile loons leave home in the winter and head to the Gulf of Mexico, until they’re ready to breed. But most of them aren’t coming back, and there’s no data on why.

“It's a complete black hole,” Piper said.

In fact, the only clues have come from citizen scientists down in Florida.

“Every once in a while somebody walking along the beach in Tampa will find one of our loons that's washed up on shore,” he said. “And someone will happen to jump on the phone and give us a call.”

But it’s not nearly enough data to solve the mystery. So, the next step is to extend the scientific collaboration to Florida. And with those long stretches of coastline to cover, volunteers could be more crucial than ever.

Birds Canada and the National Loon Center are trying to recruit more people like Eberhardt on her dock in Minnesota, and Dertinger in her kayak in Canada.

“The lakes and the rivers would just not be the same without the loons,” Dertinger said.

But as long as people with a passion for loons continue to watch over them, Dertinger is hopeful there will still be loons to watch.

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The feeling on the streets of Brazil is one of both tension and excitement.

The country is preparing for the first round of its presidential elections on Sunday. The vote is between far-right President Jair Bolsonaro — an ally of former US President Donald Trump — and former left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Lula is well ahead in the polls.

Marches and rallies in defense of both candidates have littered the country in recent weeks. And their videos have been shared across social media.

But the presidential candidates are not the only ones organizing.

Brazilians will also elect 500 congresspeople, more than a thousand state lawmakers, two dozen senators and 27 state governors. Plus, this year, more Indigenous people, women and Black candidates are running for office than ever before.

For the first time, the country’s largest Indigenous organization APIB is fielding Indigenous candidates in states across the country, with the hope of launching a congressional caucus of Native peoples. The first female Indigenous congressional member, Joênia Wapixana, was only elected just four years ago.

“Hey folks, I’m here to talk to you about the importance of putting our Indigenous people in important positions of power,” said Indigenous activist Samela Sateré Mawé in a video posted online.

“We have suffered violence against our people,” Sateré Mawé went on. “There have been bills pushing [for] the destruction of our territories, the environment and against our lives, and we need to change this.”

They are hoping to push back on the country’s big ag (agriculture) caucus in Congress. That group includes roughly half of the members of the lower house, who have been important allies for Bolsonaro and his aims to open up the Amazon for development.

But Indigenous peoples are not the only ones hoping for change.

Leaders of Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement met with the press to discuss how they’ve helped to launch thousands of local grassroots committees. They are now organizing in neighborhoods up and down Brazil in support of Lula’s candidacy.

The landless movement is also fielding its own candidates for the first time. Fifteen members are running for state and federal office in a dozen states, with campaigns focused on promoting local family farming, labor rights and environmental sustainability.

“These candidates are a sign of the landless movement’s achievements,” said activist Luma Vitorio, who has been working closely with the movement. “We need to speak for ourselves. We can’t continue to outsource that job to others.”

These groups are hoping to gain ground against the far-right wave of candidates that rode into local and national office in 2018 on Bolsonaro’s coattails.

“The more that we have diversity of representation in legislative bodies, the better it is for our political system.”

Luciana Santana, political scientist, Federal University of Alagoas

“These legislative elections will be important,” said Luciana Santana, a political scientist at the Federal University of Alagoas. “The more that we have diversity of representation in legislative bodies, the better it is for our political system.”

But this campaign season has not been easy, with some candidates facing intimidation.

Brazilian police have confirmed that a Bolsonaro supporter killed a colleague who defended Lula during a political argument on Sept. 7, the day of Bolsonaro's big politicized Independence day rallies. They worked on the same farm in Mato Grosso #Brazil https://t.co/FGStLVsS9W

— Michael Fox (@mfox_us) September 9, 2022

“We were marching and we were intimidated,” said Lula ally and Workers' Party Congressman Paulo Guedes in a video shared widely over social media. “A member of the military police shot three times into our sound truck. Thank God he’s now detained. But this is absurd. And it’s the third time it’s happened.”

Black, gay and transgender candidates have also been in the crosshairs.

Matheus Gomes is a Black city councilman in Porto Alegre, who’s running for a seat on the Rio Grande do Sul state assembly. He and other members of the city’s Black caucus received a new string of death threats over email.

“They’re trying to intimidate us,” Gomes told The World. “The last message I received said that I should give up politics. They mentioned Bolsonaro. This is, by far, the most tense feeling on the streets I have ever experienced during an electoral campaign.”

That tension is palpable. According to reports, this is one of the most violent electoral seasons on record.

In a recent poll, two-thirds of Brazilians said they were afraid of being attacked because of their political preferences. Many blame the violent rhetoric of Bolsonaro and his allies for instigating the threats and attacks. But Bolsonaro insists he is not responsible for local actions and that the conflict goes both ways.

Luciana Santana, the political scientist, said that the violence is the result of the country’s deep political polarization.

“It’s a very delicate situation,” she said. “And it’s really concerning, because some public officials are even empowering these people who are carrying out these violent actions.”

Many Brazilians are hoping that these elections may start to turn the tide.

The polls are open from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. on Sunday, with results expected to be released only hours later.

Related: Evangelicals in Brazil want to make contact with Indigenous groups. But why?

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The feeling on the streets of Brazil is one of both tension and excitement.

The country is preparing for the first round of its presidential elections on Sunday. The vote is between far-right President Jair Bolsonaro — an ally of former US President Donald Trump — and former left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Lula is well ahead in the polls.

Marches and rallies in defense of both candidates have littered the country in recent weeks. And their videos have been shared across social media.

But the presidential candidates are not the only ones organizing.

Brazilians will also elect 500 congresspeople, more than a thousand state lawmakers, two dozen senators and 27 state governors. Plus, this year, more Indigenous people, women and Black candidates are running for office than ever before.

For the first time, the country’s largest Indigenous organization APIB is fielding Indigenous candidates in states across the country, with the hope of launching a congressional caucus of Native peoples. The first female Indigenous congressional member, Joênia Wapixana, was only elected just four years ago.

“Hey folks, I’m here to talk to you about the importance of putting our Indigenous people in important positions of power,” said Indigenous activist Samela Sateré Mawé in a video posted online.

“We have suffered violence against our people,” Sateré Mawé went on. “There have been bills pushing [for] the destruction of our territories, the environment and against our lives, and we need to change this.”

They are hoping to push back on the country’s big ag (agriculture) caucus in Congress. That group includes roughly half of the members of the lower house, who have been important allies for Bolsonaro and his aims to open up the Amazon for development.

But Indigenous peoples are not the only ones hoping for change.

Leaders of Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement met with the press to discuss how they’ve helped to launch thousands of local grassroots committees. They are now organizing in neighborhoods up and down Brazil in support of Lula’s candidacy.

The landless movement is also fielding its own candidates for the first time. Fifteen members are running for state and federal office in a dozen states, with campaigns focused on promoting local family farming, labor rights and environmental sustainability.

“These candidates are a sign of the landless movement’s achievements,” said activist Luma Vitorio, who has been working closely with the movement. “We need to speak for ourselves. We can’t continue to outsource that job to others.”

These groups are hoping to gain ground against the far-right wave of candidates that rode into local and national office in 2018 on Bolsonaro’s coattails.

“The more that we have diversity of representation in legislative bodies, the better it is for our political system.”

Luciana Santana, political scientist, Federal University of Alagoas

“These legislative elections will be important,” said Luciana Santana, a political scientist at the Federal University of Alagoas. “The more that we have diversity of representation in legislative bodies, the better it is for our political system.”

But this campaign season has not been easy, with some candidates facing intimidation.

Brazilian police have confirmed that a Bolsonaro supporter killed a colleague who defended Lula during a political argument on Sept. 7, the day of Bolsonaro's big politicized Independence day rallies. They worked on the same farm in Mato Grosso #Brazil https://t.co/FGStLVsS9W

— Michael Fox (@mfox_us) September 9, 2022

“We were marching and we were intimidated,” said Lula ally and Workers' Party Congressman Paulo Guedes in a video shared widely over social media. “A member of the military police shot three times into our sound truck. Thank God he’s now detained. But this is absurd. And it’s the third time it’s happened.”

Black, gay and transgender candidates have also been in the crosshairs.

Matheus Gomes is a Black city councilman in Porto Alegre, who’s running for a seat on the Rio Grande do Sul state assembly. He and other members of the city’s Black caucus received a new string of death threats over email.

“They’re trying to intimidate us,” Gomes told The World. “The last message I received said that I should give up politics. They mentioned Bolsonaro. This is, by far, the most tense feeling on the streets I have ever experienced during an electoral campaign.”

That tension is palpable. According to reports, this is one of the most violent electoral seasons on record.

In a recent poll, two-thirds of Brazilians said they were afraid of being attacked because of their political preferences. Many blame the violent rhetoric of Bolsonaro and his allies for instigating the threats and attacks. But Bolsonaro insists he is not responsible for local actions and that the conflict goes both ways.

Luciana Santana, the political scientist, said that the violence is the result of the country’s deep political polarization.

“It’s a very delicate situation,” she said. “And it’s really concerning, because some public officials are even empowering these people who are carrying out these violent actions.”

Many Brazilians are hoping that these elections may start to turn the tide.

The polls are open from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. on Sunday, with results expected to be released only hours later.

Related: Evangelicals in Brazil want to make contact with Indigenous groups. But why?

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Jenny Liu is a schoolteacher in Zhumadian in central China. With about 7 million people, it's still considered a small city. When she’s not working, her days are spent on the go, shuttling her kids around town.

Liu drives a Seahorse, a Chinese brand mini-electric car.

China started investing in new electric vehicles (EV) years ago. This year, about 25% of new cars sold there are electric.

Liu told The World that she’s usually driving around in her electric car from morning until night.

One day, her first stop was dropping off her daughter at kindergarten.Next, she took her 12 year-old son to his tutoring session and picked up some groceries. In the afternoon, it was more pick-ups, drop-offs and errands.

“Everyone here has an electric car,” she said. Liu’s family actually owns three electric vehicles — the mini-electric car, an electric scooter and a three-wheeled golf cart. They’re all for short trips within the city.

They also own a gas-powered car, but Liu said they only use it for long-haul trips outside the city.

Car buyers check out the Avatr 11 electric vehicle in China.

Credit:

Rebecca Kanthor/The World

“It’s just too expensive to drive,” she explained. The mini-EV costs her family less than $4 a week to charge up. Gas and parking would cost at least five times as much.

Across Chinese cities, electric cars can be seen everywhere, and can be spotted by their green license plates. Tiny mini-EVs are especially popular in smaller cities. They’re even smaller than the SmartCars seen on roads in the US. And these mini-EVs are customized with colors and decals — for example, some cars are decorated with Mickey Mouse, Hello Kitty or the black-and-white splotches of a dairy cow.

Zhang Bo, 32, owns a shiny silver Wuling Hongguang, which was the best-selling EV in China, a Chinese joint venture with GM. He uses his car to commute to work.

“It’s really convenient for city driving,” he said. It’s also budget-friendly. This model goes for under $5,000.

Yang Jian, a journalist who writes about the car industry in China, said that government subsidies have been a big reason for the EV market’s success, but he senses that it is now growing even stronger because buyers are interested in the cars themselves, not just the subsidies.

“Now there is a real demand for EVs, especially among the young population.”

Yang Jian is, journalist

“Now there is a real demand for EVs, especially among the young population,” he said. “They really like the car, from the exterior to interior to [its] performance. They like to try new things.”

And there are plenty of options to try, for every budget, from tiny, cheaper models all the way up to luxury cars made by Chinese and foreign automakers.

Bill Russo is a car industry expert in Shanghai. He said that the range of options is key to China’s EV success.

“If the Chinese EV market were an ice cream shop, it would be Baskin Robbins,” he said. “You know, 31 flavors. There’s basic EVs, midmarket EVs, and then there’s more premium [ones with] more technology. I call them smart EV offerings — even some high end brands, like the Hi5 — which is selling an EV that is more than $100,000.

In the coastal city of Shanghai — a city of 25 million people — you can see the full range of electric vehicles on the roads, from electric scooters and electric buses, all the way to Teslas and other luxury cars. Hart Yang, 24, is a physical education teacher at an elementary school, and like many people in China from his generation, he’s the first car owner in his family. He bought a black Tesla Model 3.

“I chose an electric car mostly for the free license plate,” he said. In Shanghai, the cost of a license plate alone is more than $13,000, Yang explained. But electric and hybrid car buyers in Shanghai get a green license plate at no cost.

That perk will be taken away from hybrid car buyers at the end of this year, but the Chinese government has signaled it will continue to support the EV car market into 2023.

Tesla, which has a factory in Shanghai, is a popular EV car purchase in bigger cities. But Chinese brands are competitive, with names like Future and Build Your Dream. High-end Chinese EV makers are tapping into an aspirational market.

A mini-electric vehicle parked in the street, Zhumadian, China.

Credit:

Rebecca Kanthor/The World

At a recent luxury car event on the outskirts of Shanghai, people were milling around an Avatr 11. It’s a high-tech collaboration between Changan, one of China’s biggest car companies, and Huawei, the mobile phone company. The car sells for nearly $50,000.

Elliot Richards, who makes YouTube videos about Chinese electric cars, said that for top-end electric car buyers here, it’s all about the technology.

“Chinese consumers think that this is like a mobile phone purchase,” he said. “They just change it every six months into the new technology, like an iPhone. Let’s drive this for six months, enjoy it, sell it. Get the new model from another company.”

The model he’s driving doesn’t require a key. You use your phone to unlock the doors. The car is full of perks: three large screens on the dashboard and the backseats even feature back massagers. Cameras and sensors are positioned throughout the car.

YouTuber Elliot Richards test drives a Chinese luxury electric vehicle.

Credit:

Rebecca Kanthor/The World

When the onboard computer senses its passengers are in a happy mood, an automated woman’s voice offers to put on some upbeat music and lighting inside the car.

These high-tech features will eventually be standard in most Chinese EVs, Richards said.

Electric cars in China benefit from a strong infrastructure that supports the industry. In Shanghai, there are 109,000 public charging stations.

“There are so many,” Richards said. “And if I go further outside of Shanghai, I know the motorway network, every service station has chargers. It’s so easy that I didn’t even consider it a problem in China.”

But others find it more difficult to drive electric cars on long-haul trips. Hart Yang, the Tesla owner, said he ran out of power for his car on a trip into the mountains several hours away from Shanghai. The remote rural area he traveled to was not well equipped with charging stations, so he had to come up with an alternate solution.

Outside of China’s wealthier coastal cities, though, many people still rely on China’s extensive rail network or gas-powered cars for longer trips.

The Chinese government has announced that it is investing in new charging stations for rural areas across the country, in the hopes that a stronger charging infrastructure will pave the way for Chinese drivers to go all in on electric.

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"Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands," by Kate Beaton, tells the story of working in Alberta's tar sands, along with thousands of others from her native Cape Breton.

Credit:

Courtesy of Drawn and Quarterly

It is an age-old story — leaving home for work to build a better future for yourself and your family.

It's a story that graphic novelist Kate Beaton knows well. Beaton is from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, and her story took her almost clear across Canada, more than 3,000 miles west to northern Alberta, to join thousands of others who also left their homes for a better economic future.

Her latest book, a graphic novel, is "Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands."

Beaton joined The World's host Marco Werman to talk about her compelling personal story of working in the Athabasca oil sands of Alberta, where these boom economies have led to tremendous environmental and human cost.

Growing up in Cape Breton, Beaton said that she wasn't aware of the tar sands when she was very small.

"It was a place that people started going to in the '80s and '90s, but not in the numbers that made a real difference until maybe the late '90s, when it really started booming," she said.

"And then everybody started going. And they were running news stories around here about how, you know, the streets were emptying and the classrooms had empty desks because they were gone to the oil sands."

Marco Werman: Symbolically, you kind of illustrate that with the empty chairs around the dining tables in Cape Breton. Kate Beaton: But that's not new here. We have had many generations of labor migration to wherever the engines of capitalism have been running to, to the Boston States' auto factories booming in the 70s, and in Ontario and Detroit, a mining boom in Sudbury.So the "Boston States," is that what Cape Bretoners call the US? Or New England, specifically?It's kind of New England. They would land around Boston and they'd call it the Boston States. Yeah, I had a grand aunt who worked as a maid, for instance, in a mansion in Boston. But that was the place to go for work. And they would work there and they'd send money home. And that pattern would repeat wherever the big job booms were. And I sort of fell in step with a pattern that had been going on and on for all this time. I thought nothing of going to the oil sands because people have been doing this where I'm from for so long."Ducks" takes place mostly in Alberta, but you often take readers back to Cape Breton in the book. Almost like a dream. Like one minute you're in the industrial work camp, the next you have your feet in the sand of a pristine beach, almost like your body and mind are in two places at once. What do you think is the long-term effect on workers being split like that? How did it affect you?Oh, it had a big effect on me, for sure. You were split. And so most of your life is in this work camp, where you are not living as your full self. You're cut off from things and you're counting down the days to when you're home. And when you're in the camp, you're isolated. And the sense of being totally outside of society is a very real feeling, that you're the shadow population.The book is called "Ducks," and the meaning is revealed later on in the book when the international news media picks up the story that hundreds of migratory ducks were killed after they landed in one of these tailing ponds at one of these mining sites. Why was that moment so meaningful to you that you decided to give this book the title "Ducks"?Well, the metaphor is apt. These were migratory animals who landed in a pond that they thought was a safe space, that they thought was natural. And it ended up being toxic. It was a dangerous place for them to land. And you could make the same argument for some of the people who landed there. This incident with the ducks was the first time that I saw the oil sands on national and international news. You know, you could sort of see the eyes of the world taking a look at the oil sands or going, "Oh, God, that's bad," you know, "We don't like that." These ducks all died. And I had seen people die — 2008 was a particularly bad year for accidents on Highway 63, which was nicknamed the Highway of Death.

The graphic novel, "Ducks: Two Years in the Oils Sands," by Kate Beaton, tells the compelling personal story of leaving home in Cape Breton to work in Alberta's tar sands.

Credit:

Courtesy of Drawn and Quarterly

And that's a highway that connects some of the living areas with these mines?Yes, that's right. It's the highway that goes from Edmonton to to Fort McMurray. And also, at the same time, there is a part of the book where a Cree elder, Celina Harpe, is talking about how there is increased incidences of cancer, rare cancers in the Indigenous communities around Fort McMurray. And the response to that is sort of — silence. But the ducks got all this attention because of maybe how cinematic it was. And so that always stuck with me. That the human cost went under the radar.Homesickness is a major theme of your book, and one way it manifests is through music, I noticed. Cape Breton has so much great music, trad-modern fiddlers like Natalie MacMaster and Ashley MacIsaac. We asked you for a song that brought back feelings of home when you were away in Alberta. Who are we hearing and why does this music resonate with you? You're hearing John Allan Cameron sing "Headed for Halifax." He's singing about leaving Cape Breton for work. "I'm heading for Halifax to see what's to spare in the way of some work. And if there's nothing there, then it's Toronto out West or God only knows where." That was true before I was born. It's true now. You know, I listened to this growing up and I knew, that's going to be me. And it was. This is the life in Cape Breton. But he's he's also singing, you know, "Wherever I go, there's bound to be someone from home," because that is also true. Wherever the work is, we're all going. We're going together. This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

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As climate change brings higher temperatures and extreme weather to American cities, rental and affordable housing stock in the US remains largely under-equipped to deal with these new challenges.

The Inflation Reduction Act signed by President Joe Biden in August provides funds and programs for homeowners to take climate action by, for example, installing solar panels and energy efficient heat pumps. But what about renters?

Renters typically use one third more energy per square foot than homeowners because landlords often don’t get a financial return on installing expensive upgrades to improve insulation and HVAC efficiency. And many renters are low-income people who can not afford higher energy costs.

But, according to Todd Nedwick, senior director of sustainability policy at the National Housing Trust, there are ways for people living in rental housing to go greener, save energy costs and guard against heat waves and other climate related risks.

“The Inflation Reduction Act included a $1 billion program specifically targeted to HUD housing stock that will allow building owners to invest both in the energy efficiency of the building as well as improve resilience,” Nedwick says.

Programs in the Inflation Reduction Act also provide rebates to both single-family and multi-family building owners to encourage them to invest in energy efficiency and convert existing fossil fuel-burning equipment to all electric, Nedwick adds.

“[I]n Washington, DC, where I'm from, buildings account for 75% of greenhouse gas emissions,” he points out. “So we're not going to address climate change if we're not addressing the existing housing stock. Climate policy is housing policy.”

Resilience upgrades include measures such as flood-proofing, elevating essential equipment above ground level to prevent disruption to power, and adding battery storage to buildings so residents still have a source of power if the electrical grid goes down.

Protecting residents from extreme heat is another important resilience strategy, Nedwisk adds. This includes adding cool roofs to buildings, for example, in order to reflect sunlight and prevent buildings from getting too hot.

“[I]n many cases, older buildings might not have air conditioning,” Nedwick points out. “And so, in addition to providing incentives for reducing energy consumption, we also need to be providing resources to help building owners upgrade their buildings and install air conditioning to protect residents from extreme heat. We're seeing extreme heat disproportionately impact people of color because they don't live in areas that have invested in and have the infrastructure to protect from rising temperatures.”

Building owners can also access energy efficiency programs offered by local utility companies, which help offset the cost of making building upgrades, Nedwick says. These are important resources for building owners, especially owners of affordable housing, who typically have limited cash flow to pay the upfront cost of major upgrades.

Some cities are also implementing policies such as energy performance standards for buildings, which require owners of poor performing buildings to make upgrades that reduce energy use.

