Earth Day reminds us of the biggest environmental issues and their drivers. Here are 5 interesting Earth Day facts and how we can all do our part to help and support the environment.  

—

Earth is home to more than 8 billion people, 300,000 plant species, over 600,000 species of fungi, and about 10 million animal species. Ecosystems around the world provide precious services and resources to sustain all life on Earth, yet humanity continues to take them for granted. Anthropogenic climate change is threatening the planet, and we need to do everything we can to conserve and protect our home.

Earth Day, celebrated annually on April 22, is a global event dedicated to raising awareness about environmental protection and sustainability. Keep reading to learn about fascinating Earth Day facts and discover actionable ways to get involved in preserving our planet for future generations.

1. Earth Day was first celebrated in 1970

Prior to the first Earth Day, Americans were guzzling up vast amounts of leaded petrol – the global use of which has since been eradicated. Deadly smog and polluting smoke were also accepted daily occurrences. However, following a series of oil spills and emerging public consciousness about the detrimental impacts of air and water pollution, people’s attitude changed.

Inspired by the energetic student-led, anti-Vietnam war protest movement, US Senator Gaylord Nelson introduced a teach-in on college campuses on environmental awareness, which eventually snowballed into the global movement know today as Earth Day. 

2. Earth Day is the largest secular observance in the world

Despite being celebrated almost exclusively in the US for almost 20 years, Earth Day has now become an internationally recognized day and is celebrated across more than 192 countries. Every year, one billion individuals across the globe are united and mobilised for the same cause – greater environmental awareness and climate action.

3. Earth Day always takes place on April 22 

Senator Nelson originally picked April 22 as the first Earth Day as it fell right between Spring Break and final exams, maximizing student participation and turnout for the event. It has been kept on the same day to encourage even more college students to join in celebrations and protests, and every year, thousands of rallies, concerts, and outdoor activities are organized worldwide.

4. Earth Day cemented many major environmental policies

The first edition of Earth Day kicked off the national conversation on the lack of environmental laws in the country, which led to the adoption of some of the most important and comprehensive federal laws on environmental protection. This included the Clean Air Act (1970), the Clean Water Act amendment (1972), and the 1973 Endangered Species Act.

In 2016, the United Nations also chose Earth Day to sign the Paris Agreement, the world’s most important and comprehensive climate agreement for limiting global warming to below 1.5C or at least “well below” 2C above pre-industrial levels.

You might also like: 10 Years of the Paris Agreement: How the Climate Has Changed, in 4 Charts

5. Earth Day wants us all to take action for the planet

The theme for Earth Day 2026, “Our Power, Our Planet,” reflects a fundamental truth: environmental progress does not depend on any single administration or election. It is sustained by the daily actions of communities, educators, workers, and families protecting the places where they live and work.

Read this next: This Earth Day, Defend the Truth By Supporting Earth.Org

How You Can Get Involved

Climate change is undoubtedly the biggest environmental issue we face today, and we are running out of time to reverse it. The latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that global temperatures will very likely rise 1.5C above pre-industrial levels by 2040, and it is “now or never” to limit global warming.

We have all the tools and options to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It is time we make use of them. 

1. Civil action

Public pressure and civil society mobilization are the greatest tool in global shed to drive institutional and systemic changes. Hold politicians, governments and companies across sectors accountable for their actions – target organisations and businesses that are linked to fossil fuel industries, deforestation, and harmful activities to the environment that could lead to the loss of habitats and biodiversity.

Whether it is the fast fashion industry that is generating millions tonnes of textile waste and wastewater, or the companies that recklessly generate emissions and pollute the environment, you can use your voice and make a difference. From local petitions and advocacy to large-scale boycotts and protests, there is no action too small. 

2. Individual action

We can achieve a sustainable future for us with our combined efforts, if every individual in the world make changes to their lifestyles. You can make it a habit to join in community reforestation efforts or beach cleanups.

On an individual level, simple switches to plant-based diets (or at least reduce meat consumption) can alleviate significant stress on deforestation and emissions in the agricultural sector; eliminating single-use plastics and replace them with reusable and recyclable materials; giving up fast fashion in support of sustainable fashion; opting for public transportation and low-emission means of transport such as biking and electric cars can all go a long way.

Don’t forget, daily acts of composting and recycling are not to be underestimated in reducing your carbon footprint.

3. Support independent journalism

In the current climate of denial and climate retreat, independent, factual journalism is the only way to hold power to account. With more than 4,000 stories published since our inception, annual readership surpassing 8 million last year, and new voices joining our global network every week, authentic storytelling remains the heartbeat of our mission.

Independent journalism is a public good, but it is not free to produce. While we remain free from corporate and political influence, we rely on readers like you to keep our reporting accessible to everyone, everywhere.

If you like what we do, consider supporting our journalism.

Whether you are commuting to work or relaxing in the evening, podcasts are a great way to learn more about the world around you. From Earth.Org’s new weekly climate news roundup to NASA’s mind-blowing science and space adventures, these are the must-listen environmental podcasts of 2026.

