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Climate Change May Weaken Children’s Education in the Tropics
›In parts of the tropics, exposure to extreme temperature or rainfall in early life is associated with fewer years of schooling in later childhood. This finding comes from my new article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, with coauthor Clark Gray. As climate change leads to increasingly severe heat waves, floods, droughts, and hurricanes, it is important to understand how extreme weather impacts kids’ education in different parts of the world. This will help decisionmakers develop solutions to keep children in school in a world of increasing climate variability.
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A Warmer Arctic Presents Challenges and Opportunities
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Can Big Multinational Retailers Save Our Planet?
›As we move past another Earth Day, environmentalists may be forgiven for assuming that little has changed. The best available evidence points to a rapidly changing climate, declining biodiversity, and fisheries on the verge of collapse. To further complicate matters, the political will to reverse these trends is being stymied by a surge of anti-environmental populism in America, Brazil and elsewhere. When coupled with the continued harvesting of natural resources by big multinational corporations, it is easy to see why environmentalists are crying into their organic kale and quinoa bowls.
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The Global Care Tilt: Migrant Caregivers Flock to Wealthy Countries to Meet Rising Demand
›With rapidly aging populations and rising levels of female employment, the United States and other wealthy nations are facing unprecedented demands for non-familial care. These nations vary in their ability to address such demands. Those with more robust welfare states, including publicly supported, high-quality child care and elder care services and facilities, are generally able to meet growing needs for care, while those with weaker welfare states experience severe “care deficits,” leaving families with few alternatives. Increasingly, in the United States and elsewhere in the developed world, families are turning to migrants—usually women—to solve their care dilemmas.
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From Joseph Kony to Nile Perch: Complex Links Hook Armed Conflict to Fisheries
›In “Africa’s smallest war,” both Kenya and Uganda lay claim to Migingo Island, a tiny island in the waters of Lake Victoria. While the claims are over the island, the conflict is about something else entirely: Lates niloticus, also known as Nile perch, a tasty white fish that swims in the waters surrounding the island. The fish forms the backbone of the Lake Victoria economy but is increasingly hard to come by along the lakeshore. Catches are in decline, incomes are dropping, and the Ugandan government is taking increasingly harsh, militarized steps to help revive the fishery.
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Lower Mekong Governments and Development Partners Seek to Improve Water Data Sharing
›In the Mekong region, there is a general push to strengthen water data management and ultimately make evidence-based infrastructure development and water resources management decisions. The efforts of the region’s governments and development partners will ideally help mitigate the cumulative impacts of infrastructure development on water resources; save lives, livelihoods, and property from potentially devastating floods and droughts; and help natural resources be used sustainably. The challenge will involve navigating potential pitfalls related to technical know-how and harmonization of standards as they develop effective water data sharing platforms.
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Mining Giant Behind Deadly Dam Collapse Took Lax Approach to Corporate Responsibility
›On January 25, 2019, an iron ore mining dam collapsed in Brumadinho, Brazil. The accident was probably the worst mining dam incident in the last three decades, according to the UN. So far, 203 people have been found dead and 105 are still missing, buried underneath the wave of almost 13 million cubic meters of mining waste. At least 305 kilometers of the Paraopeba river are now covered in toxic mud. Vale SA, the company that built the dam, is the world’s largest iron ore producer.
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Targeting Infrastructure Undermines Livelihoods in the West Bank
›In many Middle Eastern wars, targeting civilian infrastructure has become all too common. As we documented in a previous article, both state and non-state actors in wars since 2011 in Libya, Syria, and Yemen have targeted water, sanitation, and energy facilities to displace urban populations, punish civilians, and render local attempts to provide public services untenable. Destroying environmental and civilian infrastructure directly undermines livelihoods and human security.
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