“So, we are seeing both carrots and sticks,” Nedwick says. “I think what works most effectively is when you combine the two. [I]f you're going to have a building energy performance standard and require building owners to make upgrades, especially in affordable housing, providing resources to the owner to actually pay for some of those costs is pretty important.”

Energy efficiency and better weatherization aren’t the whole story, however. Climate change is increasing the danger to buildings from hurricanes, flooding and wildfires. According to Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies, 40% of rental housing stock in the US is at risk of damage from climate disasters.

Most of the country’s older rental housing stock is not built to withstand these impacts, Nedwick says.

“And we see that where there are the greatest risks in terms of potential climate events, those areas of the country are typically disproportionately Black, Hispanic, and low income individuals,” he points out. “So we have to fortify the existing rental housing stock to withstand climate events and protect existing residents.”

“In this country, we spend so much more funding on disaster recovery than we do disaster preparedness,” Nedwick continues. “And we've found that…the disaster recovery funding often doesn't reach renters and owners of rental housing. Typically, disaster recovery programs allocate funding based on the extent of the economic disruption from a climate event, and that often correlates with higher property values. As a result, a lot of the disaster recovery funding, especially through some of the FEMA programs, really [doesn’t] reach affordable housing residents and owners in an equitable way.”

Related: Building high-rises, hotels and stadiums out of wood — for climate's sake

This article is based on an interview by Jenni Doering that aired on Living on Earth from PRX.

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At a camp for internally displaced people in Baidoa, Somalia, Lisho Iman Ali shoved long, thin branches into the hard earth — the foundation of a temporary shelter she was helping to build.

She arrived at the camp three months ago after fleeing her village.

“Because of the drought,” she said. “And because of insecurity.”

As the United Nations warns Somalia is nearing a famine, millions of people like Ali find themselves caught between twin crisies: the worst drought to hit the region in more than 40 years, and ongoing insecurity caused by terrorism.

For more than a decade, Somalia has been fighting against a deadly insurgency of al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda affiliate that controls large swaths of land and wages deadly attacks against civilians and officials alike.

This is creating a challenge for officials and organizations trying to deliver critical aid.

In her village, Ali recalls how al-Shabab militants demanded the she dressed more modestly according to their interpretations of Islam.

“I didn’t have the money for new clothes,” she said.

A family sits outside their makeshift camp for internally displaced people in Baidoa, Somalia. A million people have been dispalced by ongoing drought.

Credit:

Halima Gikandi/The World

Fearing for her safety, and without food, Ali came to this camp for displaced people. But even here, she has struggled to find food or water for her family.

“Maybe I eat once a day,” Ali said. “Sometimes, I have to beg for food.”

Most people at the camp have said they have yet to receive humanitarian aid. Despite a heavy presence of African Union peacekeeping troops in Baidoa, local officials have said al-Shabab is making it difficult to help communities in need.

"Al-Shabab. They are the ones who are causing the humanitarian disaster. Because they are preventing people [from exercising] their livelihood activities, including farming,” said Abdirahman Abdishakur, Somalia’s special presidential envoy for drought.

He added that the group is heavily taxing farmers in rural areas and targeting humanitarian workers.

Earlier this month, al-Shabab militants attacked a truck convoy carrying food supplies in central Somalia, killing 20 people, including women and children.

"It is tragic,” Abdishakur said. “Because people are already suffering the impact of the drought, and they are doubling the suffering.”

Medical workers speak with a patient at a pediatric ward at Banadir Hospital, Mogadishu, Somalia.

Credit:

Halima Gikandi/The World

Since taking office earlier this year, Somalia's new President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has taken a hard line against terrorism. Some humanitarian workers have quietly worried this approach could negatively impact aid delivery. But Abdishakur disagreed.

"Unless we remove that security threat, it is extremely difficult to save those who are dying because of hunger,” he said.

This week, Abdishakur briefed member states of the United Nations about the drought in Somalia, urging for more funding and for sustainable, local solutions.

"Our long-term goal is to break free from this constant cycle of suffering, hunger, and crisis. Billions of dollars have been spent on aid in our country and billions more will be spent until we go beyond emergency measures."

He said Somalia needs investment and financing to help communities become more resilient to climate shocks like droughts, which experts say are becoming more frequent.

In parts of the country, humanitarian organizations have been trying some sustainable approaches on the ground.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, for example, has been assisting agricultural cooperatives in hard-to-reach areas by providing drought-resistant seeds.

"With the drought-resistant seeds we have been distributing, they were able to go back to their land and farms and be able to produce, even in this difficult situation,” the ICRC’s Mohamed Ibrahim said.

But for the 1 million people already displaced by drought, these solutions might be too late.

“Receiving seeds would help,” said Fatuma Osman, a farmer who fled to a camp once her crops failed. “But only if the rains come.”

The upcoming rainy season is projected to fall short for the fifth time in a row.

Related: 'No more food in my village': Aid needed to avert a famine in Somalia

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At the Banadir Hospital in Mogadishu, a couple sat on a cot in the crowded malnutrition ward. Between them, their severely malnourished baby girl lay quietly, her ribs jutting out.

"The lack of food is why she became like this," said Abdel Khadar Ali, the girl's father.

Parents with their child who is malnourished, at Banadir Hospital, Mogadishu. The displaced family lost all their cattle due to drought and have struggled to find food and water.

Credit:

Halima Gikandi/The World

The family came to Mogadishu after the drought killed off their livestock, joining a million others who have been displaced by this crisis.

When they arrived at a camp for internally displaced people on the outskirts of the city, however, they were still unable to find food, water or medicine to help their daughter.

"Malnutrition is increasing since this year, almost doubling," said Dr. Awas Ollo, who runs the pediatric department.

"Drought and disease impact combined together increases the caseload of malnutrition," he said.

The United Nations has said more than 700 children have died of malnourishment centers in Somalia this year. But the number could be higher, especially in hard-to-reach areas.

A new UN report has said parts of the country could experience famine from October to December. This includes Baidoa, where 42-year-old Hawa Ibrahim Bare has come searching for assistance.

"I've been here for three months," said Bare from her makeshift shelter made of plastic, fabric, and sticks.

"There was no more food in my village."

Woman stands in a camp for internally displaced people in Baidoa, Somalia.

Credit:

Halima Gikandi/The World

Normally, Bare and her family survive as farmers, harvesting maize, sorghum, and beans. But the past four consecutive rainy seasons have failed, meaning they haven't been able to plant anything at all.

"We haven't received any help here, " Bare added.

Without humanitarian support, she's had to rely on the good will of others.

In a recent visit to Somalia, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General Martin Griffiths called for a dramatic increase in humanitarian aid and warned that famine was at Somalia's door.

"We will see mass deaths. We'll see it happening to people who haven't been reached if we're not effective and we will see a way of life vanishing before the eyes of the world," he said.

He noted how in recent years, the international community has successfully prevented a repeat of the 2011 famine, which led to the death of an estimated 250,000 people.

But he added that in the long run, Somalia needs solutions to break out of this cycle of drought and humanitarian emergency.

A displaced woman at a camp in Baidoa, Somalia.

Credit:

Halima Gikandi/The World

Back at the camp, Bare lamented the series of environmental crises she has experienced over her lifetime.

"This is my fourth drought," said Bare. "I'm tired."

She said if she gets help from the government or an nongovernmental organization, she will send her kids to school, so they don't have to live as farmers, subject to the whims of an unpredictable environment.

Related: Somalia’s first environment minister aims to alleviate suffering from climate disasters

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As a kid, radio producer Sima Ghadirzadeh spent her summers in one of the hottest places on earth — the desert city of Yazd, Iran.

“Yazd was always to me this mysterious place that had miraculously escaped the process of modernization,” Ghadirzadeh said.

Here, intricate wind-catching towers rise above the alleyways — they're boxy, geometric structures that take in cooler, less dusty air from high above the city and push it down into homes below.

An ab anbar or "water reservoir" with wind catchers (openings near the top of the towers) in the central desert city of Yazd, Iran.

Credit:

Diego Delso/CC BY-SA 4.0/Wikimedia Commons

This 12th-century invention — known as badgir in Persian — remained a reliable form of air-conditioning for Yazd residents for centuries. And as temperatures continue to rise around the world, this ancient way of staying cool has gained renewed attention for its emissions-free and cost-effective design. Wind catchers don’t require electricity or mechanical help to push cold air into a home, just the physical structure of the tower — and the laws of nature. Cold air sinks. Hot air rises.

Ghadirzadeh said she can remember as a child standing underneath one in her uncle’s living room in Yazd.

“Having been outside in the heat, and then suddenly, going inside and being right under the wind catcher and feeling the cool breeze on you, was so mysterious,” Ghadirzadeh said.

Temperatures in Yazd can regularly reach 115 degrees Fahrenheit. But somehow, it was bearable, Ghadirzadeh said. She and her cousins spent their days exploring the city’s shaded alleyways or in the basement. Evenings were spent on the rooftop under the stars. Mornings, back again in the thick-walled rooms and courtyards.

Historians say wind catchers are at least 700 years old. Written records in travelers’ diaries and poems reference the unique cooling structures.

“From the 13th century, we have references to the wind catcher — by some estimates, they were in use in the 10th and 11th centuries,” said Naser Rabbat, director of the Aga Khan program for Islamic architecture at MIT.

Most wind catchers only cooled the air by a few degrees, but the psychological impact was significant, Rabbat said. They soon appeared all over the medieval Muslim world, from the Persian Gulf to the seat of the Mamluk empire in Cairo, where they are called malqaf.

In Iran, the wind catcher is a raised tower that usually opens on four sides because there’s not a dominant wind direction, Rabat said. The ones in Cairo are “extremely simple in form,” usually with a slanted roof and a screen facing the direction of favorable wind, he added.

Over time, wind catchers became symbols of wealth and success, growing increasingly elaborate. Homeowners would install intricate screens to keep out the birds. Water features and courtyard pools could bring the temperature down even more.

“They would even put water jars made out of clay underneath — that would cool the air further,” Rabbat said. “Or, you can put a wet cloth and allow the breeze to filter through, and carry humidity.”

Many of the older techniques that kept life comfortable in the Persian Gulf fell out of favor after World War II, said New York and Beirut-based architect Ziad Jamaleddine. The leaders of these countries commissioned European architects to build cities in their image.

“Partially demolishing or totally erasing the historic urban and dense fabric,” Jamaleddine said.

Those shaded walkways, created by overhanging buildings and angled streets so beloved in historic cities like Yazd, were no longer considered desirable.

“What they did is they substituted it with the gridded urban fabric city we are very familiar with today. Which perhaps, made sense in the cold climate of western Europe,” Jamaleddine said.

But in a place like Kuwait or Abu Dhabi, mass quantities of cool air are necessary to make this type of urban planning comfortable.

Attempts to re-create wind catchers occurred during the oil crisis of the 1970s and 1980s in cities like Doha, where the Qatar University campus incorporates several equally distributed wind towers. But these projects became less common when oil prices returned to normal.

Qatar University campus features new wind catcher design built into the architecture.

Credit:

Sky2105, CC BY-SA 3.0/Wikimedia Commons

Wind catchers are not easy to replicate without a deep understanding of the landscape and environment, Jamaleddine said.

“It’s closely related to the way people live, and how they inhabit a space. It can’t simply be copied.”

Architects call this the principle of “passive solar design.”

Today, air conditioners and fans make up more than 10% of global electricity use, according to the International Energy Agency. The air conditioners are leaking refrigerant into the atmosphere, which acts as a greenhouse gas. And they no longer function when the power goes out — as seen this summer during extreme heat waves across the world.

Architect Sue Roaf thinks it's "almost criminal" to build structures that continue to rely on air-conditioning, knowing its impact on the climate. Roaf focuses on climate-adaptive building and chose to build her home using the same principles of ventilation and insulation that she learned while studying the wind catchers of Yazd.

Strategically placed windows and thick, cave-like walls keep Roaf’s home at a cool 69 degrees Fahrenheit without air-conditioning, even during Britain’s historic heat wave this summer.

“I have a vertical roof up the center of the house, and there’s a roof light that I open up,” Roaf said. “So, you get the stack effect, drawing cooler air or warmer air through the house.”

It’s a passion project that demonstrates what’s possible for building in a warming world.

“The old thinking was more romantic – let us learn from the ancients,” Rabbat said. “The new thinking is [that] we have much more calibratable technology. Why don’t we use it to harvest much more of the energy we can collect?”

For example, mechanical pumps could spray vapor inside, cooling the air the same way the ceramic jugs of water once worked under the wind catchers of Yazd, he said.

Today, Yazd is a bustling city full of motorcycles and high-rise buildings. But video editor Mohamed Bandekhoda said he likes the older parts best.

“Whenever I’m sad or depressed, I go for a walk in the Old City,” he said. “The breeze in the alleys heals you.”

Wind catchers dot the beautiful Yazd skyline, Bandekhoda said, but he’s only seen ones that are restored and open for tourists. He’s never been inside a home with one in use.

“My grandmother’s house, for example, has one — but no one knows where to open it,” Bandekhoda said.

For now, it remains in wait, ready to inspire the next generation of climate-conscious architects.

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When Somalia's new President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud was sworn into office in May, one of his first acts was to formally create a federal Ministry of Environment and Climate Change.

He chose Khadija Mohamed al-Makhzoumi, Somalia's former ambassador to Iraq and Pakistan, to head the department.

While Makhzoumi doesn't come from a science background, she does have experience building institutions from scratch as she grew Somalia's diplomatic presence abroad.

The creation of this ministry comes amid Somalia's worst drought in more than 40 years, and as the United Nations warns that famine is at the door.

"The reason that the president has established this ministry is because of the problem and the situation that people are suffering in Somalia," she said.

"Humanitarian issues and disaster — it's climate change. It's affecting so many areas in Somalia.”

Environmental disasters like drought are not new to Somalia. But some experts are saying a combination of climate change and widespread deforestation is leading to extreme climate events with more frequency.

"The world, they think [the] only problem that Somalia has is security issues," Makhzoumi said.

But the biggest problem in the country now is climate change, she said: "We need to take climate change issues seriously."

One of the first things on Makhzoumi’s to-do list is a fact-finding trip around the country to areas that have been hit worst by environmental crisis, including the current drought, and to raise international awareness.

"Globally, everyone is talking about climate change, but nobody is talking about how Somalia [is] impacted," she said.

"We need to have support in that area," she said, pointing to financing infrastructure projects and overall climate financing that can help Somalis adapt to their changing environment.

"If we don't respond now there will be more disasters and more issues will come up later,” she said.

Related: Drought, high temps in Somalia are pushing people to move to other towns

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly referred to Khadija Mohamed al-Makhzoumi's ambassador territory and also incorrectly attributed the photo credit. It has been corrected.

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Vultures have a pretty bad reputation as ugly scavenger birds. But by feeding on animal carcasses, they stop the spread of human diseases such as anthrax, tuberculosis and rabies.

And that important role is now at risk. Some vultures, such as the white-backed species, are considered critically endangered in southern Africa; they’ve been listed on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's red list of endangered species since 2015.

Vultures in southern Africa are vulnerable to extinction in large part because they are poisoned. The poisoning occurs for various reasons, including the harvesting of their body parts for use in traditional medicine. They may also be killed by farmers or poachers.

The white-backed vulture of southern Africa faces threat of extinction.

Credit:

John Haslam/Wikimedia Commons

Last month, more than 150 white-backed vultures died in a week in separate incidents in Botswana and South Africa.

The vultures in both incidents appear to have been directly targeted for their body parts, according to conservationists.

Linda van den Heever, a vulture specialist with Birdlife South Africa, a nongovernmental organization focused on bird conservation, said that the 100-plus vultures that died in South Africa's Kruger National Park were poisoned.

A buffalo carcass was “snared and then laced with a highly toxic poison,” she said, adding that the vultures had “their heads and feet removed and in some instances, even their organs.”

Poisoning accounts for 60% of vulture mortalities, according to van den Heever. When farmers poison meat to kill predators like jackals and caracals that prey on their livestock, vultures are sometimes unintended victims.

But the intentional poisoning of vultures for their body parts is an age-old practice — one that needs to stop, said Fadzai Matsvimbo of Birdlife Zimbabwe.

“There is the belief that vultures can enhance contact with the ancestors, look into the future and predict results,” Matsvimbo said.

“One can argue that traditional medicine has long been part of African cosmology because it is not a new phenomenon [but] our populations are not what they used to be in the past. We are a growing population, the birds are in decline, it's no longer sustainable for us to be harvesting animal products for traditional medicine.”

Van den Heever said that it’s most devastating when poachers poison carcasses to kill the vultures that feed on them. They do this because vultures give away the position of a poached animal to authorities by circling overhead.

“Poachers don't want vultures circling over carcasses, so they will poach a large mammal and lace it with poison and that can kill hundreds of vultures."

Vultures can also face an early death when they fly into electrical wires and break their bones. They also get electrocuted when they perch on cables and pylons.

A lappet-faced vulture with a broken wing taken in by Victoria Falls Wildlife Trust is now ready to get released back into the wild.

Credit:

ish Mafundikwa/The World

The long reproduction cycle of the white-backed vulture militates against their increase in numbers. They can live up to 20 years, but it takes about eight weeks for an egg to hatch, four months for the fledgling to leave the nest, and seven years to start laying one egg a year.

However, there are some signs the white-backed vulture is determined to stick around.

In April 2021, Roger Parry of Zimbabwe’s Victoria Falls Wildlife Trust, drove around a white-backed vulture nest colony that he has monitored for several years. He said there had been a 16% increase in nests compared to the year before.

“It is quite positive, but we need to watch it quite closely,” he said.

And in South Africa, van den Heever said there has been an increase in the number of Cape vultures over the years.

“Species like the Cape vulture were also declining quite steadily in the last couple of decades, but they seem to be stabilizing,” she said.

In the absence of a scientific explanation, she speculated that maybe they have adapted well to human encroachment and livestock farming, or unlike the white-backs, they may be less vulnerable to mass-poisoning incidents.

These wins are important, but unless mass deaths like those in Botswana and South Africa are stopped, the future of vultures in southern Africa remains precarious.

Laws protect vultures in Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe, where killing a vulture can land one in jail for up to three years or a more than $2,000 fine.

But enforcing these laws can be elusive.

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Unusually heavy monsoon rains have caused severe flooding in Pakistan, affecting more than 33 million people. At least 1,300 people have died and millions of others have lost their homes.

Many experts are blaming the situation on climate change. The nation’s climate minister, Sherry Rehman, described the situation as a "climate-induced humanitarian disaster of epic proportions.”

“There's definitely, for the first time, a consistent story in Pakistan that the multiple causes of flooding are largely driven by climate change,” said Huma Yusuf, a columnist for the Dawn newspaper. She is also the host of "Climate Mahaul," a podcast focused on climate change.

For the first time, she said, Pakistanis are "starting to see the link between climate change and these kinds of natural disasters.”

Yusuf explained that glacial melt from the Himalayas — which have been referred to as the "Third Pole," after the North and South Poles, are also adding to the problem.

Himalayan glaciers are melting at a much faster pace than anyone had really appreciated to date, she said, referring to research that came out last year.

“The ice sheets in the Himalayas have shrunk 10 times faster in the last 40 years than they have in the several centuries before that. And obviously, this kind of rapid ice melt has been contributing to flooding in recent years.”

Similar floods partially linked to glacial melt also occured in 2010. But this year’s flood has been described as "biblical" in proportions, she said.

“It was the kind of doomsday scenario that we thought would happen one day, maybe in the 22nd or 23rd centuries, and yet it is, it's all around us in Pakistan.”

Yusuf said that Pakistan recognizes it can not meet its climate commitments set at COP26 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions without some kind of financial assistance and that ideally, that would come in the form of debt relief from more developed countries or the International Monetary Fund.

Temporary housing is constructed for flood victims in Hyderabad, Pakistan, Sept. 6, 2022.

Credit:

Pervez Masih/AP

But there’s work to be done at home, too.

“I think Pakistanis will be the first to acknowledge that some of the work is with us,” Yusuf said, adding there’s a need for better governance overall around how to organize evacuations. There's also a need for improved infrastructure development, including more intelligent highway design and construction regulations in flood-prone areas.

“Ultimately, if you look at the scale of these floods … this has to be seen as the whole world's problem,” she said.

AP contributed to this report.

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People living in the Chinese megacity of Chongqing and surrounding areas have suffered through a summer of power cuts, drought and temperatures topping 113 degrees Fahrenheit.

To make matters worse, a recent rise in COVID-19 cases has meant that people have to stand outside in long lines for mandatory testing.

With air conditioning restricted, public health workers and office workers have been using giant slabs of ice to cool off. The region has endured more than 70 days of sweltering heat, the country’s longest heat wave on record.

In Chongqing — a city of 31 million people — caves and World War II bomb shelters have been transformed into popular spots for people to escape the heat. Supermarkets have also been refuges from the heat, where elderly people have brought their own chairs to camp out in the air conditioning. Some people took to swimming pools to play mahjong. Parents who can afford it moved into hotels so their kids could sleep better at night.

Parts of Chongqing went dark because of power rationing. Videos on social media showed people riding eerily dark subways, lit up only by their bright cell phone screens. In another major city, Chengdu, malls were forced to cut the escalators and air conditioning.

Power shortages shut down many electric vehicle charging stations. A video on social media showed a taxi driver waiting in line to charge his car. “I’ve been waiting for four or five hours,” he said.

The heat and drought have caused other major problems. Last week, Chongqing residents cheered on volunteers fighting forest fires that were spreading through the mountains surrounding the city. Nighttime images of the fires made the mountains look like a bubbling volcano.