—

25 Best Podcasts About the Environment

1. Earth Radio

From the frontlines of the climate crisis to the halls of global policy, Earth Radio is a new, ad-free podcast by Earth.Org bringing you a roundup of the week’s most important climate stories, in five minutes. Join our host Rebekah Hendricks every Saturday as she uncovers the stories behind our headlines and hear from the scientists, activists, and experts leading the charge in adaptation and resilience.

2. Climate Court Voices

Climate Court Voices is a new podcast dedicated to shedding light on pivotal climate litigation battles worldwide and amplifying the voices of those at the forefront of climate justice and environmental activism. It features interviews with climate activists and lawyers behind key climate court battles, from the youth-led Montana case to South Korea’s first constitutional claim on climate change.

3. Women Mind the Water

 Wo(men) Mind the Water brings you conversations with creators from around the world whose work is shaped by the ocean – and who, in turn, use their creativity to protect it. Each episode explores an artist’s connection to water, the stories behind their practice, and the ways art can spark action for a healthier, more resilient planet. It is a diverse group working in diverse ways; for example, one guest uses applied math to crochet models of coral reefs, while another communicates polar science through the cakes she creates.

4. When Science Finds a Way 

Wellcome’s acclaimed podcast When Science Finds a Way returned for a fourth season on 8 April, 2026. Hosted by botanist-turned-Hollywood actor Alisha Wainwright, the series brings listeners into conversations with scientists, innovators and people with lived experience who are working together to tackle some of the world’s most urgent health challenges.

The new season exlores topics ranging from fungal threats and environmental change, extreme heat and mental health in cities, ans superpollutants as rapid climate solutions.

5. The HEATED Podcast

Following a successful mini-series in 2020, journalist Emily Atkin recently returned with a new, weekly podcast she says is “for people who are pissed about the climate crisis.” This time, Atkin, who has been running the independent climate accountability newsletter HEATED since 2018, is teaming up with former CBS senior climate producer Tracy Wholf for a new show investigating and explaining the powerful, systemic forces driving inaction on climate change. Expect them to debunk polluter-funded propaganda, call out media complicity, and press people seeking power on what they will actually do about the crisis.

6. Outrage + Optimism

Co-hosted by Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac, who oversaw the landmark Paris Agreement on climate change, and CDP founder Paul Dickinson, Outrage + Optimism explores the stories behind the headlines on climate change, talking to the change-makers turning challenges into opportunities. They delight in progress, question greenwash and get to grips with the difficult issues – sharing it all with their listeners along the way.

7. A Matter of Degrees

In A Matter of Degrees, Dr. Leah Stokes and Dr. Katharine Wilkinson tell stories about the powerful forces behind climate change – and the tools we have to fix it. With the help of dozens of climate leaders, they tell stories of bold solutions and groundbreaking campaigns, stories of misdeeds and corruption and efforts to stop them, and stories of people doing their best to be a part of the solution. Join us as we make sense of big climate questions.

8. Bloomberg’s Zero: The Climate Race

Zero is a podcast covering the tactics and technologies taking us to a world of zero emissions. Each week, Bloomberg reporter Akshat Rathi talks to the people tackling climate change – a venture capitalist hunting for the best cleantech investment, scientists starting companies, politicians who have successfully created climate laws, and CEOs who have completely transformed their businesses.

9. Wild Lens’ Eyes on Conservation

This podcast gives more information about global conservation efforts, more research about their impacts and more ways to be an advocate for the planet. An interview series, this podcast features top experts in conservation, wildlife and environmental justice. 

10. Science Weekly

Twice a week, this podcast by the Guardian brings you the latest science and environment news. The award-winning show by the Guardian science desk Ian Sample, Hannah Devlin & Nicola Davis is the best place to learn about the big discoveries and debates in biology, chemistry, physics, and sometimes even maths. Join them as they meet the great thinkers and doers in science and technology.

11. Drilled

Drilled is a true-crime climate change podcast exposing how corporate corruption and political operatives built decades of climate denial and delay. Hosted and reported by award-winning investigative climate journalists and led by Amy Westervelt, each season unravels new evidence of deception, disinformation, and the power structures keeping real climate solutions out of reach.

12. Climate Rising

Climate Rising is a podcast about the impact of climate change on business. It brings business and policy leaders and Harvard Business School faculty together to share insights about what businesses are doing, can do, and should do to confront climate change. It explores the many challenges and opportunities that climate change raises for managers, such as decisions about where they choose to locate, the technologies they develop and use, their strategies with respect to products, marketing, customer engagement, and policy – in other words, the full spectrum of business concerns.

13. Yale Climate Connections

How is global warming shaping our lives? And what can we do about it? Yale Climate Connections connect the dots, from fossil fuels to extreme weather, clean energy to public health, and more. Hosted by Dr Anthony Leiserowitz of Yale University, this podcast is a daily 90-second investigative podcast detailing how the climate crisis is already shaping our lives and what we can do about it.

From fossil fuels to extreme weather, clean energy to public health, and more, this is your daily dose of climate change reality- and hope. It seeks to help individuals, corporations, media, NGOs, government agencies, academics, artists, and more learn from each other about constructive “solutions” so many are undertaking to reduce climate-related risks and wasteful energy practices.

14. The Food Fight

In The Food Fight, one of the few food-related environmental podcasts on Earth.Org’s list, Matt Eastland and Lukxmi Balathasan examine the biggest challenges facing the food system, and the innovations and entrepreneurs looking to solve them. They ask some difficult questions including “Can we trust the food we eat?” and “Can we really feed 10 billion people by 2050?” 

