In this piece for The Washington Post Magazine, Henry Wismayer takes a tour of what was formerly the Aral Sea, and once the world’s fourth largest inland body of water. “It began, like so many tragedies, with hubris,” writes Wismayer, describing how, in the 1920s, inefficient irrigation projects diverted the region’s rivers to land for […]
global warming
Posted inEditor's Pick
Living Through India’s Next-Level Heat Wave
India is experiencing an unprecedented heat wave. Dhruv Khullar describes what living and working in the extreme heat feels like, especially for the country’s poorest residents in and around Delhi. The women described headaches, exhaustion, dizziness, rashes, fever. The stench of the landfill—an acrid mixture of excrement and rotting trash—was sickening, they said, but the […]
Posted inNonfiction
Burning Out
Search and rescue teams train for the worst conditions. But the worst conditions are getting worse. Are they ready for the next big disaster?
Posted inNonfiction, Quote Posts, Quotes, Science & Nature
Should We Create New Life As Our Planet Struggles to Support Life In General?
Knowing what we now know about global warming, is procreation irresponsible?
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Feature, Featured, Highlight, Nonfiction, Quotes
Memorializing a Glacier and Hoping for the Future
Iceland holds a funeral for Okjökull, once a glacier, now “dead ice.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
How to Mourn a Glacier
Essayist Lacy M. Johnson attends a funeral in Iceland for “Okjökull” — once a glacier 16 square kilometers in surface, and now “only a small patch of slushy gray ice.” In personifying shrinking masses of ice — key geographical features of the area, and the planet — officials hope to impress upon people the dire […]
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Science & Nature, Story
What Does It Mean To Be Moved?
We can all remember a time when the wind touched us when we needed touching, pushed us along when we were unsure.
Posted inArts & Culture, Science & Nature, Story
Critics: Endgame
If there’s no earth, there’s no art. How do you engage in cultural criticism at the end of the world?
Posted inBooks, Essays & Criticism, History, Science & Nature, Story
The Weather and the Wall
Climate change and the border wall are more connected than you might think.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Duet for a Small Porpoise’s Extinction
A personal essay in which Kimi Eisele contemplates coherence, the near extinction of the vaquita, and the expensive bycatch of being human.