Chongqing resident Simeng Shi, who lives nearby, has been monitoring the situation.

“The fire alert is still very high,” she said after the blazes had been extinguished.

“The temperature has lowered, but that doesn’t mean that the fire alert is not there. If the rain does not come, it’s very easy to start a fire again, so everyone is still watching.”

Earlier this week, people were waiting for long-awaited rain.

But now there’s the new concern of flooding. The government has already begun taking action. On Tuesday, more than 100,000 people were evacuated from flooded areas in Sichuan Province.

Experts say that even though China’s record-long heat wave has ended, the effects may be felt for a long time.

The drought has led to hydropower shortages, so now coal usage has gone up. And the government is warning that autumn harvests are under “severe threat” because of the parched landscape.

Scott Moore, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, who has written books on China’s water policy and sustainable technology, said China might have to look outside the country for certain crops.

“It’s probably going to lead to an increase in imports, particularly of grains and staple crops, which is probably going to place upward pressure on global food prices,” he said.

But he said the biggest takeaway is that this summer should be a wake-up call — not just for China, but for people around the world.

“Whatever we’re doing on climate, it’s not enough and we need to do a lot more and a lot faster,” he said.

“For China, this is a heat wave from hell, right, but this is something we’re facing at less than 2 degrees [Celsius] of warming. We’re currently on track for 4 [degrees], so … think about that.”

That’s a frightening prospect that experts say hasn’t quite sunk in for many people in China.

Related: In the north of Mexico, water cuts to cope with shortages hit poor communities hardest

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People living in the Chinese megacity of Chongqing and surrounding areas have suffered through a summer of power cuts, drought and temperatures topping 113 degrees Fahrenheit.

To make matters worse, a recent rise in COVID-19 cases has meant that people have to stand outside in long lines for mandatory testing.

With air conditioning restricted, public health workers and office workers have been using giant slabs of ice to cool off. The region has endured more than 70 days of sweltering heat, the country’s longest heat wave on record.

In Chongqing — a city of 31 million people — caves and World War II bomb shelters have been transformed into popular spots for people to escape the heat. Supermarkets have also been refuges from the heat, where elderly people have brought their own chairs to camp out in the air conditioning. Some people took to swimming pools to play mahjong. Parents who can afford it moved into hotels so their kids could sleep better at night.

Parts of Chongqing went dark because of power rationing. Videos on social media showed people riding eerily dark subways, lit up only by their bright cell phone screens. In another major city, Chengdu, malls were forced to cut the escalators and air conditioning.

Power shortages shut down many electric vehicle charging stations. A video on social media showed a taxi driver waiting in line to charge his car. “I’ve been waiting for four or five hours,” he said.

The heat and drought have caused other major problems. Last week, Chongqing residents cheered on volunteers fighting forest fires that were spreading through the mountains surrounding the city. Nighttime images of the fires made the mountains look like a bubbling volcano.

Chongqing resident Simeng Shi, who lives nearby, has been monitoring the situation.

“The fire alert is still very high,” she said after the blazes had been extinguished.

“The temperature has lowered, but that doesn’t mean that the fire alert is not there. If the rain does not come, it’s very easy to start a fire again, so everyone is still watching.”

Earlier this week, people were waiting for long-awaited rain.

But now there’s the new concern of flooding. The government has already begun taking action. On Tuesday, more than 100,000 people were evacuated from flooded areas in Sichuan Province.

Experts say that even though China’s record-long heat wave has ended, the effects may be felt for a long time.

The drought has led to hydropower shortages, so now coal usage has gone up. And the government is warning that autumn harvests are under “severe threat” because of the parched landscape.

Scott Moore, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, who has written books on China’s water policy and sustainable technology, said China might have to look outside the country for certain crops.

“It’s probably going to lead to an increase in imports, particularly of grains and staple crops, which is probably going to place upward pressure on global food prices,” he said.

But he said the biggest takeaway is that this summer should be a wake-up call — not just for China, but for people around the world.

“Whatever we’re doing on climate, it’s not enough and we need to do a lot more and a lot faster,” he said.

“For China, this is a heat wave from hell, right, but this is something we’re facing at less than 2 degrees [Celsius] of warming. We’re currently on track for 4 [degrees], so … think about that.”

That’s a frightening prospect that experts say hasn’t quite sunk in for many people in China.

Related: In the north of Mexico, water cuts to cope with shortages hit poor communities hardest

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This analysis was featured in Critical State, a weekly foreign policy newsletter from Inkstick Media. Subscribe here.

Wherever disaster strikes, it risks becoming a political crisis. This is partly because natural disasters are shaped and exacerbated by the policy choices of the government in place before the disaster. But it is also because the specific form and scope of a disaster can change or exacerbate the means and motivations of groups predisposed to resistance. In countries where armed resistance to the central government predates the disaster, the disaster can break the viability of armed groups. Or, it can spur more of the dispossessed and disaffected to join their ranks.

In “When Disasters Hit Civil Wars: Natural Resource Exploitation and Rebel Group Resilience,” authors Yasutaka Tominaga and Chia-yi Lee look at the variation in rebel survival after disaster, and find an explanation directly linked to how those groups sustained themselves before catastrophe.

One of the reasons to look at rebel group relationships to resources is that it can offer clarity in otherwise confounding situations. The authors specifically highlight how rebel groups in the same country and subject to the same disaster can respond differently, noting that “after the 2012 typhoon in the Philippines, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front cooperated with the government during relief operations but the NPA remained hostile to the government.”

Rebel groups can often sustain themselves beyond the reaches of state power and repression by guarding, collecting, controlling, and selling natural resources.

Rebel groups can often sustain themselves beyond the reaches of state power and repression by guarding, collecting, controlling, and selling natural resources, everything from oil to diamond mines to opium fields. These resources are not evenly distributed, and access to them can and often does change drastically after a disaster. A mine might collapse, oil derricks may break, and crops could be washed away.

While disaster impacts the production of resources, not all rebel groups derive funding in the same way. The authors find that groups which smuggle resources are more resilient than those that tax or control directly. Direct control of resource extraction lends itself to a fixed territory and hierarchical structure, whereas transporting resources across a wider area leaves smugglers less hierarchical, more resilient, and able to take advantage of price shocks after production collapses in disaster.

The disaster itself is a disruption to production, but so is the intrusion of the state into rebel-contested areas, as both military and relief operations can reassert control and rebind captive populations to the central government.

“Relying on stable resource exploitation strategies such as extortion puts rebels at risk when unexpected shocks occur, as their single and steady source of funding can be easily disrupted,” the authors write. “Rebel groups that earn money from ad-hoc strategies of resource exploitation such as smuggling are more robust in the face of natural disasters.”

Resilience in the face of disaster is often seen as a civil task, one focused on the general benefit of people after tragedy. This time is also a moment of political reformation, especially in light of ongoing conflicts with armed groups. Understanding what makes armed groups vulnerable, and what makes them resilient, can help governments respond to crises. Given a warming planet and increasing disruption to patterns of life, knowing the shape of rebel movements to come can help states preempt them before a crisis.

Related: Imagining empire: Part II

Critical State is your weekly fix of foreign policy analysis from the staff at Inkstick Media. Subscribe here.

View Details

This analysis was featured in Critical State, a weekly foreign policy newsletter from Inkstick Media. Subscribe here.

Wherever disaster strikes, it risks becoming a political crisis. This is partly because natural disasters are shaped and exacerbated by the policy choices of the government in place before the disaster. But it is also because the specific form and scope of a disaster can change or exacerbate the means and motivations of groups predisposed to resistance. In countries where armed resistance to the central government predates the disaster, the disaster can break the viability of armed groups. Or, it can spur more of the dispossessed and disaffected to join their ranks.

In “When Disasters Hit Civil Wars: Natural Resource Exploitation and Rebel Group Resilience,” authors Yasutaka Tominaga and Chia-yi Lee look at the variation in rebel survival after disaster, and find an explanation directly linked to how those groups sustained themselves before catastrophe.

One of the reasons to look at rebel group relationships to resources is that it can offer clarity in otherwise confounding situations. The authors specifically highlight how rebel groups in the same country and subject to the same disaster can respond differently, noting that “after the 2012 typhoon in the Philippines, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front cooperated with the government during relief operations but the NPA remained hostile to the government.”

Rebel groups can often sustain themselves beyond the reaches of state power and repression by guarding, collecting, controlling, and selling natural resources.

Rebel groups can often sustain themselves beyond the reaches of state power and repression by guarding, collecting, controlling, and selling natural resources, everything from oil to diamond mines to opium fields. These resources are not evenly distributed, and access to them can and often does change drastically after a disaster. A mine might collapse, oil derricks may break, and crops could be washed away.

While disaster impacts the production of resources, not all rebel groups derive funding in the same way. The authors find that groups which smuggle resources are more resilient than those that tax or control directly. Direct control of resource extraction lends itself to a fixed territory and hierarchical structure, whereas transporting resources across a wider area leaves smugglers less hierarchical, more resilient, and able to take advantage of price shocks after production collapses in disaster.

The disaster itself is a disruption to production, but so is the intrusion of the state into rebel-contested areas, as both military and relief operations can reassert control and rebind captive populations to the central government.

“Relying on stable resource exploitation strategies such as extortion puts rebels at risk when unexpected shocks occur, as their single and steady source of funding can be easily disrupted,” the authors write. “Rebel groups that earn money from ad-hoc strategies of resource exploitation such as smuggling are more robust in the face of natural disasters.”

Resilience in the face of disaster is often seen as a civil task, one focused on the general benefit of people after tragedy. This time is also a moment of political reformation, especially in light of ongoing conflicts with armed groups. Understanding what makes armed groups vulnerable, and what makes them resilient, can help governments respond to crises. Given a warming planet and increasing disruption to patterns of life, knowing the shape of rebel movements to come can help states preempt them before a crisis.

Related: Imagining empire: Part II

Critical State is your weekly fix of foreign policy analysis from the staff at Inkstick Media. Subscribe here.

View Details

Water is in short supply in Monterrey, Mexico. Extreme heat and drought have left three dams that serve the city of nearly 5 million people, practically empty.

Even the rain that is expected over the next few months won’t be enough to solve the problem, experts warn.

Authorities have been restricting the city’s water supply since March, in order to ration the dwindling supply. But water cuts seem to be impacting low-income neighborhoods more than wealthier areas.

Brenda Sánchez, a school teacher in Monterrey, lives with her three kids in a poor area of the city known as Poniente, about 2 1/2 hours south of the Texas border.

She said the government had a rationing plan in place to have access to water on a regular basis, but that it’s rarely put into practice where she lives.

“We were supposed to have water for six hours a day during the mornings, but it never happens,” she said. “We’ve had up to six weeks without any running water at home," she said.

In her neighborhood, she said, people line up for hours to receive water rations from delivery trucks. “We have to choose between going to work or waiting for the water,” she said.

This is what life has become for many people in Monterrey.

People in the Colonia Valle de Lincoln, in the area of Poniente, Monterrey, line up to get water from the delivery truck.

Credit:

Courtesy of Brenda Sanchez

But that's not everyone's experience.

Sánchez started noticing that in some wealthier neighborhoods, water cuts seemed less frequent, or not occurring at all.

She mentioned it to her brother-in-law, Antonio Hernández, who is a biologist and researcher in Monterrey. So, he started investigating.

He visited the municipality of San Pedro Garza García, where the governor of Nuevo León, Samuel García, lives. It is one of the wealthiest municipalities in the state of Nuevo León, and in all of Mexico.

He asked people there if their water had been cut off, and was surprised to hear that most of them said that access had not been affected.

“I found a few people relaxing in a pool. A big pool,” he said.

Water cuts in Monterrey, Mexico, seem to be impacting less wealthy communities while wealthier ones are not experiencing as many water cuts.

Credit:

Courtesy of Brenda Sanchez

Hernández scanned the area using satellites and found green gardens and more than 600 swimming pools full of water.

“It was disturbing,” he said, "to see these people without any water restrictions, and then [comparing] it to the situation of members of my own family who don’t have any running water.”

In Monterrey, water distribution is the responsibility of Water and Sewage, a state agency. The agency's head, Juan Ignacio Barragán, confirmed the unequal distribution of water throughout the city.

“Historically, wealthy people have chosen to live close to the sources of water, so they don’t face this problem,” he said.

Supplying water to areas that are far from the reservoirs is an ongoing challenge, Barragán said. These areas have also seen a growth in population, he added.

Barragán said the government has started a program to regulate water pressure. The idea is to conserve water that they can then pump to underserved communities. He also said that the agency is working to improve its outdated pipeline infrastructure.

But another problem is water concessions to private industries, like beer and soft drink bottlers.

José Antonio Benjamín Ordoñez Díaz, a researcher and environmentalist at the Monterrey Technology Institute and Higher Education, said the state of Nuevo León, where Monterrey is located, is a very dry area that historically has suffered from water scarcity.

It's a city that should not have so many industries that use extremely high amounts of water, he said.

Barragan said that only 4% of the water of the state of Nuevo León goes to private companies. But Ordoñez Díaz pointed out that this represents 19% of Monterrey’s total water supply.

Authorities have been calling on these industries to share the water that the government granted decades ago. Oftentimes, their water usage goes unchecked.

But cutting water to these companies can generate another problem, Barragan said.

“We would have a job crisis.”

Brenda Sanchez, the teacher in Poniente, said that water should be prioritized for human consumption in Monterrey.

“I understand that we have limitations right now, but we all should have the same limitations and the same right to use this vital resource,” she said.

Related: Conservationists focus on community reforestation efforts to save Mexico’s wetlands

View Details

Water is in short supply in Monterrey, Mexico. Extreme heat and drought have left three dams that serve the city of nearly 5 million people, practically empty.

Even the rain that is expected over the next few months won’t be enough to solve the problem, experts warn.

Authorities have been restricting the city’s water supply since March, in order to ration the dwindling supply. But water cuts seem to be impacting low-income neighborhoods more than wealthier areas.

Brenda Sánchez, a school teacher in Monterrey, lives with her three kids in a poor area of the city known as Poniente, about 2 1/2 hours south of the Texas border.

She said the government had a rationing plan in place to have access to water on a regular basis, but that it’s rarely put into practice where she lives.

“We were supposed to have water for six hours a day during the mornings, but it never happens,” she said. “We’ve had up to six weeks without any running water at home," she said.

In her neighborhood, she said, people line up for hours to receive water rations from delivery trucks. “We have to choose between going to work or waiting for the water,” she said.

This is what life has become for many people in Monterrey.

People in the Colonia Valle de Lincoln, in the area of Poniente, Monterrey, line up to get water from the delivery truck.

Credit:

Courtesy of Brenda Sanchez

But that's not everyone's experience.

Sánchez started noticing that in some wealthier neighborhoods, water cuts seemed less frequent, or not occurring at all.

She mentioned it to her brother-in-law, Antonio Hernández, who is a biologist and researcher in Monterrey. So, he started investigating.

He visited the municipality of San Pedro Garza García, where the governor of Nuevo León, Samuel García, lives. It is one of the wealthiest municipalities in the state of Nuevo León, and in all of Mexico.

He asked people there if their water had been cut off, and was surprised to hear that most of them said that access had not been affected.

“I found a few people relaxing in a pool. A big pool,” he said.

Water cuts in Monterrey, Mexico, seem to be impacting less wealthy communities while wealthier ones are not experiencing as many water cuts.

Credit:

Courtesy of Brenda Sanchez

Hernández scanned the area using satellites and found green gardens and more than 600 swimming pools full of water.

“It was disturbing,” he said, "to see these people without any water restrictions, and then [comparing] it to the situation of members of my own family who don’t have any running water.”

In Monterrey, water distribution is the responsibility of Water and Sewage, a state agency. The agency's head, Juan Ignacio Barragán, confirmed the unequal distribution of water throughout the city.

“Historically, wealthy people have chosen to live close to the sources of water, so they don’t face this problem,” he said.

Supplying water to areas that are far from the reservoirs is an ongoing challenge, Barragán said. These areas have also seen a growth in population, he added.

Barragán said the government has started a program to regulate water pressure. The idea is to conserve water that they can then pump to underserved communities. He also said that the agency is working to improve its outdated pipeline infrastructure.

But another problem is water concessions to private industries, like beer and soft drink bottlers.

José Antonio Benjamín Ordoñez Díaz, a researcher and environmentalist at the Monterrey Technology Institute and Higher Education, said the state of Nuevo León, where Monterrey is located, is a very dry area that historically has suffered from water scarcity.

It's a city that should not have so many industries that use extremely high amounts of water, he said.

Barragan said that only 4% of the water of the state of Nuevo León goes to private companies. But Ordoñez Díaz pointed out that this represents 19% of Monterrey’s total water supply.

Authorities have been calling on these industries to share the water that the government granted decades ago. Oftentimes, their water usage goes unchecked.

But cutting water to these companies can generate another problem, Barragan said.

“We would have a job crisis.”

Brenda Sanchez, the teacher in Poniente, said that water should be prioritized for human consumption in Monterrey.

“I understand that we have limitations right now, but we all should have the same limitations and the same right to use this vital resource,” she said.

Related: Conservationists focus on community reforestation efforts to save Mexico’s wetlands

View Details

Hurricane Ida killed dozens of Lousianans and displaced tens of thousands of others. Among the hardest hit were bilingual and French-speaking communities close to the Mississippi Delta.

Alces Adams lives halfway between New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico in the small community of Cut Off in Lafourche Parish. Hurricane Ida destroyed his trailer.

People in this part of Louisiana — bayou country — have long learned to live under adverse weather conditions. But things have gotten much worse in recent years. Rising sea levels, erosion and storm after storm have flooded entire communities. For some French speakers, Hurricane Ida was the last straw, and now many are moving away.

A year after Ida, Adams' trailer looks just as it did the day after the storm — twisted and torn apart with furniture spilling out, as if attacked by a pack of wild animals. Next to it is a new trailer, Adams’ temporary home provided by FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Alces Adams in front of what is left of his trailer, Cut Off, Louisiana.

Credit:

Courtesy of Julia Kumari Drapkin

Adams was born a block away in his grandparents’ house. His family’s older generation spoke only French. Adams said his grandmother learned English, but refused to speak it, except for one word: “Yeah.”

“English was forced on us about 100 years ago,” Adams said. That’s when English was declared the only language of instruction in public schools.

Adams recalled listening to his older relatives as they told him stories in French. Even then, he said, he considered the language beautiful. “I loved listening to that.”

Adams’ grandmother and others told him stories of storms and floods they had survived. It helped prepare him — still a child — when Hurricane Betsy battered the region in 1965.

“I was thinking of getting a sash or vest or something: ‘I survived Betsy, Katrina, Ida,’" Adams said. “All the monsters that I survived."

Adams doesn’t know what’s next for him. He comes from a long line of Cajuns who he said were compelled to move from one place to another, to escape poverty or discrimination, or hurricanes and flooding.

The French language has been a constant in all of this generational change. Adams knows that each time a French speaker moves away, it’s another micro-blow to the survival of French in southern Louisiana.

Tulane University linguist Nathalie Dajko and Alces Adams in a storage unit containing Alces’ possessions, Cut Off, Louisiana.

Credit:

Courtesy of Julia Kumari Drapkin

Tulane University linguist Nathalie Dajko has been tracking the decline of French in Lafourche and neighboring Terrebonne Parishes for nearly 20 years. She was in graduate school at Tulane when Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. It left hundreds of thousands of people homeless. Some even ended up in camps that were scattered across several southern states. Dajko visited a few of the camps as part of a gig she had with Save the Children, a nongovernmental organization.

“Every now and again, we'd come across these French speakers,” Dajko said.

“They would be so excited to meet somebody who spoke French, and they would talk about how they missed the French.”

They told Dajko about constantly moving, about the language dying and the land eroding. She came to understand the strength of their attachment to the land.

After that, she began visiting French speakers still living in bayou country. She recorded their conversations as part of a research project that eventually became a book, “French on Shifting Ground,” about the double loss of language and land.

Louisiana French isn’t standard Parisian French. But French has had longstanding roots in the region after France claimed it in 1682. With the area drawing French speakers, the language gained a foothold. It even spread to local Indigenous tribes in the 1700s. They’d formed protective alliances with the colonial French against the British. Some of their descendants still speak French, especially those who live closer to the ocean — and the floods and storms.

Across a causeway from one of the larger bayous in Terrebonne Parish is an island called Isle de Jean Charles. Abandoned dwellings are everywhere: collapsed walls, caved-in roofs, debris. A couple of the houses are being fixed up. But most aren’t.

Near the end of the road, a house with a sign outside says, “Isle de Jean Charles is not dead. Climate change sucks.” Chris Brunet, who answered the door in a wheelchair, said he spoke French at home and English at school. Like Alces Adams, Brunet’s grandmother only spoke French; his parents were bilingual. Everyone living on the island was a member of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw tribe.

Chris Brunet outside his home, Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana.

Credit:

Courtesy of Julia Kumari Drapkin

Brunet said he’s always lived on Isle de Jean Charles, even as most others left.

“Hurricane Ida is the first storm to damage the house,” he said, pointing out his damaged roof. “But it’s still standing and it’s repairable.”

It’s one of the few salvageable dwellings here. Most are, as Brunet put it, “gone.”

Also likely to be gone soon is this entire island. In the past 65 years, Isle de Jean Charles has shrunk from 22,000 acres to just 320.

It’s not just the storms. There are many reasons why the land is vanishing: rising sea levels, the rerouting of the Mississippi river — some of it natural, some engineered — canal construction, land erosion, some of that caused by oil and gas extraction. Then there’s the levee system, expanded after Hurricane Katrina: a life-saver for those living within it; potentially catastrophic if you’re on the outside of it.