15. The Nature Podcast

Produced by Nature Journal, this podcast brings you the best stories from the world of science twice a week. Topics range from astronomy to zoology and highlight the most exciting research from each issue of Nature Journal. Featuring interviews with the scientists behind the results, each episode provides in-depth analysis from Nature’s journalists and editors.

16. The Climate Briefing

The Climate Briefing unpacks the biggest issues shaping international climate politics. Hosted by Anna Åberg and Bhargabi Bharadwaj of Chatham House, the podcast features voices from governments, international organizations, think tanks, academia and the private sector worldwide.

17. Climate One

Since 2007, Climate One has been the premier platform for empowering conversations about the climate emergency. Through a weekly podcast, radio show, and in-person events Climate One provides a trusted place for in-depth conversations that connect diverse perspectives from across the climate community. Reaching 170,000 listeners a week, Climate One can be found on 60 public radio stations across the US, creating opportunities for dialogue and inspiring a more complete understanding of the current crisis.

18. Forces For Nature

In Forces for Nature, eco-podcast producer and host Crystal DiMiceli interviews people working successfully to create a healthier and more humane world, from big-name scientists to a 10-year-old with his own recycling company. The show celebrates people who are doing great things in sustainability, conservation, and animal-related issues. Each episode presents an issue being faced but then quickly pivots from the problem to the effective solution that the guest has found. And, finally, they leave the listener with actionable tips that they can do to help.

19. NASA’s Curious Universe Podcast

Curious Universe – an official NASA podcast hosted by astrophysicist and head of NASA’s Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics Laboratory Padi Boyd and audio producer Jacob Pinter – brings you mind-blowing science and space adventures you won’t find anywhere else. Explore the cosmos alongside astronauts, scientists, engineers, and other top NASA experts who are achieving remarkable feats in science, space exploration, and aeronautics. Learn something new about the wild and wonderful universe we share. All you need to get started is a little curiosity.

20. The Climate Question

The Climate Question is a BBC World Service podcast exploring the “how” and “why” of climate change, focusing on why it is difficult to save the planet and identifying potential solutions. It featured expert interviews to explore topics like rare earth mining, eco-anxiety, and the climate cost of war.

As major powers retreat from their climate promises, we refuse to watch from the sidelines – we are here to expose the truth of a world at a crossroads.

—

As we move through 2026, the data is no longer just a warning – it is a reality we live every day. 2025 was the third warmest year ever recorded, continuing a long-term trend of abnormally high temperatures that has heightened the frequency and intensity of extreme weather occurrences across the globe.

We have now endured more than a decade of unprecedented heat, with the last 11 years (2015–2025) representing the hottest ever recorded. As United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres put it, “When history repeats itself eleven times, it is no longer a coincidence. It is a call to act.”

Our Power, Our Planet

The theme for Earth Day 2026, “Our Power, Our Planet,” reflects a fundamental truth: environmental progress does not depend on any single administration or election. It is sustained by the daily actions of communities, educators, workers, and families protecting the places where they live and work.

At Earth.Org, we believe that information is the fuel for that power. This is especially critical during this era of regressive political shifts, as major governments and global corporations systematically backtrack on their climate commitments. The United States, in particular, is leading a global retreat from climate regulations, dismantling essential environmental protections and allowing the spread of state-sanctioned disinformation.

In this climate of denial, independent, factual journalism is the only way to hold power to account. With more than 4,000 stories published since our inception, annual readership surpassing 8 million last year, and new voices joining our global network every week, authentic storytelling remains the heartbeat of our mission.

A Year of Growth and Impact

Our 2025 Annual Report highlights just how far your support has taken us. Over the past year, we have expanded our reach and diversified our storytelling to meet the urgency of the moment:

• Launching Earth Radio: We recently debuted our weekly podcast, bringing you a roundup of the week’s most important climate stories, in five minutes.
• Holding power to account: We have tracked the US’ dismantling of climate research and international treaties, providing a clear-eyed look at how policy rollbacks impact our long-term survival. We have also expanded our coverage of the global wave of climate lawsuits, tracking how citizens are successfully using the courts to bypass political gridlock and hold both governments and polluters legally accountable for environmental destruction.
• Reporting from the frontlines: We were on the ground in Brazil for COP30 last November, documenting the uphill battle to keep 1.5C alive. Our reporter spoke with several activists about the message they brought to COP30 – from pro-nuclear advocates handing out bananas to demystify radioactivity, to disability activists demanding an official seat at the table, and the tireless volunteers who made the event possible.
• Human-powered journalism: Last year, we revamped our Editorial Guidelines, establishing clear policies on the use of artificial intelligence and maintaining a zero-tolerance stance on plagiarism to ensure that Earth.Org remains a trusted destination for independent, original coverage – powered by real people who are deeply committed to our planet.
• Empowering the next generation: Through Kids.Earth.Org and collaborations with local schools, we are continuing to educate the stewards of tomorrow, ensuring they have the tools to inherit and protect a habitable world.

Invest in Independent Journalism

Independent journalism is a public good, but it is not free to produce. While we remain free from corporate and political influence, we rely on readers like you to keep our reporting accessible to everyone, everywhere.

This Earth Day, we are asking you to invest in the truth.

Your donation doesn’t just keep the lights on; it funds original research, supports our global network of climate reporters, and sustains platforms like Earth Radio that bring these vital conversations to the mainstream.

We have already breached seven of the nine planetary boundaries. The window for action is narrowing, but it has not closed. By supporting Earth.Org, you are helping us turn climate awareness into the direct action needed to defend our only home.

Donate to Earth.Org

Together, we can ensure that the story of 2026 isn’t just one of record heat, but one of a global community finally reclaiming its power.

Earth.Org is a registered charity. 100% of your contribution goes directly toward our mission of environmental journalism and education. To see the full scope of what we achieved together last year, we invite you to read our 2025 Annual Report here.

Featured image: NASA via NASA Johnson/Flickr.

In the face of overwhelming challenges to the climate movement, burnout is a real danger. In this self-help manual for the overwhelmed activist, youth climate icon Katie Hodgetts shares strategies for how to keep going.

—

Activism is, by its nature, a draining, all-consuming business: nobody organizes a climate protest just for the fun of it. For this reason, defeat and paralysis, while normal, can seem all the more unfair. Hodgetts asks activists to confront this reality and to put it into perspective. “Getting your butt kicked is an inevitability, but it’s not the whole story,” the activist says. 

She speaks from experience. In her teens and early twenties, Hodgetts founded the Bristol Youth Strike 4 Climate, coordinated multiple mass-climate mobilizations, shared the stage with Greta Thunberg, and spoke to CEOs and heads of state. Then, at the age of 24, she was derailed by burnout. This inspired her to set up The Resilience Project, aiming to empower young people to become resilient changemakers. The initiative has engaged over 60,000 people since its inception.

Drawing on research with Imperial College and Stanford University, as well as her own story of burnout and recovery, the book outlines a framework that aims to break cycles of escalation and toxic narratives of perfectionism, productivity, and self-sacrifice in activist culture. 

It opens with an acknowledgement of our current state of “permacrisis”, where one shock lands before we have processed the last. This continuous crisis builds a stress level that cannot be addressed with deep breathing exercises alone. Instead, the author calls for a new kind of change-making, built on resilience, reflection and renewal. 

In the first part of the book, Hodgetts describes her personal journey in detail, including a poignant section on her battle with stress-induced bulimia. She then sets out her main thesis, which she calls  “inner-tersectional changemaking”, recognizing both the systemic and inner-led components to change, and explores its implications.

The second part of the book is structured around the eight “guideposts” of her framework, such as how we can reframe our concept of activists as humans first, rather than only changemakers; how to recognize the signs of burnout; and how to practice gratitude without bypassing the very human emotions of anger and grief.

Recognizing our humanity is an important recurring theme. “I see great changemakers and movements, but I still see ego, career-hunger, vanity, cliques, jealousy and tearing each other down when we don’t meet the unrealistic standards we ask of one another,” she remarks. She also focuses on the need to “flip the script” by “identifying narratives that can be damaging to ourselves, our relationships and our campaign work and reimagining an alternative.”

“For example, if you carry the narrative ‘I’m not doing enough’, you can begin to challenge this by acknowledging and appreciating the actions you have taken, however small they may seem. By doing so, you create a new story,” she writes.

The author’s sincerity is clear and the value of the book’s exercises is evident. For those who benefit from self-help books, this is an excellent how-to manual. The exercises in particular are clear, practical, and highly relevant.

At the same time, it does occasionally stray into New Age territory. Writing about a workshop, she describes the scene: “I was accompanied by a pianist during the talk, who started softly playing music as strangers reshuffled to pair up and begin an eye-gazing exercise: staring into each other’s eyes for a few minutes in the hope they could really start seeing each other.”

Ultimately, the most important thing about this book may be its existence. For the thousands of activists and campaigners who are confronting the gap between the idealized versions of themselves and their causes, versus the reality that surrounds them, it will play an important role: to help them feel seen, to acknowledge their humanity, and to continue their struggle.

Act, Rest, Reset, Repeat: Create Change Without Burning Out
Katie Hodgetts
2026, Waterstones, 224pp

—

Check out more Earth.Org book reviews here.

The escalation of hostilities between Iran and the US has evolved into a multifaceted crisis, transforming strategic maritime corridors into primary battlegrounds for state and non-state actors alike. While the world focuses on global oil volatility, potential disruptions in the Bab al-Mandab Strait could push the Horn of Africa toward a humanitarian breaking point by severing critical food and trade lifelines.

—

The recent US-Israel attacks on Iran have transformed into a complex, multi-layered conflict shaped by regional alliances, proxy actors, and strategic geography. This transformation has expanded the war beyond the battlefield, turning it into a multifaceted crisis affecting security and economic stability well beyond Iran. 

The escalation raised immediate concerns over maritime security in the Persian Gulf, particularly the Strait of Hormuz, through which a significant share of global oil supplies flows. Fears of disruption to this chokepoint contributed to heightened volatility in global energy markets and renewed concerns over a potential oil price shock.