That’s why Brunet, and almost everyone else on the island, is leaving, with federal government assistance, to a city 35 miles inland where virtually no one speaks French.

“If I had to predict, I would suggest that people are not going to maintain French,” linguist Nathalie Dajko said.

That’s the usual pattern when a community is forced to move, Dajko added. As closely as they may stick together in their new home, they’re leaving a place — an isolated place — that holds strong associations with the French language.

Still, Dajko has studied these French and bilingual communities for close to two decades, and said they’re full of surprises.

“People have been predicting the death of Louisiana French for generations and it just won't die,” she said. “You cannot predict what people are going to do. They're worse than predicting the weather. They always do something you don't expect.”

Dajko clings to this sliver of hope. Indeed, it is the hope of many in the region that the French language will survive the floods of bayou country.

For more on the French speakers of southern Louisiana, listen to this episode of "Subtitle," a podcast about languages and the people who speak them. "Subtitle" is supported by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

View Details

Hurricane Ida killed dozens of Lousianans and displaced tens of thousands of others. Among the hardest hit were bilingual and French-speaking communities close to the Mississippi Delta.

Alces Adams lives halfway between New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico in the small community of Cut Off in Lafourche Parish. Hurricane Ida destroyed his trailer.

People in this part of Louisiana — bayou country — have long learned to live under adverse weather conditions. But things have gotten much worse in recent years. Rising sea levels, erosion and storm after storm have flooded entire communities. For some French speakers, Hurricane Ida was the last straw, and now many are moving away.

A year after Ida, Adams' trailer looks just as it did the day after the storm — twisted and torn apart with furniture spilling out, as if attacked by a pack of wild animals. Next to it is a new trailer, Adams’ temporary home provided by FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Alces Adams in front of what is left of his trailer, Cut Off, Louisiana.

Credit:

Patrick Cox/The World

Adams was born a block away in his grandparents’ house. His family’s older generation spoke only French. Adams said his grandmother learned English, but refused to speak it, except for one word: “Yeah.”

“English was forced on us about 100 years ago,” Adams said. That’s when English was declared the only language of instruction in public schools.

Adams recalled listening to his older relatives as they told him stories in French. Even then, he said, he considered the language beautiful. “I loved listening to that.”

Adams’ grandmother and others told him stories of storms and floods they had survived. It helped prepare him — still a child — when Hurricane Betsy battered the region in 1965.

“I was thinking of getting a sash or vest or something: ‘I survived Betsy, Katrina, Ida,’" Adams said. “All the monsters that I survived."

Adams doesn’t know what’s next for him. He comes from a long line of Cajuns who he said were compelled to move from one place to another, to escape poverty or discrimination, or hurricanes and flooding.

The French language has been a constant in all of this generational change. Adams knows that each time a French speaker moves away, it’s another micro-blow to the survival of French in southern Louisiana.

Tulane University linguist Nathalie Dajko and Alces Adams in a storage unit containing Alces’ possessions, Cut Off, Louisiana.

Credit:

Patrick Cox/The World

Tulane University linguist Nathalie Dajko has been tracking the decline of French in Lafourche and neighboring Terrebonne Parishes for nearly 20 years. She was in graduate school at Tulane when Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. It left hundreds of thousands of people homeless. Some even ended up in camps that were scattered across several southern states. Dajko visited a few of the camps as part of a gig she had with Save the Children, a nongovernmental organization.

“Every now and again, we'd come across these French speakers,” Dajko said.

“They would be so excited to meet somebody who spoke French, and they would talk about how they missed the French.”

They told Dajko about constantly moving, about the language dying and the land eroding. She came to understand the strength of their attachment to the land.

After that, she began visiting French speakers still living in bayou country. She recorded their conversations as part of a research project that eventually became a book, “French on Shifting Ground,” about the double loss of language and land.

Louisiana French isn’t standard Parisian French. But French has had longstanding roots in the region after France claimed it in 1682. With the area drawing French speakers, the language gained a foothold. It even spread to local Indigenous tribes in the 1700s. They’d formed protective alliances with the colonial French against the British. Some of their descendants still speak French, especially those who live closer to the ocean — and the floods and storms.

Across a causeway from one of the larger bayous in Terrebonne Parish is an island called Isle de Jean Charles. Abandoned dwellings are everywhere: collapsed walls, caved-in roofs, debris. A couple of the houses are being fixed up. But most aren’t.

Near the end of the road, a house with a sign outside says, “Isle de Jean Charles is not dead. Climate change sucks.” Chris Brunet, who answered the door in a wheelchair, said he spoke French at home and English at school. Like Alces Adams, Brunet’s grandmother only spoke French; his parents were bilingual. Everyone living on the island was a member of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw tribe.

Chris Brunet outside his home, Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana.

Credit:

Patrick Cox/The World

Brunet said he’s always lived on Isle de Jean Charles, even as most others left.

“Hurricane Ida is the first storm to damage the house,” he said, pointing out his damaged roof. “But it’s still standing and it’s repairable.”

It’s one of the few salvageable dwellings here. Most are, as Brunet put it, “gone.”

Also likely to be gone soon is this entire island. In the past 65 years, Isle de Jean Charles has shrunk from 22,000 acres to just 320.

It’s not just the storms. There are many reasons why the land is vanishing: rising sea levels, the rerouting of the Mississippi river — some of it natural, some engineered — canal construction, land erosion, some of that caused by oil and gas extraction. Then there’s the levee system, expanded after Hurricane Katrina: a life-saver for those living within it; potentially catastrophic if you’re on the outside of it.

That’s why Brunet, and almost everyone else on the island, is leaving, with federal government assistance, to a city 35 miles inland where virtually no one speaks French.

“If I had to predict, I would suggest that people are not going to maintain French,” linguist Nathalie Dajko said.

That’s the usual pattern when a community is forced to move, Dajko added. As closely as they may stick together in their new home, they’re leaving a place — an isolated place — that holds strong associations with the French language.

Still, Dajko has studied these French and bilingual communities for close to two decades, and said they’re full of surprises.

“People have been predicting the death of Louisiana French for generations and it just won't die,” she said. “You cannot predict what people are going to do. They're worse than predicting the weather. They always do something you don't expect.”

Dajko clings to this sliver of hope. Indeed, it is the hope of many in the region that the French language will survive the floods of bayou country.

For more on the French speakers of southern Louisiana, listen to this episode of "Subtitle," a podcast about languages and the people who speak them. "Subtitle" is supported by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

View Details

International aid was reaching Pakistan on Monday, as the military and volunteers desperately tried to evacuate many thousands stranded by widespread flooding driven by “monster monsoons” that have claimed more than 1,000 lives this summer.

Cargo planes from Turkey and the United Arab Emirates began the international rush to assist the impoverished nation, landing on Sunday in Islamabad carrying tents, food and other daily necessities. Trucks carrying tents, food, and water arranged by Pakistan were also being dispatched to various parts of the country by the National Disaster Management Authority for tens of thousands of flood victims.

They were among the nations that pledged to help Pakistan tackle the crisis after officials called for international help. The United Nations will launch an international appeal for Pakistani flood victims on Tuesday in Islamabad.

Prime Minister Shabaz Sharif on Monday said the rains are the heaviest Pakistan has seen in three decades.

“I saw floodwater everywhere, wherever I went in recent days and even today,” Sharif said in Charsadda, one of the devastated towns. He said the planes carrying aid from some countries have already reached Pakistan, and he predicted more.

Sharif has said the government would provide housing to all those who lost their homes.

However, many people displaced by floods say they not only lost their homes but their crops and small shops, as well.

“I am sitting with my family in a tent, and how can I go out to work? Even if I go out in search of a job, who will give me any job as there is water everywhere," asked Rehmat Ullah, a flood victim in Charsadda in the northwest.

Zarina Bibi, another flood victim, said soldiers evacuated her by boat.

“We were given a tent and food by soldiers and volunteers," she said. Bibi cried when she said her house had collapsed in floods. “Floodwater will recede soon, but we have no money to rebuild our home," she said.

Rehan Ali, 24, a laborer in the country's southern Sindh province, reported a similar ordeal.

He said he cannot rebuild his home without government help, and right now he was unable to work to get food for his family. So, Ali said, he was relying on donatons.

The exceptionally heavy monsoon rains that triggered flash floods across the country have affected 33 million Pakistanis, damaged nearly 1 million homes and killed at least 1,061 people.

Pakistani authorities say this year's devastation is worse than in 2010, when floods killed 1,700 people. Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, the country's military chief, said Sunday that his country may take years to recover. He appealed to Pakistanis living abroad to generously donate to the flood victims.

Floods and rains have caused devastation in Pakistan at a time when the country is facing one of the worst economic crises. Pakistan says it recently narrowly avoided a default, and later Monday IMF's executive board was expected to approve the release of the much-awaited $1.7 billion for this Islamic nation.

Pakistan and the IMF originally signed the bailout accord in 2019. But the release of a $1.7 billion tranche has been on hold since earlier this year, when the IMF expressed concern about Pakistan’s compliance with the deal’s terms under former Prime Minister Imran Khan's government.

Khan was also expected to launch a fundraising campaign Monday evening for flood victims.

Last week, the United Nations in a statement said that it has allocated $3 million for UN aid agencies and their partners in Pakistan to respond to the floods and this money will be used for health, nutrition, food security, and water and sanitation services in flood-affected areas, focusing on the most vulnerable.

Sherry Rehman, Pakistan's climate minister, has described the unusual rainfall as a “monster monsoon." She says Pakistan suffered heavier rains this year mainly because of climate change, which also caused fire in forests.

However, critics say Pakistan's government has hardly any interest in building new dams and water reservoirs.

The unprecedented monsoon season has affected all four of the country’s provinces. Floods have destroyed more than 150 bridges and numerous roads have been washed away, making rescue operations difficult. Authorities say they were using military planes, helicopters, trucks and boats to evacuate people from marooned people and deliver much-need aid to them.

However, many survivors complain they were still waiting for help or they received too little assistance from the government after being displaced because of floods. Some people say they got tents but not food. Pakistan charities were also active in flood-hit areas, and the government says everyone should contribute to help flood victims.

The government has deployed at least 6,500 soldiers to help civilian authorities in rescue and relief operations across the country.

By Associated Press writer Munir Ahmed. AP writers Mohammad Farooq from Shikar Pur, Sindh and Riaz Khan from Peshawar contributed to this story.

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International aid was reaching Pakistan on Monday, as the military and volunteers desperately tried to evacuate many thousands stranded by widespread flooding driven by “monster monsoons” that have claimed more than 1,000 lives this summer.

Cargo planes from Turkey and the United Arab Emirates began the international rush to assist the impoverished nation, landing on Sunday in Islamabad carrying tents, food and other daily necessities. Trucks carrying tents, food, and water arranged by Pakistan were also being dispatched to various parts of the country by the National Disaster Management Authority for tens of thousands of flood victims.

They were among the nations that pledged to help Pakistan tackle the crisis after officials called for international help. The United Nations will launch an international appeal for Pakistani flood victims on Tuesday in Islamabad.

Prime Minister Shabaz Sharif on Monday said the rains are the heaviest Pakistan has seen in three decades.

“I saw floodwater everywhere, wherever I went in recent days and even today,” Sharif said in Charsadda, one of the devastated towns. He said the planes carrying aid from some countries have already reached Pakistan, and he predicted more.

Sharif has said the government would provide housing to all those who lost their homes.

However, many people displaced by floods say they not only lost their homes but their crops and small shops, as well.

“I am sitting with my family in a tent, and how can I go out to work? Even if I go out in search of a job, who will give me any job as there is water everywhere," asked Rehmat Ullah, a flood victim in Charsadda in the northwest.

Zarina Bibi, another flood victim, said soldiers evacuated her by boat.

“We were given a tent and food by soldiers and volunteers," she said. Bibi cried when she said her house had collapsed in floods. “Floodwater will recede soon, but we have no money to rebuild our home," she said.

Rehan Ali, 24, a laborer in the country's southern Sindh province, reported a similar ordeal.

He said he cannot rebuild his home without government help, and right now he was unable to work to get food for his family. So, Ali said, he was relying on donatons.

The exceptionally heavy monsoon rains that triggered flash floods across the country have affected 33 million Pakistanis, damaged nearly 1 million homes and killed at least 1,061 people.

Pakistani authorities say this year's devastation is worse than in 2010, when floods killed 1,700 people. Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, the country's military chief, said Sunday that his country may take years to recover. He appealed to Pakistanis living abroad to generously donate to the flood victims.

Floods and rains have caused devastation in Pakistan at a time when the country is facing one of the worst economic crises. Pakistan says it recently narrowly avoided a default, and later Monday IMF's executive board was expected to approve the release of the much-awaited $1.7 billion for this Islamic nation.

Pakistan and the IMF originally signed the bailout accord in 2019. But the release of a $1.7 billion tranche has been on hold since earlier this year, when the IMF expressed concern about Pakistan’s compliance with the deal’s terms under former Prime Minister Imran Khan's government.

Khan was also expected to launch a fundraising campaign Monday evening for flood victims.

Last week, the United Nations in a statement said that it has allocated $3 million for UN aid agencies and their partners in Pakistan to respond to the floods and this money will be used for health, nutrition, food security, and water and sanitation services in flood-affected areas, focusing on the most vulnerable.

Sherry Rehman, Pakistan's climate minister, has described the unusual rainfall as a “monster monsoon." She says Pakistan suffered heavier rains this year mainly because of climate change, which also caused fire in forests.

However, critics say Pakistan's government has hardly any interest in building new dams and water reservoirs.

The unprecedented monsoon season has affected all four of the country’s provinces. Floods have destroyed more than 150 bridges and numerous roads have been washed away, making rescue operations difficult. Authorities say they were using military planes, helicopters, trucks and boats to evacuate people from marooned people and deliver much-need aid to them.

However, many survivors complain they were still waiting for help or they received too little assistance from the government after being displaced because of floods. Some people say they got tents but not food. Pakistan charities were also active in flood-hit areas, and the government says everyone should contribute to help flood victims.

The government has deployed at least 6,500 soldiers to help civilian authorities in rescue and relief operations across the country.

By Associated Press writer Munir Ahmed. AP writers Mohammad Farooq from Shikar Pur, Sindh and Riaz Khan from Peshawar contributed to this story.

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Every year, an estimated 13 million people go whale-watching around the world, marveling at the sight of the largest animals currently inhabiting the Earth. It’s a dramatic reversal from a century ago, when few people ever saw a living whale. The creatures are still recovering from massive industrial-scale hunting that nearly wiped out several species in the 20th century.

The history of whaling shows how humans have wreaked careless havoc on the ocean, but also how they can change course. In my new book, “Red Leviathan: The Secret History of Soviet Whaling,” I describe how the Soviet Union was central both to this deadly industry and to scientific research that helps us understand the whales’ recovery.

A humpback whale breaches in Boston Harbor on Aug. 2, 2022. Whaling greatly reduced humpback whale numbers, but the species is recovering under international protection.From wood to steel and bad to worseAt the start of the 20th century, it seemed whales might gain a reprieve after years of hunting. The era of whaling from sail boats, depicted in such memorable detail by Herman Melville in “Moby-Dick,” had nearly wiped out slow, fat species like right and bowhead whales, and also wreaked substantial harm to sperm whales.

In the 1800s, US whalers sailed without restraint or hindrance into every corner of the world’s oceans, including waters around Russia’s Siberian empire. There, tsarist officials watched in helpless rage as Americans slaughtered whales upon which many of the region’s Indigenous peoples relied.

In the 1870s, petroleum began to replace whale oil as a fuel. With few catchable whales remaining, the industry appeared to be near its end. But whalers found new markets. Through hydrogenation — a chemical process that can be used to turn liquid oils into solid or semi-solid fats — manufacturers were able to transform smelly whale products into odorless margarine for human consumption.

Around the same time, Norwegians invented the explosive harpoon, which killed whales more efficiently than hand-thrown versions, and the stern slipway, which allowed whale carcasses to be processed onboard ships. Along with diesel engines and steel hulls, these technologies enabled whalers to target previously untouched species in once-inaccesible locations, such as the Antarctic.

These cookers and boilers at Whalers Bay, Deception Island, Antarctica, were used to boil down whales’ skin and blubber, extracting their oil, from 1912 to 1931.

Credit:

David Stanley/Flickr, CC BY

Late to the party, late to leaveAs mechanized whaling gained force in the 1920s and ‘30s, Norwegian, British and Japanese whalers cut through populations of blue, fin and humpback whales on a scale that is hard to believe today. In what scientists once thought was the peak catch year, 1937, over 63,000 large whales were killed and processed.

World War II briefly suspended this slaughter, which many governments were starting to realize threatened the survival of some whale species. In 1946, whalers, statesmen and scientists created the International Whaling Commission in hopes of heading off a return to disastrous prewar levels of whaling.

That same year, the USSR joined the IWC and took control over a former Nazi whaleship, which it renamed the Slava, or Glory. No one suspected the central role the country would play in the most disastrous two decades of the whales’ long history on Earth.

The madness of modern whalingDespite the IWC’s best intentions, postwar catches rose quickly. By the mid-1950s, even longtime whalers had to admit that big whales were becoming too scarce for their industries to be profitable. All nations except Japan began to ponder the end of whaling.

It thus came as a shock when the Soviet Union announced in 1956 that it planned to build seven new “floating factories” — gigantic industrial processing ships, accompanied by fleets of smaller "catcher" boats that would scour the oceans for whales.

Soviet whale scientists were as stunned as observers elsewhere. These biologists and oceanographers had been watching the decline from ships and from their labs in the Fisheries Ministry and Academy of Sciences since the 1930s.

Instead of supporting the fleet expansion, they argued forcefully that whales stood on the brink of extinction, and whaling should decrease radically, not expand. This was how the Soviet-planned economy was meant to work: Science, not profit, would help guide economic decisions, letting planners know how much could be extracted from the natural world and when to stop.

But Soviet officials were determined to finally catch whales on a large scale, as Western nations had done for so long. The Fisheries Ministry ignored its scientists’ recommendations and built five of the seven planned floating factories over the next decade.

By the 1960s, the Soviet Union was the world’s largest whaling nation. Whalers, such as the legendary captain Aleksei Solyanik, were celebrated as superstars, comparable to astronauts like Yuri Gagarin.

But the scientists had been right: Many whales species were nearly gone. To produce large catches, Solyanik and other captains decided to ignore international quotas and secretly targeted the most endangered whale species, including blue, humpback and fin whales in the Antarctic and the North Pacific.

In 1961, for example, Soviet fleets killed 9,619 rare humpbacks south of New Zealand, while reporting only 302 to the IWC. This was only a portion of their global catch, which the Soviet Union continued to underreport for years. Driven by Moscow’s demands for ever-increasing production, whalers worked at reckless speed, wasting much of the fat and meat taken from the dead whales. It is doubtful the industry was ever profitable.

Thanks to Soviet scientists who preserved some records of these illegal kills and to subsequent work by other scholars, it now appears likely that the Soviet Union killed around 550,000 whales after World War II while reporting only 360,000. We now know that global whale harvesting peaked in 1964, not 1937, with a total of 91,783 whales killed — about 40% by Soviet whalers.

In this 1976 news video, Greenpeace activists confront a Soviet whaling ship on the high seas. NOTE: Contains footage that some viewers may find disturbing.Not quite extinctBy the 1970s, populations of large whales had dwindled to insignificance. Many observers were sure extinction was inevitable. But momentum for whale conservation was growing.

The US listed blue, fin, sei, sperm and humpback whales under the law that preceded the Endangered Species Act in 1970, then continued to protect them under that law, enacted in 1973. Whales also received protection in US waters under the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Thanks to pressure from environmentalists and its own citizens, the Soviet Union ended its whaling industry in 1987. The country accepted a global moratorium on commercial whaling, which remains in force today with only three holdouts: Norway, Iceland and Japan.

Whale numbers almost immediately began to rebound. Humpback whales were especially successful, but populations of bowhead, fin and sperm whales also expanded in the near absence of commercial whaling. However, some species, notably North Atlantic right whales, remain endangered or critically endangered.

In one of the greatest conservation successes, Eastern Pacific gray whales are today estimated to have returned to pre-exploitation abundance, and may actually be reaching the limits of what their primary foraging grounds in the Bering Sea can support. And in 2018 and 2019, German scientists and researchers from the BBC observed and filmed fin whales feeding around the Antarctic peninsula in vast pods that recalled the way the ocean must have looked before the 20th century.

Thanks to the Russian scientists who opposed their country’s disastrous whaling expansion and kept its records, we know how many whales were lost in the 20th century. That information can also help scientists, governments and conservationists judge the whales’ remarkable, but far from complete, recovery.

Ryan Jones is Associate Professor of History at the University of Oregon. This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news organization dedicated to sharing the knowledge of experts with the public, under a Creative Commons license.

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Every year, an estimated 13 million people go whale-watching around the world, marveling at the sight of the largest animals currently inhabiting the Earth. It’s a dramatic reversal from a century ago, when few people ever saw a living whale. The creatures are still recovering from massive industrial-scale hunting that nearly wiped out several species in the 20th century.

The history of whaling shows how humans have wreaked careless havoc on the ocean, but also how they can change course. In my new book, “Red Leviathan: The Secret History of Soviet Whaling,” I describe how the Soviet Union was central both to this deadly industry and to scientific research that helps us understand the whales’ recovery.

A humpback whale breaches in Boston Harbor on Aug. 2, 2022. Whaling greatly reduced humpback whale numbers, but the species is recovering under international protection.From wood to steel and bad to worseAt the start of the 20th century, it seemed whales might gain a reprieve after years of hunting. The era of whaling from sail boats, depicted in such memorable detail by Herman Melville in “Moby-Dick,” had nearly wiped out slow, fat species like right and bowhead whales, and also wreaked substantial harm to sperm whales.

In the 1800s, US whalers sailed without restraint or hindrance into every corner of the world’s oceans, including waters around Russia’s Siberian empire. There, tsarist officials watched in helpless rage as Americans slaughtered whales upon which many of the region’s Indigenous peoples relied.

In the 1870s, petroleum began to replace whale oil as a fuel. With few catchable whales remaining, the industry appeared to be near its end. But whalers found new markets. Through hydrogenation — a chemical process that can be used to turn liquid oils into solid or semi-solid fats — manufacturers were able to transform smelly whale products into odorless margarine for human consumption.

Around the same time, Norwegians invented the explosive harpoon, which killed whales more efficiently than hand-thrown versions, and the stern slipway, which allowed whale carcasses to be processed onboard ships. Along with diesel engines and steel hulls, these technologies enabled whalers to target previously untouched species in once-inaccesible locations, such as the Antarctic.

These cookers and boilers at Whalers Bay, Deception Island, Antarctica, were used to boil down whales’ skin and blubber, extracting their oil, from 1912 to 1931.

Credit:

David Stanley/Flickr, CC BY

Late to the party, late to leaveAs mechanized whaling gained force in the 1920s and ‘30s, Norwegian, British and Japanese whalers cut through populations of blue, fin and humpback whales on a scale that is hard to believe today. In what scientists once thought was the peak catch year, 1937, over 63,000 large whales were killed and processed.

World War II briefly suspended this slaughter, which many governments were starting to realize threatened the survival of some whale species. In 1946, whalers, statesmen and scientists created the International Whaling Commission in hopes of heading off a return to disastrous prewar levels of whaling.

That same year, the USSR joined the IWC and took control over a former Nazi whaleship, which it renamed the Slava, or Glory. No one suspected the central role the country would play in the most disastrous two decades of the whales’ long history on Earth.

The madness of modern whalingDespite the IWC’s best intentions, postwar catches rose quickly. By the mid-1950s, even longtime whalers had to admit that big whales were becoming too scarce for their industries to be profitable. All nations except Japan began to ponder the end of whaling.

It thus came as a shock when the Soviet Union announced in 1956 that it planned to build seven new “floating factories” — gigantic industrial processing ships, accompanied by fleets of smaller "catcher" boats that would scour the oceans for whales.

Soviet whale scientists were as stunned as observers elsewhere. These biologists and oceanographers had been watching the decline from ships and from their labs in the Fisheries Ministry and Academy of Sciences since the 1930s.

Instead of supporting the fleet expansion, they argued forcefully that whales stood on the brink of extinction, and whaling should decrease radically, not expand. This was how the Soviet-planned economy was meant to work: Science, not profit, would help guide economic decisions, letting planners know how much could be extracted from the natural world and when to stop.

But Soviet officials were determined to finally catch whales on a large scale, as Western nations had done for so long. The Fisheries Ministry ignored its scientists’ recommendations and built five of the seven planned floating factories over the next decade.

By the 1960s, the Soviet Union was the world’s largest whaling nation. Whalers, such as the legendary captain Aleksei Solyanik, were celebrated as superstars, comparable to astronauts like Yuri Gagarin.

But the scientists had been right: Many whales species were nearly gone. To produce large catches, Solyanik and other captains decided to ignore international quotas and secretly targeted the most endangered whale species, including blue, humpback and fin whales in the Antarctic and the North Pacific.

In 1961, for example, Soviet fleets killed 9,619 rare humpbacks south of New Zealand, while reporting only 302 to the IWC. This was only a portion of their global catch, which the Soviet Union continued to underreport for years. Driven by Moscow’s demands for ever-increasing production, whalers worked at reckless speed, wasting much of the fat and meat taken from the dead whales. It is doubtful the industry was ever profitable.

Thanks to Soviet scientists who preserved some records of these illegal kills and to subsequent work by other scholars, it now appears likely that the Soviet Union killed around 550,000 whales after World War II while reporting only 360,000. We now know that global whale harvesting peaked in 1964, not 1937, with a total of 91,783 whales killed — about 40% by Soviet whalers.

In this 1976 news video, Greenpeace activists confront a Soviet whaling ship on the high seas. NOTE: Contains footage that some viewers may find disturbing.Not quite extinctBy the 1970s, populations of large whales had dwindled to insignificance. Many observers were sure extinction was inevitable. But momentum for whale conservation was growing.

The US listed blue, fin, sei, sperm and humpback whales under the law that preceded the Endangered Species Act in 1970, then continued to protect them under that law, enacted in 1973. Whales also received protection in US waters under the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Thanks to pressure from environmentalists and its own citizens, the Soviet Union ended its whaling industry in 1987. The country accepted a global moratorium on commercial whaling, which remains in force today with only three holdouts: Norway, Iceland and Japan.

Whale numbers almost immediately began to rebound. Humpback whales were especially successful, but populations of bowhead, fin and sperm whales also expanded in the near absence of commercial whaling. However, some species, notably North Atlantic right whales, remain endangered or critically endangered.

In one of the greatest conservation successes, Eastern Pacific gray whales are today estimated to have returned to pre-exploitation abundance, and may actually be reaching the limits of what their primary foraging grounds in the Bering Sea can support. And in 2018 and 2019, German scientists and researchers from the BBC observed and filmed fin whales feeding around the Antarctic peninsula in vast pods that recalled the way the ocean must have looked before the 20th century.

Thanks to the Russian scientists who opposed their country’s disastrous whaling expansion and kept its records, we know how many whales were lost in the 20th century. That information can also help scientists, governments and conservationists judge the whales’ remarkable, but far from complete, recovery.

Ryan Jones is Associate Professor of History at the University of Oregon. This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news organization dedicated to sharing the knowledge of experts with the public, under a Creative Commons license.

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In the searing heat of an August day in southeast England, Orsk the bison is grinding his hoof into the ground.

A cloud of dust rises to encircle him as he urinates onto the sand, kicks it around a bit and tumbles the floor, rolling around and covering himself in his own scent.

His reason is romance. Just meters away in the woods are three female bison, and since their arrival, Orsk has been regularly scenting to advertise himself as a potential suitor. That time, sadly, may never come.

Orsk is a habituated bison, and lives in an enclosure in West Blean and Thornton Woods, an 800-hectare forest by Canterbury. Last month, three females were released into the ancient woodland, becoming the first wild bison to roam the UK in over 6,000 years.

These wild bison have been brought in as ecosystem engineers, to restore wilderness to a woodland formerly used as a timber plantation.

Orsk the bison is grinding his hoof into the ground in a wild area of southeast England.

Credit:

Richard Kemeny/The World

They will thrash around the forest, eating bark and killing trees, eating and dispersing seeds, creating new habitats for other species and generally, transforming a monoculture forest into a rewilded one.

“Already, you can see that they are moving through the forest, doing exactly the sort of thing we had been really hoping that they would do,” said Paul Whitfield, director general of the Wildwood Trust.

The bison use their huge bulk to fell certain trees with great ease. This creates space for them to move, while also letting in light that will change the consistency of the woodland and provide new habitats for other animals to thrive in.

“Where there were literally trees growing right next to each other, there’s now quite a wide pathway that they’re using on a regular basis,” Whitfield said.

Wild bison have been brought in as ecosystem engineers, to restore wilderness to a woodland formerly used as a timber plantation in southeast England.

Credit:

Richard Kemeny/The World

The dust baths, complete with urine and dung, fertilize and enrich the soil, breathing new life into the ground and helping with the establishment of key funghi populations.

Bison also rub their thick fur against trees, which tears the bark of certain trees in a ring. This can eventually kill the trees, yet leaves them upright, creating standing deadwood, an important habitat for a whole range of insects, as well as birds like the lesser-spotted woodpecker.

“Probably the best way to describe it is what the bison will do is create food webs,” said Whitfield. “So, they create lots and lots of niches and space for other species to move in.”

The hope is that these animals will not only diversify and improve local ecology but transform the woods into a more complex state, able to sequester more carbon from the atmosphere.

Aside from helping to mitigate some of the impacts of climate change, the forest should also become more resilient to them, Whitfield explained.

“So, in the middle of a hot, dry summer ,you will have a woodland that’s far more capable of tolerating drought and disease,” Whitefield said. “And in a wetter, warmer winter, again, it will be able to deal with that better and avoid disease.”

The effects of the bison reintroduction is being measured by an extensive monitoring system. The bison are fitted with GPS trackers to show how their movement has changed the local ecology. Drones will fly overhead, mapping changes in vegetation. And a team of dedicated researchers including surveys of animal and plant life, soil quality, and even the bison dung.

Last month, three female bison were released into the West Blean and Thornton Woods, an 800-hectare forest by Canterbury, in southeast England.

Credit:

Richard Kemeny/The World

The bison release comes at a time when the UK is facing a difficult summer, of intense heat waves and now drought. Indeed, the UK is in a poor place both environmentally and ecologically, said Richard Bunting, a spokesman for Rewilding Britain.

“If you look at Scotland, for example, a lot of the very beautiful mountains there are actually ecologically poor, they’re ecological deserts in many ways because the woodlands that should be there have been destroyed over the centuries.”

Only around 1% of the UK is currently being rewilded, explained Bunting, which offers a huge opportunity to expand this conservation strategy.

“What it does offer is nature-based solutions to these serious problems and at the moment we’re really only scratching the surface of those solutions,” he said.

For now, the bison have been released into a fairly small plot of just a few acres.

Over time, they will spread throughout the forest to continue their work. The females will soon be joined by a wild bull from Germany, and if all goes to plan, they will breed new genetic lines. Other animals — each with distinct ecological roles — will also join the bison over the coming months and years, including longhorn cattle, iron age pigs, and Exmoor ponies.

For Bob Smith, director of the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology at the University of Kent, there is a growing recognition that restoring natural woodland would be a robust climate mitigation strategy.

“Long term, woodlands with large herbivores across the UK would be one of the best ways to capture carbon. Especially in a way that then meets all the biodiversity targets that we have,” he said.

Whitfield says that when it comes to tackling biodiversity loss and climate change, the bison project is just one part of the puzzle. But it’s an optimistic one, he stressed, and that is key.

“I actually think that is really powerful, and possibly more powerful than what they’re actually going to do in the woodlands here,” he said. “It will inspire people to be positive and do stuff, rather than just giving up and being depressed about how awful it all is.”

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On a scorching, cloudless morning, two small kids race down a public dock on the Durance River, in the Hautes Alpes, in France.

But there’s no water for them to jump into. The normally floating dock is resting on sand. The Durance has run nearly dry. What’s left is a narrow stream that’s receded about a quarter-mile away.

“Normally, the river’s full, and you see sailing, skiing, paragliding, and what’s it called, kite surfing?” said Marie, the kids’ grandmother, who asked not to use her last name.

Today, the only boat in sight is a marooned catamaran.

A quicksand warning where water once ran. France’s Durance River, which cuts through the Hautes Alpes on its way south, has receded dramatically exposing tourists to new, dangerous terrain.

Credit:

Gerry Hadden/The World

“It’s so sad,” Marie said. “This part of the river is actually dammed to create a reservoir. It provides water to the south of France as well.”

This year’s unusually hot, dry summer in Europe has brought drought to some record highs. That’s terrible news for many in the French Alps. Because water is what lures the tourists — for rafting and river sports in summer and, of course, skiing in winter.

Marie, like so many people here, hopes this year is an anomaly. But she and others suspect these arid conditions are part of a trend exacerbated by global warming. What local business owners know for sure is that it’s already hitting them hard.

A bit downstream, Thierry Lefevre owns a windsurfing school that used to be on the shoreline. That’s now 300 yards away. On a typical morning, he said, he has between 60 and 80 students ready to get wet.

“Today, we had just one,” he said. “We’re seeing less clientele but the worst is that we might have to shut down mid-August, depending on the water level. Normally, we’re open in September.”

There are dozens of businesses along the Durance like LeFevre’s. At another, a tourist named Oralie Gamonie paid $20 for a spin on the lake, on a bouncy inner tube. She said that’s not what she drove three hours to do.

Construction is underway at the Les Orres ski station in the Hautes Alpes. They’re building an indoor virtual sports center to hedge their bets against future snowless winters.

Credit:

Gerry Hadden/The World

“I’m disappointed the lake’s so low,” she said. “I’d signed up for a flight in a propeller-driven hydrofoil. But they canceled it because the spot it takes off from is now just mud.”

This is where the drought’s damage is most visible. All around the edge of the reservoir, you can see a 50-foot-high, whiteish, rocky ring that’s normally underwater. But this problem begins high in the mountains. This past winter, little snow fell. And it’s barely rained since May.

At a ski resort called Les Orres, altitude 8,000 feet, Sebastian Aubert’s heading up a new, virtual reality training complex. Construction is underway right next to the main chairlift.

“These days, there are pros and beginners who want to practice their various sports all year round,” he said. “By this time next year, you’ll be able to ski here in the middle of summer, indoors.”

It’s all possible, he said, due to augmented reality glasses and ski-treadmills that can change inclination and speeds.

But it’s not just virtual skiing, said the mayor of the village of Les Orres, Pierre Vollaire.

You can bike, kayak, rock climb — snow or no snow outside the windows. The village has less than 600 residents. And 275,000 annual visitors. Losing them, he said, is out of the question.

A dock to nowhere: Floating docks like this one are normally used for swimming and boating. This one’s now some 300 yards from the receding waters of the Durance.

Credit:

Gerry Hadden/The World

“With the heat waves and the drought, it’s been a tough year,” Vollaire said. “It’s clear the planet’s getting warmer and warmer and we’re keeping that well in mind. All of our projects are related to that.”

Vollaire said that about 12,000 people work in skiing throughout this region of the Alps.

The indoor virtual sports center alone will add another 800 jobs. The investment is huge, but Les Orres has gotten subsidies from the government. That makes the risks easier to take on.

Back on the Durance River, windsurf school owner Lefevre said that small business owners like him don’t have that luxury.

“What can I do? When the season’s done we’ll clean up and then sell off our gear until we can balance the books. After that, I just don’t know.”

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Conservationists are attempting to reintroduce the cheetah to India after it was declared extinct on the subcontinent in 1952.

Sixteen cheetahs from South Africa and Namibia are being prepared for the journey to Indian national parkland next week — it’s the first time that a large carnivore is being moved from one continent to another for reintroduction to the wild.

Yadvendradev Jhala, dean of the Wildlife Institute of India, is playing a key role in the project.

“I think the world needs to restore its lost fauna and flora, especially those which have been caused by human actions,” he said. “The cheetah was hunted to extinction in India, and now, we have the economic ability, the threats to the extinction have been exterminated and [we have] the scientific know-how to bring back the lost element of our ecosystem and our lost heritage. So, it is the right time to bring the animal back to India.”

Today, there are fewer than 15 Asiatic cheetahs — a subspecies that once roamed India — which are located in Iran. So, conservationists turned to Namibia, South Africa and Botswana where there's a surplus cheetah population of around 4,000, according to Jhala.

Although the cheetahs being brought to India will find the right environment for their needs, and they are an adaptable species, Jhala said, the big cats will have to switch from hunting antelope and impala to spotted deer as their major prey.

In choosing individual cheetahs for reintroduction, conservationists looked for animals that can hunt for themselves, but are not afraid of humans, in the sense that they don't approach them, but allow for a vehicle or human to approach within about 160 feet.

“If they move out of our protected area, you'd need to capture them and bring them back” since there are no fences around the parks in India, Jhala said.

“They are totally nonaggressive,” he added. “I have been very close to a wild cheetah on foot, and I was amazed. I worked with lions and tigers … but with the cheetah, you can take a lot of liberties. They are such placid, wonderful animals.”

To listen to the fill interview, click on the audio player above.

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Haiti was once lush and teeming with biodiversity. Plants used to flourish there that were found nowhere else in the world. Take the northern Haiti magnolia, known for its flowers with bright white petals and delicate fragrance.

But today, with Haiti among the most deforested countries on earth, sightings of the native magnolia had not been recorded there since 1925. In fact, no one had even snapped a photo of it. Then in June, a team of naturalists with Haiti National Trust trekked to Haiti's longest mountain range, the Massif du Nord, to try to find the elusive flower.

Expedition leader Eladio Fernandez, from Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, said the search was like "an act of faith."

"You know, when you look for these lost species, there's a little fever in you that kind of drives your energy," Fernandez told The World's host Marco Werman.

Before the trek, the team researched the original specimen collected by Swedish botanist Erik Leonard Ekman in 1925. They referred to the specimen's labels and matched those with the magnolia's locality. They were able to identify the exact town and base camp used by Ekman using Google Earth. And then they surveyed the area for these last fragments of forests where the magnolia might be growing.

The northern Haiti magnolia known for its bright white flowers and delicate fragrance hasn’t been spotted since 1925.

Credit:

Courtesy of Eladio Fernandez

Fernandez said that the three-day hike up steep ravines while carrying heavy camera equipment was unpleasant. At times, hungry and tired, some team members started to lose faith.

On the third day, after a five-hour trek, they arrived at the site and set up camp near a welcoming family. They showed them printed images of the magnolia flowers but the family said they hadn't seen one.

Ferndanez said at first, it was "highly depressing" that no one in the area had seen the flower. And most of his team was already exhausted.

But Fernandez was determined. He continued to search with a fellow naturalist while the others stayed behind.

"We were walking by this ravine. It started to rain. And I ... looked behind the mountain. I saw the skies were clear. And I said, 'It's only a cloud. Let's just wait.' And while we were waiting and I took my binoculars, I actually saw the first tree in the ravine, and there it was."

Getting a glimpse of the rare flower that had been lost to science for nearly a hundred years was "incredible," Fernandez said.

They laughed and celebrated the discovery of about 16 trees, with some that had flowers.

Then they walked back to the campsite with a cutting and showed off the fragrant flower — much to everyone's delight — with each person taking a turn to inhale its perfume.

The team of naturalists found the white flowers with their delicate fragrance on a mountain trek.

Credit:

Courtesy of Eladio Fernandez

Elation aside, Fernandez said that the really big, difficult work still lies ahead.

"We need to go back. We need to collect seeds. We need to set up a nursery. We need to get the community involved. We need to do education. We need to find the funding for this," he said.

Fernandez would like to see further collaboration between naturalists from Haiti and the Dominican Republic, two sides of the same island whose shared history has been fraught with conflict.

"This expedition [is] a good example of what can be done if we all combine and collaborate for the better."

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Conservationist Arturo Pantoja Garcia loves to give tours of the forest around Casa del Agua, or House of Water, a research and environmental education center on the edge of the Centla swamp in Mexico’s southeastern Tabasco state.

Casa del Agua attributes its reforestation success to community involvement since the beginning.

Credit:

Courtesy of Casa del Agua

Amid a multitude of trails, with trees that reach dozens of feet overhead, Pantoja Garcia tells stories about the forest that he and his team have planted over three decades.

“People said I was crazy when I was planting trees,” he said. “In those days, no one cared for them.”

Pantoja Garcia used to make a living hunting deer, rodents, lowland paca (larger rodents), ducks, turtles and fish in the wetlands.

“I hunted everything, to sell and to eat. Who would have guessed that after all that, I would become a conservationist?”

When the Casa del Agua conservation project began 30 years ago, much of the land served as pasture for grazing cattle. There are now lush mangrove forests, thanks to Casa del Agua’s reforestation and community education efforts.

Wetlands are the foundation for 75% of fisheries around the world, said Juan Carlos Romero Gil, a biologist with Mexico’s National Commission of Protected Natural Areas, who helped to found Casa del Agua. But they’re some of the least understood ecosystems, he said.

On the weekends, conservationists host a steady stream of visitors who take a nature tour or check out the environmental education displays.

They emphasize how wetlands restoration can go a long way toward helping to remove carbon from the atmosphere, because mangrove forests can store three to four times the amount of carbon per acre than neighboring rainforests, which is backed by a recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.

The group’s reforestation project has made a big impact on local residents' respect for the wetlands.

Just after dawn at Casa del Agua, workers water plants in one of the three nurseries on the property — about 15,000 baby trees stand in tiny rows and they're all native species: Tinto, or blackwood, and a tree the Mayans called Pukte. Some saplings go to the reforestation teams and others get handed out to residents in the dozens of communities spread out across the wetlands.

Casa del Agua has three nurseries on the property with about 15,000 baby mangrove trees.

Credit:

Michael Fox/The World

Lucrecia Jimenez Hernandez, from a community just up the road, has worked on several reforestation projects over the last two years.

“Before, plants didn’t really matter to me,” she said. “Not now. Now I care. And those of us who work on the reforestation, benefit financially and we also know how important it is to have our trees, to care for them and to plant them.”

The project pays those involved about $10 a day, which is over Mexico’s minimum wage. Lucrecia said it’s an important source of revenue for her and her family.

Asuncion Hernandez Garcia, an independent tour guide, fisherman and restaurant owner who goes by the name Negro Chon, often takes groups out on the water, where two of Mexico's largest rivers pass on the way to the ocean, carrying a third of the country’s fresh water.

“This reforestation is important,” he said. “We’ve noticed a difference, because the fish reproduce within these mangrove forests, and all sorts of other reptiles and amphibians also feed on the fish. So, this is a blessing for us.”

Local fishermen used to set fire to vegetation along the waterfront in order to more easily access fishing holes. But this practice is less frequent, in large part, due to the organization’s work.

Asuncion Hernandez Garcia, a tour guide and fisherman who goes by the name Negro Chon, often takes groups out on the water in his boat.