A defining feature of this escalation is the increasing role of non-state actors aligned with Iran. Among them, the Houthi movement in Yemen has emerged as a key actor capable of influencing events far beyond its immediate battlefield. By launching missile and drone attacks on commercial shipping in the Bab al-Mandab Strait and the southern Red Sea, the Houthis have opened a southern front in support of Tehran’s broader confrontation with the U.S. and its allies. 

This directly threatens a critical global trade corridor. Given the strait’s geographic proximity to the Horn of Africa and its role as a key gateway for regional imports and maritime trade, these disruptions extend beyond the immediate conflict zone, exposing the Horn of Africa to heightened economic pressure and food insecurity in a context already shaped by conflict and climate-induced crises. 

While the Strait of Hormuz has dominated global attention during the escalation, the conflict has also begun to extend toward the Red Sea corridor, bringing the Bab al-Mandab Strait into sharper strategic focus as a secondary but critical maritime chokepoint. A temporary two-week ceasefire between Iran and the US announced earlier this month could ease immediate hostilities in the region, offering a brief window for safer maritime passage through the Bab al-Mandab Strait. But the structural vulnerabilities in the Horn of Africa – such as dependence on imported staples, ongoing conflicts, and growing militarization – mean that economic, food security, and security risks remain elevated despite the ceasefire.

Bab al-Mandab Strait: A Global Maritime Chokepoint

At the center of this escalation lies the Bab al-Mandab Strait, one of the world’s most vital maritime chokepoints. Situated at the southern entrance of the Red Sea, the strait separates Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula from the Djibouti and Eritrea in the Horn of Africa. The strait forms a critical maritime chokepoint linking the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and, by extension, to the Indian Ocean, making it a crucial corridor for global trade and the Suez Canal route. 

Its importance is underscored by the scale of traffic that passes through it. Estimates indicate that about 9 million barrels of oil transit this corridor each day. According to the US Energy Information Administration, daily oil flows through the Bab al-Mandab Strait rose consistently between 2020 and 2023, reaching a high of about 9.3 million barrels per day. Additionally, nearly 12% of global trade volume moves through the Red Sea route, making it indispensable not only for energy but also for container shipping, food supplies, and manufactured goods. 

Historically, disruptions in this area have had immediate consequences on a global level. During previous periods of insecurity, such as during Houthi attacks in the Red Sea in late 2023, maritime traffic along this route was sharply reduced and shipping companies rerouted vessels around the Cape of Good Hope, south of Cape Town, South Africa. This detour extended transit times between Asia and Europe by up to 20 days, while also increasing fuel costs and carbon emissions, causing delays, and disrupting supply chains. More recently, Houthi attacks, combined with the rerouting of shipping, caused oil flows through the strait to plunge from approximately 9 million barrels per day in 2023 to around 4 million barrels per day in 2024, contributing to higher oil prices. 

While the Bab al-Mandab Strait controls access to the Red Sea, the Strait of Hormuz is the primary bottleneck for oil shipments from the Persian Gulf itself. Oil prices reached $119 a barrel (Brent crude) in March – their highest level since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Simultaneous disruptions of both chokepoints would represent an unprecedented “dual chokepoint stranglehold”, with the potential to trigger a global energy shock comparable to – or even exceeding – past oil crises.

Analysts warn that oil prices could surpass $150 a barrel if both chokepoints were significantly disrupted  for prolonged periods, exceeding the record high of $145.29 set in July 2008.

Regional Spillover: Horn of Africa Vulnerabilities

The most profound and immediate regional consequences of this escalation are likely to be felt in the Horn of Africa. Countries such as Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea, and Sudan, which sit directly along the maritime corridor, find themselves caught in a geopolitical turmoil imposed by the instability in the Bab al-Mandab Strait. Their geographic proximity makes them highly vulnerable not only to security spillover but also to economic disruptions.

A disruption in shipping would mean longer delivery times and higher transport costs, which could lead to rising food prices and supply shortages. Countries in East Africa are particularly vulnerable to food insecurity as domestic consumption heavily relies on imported staples, especially wheat from Europe and the Black Sea region. According to the World Food Programme, wheat accounts for about 67% and 38% of total cereal consumption in Djibouti and Sudan, respectively, and just short of 24% in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia.

Food prices in East Africa rose sharply during 2023–2024 Red Sea disruptions. According to a UN report, median food price inflation peaked at 30% in May 2023 in parts of East Africa, reflecting severe price pressures on staples such as cereals and grains. In a region already affected by climate-induced shocks – increasingly frequent droughts and prolonged food shortages in particular – such price increases risk pushing millions more into severe humanitarian crises.

Djibouti, in particular, symbolizes the structural vulnerability of the region. The country hosts one of Africa’s busiest ports and serves as a critical commercial partner for landlocked Ethiopia, with more than 90% of the latter’s trade transiting through its ports. Any sustained decline in maritime traffic caused by escalation in Bab al-Mandab will not only strain Djibouti’s import-dependent economy but also jeopardize the movement of food and supplies for over 120 million people in Ethiopia, amplifying the regional impact across industries and economies. 