Credit:

Michael Fox/The World

Since the beginning, Casa del Agua has promoted reforestation and environmental education as methods that yield financial benefit. And the group attributes much of its reforestation success to community involvement from the start.

This September, Casa del Agua is planning a week of activities to accompany the 30th anniversary of their conservation and reforestation project.

Biologist Romero Gil said they’ve planted roughly a million trees on more than 2,500 acres of land.

“Sustainability takes time,” he said.

Related: In Cancun, this man is turning seaweed trash into natural-building treasures

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This analysis was featured in Critical State, a weekly foreign policy newsletter from Inkstick Media. Subscribe here.

When wolves are exterminated from an environment, their wake is marked by abundance. For farmers, that abundance comes in unattacked livestock, but for drivers on rural roads, that abundance is a deadly one. Deer, freed from predation, multiply, devouring crops and gardens and crossing roads, sometimes killing drivers in the process.

Reintroducing wolves, often framed as a naive environmental act, changes that abundance. Wolves will on occasion eat the occasional cow or pig or other domesticated animal left near a forest. But more importantly, wolf predation will reduce the size of herds of deer, rebalancing the environment into an ecology that can support both prey and predators.

Last week, Critical State dove into the world of wolf attacks, and how the political salience of such visible animal action leads to electoral benefits for right-wing parties. Much of that political power comes from the visibility of the attacks. When a wolf kills a farmer’s cow, the farmer can point to the cow corpse and then blame animal reintroduction for his woes.

Related: Where wolves: Part I

What is missing from this picture, what is essential to our understanding of animal populations, is the way wolves can reduce danger. The dead cow is visible; the deer culled in the woods that never causes a car accident is invisible. In “Wolves make roadways safer, generating large economic returns to predator conservation,” authors Jennifer Raynor, Corbett Grainger, and Dominic Parker demonstrate that, while it is harder to observe, the benefits of predation on an environment is still quantifiable.

“About 1 million [Deer Vehicle Collisions] occur every year in the United States, causing 29,000 human injuries, 200 human fatalities, and nearly $10 billion in total economic losses,” the authors write. “Europe experiences similar problems, with a lower frequency of collisions with ungulates (such as deer and moose) but a higher rate of fatalities and injuries.”

The reintroduction of wolves reduces the harm from deer in two ways: by reducing the number of deer, and by changing how deer interact with the environment, largely by scaring them out of the roads and trails that wolves like to use.

Deer populations have flourished in the wake of exterminated wolves. The reintroduction of wolves reduces the harm from deer in two ways: by reducing the number of deer, and by changing how deer interact with the environment, largely by scaring them out of the roads and trails that wolves like to use.

Looking at changes in deer-vehicle crashes in Wisconsin, the authors find that “Across the 29 counties with wolves present, these savings generate a $10.9 million aggregate reduction in [Deer Vehicle Collisions] losses each year.”

Quantifying the value of predators is hard, because the harms of unchecked prey only flourish in their absence. Reintroduction of apex predators species like wolves allows for a deeper understanding of the benefits from living in a complete ecology, rather than a fractured one.

The benefits of such predation come strongest in rural areas, where the harms are also most visible. “This finding may help dampen political polarization around wolf reintroduction that generally pits rural and urban voters against one another,” the authors write. While research has shown the right can campaign on the visceral impact of wolf attacks, the tangible improvements to rural life from reduced deer populations and deer collisions could offer a counter. The wolves cannot campaign for their economic benefit, but armed with this data, politicians could.

Critical State is your weekly fix of foreign policy analysis from the staff at Inkstick Media. Subscribe here.

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In the kitchen of Restaurant Polfareren, reindeer ribs and miso-marinated cod are plated with precision. Each dish is part of a limited, high-quality menu, changing with the seasons.

Chef Josh Wing’s restaurant would be unsurprising in a cities like Paris or San Francisco. But it’s nowhere near a major metro.

Welcome to Longyearbyen.

Nestled between glaciers and permafrost and surrounded by the Arctic Ocean, this Arctic, research hub has developed a reputation for superb wines and Nordic fine dining.

The world’s northernmost permanent settlement is halfway between the tip of Norway and the North Pole, in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard.

And it’s just a snowmobile ride away from polar bears and ringed seals.

Longyearbyen originated as a coal mining town, and while many of the mines are now relics, the last active one isn’t expected to close until 2023.

Credit:

Emily Haavik/The World

Today, the tourist destination has about 17 restaurants and a dozen hotels. Just a few decades ago, it was a coal-mining town with no restaurants.

Steve Torgersen, who moved to Longyearbyen with his family at the age of 15, said it was a company town back then, where residents lived in the coal company’s houses and ate at the company canteen.

“And it was in 1979, that was the first time you could go to another place to eat than the canteen,” he said.

That place was Huset, the first restaurant in Svalbard. Torgersen left high school to work there in 1990.

At that time, the food scene in Longyearbyen was growing slowly. A second restaurant opened in 1993, then a third. Hotels began popping up in the early ’90s.

Today, Torgersen owns a travel company, a bar and two restaurants. One of them is Gruvelageret, which offers a fine dining experience — and lots of local cultural history.

“People get more information and more knowledge about the place, and the history, and what has happened,” he said.

The Svalbard reindeer is a subspecies that’s a little smaller than its counterparts in other areas of the world. This one walks leisurely through town, seemingly unafraid of its human neighbors.

Credit:

Emily Haavik/The World

An Arctic menu These days, Longyearbyen holds a powerful pull for young chefs like Josh Wing at Restaurant Polfareren. The small hotel restaurant specializes in Nordic-inspired fine dining with hints of Japanese influence.

Wing is from Montana, and he moved to Longyearbyen to work at Huset. There, he learned the art of Norwegian fine dining.

“That simplicity, the quality of ingredients, and focus you put on what you're plating was very, very eye-opening to me,” he said.

Wing has now been in Longyearbyen for six years. He was hired at Polfareren in 2017, and became head chef in 2019. Like other chefs in this region, he encounters his share of challenges creating a high-quality, gastronomical experience at 78 degrees north of the equator.

Mary-Ann’s Polarrigg offers fine dining surrounded by memorabilia from the mining days. To get to this beautifully plated reindeer steak, guests would have already walked through a replica coal-mining scene.

Credit:

Emily Haavik/The World

Many products have to be ordered from Tromsø, in mainland Norway, two weeks ahead of time. Then, they take a boat journey that’s three days at minimum.

“If it’s really, really rough seas, we might be delayed for a day,” Wing said.

This process makes produce, especially, difficult to preserve.

“Light, leafy vegetables and kale sometimes don’t really make that journey very well,” he said. “Delicate fruits don’t really make it.”

Wing serves as many local items as possible, such as reindeer, cod and ptarmigan, an Alpine game bird.

“This year, I ordered five reindeer from one of the trappers that we work with,” he said. “The ptarmigan I usually get from friends that are hunting locally.”

Wing catches the fish himself.

There’s little vegetation growing in Svalbard. But for one month a year, an ephemeral treasure comes out of the earth and onto Polfareren’s menu.

“There are little Arctic mushrooms that are fantastic,” Wing said. “A friend of mine goes and picks and brings them to me.”

In the high tourist season, Wing estimates about 80% of his guests are visitors.

“I’ve met so many people that come up here just for the food,” he said. “Which is pretty incredible when you think of all of the things that you can do here.”

Longyearbyen has fewer than 2,500 residents, but it’s home to a university, a post office, and a church. Svalbard Church is part of the Church of Norway and is open to the public 24 hours per day.

Credit:

Emily Haavik/The World

‘A kick of euphoria’Andreas Viestad, a Norwegian restaurateur, food writer and TV host, has filmed several episodes of his show, “New Scandinavian Cooking,” in Svalbard.

“It’s become this sort of hub of research, but also of tourism and gastronomy,” he said.

Viestad said the reasons for the rise of Longyearbyen’s food culture are complex. To start, because of the tax regime, hotels and restaurants could import fine wines cheaply. Huset was the first, building a wine cellar to rival those in mainland Europe.

“Some of these hotels built really world-class wine cellars, where you could get well-matured bottles of wine at a price unlike anywhere else in the world,” Viestad said.

Viestad said the reputation of those wine cellars became a magnet for young, ambitious Scandinavian chefs who wanted to work a couple of years in “the wild.”

Then, there’s another more practical explanation for the advent of haute cuisine in Longyearbyen.

Visitors include researchers, extreme campers and students. But it’s also become a high-end tourist destination — and travelers in that category expect to get what they pay for.

Hotels are commonly $300 to $500 per night, or more in peak tourist season. A tasting menu at a place like Huset runs about $100, while an appetizer, main course and dessert at Polfareren may cost about $50 to $70.

In the high tourist season, when the sun is out and the snow hasn’t melted, Restaurant Polfareren is booked up just about every night. Chef Josh Wing says about 80% of his guests are tourists.

Credit:

Emily Haavik/The World

“When you’re traveling on such an adventure, you really want everything to be an adventure, even the dinner,” Viestad said.

While some people may be drawn to Longyearbyen for the restaurants, Viestad warned that the food can’t be separated from the place.

“It is an almost magical experience,” he said. “To have a meal and walk out into the cold and the snow, but it’s still bright as in the middle of the day, even though it’s midnight, it creates … this kick of euphoria.”

That’s a euphoria that chefs like Wing and Torgersen are working to create for each visitor, with every single menu.

Related: Svalbard’s polar bears persist as sea ice melts — but not forever

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Europe’s spate of fierce wildfires abated somewhat Thursday amid cooler temperatures, with French firefighters starting to get the upper hand over two major blazes, Spain taming a fire that killed two people and no new outbreaks reported in Portugal.

But a fire in Slovenia on the border with Italy kicked up strongly Thursday, forcing the evacuation of three villages.

If the temperature in Spain doesn’t drop from the high 90s soon fires like this one are likely to start across the bone-dry region.

Credit:

Gerry Hadden/The World

Spanish firefighters were tackling nine blazes, with two said to be especially dangerous in the northwestern Galicia region. Some of the 11,000 people evacuated because of the fires in Spain began returning home, and a major highway in the northwestern Zamora province reopened after two days.

Temperatures above 104 degrees and a drought have worsened Spain's wildfires this year. Thursday's highest temperature in Spain was forecast to be 90 degrees.

The largest wildfire in northeast Spain, as of mid-July, consumed more than 4,000 acres in a single night. In Sant Fruitós de Bages about an hour outside of Barcelona, hundreds of people were evacuated from their homes.

Francisco Hernandez was in a field in front of a charred hillside forest and saw the blaze firsthand.

The wildfire in northeast Spain has reached homes and highways.

Credit:

Gerry Hadden/The World

“I came down around 4:30 in the afternoon, and that entire hillside was a ball of fire,” he said. “In 15 or 20 minutes, the fire consumed everything.”

Hernandez said four or five helicopters were dumping water over the land, but it didn’t have any effect. He was terrified that the fire would cross a farmer’s field and reach his home.

“But luckily, some farmers came and plowed [to get rid of low grass and brush] in front of our street,” he said. “Otherwise, that fire could have reached my home within 10 minutes.”

Waiting to go back home Hernandez got lucky. About 1,000 other nearby residents were forced to flee. Many slept in the local civic center on Red Cross cots.

The next morning, people were milling about, waiting to find out if it was safe to go back home. Like Toni, who asked not to use his full name, who sat at the civic center with his dog, Boss.

Evacuees in the Spanish town of Sant Fruitós de Bages wait to learn of the fate of their homes as a huge wildfire rages nearby.

Credit:

Gerry Hadden/The World

“We have been evacuated from a housing development called Les Brocardes,” he said. “It’s been a day, and we don’t know whether our houses have been damaged.”

Toni said that he and his wife stayed in their home until the last minute, trying to wet the trees down with the garden hose as the flames approached. Looking back, he said, it was absurd.

“When it became hard to breathe, and we saw that all the neighbors’ cars were gone, we decided we had to leave, too.”

Twin sisters, Mireia Vila and Rose Vila were also at the civic center, waiting for news too, about their family home.

A civic center in Sant Fruitós de Bages, Spain, was prepared to sleep evacuees a second night.

Credit:

Gerry Hadden/The World

“It is very sad because we have a lot of memories with the swimming pool, all the trees that we have planted. Every single space you see,” Mireia Vila said. “You remember your childhood.”

“People from [Les] Brocardes are like a family,” Rose Vila said. “Everybody knows everybody. It’s like a crisis in a family. It is not the houses.”

Nor is it the stuff in the houses that really matters, she said.

More than 4,000 acres have burned in the fire outside Sant Fruitós de Bages, Spain.

Credit:

Gerry Hadden/The World

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Bees commonly buzz around in the summertime, but their numbers have noticeably diminished in recently years.

Bees are critical for pollinating crops and producing honey and the significant drop in global bee populations has experts worried.

The European Parliament recently released figures showing that about 84% of crop species and 78% of wildflowers across the EU depend to some extent on pollination. Nearly $16.5 billion of the bloc’s annual agricultural output “is directly attributed to insect pollinators.”

The decline in bee numbers is also worsening in Canada. This year, Alberta province suffered a 50% loss of its bee colonies.

Rod Scarlett, the executive director of the Canadian Honey Council, spoke to The World's host Marco Werman from outside Edmonton, Alberta, about the crisis.

Marco Werman: So, a 50% loss of beehives for commercial beekeepers, Rod. What's behind that drop?Rod Scarlett: Most people say it's varroa, which is a mite, and it's kind of sucks on the bees guts. That mite, we've been trying to eradicate, or at least control as best as possible. And it appears, like last year, we just didn't do a very good job of it.And is the danger of that mite a new thing, or has that been going on for a few years?Oh, it's been going on for 25 years. It's just the products that we use to try to control the mite, the efficacy of those products seems to be going down and down. And so, we're trying to develop new techniques where you add in organic compounds and things like that to control the mite population over the course of the season. But last year, ultimately, it didn't work.So, I'm really curious how this affects commercial beekeepers in Alberta and what their options are to replace them?In Alberta, there's about 320,000 colonies and, each year, beekeepers lose probably 20% to 22% of those colonies. And that's a manageable number for beekeepers to handle. This past year, it was significantly higher — as you mentioned, 50%. So, to replace those colonies, beekeepers first have to either buy packaged bees, which is imported packages or imported colonies, mini-colonies from Australia, New Zealand or Chile, or they take their strongest colonies and split them in two, to get their numbers back. But that impacts the amount of honey that that colony could produce over the course of a year and the pollination capabilities of that colony. So, while they may get the numbers back, it has an economic impact both on the honey production side, so their financial well-being if they're strictly a honey producer, or they'll get paid less for pollination because they don't have strong enough colonies for the pollination contracts that they've signed. So again, it has an economic implication. If we experience the same thing next year, we are in a critically poor situation.Like how poor? What would you be facing?Certainly pollination problems. Also production problems, and production problems could impact things like seed canola. Commercial canola crops constitute 21 to 22 million acres in Canada. And the pollination that is done on seed canola feeds the commercial canola. If they can't meet the demands of contracts and sell honey or pollinate, it has some really severe economic implications. But there's the environmental side, too, of not having honeybees around to do pollination.So, the decline in the bee population has been going on for years. Where do the troubles in Canada right now fit into the overall decline around the globe?We've had regions and provinces in the past where there have been significant losses, but other provinces have been able to supply stock and help alleviate the pressures that the region that had that loss would have experienced. This year, it's pretty much Canada-wide, and so other provinces and other regions are unable to help. And that's what makes this issue in Canada this year so much different than in the past.This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.AP contributed to this report.

Related: Mayan beekeepers launch legal battle to protect the environment

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On a sunny day in April, during the Arctic’s peak tourism season, guides Timo Virma Virta Santucci and Teemu Tissari led a group of visitors out onto the sea ice.

They had just crossed the island of Spitsbergen in the Svalbard archipelago, located about halfway between Norway and the North Pole, when they spotted a mother polar bear and her two cubs.

For tourists, it was a lucky sighting.

As sea ice melts across the Arctic, polar bears have begun to decline, because they need the sea ice to hunt seals — their primary prey. They also need it to walk to their denning areas. But animals don’t always respond predictably to shifting living conditions, and the polar bears of Svalbard have been resilient — at least for now.

“They learn from their parents that, OK, this is a good hunting ground,” Tissari said. “And then when that is changing, then of course they're, like, a bit lost.”

Guides in the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard have to carry firearms for polar bear defense. Polar bears are strictly protected here, and even a shot in self-defense will be closely examined.

Credit:

Emily Haavik/The World

Jon Aars, with the Norwegian Polar Institute, studies the Barents Sea polar bear population, made up of about 3,000 bears around Svalbard and Russia. About 10% of them stay mostly on the land on and near Svalbard.

Aars said the sea ice in this area is declining more than twice as fast as anywhere else in the Arctic. But the polar bears here — unexpectedly — are thriving.

“One explanation is that they were hunted quite extensively until they were protected in 1973,” Aars said. “So … they are still in sort of a recovery phase.”

The other reason lies within the bears themselves.

“Polar bears are what you call ‘plastic,’” Aars said. “They are already designed in a way that makes it possible for them to switch the way they live.”

The polar bears that live on Svalbard appear to be hunting more reindeer and taking more birds’ eggs. Mother bears are swimming farther to get to their denning areas. These are clever workarounds, but they’re not necessarily efficient.

“If you walk 100 kilometers, you use only a fraction of the energy that you would use if you swim the same 100 kilometers in cold water,” Aars explained.

And while eating reindeer may be a good survival technique, they’re nothing like seals, which provide thick blubber that can sustain a polar bear for months.

A mother polar bear and two cubs left these tracks as they headed out onto the sea ice. Polar bears range in size just like people, and their paws can be a foot wide.

Credit:

Emily Haavik/The World

A pending tipping pointWhile these polar bears have proven to be resilient as the sea ice continues to melt, scientists do not believe they’ll be able to keep it up.

“If it was that simple, I think polar bears would have expanded into areas where you don't have sea ice already,” Aars said.

In fact, as Aars’ colleague Dr. Andrew Derocher points out, history may be the best predictor of the future.

“If we go back about 10- or 11,000 years ago, to the end of the last Ice Age, and look at where polar bears existed, they were around southern Sweden, around Denmark,” he said.

Derocher used to work in Svalbard. Now he’s a professor at the University of Alberta, and works mostly with polar bears in Canada. If these creatures were capable of adapting to land, Derocher believes, they would have done so.

“We would see them in southern Alaska along the panhandle,” he said. “We should see polar bears in Maine. … But of course we don't, because the bears didn't adapt. They just disappeared.”

Dramatic changesTissari is used to seeing the earth — and the ice — beneath him change.

Winter is shorter every year. Sometimes, there’s rain in January. One popular fjord no longer freezes over.

“It feels like we're witnessing something very dramatic here,” Tissari said. “This place will not be the same 20 years from now.”

Teemu Tissari has lived in the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard since 2015. He works as a guide for Svalbard Adventures, where he leads snowmobile trips to the east coast of the largest island, Spitsbergen.

Credit:

Emily Haavik/The World

Santucci used to work as a guide in Finland, and he traveled north to work for Svalbard Adventures, drawn by the challenge. These days, his prevailing emotion is anxiety.

“We're going toward something that we're not controlling,” he said. “It's big, beautiful glaciers behind Longyearbyen. And we kind of know that within the next 50 years, it's not going to be there anymore. So then,you feel that you're doing something wrong.”

That April polar bear sighting was Santucci’s first of the season. He knew the visitors who experienced it had glimpsed something special.

“If I were you,” he said, “I would feel lucky.”

Arctic guide Timo Virma Virta Santucci just spotted his first polar bear of the season on Svalbard.

Credit:

Emily Haavik/The World

‘Cautiously optimistic’It remains unclear exactly how Svalbard will change over the coming decades, but it will likely lose its 300 land-loving polar bears.

“The fact that polar bears in Svalbard that are local never seem to move might indicate that that part of the population that is in Svalbard will just die off if sea ice disappeared for the whole year,” Aars said.

That doesn’t mean polar bears will disappear completely.

“I'm optimistic that in the very high reaches of the Arctic, we'll be able to keep the bears in those areas,” Derocher said.

Right now, the sea ice in the highest Arctic is too thick for polar bears. In the coming decades, as the earth continues to warm, that could change.

“It looks like there still will be enough sea ice for them to persist,” Derocher said. “And so, I'm cautiously optimistic, looking forward. But that also depends on what we do now, so that we can have those bears there in 50 or 100 years from now.”

Even if they survive, the higher those bears go, the harder it will be to catch a glimpse of them.

For those hoping to experience the magic of seeing a polar bear for themselves, the clock is ticking.

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This analysis was featured in Critical State, a weekly foreign policy newsletter from Inkstick Media. Subscribe here.

Conserving the natural world means conserving natural predators within it. In Europe broadly and Germany specifically, conservation efforts have seen the reintroduction of wolves to forests and, in turn, wolves venturing beyond forests to hunt domesticated livestock in rural hinterland. How people live with nature, from passive habitat destruction that eliminates predators to campaigns to allow them a return alongside prey populations, is a political question, though it’s often not seen as such.

The reemergence of wolves, and with them, wolf attacks provides a series of discrete events whose effect on voting can be studied and measured. Which, in “Wolf Attacks Predict Far-Right Voting,” is precisely what authors Bernhard Clemm von Hohenberg and Anselm Hager do.

“To explore the connection between wildlife conservation and voting behavior, we study the reemergence of the wolf in Germany. After the species had become extinct in much of Western Europe before or during the 20th century, conservation efforts have recently allowed the wolf to make an impressive comeback."

“To explore the connection between wildlife conservation and voting behavior, we study the reemergence of the wolf in Germany. After the species had become extinct in much of Western Europe before or during the 20th century, conservation efforts have recently allowed the wolf to make an impressive comeback,” the authors write.

While wolf attacks may call to mind the eaten grandmothers of a "Red Riding Hood," the actual impact is more precisely felt by a farmer trying to protect their three little pigs. It’s the impact of wolves on livestock, and in turn on rural jobs and livelihoods, that is the most persistent factor in far-right campaigning after wolf attacks.

“Using a municipality-level panel of voting behavior, we find that communities that witnessed wolf attacks are significantly more likely to vote for the radical right AfD, which espouses climate-skeptic and anticonservationist positions,” the authors write.

One such ad run by AfD paints the farmers as part of the environment now threatened by efforts at biodiversity. These ads are reaching people through Facebook, Twitter, and the manifestos of the party itself. Wolf attacks, and campaigning on them, is a durable and recurring feature of the far-right in Germany.

In evaluating electoral performance, the researchers looked at federal, state, and local elections, and contrasted the performance of the far-right AfD with the environmental-left Green party. Wolf attacks had a minimal to mildly negative effect on Green party performance, but a significant and observable factor in AfD vote share. This was most pronounced at the state level, but was persistent in federal and local elections, too.

“The common interpretation of such findings is that witnessing environmental issues first hand leads to attitude change. However, this coin may have a flip side: Experiencing wolves killing livestock in one’s vicinity increases the likelihood of voting for far-right, conservation-skeptical parties,” the authors write. “Since these parties often oppose measures against climate change, this may lead to a perplexing backlash effect of policies intended to help the environment.”

The electoral impact of wolf attacks isn’t inherently a case against reintroducing wolves, or preserving existing wolf populations. But it should suggest that politics adapts to such actions. A proactive policy that aimed to protect farmers from livestock loss could take efforts to mitigate attacks on livestock, in turn protecting other environmental policies from opportunistic right-wing backlash.

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At midday during a sweltering heat wave, farmers in northeastern Spain would normally be heading from their fields to the shade of the village bar. But farmers Ramon Bonet, Ramon Boleda and Joan Bonet are stuck driving around counting rabbits.

Around the village of Verdú, just outside the city of Lleida, they see dozens of them scamper among crops and dart in and out of underground warrens.

“The rabbits have chewed the skin off the vines,” Boleda said. “This vine is done for. This entire harvest is lost.”

Rabbits in Spain are nothing new, but this year’s population explosion is unusual. Locals fear the long-eared bunnies may have gained a permanent upper hand and they’re wreaking havoc on crops like peaches, pistachios, olives and grapes.

Grapevines destroyed by Lleida’s plague of rabbits, causing millions of dollars in damage.

Credit:

Gerry Hadden/The World

The plantations around the city of Lleida are sometimes called Europe’s fruit basket. There are millions of dollars at stake here, as well as the supply of many farm products favored by shoppers from Berlin to Budapest.

A short drive away, Boleda found new losses among his pistachio trees.

“The rabbits eat the bark all around the trunk,” he said. “They’ve destroyed more than 400 trees.”

Boleda said that’s about $100,000 down the rabbit hole. And the plague is getting worse. There are now up to 1,000 rabbits per square kilometer here, local farmers say. Fifty is the acceptable number, according to the Spanish government.

A grapevine has been killed off by marauding rabbits.

Credit:

Gerry Hadden/The World

Everyone agrees the bunnies need to be culled. The problem is how to do it.

After the drive around, Ramon Bonet tested his 12-gauge shotgun. He said rabbits have always lived in Iberia — in 300 BC, the Carthaginians named the peninsula España, or Land of Rabbits, and it stuck.

Humans and bunnies have long coexisted. But recent hotter temperatures are causing rabbits to reproduce faster. Bonet said the pandemic hasn’t helped.

“During these years of COVID restrictions,” he said, “no one was out hunting. … Plus, there are just fewer hunters in general. Our average age is now over 60.”

But hunting is the only tool farmers have.

Antoni Torres, a local hunting warden, said that in Lleida county alone, rabbits have overrun 99% of the farmland.

“We’d need to double the number of hunters,” he said, to reduce rabbit numbers.

“But then you create other problems. You can’t have that many people with guns hunting at once.”

“We need to be able to put out poison,” Ramon Bonet said. “Either they die, or we do.”

The remains of a rabbit most likely shot by a hunter. On a busy night a single hunter can bag close to a hundred rabbits. But it’s not enough to stop their numbers from increasing.

Credit:

Gerry Hadden/The World

That’s exactly what was written on a giant sign residents woke up to on a recent Sunday. It was hanging from this bridge on the edge of Verdú. “Farmers or rabbits,” it read.

And there was something else. Dead rabbits were hung off the bridge with ropes around their necks.

The anonymous gesture attracted TV crews, and sparked a minor, unexpected animal rights backlash in the village.

“The next day the animal rights folks had hung their own sign,” farmer Joan Bonet said.

“It said, ‘to protest, you don’t need to shed blood.’ It had a picture of a bunny giving us the finger,” he said.

The farmers here will keep protesting, as they did recently, driving through town on their tractors.

Officials have offered up to 300 humane no-kill rabbit traps, but farmers have laughed at the offer, saying that it's impractical.

They hope that if shoppers find less produce to choose from this coming fall, society might support their fight to keep the rabbits in check.

Related: 'Fire flocks’ of sheep and goats get deployed to help battle forest fires in Spain

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To swim in the waters of Cancun’s celebrated beaches these days, beachgoers must first step over mats of seaweed and then push through it to take the plunge.

Sargassum is a brown, stringy seaweed that lines the shore in thick clumps and covers water surfaces stretching out about 20 feet.

“I was just commenting to my wife that there’s a lot of it and it smells bad,” tourist Roberto Arizmendi said.

The smelly seaweed collecting along Cancun’s shores are threatening the region’s efforts to boost tourism. But one resident who saw an opportunity in the menacing seaweed decided to transform it into useful building materials.

Omar Vazquez Sanchez used to lead one of many sargassum cleanup crews contracted by coastal hotels to clean their beaches on a daily basis. Some crews say they drag out about 30 truckloads of seaweed per day — most of which ends up in giant piles dumped out of town.

About four years ago, Sanchez got the idea to turn the seaweed into what he calls “sargablocks.”

Sargassum accumulates in huge heaps along the coast in Cancun as seen in this drone footage.

Credit:

Michael Fox/The World

He built his first building with sargablocks modeled after his grandmother’s tiny home and he named it Casa Angelita, after his mother.

“It’s withstood five hurricanes and six tropical storms and it’s still intact,” he said.

Sanchez’s small operation sits just off the highway in the Mexican town of Puerto Morelos, about a half hour south of Cancun.

Huge mounds of seaweed sit out back baking in the sun. It takes three days for the sargassum to be dried, composted and processed.

Sanchez said their sargablocks are made from a mixture of ground sargassum, limestone and other organic material.

"Sargablocks" are made from sargassum seaweed that is accumulating along Cancun's coastlines.

Credit:

Michael Fox/The World

Turning sargassum into bricks has helped to abate several environmental threats.

When sargassum starts to decay, it can release toxic hydrogen sulfide, which is a poisonous gas to humans. Sargassum also cuts off oxygen levels in water, creating deadly conditions for many marine animals and the region’s coral reefs.

“We began to see the death of marine life on a massive scale in the summer of 2018,” researcher Rosa Elisa Rodríguez said during a talk with the University of Mexico a couple of years ago.

She said that as much as 40% of Mexico’s Caribbean coral reefs were lost between 2018 and 2019 due to the arrival of massive waves of sargassum.

The seaweed grows naturally in beds on the surface of the South Atlantic. There, it’s an important part of the ecosystem — a breeding ground for local marine life. But scientists say the beds have exploded in size in recent years due to rising sea temperatures, excess fertilizer runoff and possibly also Amazon deforestation, which dumps high levels of nutrients into the sea — helping the algae bloom.

This May, 62,000 tons of it washed up on beaches in and around Cancun — the highest total seen yet.

Back at Sanchez’ brick-building operation, two young men in jeans, sandals and baseball caps shoveled the sargassum mixture into big buckets. They carried it up a ladder and dumped it into the top of a blue 7-foot-tall block-making machine.

The machine compacts the dirt, and pushes out two footlong, brown sargablocks at a time along a little conveyor belt.

Sanchez and two employees placed the blocks in rows to dry in the sun. After about six hours, they were ready.

Sargablocks lay out to dry in the sun.

Credit:

Michael Fox/The World

Vazquez said the machine can make almost 485 blocks an hour or 3,000 blocks a day.

“They’re very resistant. And they have this added value that no product in the world has,” he said.

“We clean the beaches. We help clean up all of this sargassum, which kills fish and the reef, and we create jobs for people in need.”

Sanchez has 16 full-time employees. Most of them have battled addictions, something Sanchez himself has faced.

Sanchez has had a hard life. His mother immigrated, undocumented, with him and his siblings to the United States when he was just a kid. He said instead of studying, he had to work in the fields. Today, he said, he wants to give back.

“I want this to be one of the most important businesses in the country, so that others don’t have to emigrate elsewhere. Leaving their family and suffering like we did,” he said.

As part of his mission, he’s also donating sargablock homes to low-income families — they each require up to 20 tons of the seaweed. He’s built 13 homes so far.

Elizabeth del Carmen López, a street vendor, received her home in December. The single mother had previously lived in a one-room wooden shack with her two daughters.

“It was pretty much our Christmas present,” she said. “The house is beautiful. It’s refreshing. Cool in the heat. And we feel safer.”

Sanchez and his operation isn’t going to stop sargassum from arriving on Mexico’s shores. Experts say the algae is going to keep coming and it’s likely going to get worse.

But Sanchez said what he did was take a big problem and come up with a small solution — one he hopes to see grow in the coming years.

“We are destroying our planet,” Vazquez said.

“We need to contaminate less. Destroy less. Protect the mangroves and the forest. Global warming is a reality. And that is something that everyone needs to understand. What are we going to leave for our children?”

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A heat wave broiling Europe spilled northward Monday to Britainand fueled ferocious wildfires in Spain and France, which evacuated thousands of people and scrambled water-bombing planes and firefighters to battle flames spreading through tinder-dry forests.

Two people were killed in the blazes in Spain that the country's prime minister linked to global warming, saying: “Climate change kills."

In recent days, unusually high temperatures have gripped swaths of Europe, triggering wildfires from Portugal to the Balkan region. Some countries are also experiencing extended droughts. Climate change makes such life-threatening extremes less of a rarity — and has brought heat waves even to places like Britain, which braced for possibly record-breaking temperatures.

The hot weather in the UK was expected to be so severe this week that train operators warned it could warp the rails and some schools set up wading pools to help children cool off.

French forecasters also warned of possible record temperatures as swirling hot winds complicated firefighting efforts in the country's southwest.

“The fire is literally exploding,” said Marc Vermeulen, the regional fire service chief who described tree trunks shattering as flames consumed them, sending burning embers into the air and further spreading the blazes.

“We’re facing extreme and exceptional circumstances,” he said.

Authorities started evacuating more towns, moving another 11,500 people from areas at risk of finding themselves in the path of the fires and their thick clouds of choking smoke. That will take the number of people who have been forced out of their homes in the Gironde region to nearly 28,000 since the wildfires began July 12.

Three additional planes were sent to join six others already fighting the fires, scooping up seawater into their tanks and making repeated runs through dense clouds of smoke, the Interior Ministry said Sunday night.

More than 200 reinforcements headed to join the 1,500-strong force of firefighters battling night and day to contain the blazes in the Gironde, where flames neared prized vineyards and the Arcachon maritime basin famed for its oysters and beaches.

Spain, meanwhile, reported a second fatality in two days as it battled its own blazes. The body of a 69-year-old sheep farmer was found Monday in the same hilly area where a 62-year-old firefighter died a day earlier when he was trapped by flames in the northwestern Zamora province. More than 30 forest fires around Spain have forced the evacuation of thousands of people and blackened 220 square kilometers (85 square miles) of forest and scrub.

Climate scientists say heat waves are more intense, more frequent and longer because of climate change — and coupled with droughts have made wildfires harder to fight. They say climate change will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.

“Climate change kills,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said Monday during a visit to the Extremadura region, where firefighters tackled three major blazes. “It kills people, it kills our ecosystems and biodiversity."

Teresa Ribera, Spain’s minister for ecological transition, described her country as “literally under fire” as she attended talks on climate change in Berlin.

She warned of “terrifying prospects still for the days to come" — after more than 10 days of temperatures over 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), cooling only moderately at night.

According to Spain’s Carlos III Institute, which records daily temperature-related fatalities, 237 deaths were attributed to high temperatures from July 10 to 14. That was compared to 25 heat-related deaths the previous week.

The heat wave in Spain is forecast to ease on Tuesday, but the respite will be brief as temperatures rise again on Wednesday, especially in the dry western Extremadura region.

In Britain, officials have issued the first-ever extreme heat warning, and the weather service forecast that the record high of 38.7 C (101.7 F), set in 2019, could be shattered.

“Forty-one isn’t off the cards,” said Met Office CEO Penelope Endersby. “We’ve even got some 43s in the model, but we’re hoping it won’t be as high as that.”

The Balkans region has also seen sporadic wildfires, and is expecting the worst of the heat later this week.

Early on Monday, authorities in Slovenia said firefighters managed to bring one fire under control. Croatia sent a water-dropping plane there to help battle the flames after struggling last week with its own wildfires along the Adriatic Sea coast. A fire in Sibenik forced some people to evacuate their homes but was later extinguished.

In Portugal, much cooler weather Monday helped fire crews make progress against blazes. More than 600 firefighters attended four major fires in northern Portugal.

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Editor's note: Some readers may find parts of this story disturbing.

It’s been four months since a privately owned zoo, located about an hour north of Kyiv, was occupied by Russian soldiers. But the damage and trauma left behind continues to reverberate there among people and animals alike.

“They have gone through all these explosions and situations they aren’t used to,” Alina Malynka, the zoo’s veterinarian, said. “But they’ve gotten used to the sirens … and they’re calming down bit by bit.”

She was one of the six staffers trapped inside Zoo XII Months when Russian soldiers set up camp there at the end of February during their ultimately and unsuccessful march to take Kyiv.

It was a very tense 35 days, she said.

“We were not so much scared … we were just not ready or used to this situation,” she said.

Before Russia invaded Ukraine, Zoo XII Months, like many similar institutions across the country, were starting to make a comeback from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now, due to depleted money reserves and uncertainty on when the conflict may end, zoo staffers say they’re in worse shape than ever.

Zoo XII Months veterinarian Alina Malynka poses in front of the bails of hay where she slept when Russians occupied the zoo for over a month at the end of February. She was one of the six zoo staff members trapped inside for over 35 days.

Credit:

Ashley Westerman/The World

A zoo under occupation Russia’s invasion of Ukraine made its way to the zoo park just days after Moscow invaded on Feb. 24.

The 45-acre zoo is located right off the bank of the Dnipro River, just outside the small village of Dimydiv. That's only a few miles away from other Russian-occupied areas that made bigger headlines, such as Bucha, Gostemel and Irpin.

Russian soldiers broke down the gates and parked a tank right in front of the administration building, said Zoo XII Months owner Mikhail Pinchuk, who opened the place in 2015 with his own collection of exotic animals.

He was actually stuck outside of the zoo during its occupation, as Russians had blown up all the bridges around the village, and wouldn’t allow anyone in or out, he said.

Inside, six zoologists had to fend for themselves and the animals. The park has a variety of stable zoo animals, including camels, a rhinoceros, a hippopotamus and a variety of birds, apes and big cats.

Pinchuck said, thankfully, the Russian soldiers harmed no animals and no staff.

“They were in fact wandering around looking with eyes wide open. They couldn't expect to see this sort of thing,” he said. “They even made some remarks that they wouldn't mind returning, you know, more like visitors rather than this.”

Zoologist Serhii Burch said the soldiers were not openly hostile toward the staff.

“They weren’t pointing their guns at us. They were simply asking questions, taking notes and that’s it,” he said.

Zoologist Serhii Burch feeds zebras by hand in their enclosure. Burch was one of the six zoo staff members trapped inside the zoo for the 35 days Russian soldiers occupied it.

Credit:

Ashley Westerman/The World

Meanwhile, the Russians ransacked the offices and made off with everything from magnets and underwear to socks and expensive equipment. Staff had to sleep where they could, often in the warehouse behind the giraffe enclosure where grain and plants are stored.

The animals were deeply affected by the soldiers’ presence, veterinarian Malynka said. In order to ration food, staff had to cut down the amount they were feeding the animals.

“Speaking of apes, let’s say they eat three times a day. So, we had to cut down to one meal a day,” Malynka said. “If we’re talking about predators, let’s say tigers. They would eat up to 7 or 8 kilograms of meat and we had to lower that down to 3 or 4 kilograms of meat."

If the zoo had been cut off any longer, they would have run out of food, she said.

At the same time, all the animals were scared and stressed.

“We had one ape that killed itself, striking itself against the wall. We had a lot of birds that died, due to all of the explosions,” Malynka said.

One of the older giraffes fell down from fright of the loud noises, and the young male hippopotamus spent a majority of the occupation hiding underwater inside his enclosure, staff told The World.

Overall, the zoo has lost 15 animals and many animals still show signs of trauma and react negatively toward loud noises, she said.

Zoo XII Months white rhinoceros, Archie, sits in his enclosure on a recent summer day. Many of the big animals at the zoo have become afraid of loud noises and explosions since the beginning of the war.

Credit:

Ashley Westerman/The World

Stressed animals, few visitorsPark XII Months was eventually liberated, but problems persist.

The animals remain distressed and, with virtually no visitors, the zoo isn’t making money. Pinchuk said that before the pandemic, they would see some 20,000 people per month.

“These days, sometimes … two, sometimes five [visitors],” he said. It is not enough for a place that costs about $1 million a year to run; a lot of that is going to just keeping the animals warm during the harsh Ukrainian winter, Pinchuk said.

And with the price of gas rising and the uncertainty of the war, they are preparing themselves.

“I understand that even if we go through this winter, there will be no other chance after that because [the zoo] is so big,” he said.

Zoos, ecological parks and nature reserves are often collateral damage during war.

Some of Ukraine’s largest and best-known zoos are located in cities, such as Odessa and Kharkiv — places in the eastern part of the country, near the front lines of the war.

Mykolaiv Zoo, a government-run institution in Ukraine’s south on the Black Sea, recently reopened on the weekends. Still, there are very few people left in the city, hence few visitors, its zoo director Vladimir Topchy said.

The zoo has somehow sustained no damage and they’ve lost no animals and staff so far, he added. However, the animals remained stressed from explosions and other loud noises, and there are eight unexploded shells still sitting in the zoo.

“Money-wise we are not doing great,” Topchy said. “We’re running out of money.”

Ultimately, Topchy said, it’s not sustainable long term to stay open and, if they close, it’s up in the air what would happen to the animals. Evacuations of animals to other parts of Ukraine or even to European zoos are becoming more and more difficult, particularly at zoos in places that are currently Russian-occupied.

While institutions across Ukrainian have banded together to try and help, the situation remains difficult, said Dmitri Tkachev with the Ukrainian Association of Zoos and Aquariums. Money is everyone’s biggest need right now, he said.

“Due to the coronavirus pandemic, we had no opportunity to earn money. This depleted our reserves,” said Tkachev, who is also the director of BION Terrarium Center in Kyiv. They have had to evacuate some of their animals and had a breeding center in eastern Ukraine destroyed by shelling.

“We were absolutely not prepared for such a situation,” he said.

Related: Modular housing in Ukraine provides shelter — and hope — for internally displaced people

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A group of volunteers were afloat in a small blue and white boat, or panga, just off the shore of Laguna La Cruz — a wetland area on the southern end of Bahia de Kino, Sonora, on the Gulf of California.

“There’s one! There’s one,” a volunteer shouted, pointing to a submerged buoy on the wide, nylon net the group set earlier in the morning to trap and monitor green sea turtles.

When the buoys sink below the surface, it lets the volunteers know a turtle is in the net. The volunteers quickly moved closer to pull the oceangoing reptile out of the water.

Green sea turtles are an endangered species and among the largest of their kind in the world. They’re also the only herbivorous sea turtles. Now, some conservation groups, like the volunteers in the panga, are trying to protect them.

It was a hot May morning, and three young men sweated as they heaved the large, gray and green turtle out of the net. Its flippers flailed and slapped as the volunteers carefully lowered it into the bottom of the boat and covered its head with a damp towel to keep it calm.

“It’s a little stressful for them, but it’s the only way,” said Cosme Becerra, a former fisherman who left the family trade more than a decade ago.

He leads this conservation group, known as the Kino Bay Tortugueros — which means something like "turtle wranglers" in Spanish.

Damar Becerra and Alfonso Morales are with the Kino Bay tortugueros conservation group.

Credit:

Kendal Blust/KJZZ

Many approach Laguna La Cruz to eat seagrasses that grow in the wetland area. But they can also get tangled in nets fishermen use in this region, preventing them from surfacing for air and drowning them — the leading cause of turtle deaths in this area, Cosme Becerra said.

Not long ago, Cosme Becerra’s nets were among those that occasionally ensnared turtles.

The turtle’s cry“We never hunted them,” he said. “The turtles we caught were bycatch when we were working with large nets. And, well, sometimes turtles got caught. If they were alive, we let them go. But if they were dead, we ate them, if they were in good condition.”

And on a few occasions, he sold the turtles for quick cash to help out with family emergencies, like once when his son was in the hospital.