Similarly, Somalia relies heavily on imported wheat, fuel, and other essential goods transported through the Suez Canal and Bab al-Mandab corridor. Any delays or increases in shipping and insurance costs are likely to drive up food prices, heightening the risk of food insecurity. According to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report, 6.5 million Somalis – about a third of the population – are facing critical food insecurity, including around 2 million individuals experiencing severe hunger. At the same time, humanitarian operations will be affected by shipping delays and rising security costs, as the deteriorating maritime security, including rising Houthi attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea and resurgence of piracy, would further complicate trade and aid delivery.

In Sudan, the ongoing civil war and prolonged violence have weakened the economy, shrinking it by nearly half and driving millions into poverty and hunger. According to the World Food Programme, an estimated 21.2 million people –  about 41% of Sudan’s population – were acutely food insecure already in 2025, with many households struggling to afford staple foods amid conflict-driven market disruptions. The UN indicates that an estimated 33.7 million people – around two thirds of the population – are expected to need humanitarian assistance in 2026. 

Given Sudan’s high dependence on imports, any disruption on goods passing through Port Sudan –the country’s largest port and a critical hub for trade and oil exports – would likely worsen shortages of fuel, wheat, medicines and other essential goods.

Horn of Africa at the Crossroads of Global Conflict

The escalation of the war involving Iran, particularly through Houthi intervention, marks a critical turning point with far-reaching implications. The threat to the Bab al-Mandab Strait and the potential spillover of the conflict into the Horn of Africa underscore the vulnerability of global trade and energy networks and the interconnected nature of modern geopolitical crises. The Horn’s exposure to conflict, climate-induced crises, and militarization amplifies the humanitarian and economic consequences of disruptions in maritime traffic.

While a temporary ceasefire may reduce immediate hostilities, the region remains at risk. Rising shipping costs and disrupted food supplies threaten to deepen instability across the region. The Houthis’ capacity to influence global commercial shipping demonstrates how non-state actors can influence global systems traditionally dominated by state actors. 

As regional actors compete for control over ports, trade routes, and strategic corridors, the Horn of Africa faces heightened economic pressures and growing food insecurity. Until sustained stability is restored in the Red Sea, the region will remain a critical spillover zone, caught between humanitarian crises, economic vulnerability, and accelerating climate crises, with consequences that extend far beyond its borders.

Featured image: Wikimedia Commons.

In this delightful work, out on March 31, Harvard Professor Andrew H. Knoll takes on nothing less than the history of our planet and everything on it.

—

Designed for the intelligent, inquisitive general reader (even the bibliography includes helpful asterisks that designate “particularly accessible works”), Earth and Life is fundamentally a popular science book. But it is rigorous in its descriptions of the eons-long back-and-forth between the geology of our planet and the living things that have inhabited it for at least the past three and a half billion years. While it could be seen as a survey course in the field, its core message is that life impacts the Earth as much as the Earth impacts life.

The first several chapters of the book focus on the chemistry of Earth and life. They are structured around the essential elements that make up the crust and mantle of our planet, as well as its living organisms. Beginning with a section on carbon, they cycle through nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur, and trace elements. The next several chapters explore the origins of life on the planet, and are followed by three chapters that dwell on the fundamental role of oxygen – “The Story of O”, in Knoll’s whimsical designation – and the Great Oxygenation Event, or GOE. 

The GOE, which profoundly changed the character of the planet and its atmosphere, is the biggest event on Earth that most people have never heard of. Before cyanobacteria began to produce O2 in such enormous quantities, about 2.4 billion years ago, the Earth was a very different place – with an atmosphere and ocean hostile to most modern creatures. Knoll goes into some detail exploring different hypotheses for its origin and processes, and showcasing the parallel development of the eukaryotic organisms that ultimately led to us. 

The oxygen chapters also create a transition from Knoll’s opening overview of Earth’s elements to a more chronological story of how life developed overall in “conversation” with the planet’s geological processes. He traces how plants, animals, and fungi arose, and how they impacted the atmosphere (and vice versa). There is relatively less detail about the most recent few million years of Earth’s history, but a short discursion on the nature and impact of predation is well worth the time. After offering a glimpse of plant and animal life on Earth, he does a deep dive into the multiple times cataclysms almost wiped them out.

Interestingly, the chapter that covers the various climactic phases the Earth has entered and left does not include anthropogenic, or human-caused, climate change – he leaves this for the end, along with a series of speculations about what might be possible for humans on other planets.

This is far from Knoll’s first work on the subject: he has already published multiple geobiology texts, both academic or specialist works as well as mass-market overviews such as the bestselling A Brief History of Earth. But as the newest, it includes a wide range of updates to the field that will surprise anyone who hasn’t paid much attention to biology since high school.

Indeed, Knoll’s long experience as a teacher – most recently, as the Fisher Professor of Natural History at Harvard University – is evident in every page of the book, both in his delight in the subject matter and his desire to share his joy with others. As well as being informative, it is also introspective, humorous, and at times personal. Earth and Life is well worth reading for anyone who wants to know how we got here – and what might come next.

Earth and Life: A Four Billion Year Conversation
Andrew H. Knoll
2026, Princeton University Press, 328pp

—

Check out more Earth.Org book and film reviews here.

Last year, a municipality in Peru granted Amazon stingless bees legal rights, the first time in the world that insects have been recognized as legal subjects. Earth.Org spoke with biologists and lawyers to understand why these tiny pollinators matter so much, and what could change for these bees, both within their immediate surroundings and globally. 

—

In October 2025, a municipality in Peru made legal history. The municipal government of Satipo granted Amazon stingless bees the status of subjects of legal rights – in other words, it recognized that the stingless bees, native to the Peruvian Amazon, now have the right to exist and flourish. The move, resulting from a collaborative effort between scientists, Indigenous communities, and environmental lawyers, marked the first time insects have received such recognition anywhere in the world.

The new municipal law, Ordinance No. 33, does not single out the protection of one species – in this case stingless bees. Instead, it recognizes their close-knit relationship with local Indigenous communities, particularly the Asháninka, as well as with the Amazon ecosystem as a whole. These legal recognitions reflect both the build-up and parallel processes behind these advocacy efforts and underscore the interconnectedness between stingless bees, Amazonian biodiversity, and the ancestral beekeeping practices and sustainable economic development of Indigenous communities.

Chemical biologist Rosa Vásquez Espinoza of Amazon Research Internacional (ARI), who is also a National Geographic Explorer and advocate for biodiversity research and conservation in the Amazon rainforest, was the leading player in this conservation battle, aided by legal experts from the Earth Law Center. Earth.Org spoke with them about their journey to ensure the protection of Amazon stingless bees, why Indigenous leadership became central to the project, and what impact their initiative is already having, both locally and globally.

The Bees and the People

Stingless bees, or meliponines, are a diverse species of bees, characterised by the lack of a functioning stinger. There are more than 600 different species of stingless bees living across tropical and subtropical regions worldwide, of which at least 175 have been found in the Amazon. Unlike their European cousins, the honey-making bee (Apis mellifera), which was brought to the Americas by settlers in the 1800s, stingless bees are native to the Americas and perform critical ecosystem services there. 

In these lush, remote parts of the Amazon rainforest in Peru, Indigenous communities like the Asháninka and Kukama-Kukamiria have lived alongside the Amazon stingless bees for millennia. For these communities, as well as many other Indigenous communities of the Amazon, stingless bees are not just part of their immediate surroundings. “They are part of our family and our ancestors,” said César Ramos, President of EcoAsháninka, an organization representing 25 Indigenous communities in Peru. 

Through ancestral knowledge passed down through generations, these communities have learned how to care for the bees and collect their honey, which is said to contain magical properties, earning them the nickname “angelitas” (English for “little angels”). Some learned how to locate wild hives in the rainforest – in itself a very intricate endeavor – while others carried tree trunks with the hives home, keeping them behind their houses, in a rustic beekeeping set-up. This close-knit relationship not only mutually aided them but also benefited the ecosystem as a whole, as these angelitas represent an absolutely vital link in the local habitat, pollinating more than 73% of cultivated and native edible plants in the Amazon.

As climate and environmental pressures continue to grow, wild stingless bees are, however, becoming increasingly difficult to find, even for the Asháninka. According to local Indigenous rangers of the Asháninka Communal Reserve, spotting a wild hive, which used to take up to 30 minutes, can now take hours – and it is not always a guarantee. Because meliponines are key indicators of ecosystem health, their gradual disappearance reflects the wider deforestation and drying of the Amazon.

First Steps

In 2020, Rosa Vásquez Espinoza was in the midst of her PhD research in chemical biology in the US when the Covid-19 pandemic hit. At the time, her colleagues in Peru informed her that Indigenous communities were using stingless bees’ honey to treat the virus’ symptoms. Together with her colleague Cesar Delgado, a Kukama-Kukamiria scientist from the Instituto de Investigaciones de la Amazonia Peruana (IIAP), they set out on an expedition to sample the bees’ honey. The results of their research were astounding, revealing the honey’s truly remarkable qualities, including antibacterial, antiseptic, and even anticarcinogenic properties.

However, the more they researched the stingless bees and their natural habitat, the more they realized it wasn’t just the honey that was special. During a visit to the Asháninka and Kukama-Kukamiria communities during their expeditions to collect honey, they grasped just how important these bees are to human health and to the cultural heritage of the Indigenous communities.

Espinoza, in particular, was intrigued by this cultural and social element. As a young Peruvian woman, she received a lot of attention from women and children in the communities they visited. “I think since I looked similar, myself being a young woman, they weren’t as intimidated by me,” she told Earth.Org. She was fascinated to discover how happy the women and children were when taking care of the bees, as well as the positive economic impact it had on their lives. When gender equality came into view, Espinoza realized her science project could have a huge socio-ecological impact.

‘The Bees Are Disappearing’

When their scientific work with the meliponines in Asháninka Communal Reserve began, one of the very first observations they gathered from community members was the fear that the bees would die out. “The bees are disappearing, they are almost gone. We cannot find them anymore,” Espinoza recalled an Asháninka member telling her. “You cannot replace the bees for them. They have a cultural and a human rights perspective, as this is also the main source of medicine for the community.” 

The main factors threatening the meliponines’ existence and diminishing their populations have been identified as changes in land use, particularly the conversion of natural habitats for livestock, mining, logging, and agriculture. Additional threats, including the use of chemical pesticides and competition with invasive European and African honey bees, are further driving the bees’ disappearance.