Then, in the mid-1990s, he was tasked with killing a turtle for a public official who was having a party. He kept it in his family’s bathroom until the day of the event.

Alfonso Morales lifts a sea turtle to place it in the bottom of the boat, where it will stay until the crew reaches the shore.

Credit:

Kendal Blust/KJZZ

“And the turtle was constantly making its noise: huuuu, huuuu,” he said, imitating the sound of the turtle’s breathing. “And all night that breath, that noise kept me awake, on the one hand. On the other hand, Moni, my wife, wouldn’t let me sleep.”

All night, she pleaded with him to free the turtle, saying it sounded like a woman crying and that its tears were puddling on the bathroom floor.

“‘Let her go, please,’ she begged,” he recalled. “I didn’t want to let it go because it wasn’t mine. It belonged to this official.”

But eventually, he conceded. In the morning, they released the turtle.

“And since then, we haven’t eaten or killed turtles,” he said.

Grupo Tortuguero de Bahia Kino

Volunteers weigh each sea turtle before it's released.

Credit:

Kendal Blust/KJZZ

In 2010, Cosme Becerra and his brothers started working in sea turtle conservation, joining a national network of volunteers, known as Grupo Tortuguero de Bahia Kino, who monitor turtles and collect data on their health, reproduction and migration patterns.

He said it’s a way to repay, in part, what he took from sea turtles in the past.

In the 12 years since they started, they’ve registered more than 800 sea turtles off the coast of Kino Bay. And now, 15 members, and three generations, of the Becerra family volunteer as tortugueros.

“I have my … everybody,” Cosme Becerra said with a laugh. “Now, I have Cosme Damian III following in my footsteps. That’s my legacy.”

Cosme Becerra said his grandson, now in second grade, gave a presentation to his class about his family’s conservation work last school year. It was a proud moment, he said, and one that gave him hope for the future. He’s seen the way working in conservation has changed his family, and his community.

And now, the tortuguero group is working to train others to do similar work in the region as well.

Giving backFive young adults from the nearby town of Punta Chueca, in the Indigenous Comcaac Nation, joined the Becerra team out on the boat this time as they loaded up turtles — seven in all.

Damar Becerra, Cosme Becerra's niece and part of a new generation of Becerra conservationists, walked the Comcaac trainees through registering the turtles. For each one, they took down basic information: the number of scales, or scutes, on its shell; visible injuries, illnesses or barnacles and if it had a small metal tag on each back flipper — indicating that it had been registered somewhere before.

The first turtle they captured that day was Nalo, who was first registered two years ago.

As the group motors backed to the shore to collect additional data on the turtles, Nalo breathed heavily in the bottom of the boat, and the young Comcaac trainees poured water over him and the turtles to keep them hydrated until they reached the shore.

“It’s like putting in my grain of sand, doing my part,” said Alfonso Morales, 22. “It’s like exchanging a little bit of work to protect this species for all that it’s given us.”

A sea turtle waits as volunteers remove it from the net they set to catch and monitor the species.

Credit:

Kendal Blust/KJZZ

Like Becerra, Morales joined the tortuguero group as a way of giving back to sea turtles — a species that he said has provided sustenance to his people for millennia, helping them survive in the Sonoran desert. In the Comcaac creation story, a turtle carried sand from the ocean floor that the creator used to form the land.

“It’s a fundamental part of our culture, our songs, our stories,” he said. “And for us, it’s important to preserve the species just like it’s important to preserve our culture.”

“They have the ability to register a lot of turtles, and many different species,” added Damar Becerra. “They can really help us with information about sea turtles in this region.”

In part, that’s because the nearly 116-square-mile Infiernillo Channel lies within Comcaac territory. Protected under the Ramsar wetlands convention, the channel is known for its incredible wealth of seagrass beds, mangroves and other important habitats for marine species, including all five sea turtle species in the Gulf of California — green, hawksbill, loggerhead, leatherback and olive ridley.

The sea turtles jostled in the bottom of the boat as volunteers brought them back to the shore.

Credit:

Kendal Blust/KJZZ

Community outreachPulling up to the beach of the Laguna La Cruz, also known as the Santa Cruz Estuary, the tortugueros carried the turtles to shore one by one.

Using tape measures, scales and other equipment, they weighed and measured each turtle, then tagged and named them.

As they worked, nearby beachgoers approached for a closer look at the huge turtles and asked questions about the tortugueros’ work and about the animals. Some of them — especially children — liked to help give the turtles names, like Pirata, or Pirate.

“That’s the most important thing we do,” Cosme Becerra said afterward. “We’re planting that seed in the community.”

For Damar Becerra, it’s a sense of pride, answering as many questions as they can and being recognized for their conservation efforts.

Nowadays, other fishermen sometimes bring the tortugueros turtles that have gotten caught in their nets, or in ghost nets, as abandoned nets are often called.

“It means we’re doing our job,” she said.

Cosme Becerra, like all of the Kino Bay Tortugueros, wears a shirt that describes their conservation work.

Credit:

Kendal Blust/KJZZ

Damar Becerra, 22, has been volunteering with the conservation group for about four years, taking over for her father when he stepped down.

At first, she said, she was afraid — worried that the turtles might bite her as she pulled them out of the water. But, like the other women in her family, she wanted to be where the action is, just like the men.

“And I told myself, ‘Why not do it? I’m a woman, but I can do the things that men do,’” she said.

Now, her favorite part of the work is being out on the boat.

It’s not easy work, particularly because needed funding can be hard to scrape together, she said. But her family always finds a way.

“We don’t give up,” she said. “We’re a family that never gives up.”

As the work wrapped up that morning, the final turtle, Frida, crawled back to the sea and swam out into the calm, blue waters.

“Although the turtles have to pay this little bit, it’s worth it,” Cosme Becerra said of the discomfort turtles suffer when being captured and handled. “That’s how we get the information we need to protect them.”

It’s for the good of the turtles, he said, and for all of us.

An earlier version of this story was originally published by KJZZ in Arizona.

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Cedar trees once surrounded the mountains of the Monastery of St. Anthony in Qozhaya, in northern Lebanon, but they're dwindling away.

Lebanon’s old-growth cedar forests have been decimated by centuries of logging. Now, rising temperatures from climate change are set to take the rest.

Yet, these sweeping, giant evergreens remain an important symbol for Lebanon and the Lebanese Maronite Church.

“It’s like the relationship between a father and son. … You watch it grow up,” said Father Kamil Kayrouz, a monk who has lived at the monastery since 1986.

“If you take care of it, the tree will take care of you as well.”

Father Kamil Kayrouz stands near a small grove cedar trees outside the Monastery of St. Anthony. “These were planted when I came here,” he mused. Already, they’ve grown quite tall.

Credit:

Sara Hteit/The World

Members of the Maronite Church, which adopted the cedar as a religious symbol in the 12th century, feel the crisis deeply. They even stitch the trees onto vestments worn by priests.

The Monastery of St. Anthony is perched on the side of a low, rocky canyon known as the Valley of Qozhaya, or The Living Treasure, in Syriac.

Fruit trees, tended by the monks, now climb up the hillside.

It’s unclear when the monastery was established, but monks believe that it’s at least 1,000 years old. It connects to the larger Kadisha Valley region, with a small, 25-acre preserve established in 1876, known as the Cedars of God.

Views of a pilgrimage site in a cave at the Monastery of St. Anthony. Devotees once chained themselves inside the cave, hoping for their ailments to be healed.

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Sara Hteit/The World

For monks living in the Kadisha Valley, the cedars symbolize the Virgin Mary, as well as eternity.

The trees are resilient — adapting to harsh climates and rough, rocky terrain.

Reaching over 100 feet tall and outliving empires — some are believed to be more than 3,000 years old — the trees can seem immortal.

“We pray for the future, and we ask God to stay with us. As the cedars are also staying with us,” Kayrouz said.

Views of the church at the Monastery of St. Anthony, built into a cave in the cliffside. The monks believe the site is about 1,000 years old.

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Sara Hteit/The World

Wood from the cedars was prized by Phoenician shipbuilders, held up ancient temples in Jerusalem and was used by the Ottoman Empire to build railroads.

The trees captured the imaginations of early writers, and appeared in religious texts from the “Epic of Gilgamesh” to the Old Testament, where the cedars of Lebanon are referenced some 75 times.

Kayrouz referenced a Bible story of Jesus appearing to his followers, which he said occurred on a nearby hill.

He’s read this story several times since becoming a monk nearly 50 years ago, when he refused to join a Christian militia at the outbreak of Lebanon’s civil war.

“During the war, I was trained to use a gun, but I was asking myself, how do I kill someone like me?” Kayrouz said.

“Every day, when I see the mountain, the valley, the trees and the history that happens here— I feel I’m really close to God.”

Views of the Monastery of St. Anthony of Qozhaya, a small valley named “Treasure of Life” in Syriac. The monastery houses a dozen monks and supports three who live as hermits. The monastery is undated but believed to be about 1,000 years old.

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But the trees of God are now in crisis. They need a deep freeze in order to germinate properly. And a native sawfly that thrives in warmer conditions is chewing up young saplings.

In just 80 years, if carbon emissions that contribute to global warming continue at the current rate, scientists believe cedar trees will only be able to survive in the northern tip of Lebanon, where altitudes are higher and the air is cooler.

From his perch in the monastery, Kayrouz said he feels almost powerless to stop climate change.

But he regularly visits an interfaith reforestation project, trying to plant a corridor of cedars in a U-shape bend that connects to the Cedars of God.

Father Kamil Kayrouz, a monk, looks out from a balcony at the Monastery of St. Anthony of Qozhaya. The nearby mountains were once blanketed with ancient cedar forests, before centuries of logging destroyed nearly all of them.

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Sara Hteit/The World

Reforestation director Charbel Tawk, of the Friends of the Cedar Forest Committee, said the nonprofit uses largely municipal and church-owned lands for their plantings.

He attributes at least some of his luck to religious sentiments toward the trees.

“At the end of the day, we say that something from above is taking care of the forest with us,” Tawk said. “Something divine.”

In seven years, Tawk said, his committee has planted more than 1,700 acres of cedars and other native trees in northern Lebanon.

The rate of survival, he said, is about 80%.

Lately, they’ve watched the cedars start to grow at higher altitudes than ever before — above 7,000 feet above sea level.

Charbel Tawk, of the Friends of the Cedar Forest Committee, attributes at least some of his luck to religious sentiments toward the trees. “At the end of the day, we say that something from above is taking care of the forest with us,” Tawk said. “Something divine.”

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Sara Hteit/The World

“We are having very good results,” Tawk said. “Maybe it’s because we’re helping with irrigation, or maybe from climate change — we don’t know.”

On Aug. 6, Tawk said, the committee hosts an annual event inviting members of all religions to gather at the trees.

“When they go to the forest, they know very well they’re going to a holy place,” Tawk said. “The whole area is considered a sacred place.”

Related: Solar power is the 'only business that's booming' amid financial and electricity crises in Lebanon, experts say

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Enoch Amoah woke up at about 2:30 a.m. to find almost everything in his room floating.

Fearing for his life, he waded through floodwaters to a safer spot.

This was the second such incident in three days for Amoah, who lives in the sprawling suburb of Alajo, just outside of Ghana’s capital, Accra, where heavy rains have created chaos and desperation.

“This one is very very bad. It is not easy. Everything we have in our rooms is destroyed."

Enoch Amoah experienced extreme flooding in Alajo, a suburb of Accra, Ghana

“This one is very very bad. It is not easy. Everything we have in our rooms is destroyed,” he said.

Accra has been hit with a series of flooding in May and June this year, leaving many experts worried about the city’s capacity for climate resilience if trends continue.

Alajo is completely flooded, leaving roads shredded and dozens of buildings submerged. In recent days, pedestrians could be seen scrambling for safety under shop awnings or inside buildings and containers.

Related: ‘Too little too late’: Ghana’s small farmers worry fertilizer aid won’t arrive in time to avert food crisis

An Alajo home is still flooded long after floodwaters have receded.

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Ridwan Karim Dini-Osman/The World

Standing barefoot with just a towel tied around his waist, Amoah said he doesn’t know where to go next since he has no relatives in Accra.

“It just came at once. We don’t know where to pass. We did not take anything. All our hard-earned belongings are gone,” he said.

Even though Africa has contributed relatively little to the planet's greenhouse gas emissions, the continent suffers some of the world's heaviest impacts of climate change — from famine to flooding.

Parts of West Africa have been hit with unusually huge amounts of rainfall this year, exposing vulnerabilities in many cities like Accra.

The Ghana Meteorological Agency has put the entire nation on notice for more rains this month.

Felicity Ahafianyo, head of meteorology at the Central Analysis and Forecast Office, said that conditions may worsen worse before they improve in southern, flood-prone areas like Alajo.

“We still have to pay attention to the forecasts from the Ghana Meteorological Agency. Per our model charts for the weekend, and the coming week and then up to 28 June, there are still higher chances of rain occurring over most places,” she said.

Flash flooding has shut down parts of Accra as contaminated waterways put people at the risk of diseases such as cholera, typhoid and dysentery.

A major drain overflows during heavy rains and flooding.

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Ridwan Karim Dini-Osman/The World

Disappearing wetlandsThe influx of property developers who have built commercial and residential properties over wetlands is one of the root causes of Accra’s worsening floods, according to new research by the Institute for Environmental and Sanitation Studies at the University of Ghana.

Wetlands function as natural sponges that trap and slowly release rainwater, slowing the speed and distribution of floodwaters over the floodplain.

Professor Christopher Gordon is a founding director of the Institute of Environmental and Sanitation Studies at the University of Ghana.

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Ridwan Karim Dini-Osman/The World

“Some of the areas under protection as wetlands of special importance, or the Ramsar Sites, we’ve had encroachment of up to 40% of them,” said the institute’s founding director, professor Christopher Gordon. “And we have remote sense imagery which shows the change from vegetated areas to bare and built-up areas. So it is a problem,” he said.

Related: Accra’s only surviving greenbelt is under threat. Ghanaians are fighting to protect it.

Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo recently directed local authorities to demolish illegal homes built in or near streams and creeks that are impeding the flow of water — but that doesn’t address the problem of wetlands encroachment.

Wetlands are critical to mitigating floodwaters, yet the United Nations says they are now disappearing three times faster than forests.

“The worst-case scenario is that practically half of Accra will be unlivable — all will be damaged,” Gordon warned.

He said that efforts should be made to restore most of the depleted wetlands, but added that it would be a long and expensive undertaking.

View of a part of the Sakumono lagoon and wetlands in the Greater Accra region, June 8, 2014.

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Natborks/Wikimedia Commons

Investing in climate resilience Rapid urbanization, inadequate infrastructure and the growth of informal settlements jeopardize those who already live in precarious conditions.

Alajo resident Isaac Asomani and his family were forced out of their home by the floods and are now stranded.

Sitting in front of a local pharmacy with his wife and three young children, he said that all attempts to catch a ride to a family member have failed.

“The water has come up to the windowsill,” he said. “The road is also flooded. No car, no bicycle, no motorbike, nothing. You can’t go anywhere,” he said.

Asomani worries that he may never be able to rebuild their lives.

“I have no option until the government comes in. My years of investment are all gone. I have no option than to throw the things away,” he said.

Some residents patch up a road after being destroyed by floodwaters.

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Ridwan Karim Dini-Osman/The World

Flood-related catastrophes have increased by 134% since 2000, according to the World Meteorological Organization.Experts say that African countries need reliable financing options to be able to adapt to the adversities of a changing climate and recommend urgent investments in capacity development as well as new technologies like early warning systems.

But there’s a gap of $20 billion to reach the $100 billion target for climate finance as pledged by Western countries in the Paris Agreement.

African climate negotiators at the last climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, lamented the challenges of making headway on finance.

The $100 billion unfulfilled promise represents only .4% of the total global finance mobilized to tackle COVID-19 pandemic in less than two years.

Related: Did the world 'build back better' since the start of the pandemic? Not so much.

The UN climate change conference in Egypt this year will give Africa an opportunity to leverage and secure a good deal for the region. But African negotiators are concerned that the Russia-Ukraine conflict has diverted attention from the West’s climate finance obligations.

Meanwhile, Alajo residents continue to count their losses as more rains are forecasted through the end of June.

“Now, we would have to start life afresh and it won’t be easy at all because the economy is hard. God should just have mercy on us," resident Amoah said.

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Chile has been facing a megadrought for more than a decade, with central regions receiving 30% less rainfall than usual over the past 13 years.

Around 8% of Chile’s population does not have access to clean drinking water or proper sewage systems, according to the Chilean Ministry of Social Development.

For years, people believed that climate change was to blame. But a recent study published in the Switzerland-based journal Water found that this shortage was not only due to the megadrought, but has also been caused by water misuse and management practices established under the country’s current legislation.

Related: Why Chile moved ahead with COVID vaccines for the very young

That includes the process of diverting water sources away from populated areas toward crops instead — like avocados — that require a lot of moisture to grow.

Cistern truck delivering water in Petorca, Chile.

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Courtesy of Veronica Vilchez

In the municipalityof Petorca — a rural area about 120 miles north of the capital, Santiago — the population now relies on water delivery trucks for its drinking water supplies after the nearby River Petorca dried out several years ago.Veronica Vilchez, a farmer who lives in the area, said that a truck delivers between 20 and 40 liters of water a day for her family. That’s only enough for each family member to take a two-minute shower.

This is despite a court ruling from March 2021 that set a minimum of 100 liters per day per person for Petorca.

“We don’t have people here who enforce the ruling,” Vilchez said.

She added that she lives with five other family members and that they all have to find creative ways to reuse the water multiple times.

“I clean the floor with the same water I use to wash my hair, do the dishes and water the plants,” she said.

“Our horses, cows, sheep, they are all dying. Schools are closing and people are moving away because there is no water.”

Veronica Vilchez, farmer who lives in Petorca, Chile

“In Petorca, it smells like death,” she said. “Our horses, cows, sheep, they are all dying. Schools are closing and people are moving away because there is no water.”

Vilchez is part of the organization Mujeres Modetima, a group of women activists who deliver water to nearby communities. But while people are suffering from severe water shortages, she said that she can see, from her window, rows of green trees from the avocado plantations covering the hills nearby.

Related: Electricity rates have skyrocketed in Brazil. The govt says the water crisis is to blame.

As a major avocado exporter, Chile produces nearly 220,000 metric tons of avocados per year, and the majority of them grow in Petorca. Avocado producers pump thousands of liters of water per second to irrigate the area, according to Chilean hydrologist Pablo Garcia-Chevesich, a professor at the University of Arizona.

He said that Chile is one of the few countries in the world that allows full privatization of water.

“Just because a water course is flowing, in Chile, you can get the water rights from a river, and they give it to you for life, for free,” he said. “And then you can [divert] that river and use it [for] your convenience.”

It’s a water code that goes back to the early 1980s under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Now, 90% of the country's fresh water rights are held by private companies.

Related: In Mexico, shuttered cemeteries mean financial ruin for thousands of flower farmers

Chile’s economy, being the largest in South America by per-capita gross domestic product, is built on water-intensive, extractivist industries, principally mining and agriculture.

So, García-Chevesich discovered that the root cause of Chile’s water crisis is overconsumption of water by the agriculture and mining industries, not climate change.

“The pattern is the same: A big exporting company arrives, takes all the water rights, drills very deep wells, [diverts] the rivers, and that means the aquifers deplete, the rivers dry out and the farmers don't have any more water,” he said.

“The final purpose for the freshwater is to create profit, not to provide welfare for citizens.”

Pablo Garcia-Chevesich, Chilean hydrologist and professor at the University of Arizona

“The final purpose for the fresh water is to create profit, not to provide welfare for citizens,” he added.

A person holding a sign that reads, “No more water robbery" in Petorca, Chile.

Credit:

Courtesy of Veronica Vilchez

The researcher said that “[the] water crisis is by far the most urgent health, economic and environmental problem” in the South American country. Meanwhile, Chile’s President Gabriel Boric is now proposing a new constitution that would prioritize water for human consumption. It would also allow the government to suspend the rights of usage on threatened water sources.

But the plan needs a two-thirds majority in Congress to pass before it can be put to a national referendum for voters to decide on.

Garcia-Chevesich said that while deprivatization of water is a long overdue policy in Chile, it won’t solve the existing water emergency: “We will have to look at different sources of water, like [conducting] desalination, for example.”

He also said the country urgently needs an education program about the water crisis as well as a national ration plan.

In April, the governor of Santiago, Claudio Orrego, did announce a possible four-tier alert system to ration water to the city of nearly 6 million people.

Related: Iran's 'system is essentially water bankrupt,' says environmental expert

“We're in an unprecedented situation in Santiago's 491-year history where we have to prepare for there to not be enough water for everyone who lives here,” Orrego said.

The four stages of the proposal, which hasn’t been implemented yet, will be based on the capacity of the Maipo and Mapocho rivers. The process will begin with public service announcements, moving onto restricting water pressure and ending with rotating water cuts of up to 24 hours.

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In Brazil, the bodies of British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian anthropologist Bruno Pereira who went missing in the western Amazon on June 5 have been found while two suspects have been detained in the case.

“It was really very brutal the way our companions were executed. Their bodies were buried really far from the river,” said Kora Kanamari, an Indigenous leader from the Javari Valley Indigenous territory, in a message sent to friends over WhatsApp on Wednesday night that was also shared with The World.

Related:'We still have a little hope of finding them': A journalist and anthropologist working in the Amazon have gone missing

Phillips and Pereira were in the region interviewing people from Indigenous communities for a book that Phillips was writing about sustainable development in the Amazon.