Considering the ecological, social, and economic roles of meliponines, their preservation in the Amazon is crucial to overall conservation efforts, said Espinoza. Supporting Indigenous beekeeping, she realized, would help protect declining bee populations, preserve ancestral traditions, and strengthen local Indigenous economies. In turn, this would help regenerate the Amazon itself, as stingless bees contribute to the health of the entire ecosystem, down to the soil. 

The decision was made in that instant. She established the Amazon Research Internacional – a science-backed organization that specializes in conservation through and by Indigenous leadership, marking the beginning of their work with the Amazon stingless bees in the Peruvian Amazon. The project they started and led together with Delgado shows that sustainable meliponine beekeeping is successfully reforesting the previously depleted Amazon jungle. 

Policy Prompted By Frustration

Starting out as a socio-ecological project, the policy aspect entered the story through sheer frustration, Espinoza recalled. When researching where to get the funding, and how to start national projects for stingless bee conservation, she stumbled across a shocking revelation: most authorities and individuals she spoke with had never even heard of the species. Only one national law in Peru mentioned bees, although not of Amazon stingless bees. 

Through conversations, Espinoza discovered that the original legislative committee that worked on and passed the law in 1993 was, at the time, only aware of the existence of their cousins, the European and African honey-makers. “There was also this undeniable productivity factor that connects the two species,” she said. Both were introduced into Peru by settlers and then took over the agricultural sector. Economically, the honey-making bees were more profitable and thus protected. “The lack of any mention, and thus protection, however, over time played a part in the decline of the native species.” 

The absence of a national policy basis for the protection of the meliponines tied the hands of the few eager to help, as there were no official grounds for funding or projects, let alone inclusion in national conservation programs. 

Environmental Lawyers Join the Mission

A team of environmental lawyers from the Earth Law Center (ELC), a US-based law firm specializing in avant-garde environmental and animal protection, joined Espinoza’s project to help guide the advocacy and policy aspects of the mission. Inspired by the global Rights of Nature movement, the law firm advises in creating “ecocentric” laws that protect the environment and animals due to their own intrinsic value, granting them their rights as legal subjects, rather than objects of human ownership and exploitation.

Their first order of business was to amend National Law No. 32235 to include the Amazon stingless bees. They achieved that goal in January 2025, when an amendment to the law was adopted by the Congress, designating the native species as a matter of national interest. Even though the nature of law is declaratory – and thus does not grant singless bees new rights but only recognizes their intrinsic rights – it can influence national plans of action that need to be implemented by the ministries, explained Constanza Prieto Figelist, Latin America Legal Director at the ELC. “Now the national plans need to promote Amazon stingless bees as well, allocate resources and stimulate scientific research.”

Invigorated by their first win, the team started to think bigger. “As the meliponines are disappearing due to a myriad of mostly anthropocentric threats, we wondered whether we could find a way to legally protect them and their national habitat,” said Espinoza. “If you want to research and study a certain species, you need to have that species alive in its natural habitat in the first place.” 

With the ELC having extensive expertise on the topic, they set the following objective: translating Indigenous knowledge and observations into legal rights for meliponines, and attaching sanctions to actions that breach those rights. The Asháninka were crucial during this phase, not only because they hold the most knowledge and first-hand observations of the bees and their changing habitat, but also because they stand on the frontlines of their protection and are therefore best positioned to monitor the law’s implementation.

Indigenous-Backed Action

To start collecting suggestions and observations, ELC lawyers Javier Ruiz and Bastian Nuñez held workshops with the Indigenous communities. “What factors have you observed harming stingless bees in the Asháninka Communal Reserve?” was one of the questions asked to a classroom full of interested participants. Slowly, hands began to rise: “Climate change!”, “Logging and land use!”. Participants would be asked to write their answers on the blackboard. This was repeated across different communities in the municipality of Satipo, gathering more than 200 participants, Ruiz explained.

The lawyers then took those answers and drafted a declaration – a non-binding legal document which summed up the issues and presented potential legal and practical solutions in a broader manner. The text was taken back to the communities, who were asked whether they agreed with it and whether it fairly represented their opinion, giving everyone a chance to voice their opinion. The document was well received, and with the declaration finalized, the ELC lawyers turned to the next obstacle: converting it into binding municipal law in Satipo, home of the Asháninka Communal Reserve.

To facilitate this, the ELC lawyers also worked to foster collaboration between Indigenous communities and the wider population of Satipo. “We fostered the idea of building an alliance between the Indigenous communities and the Satipo municipality, helping them work together, rather than framing the issue of stingless bees as a point of contention,” said Ruiz. This was going to be helpful not only with the passing of the law but also its implementation and enforcement.

Another Win for the Rights of Nature Movement

On October 21, 2025, the provincial municipality of Satipo, Peru, approved Ordinance No. 33, recognizing Amazon stingless bees as subjects of legal rights. The ordinance establishes that the Amazonian stingless bees hold intrinsic rights, such as the right to exist, to maintain healthy populations, to live in a healthy environment, to conserve and regenerate their habitat, and links their protection to the comprehensive conservation of the Amazon. The law further promotes interdisciplinary research, integrating scientific knowledge with Indigenous knowledge in the conservation of Amazonian stingless bees.

What began as a small project to collect and analyze stingless bee honey in 2020 ultimately led to an important and innovative precedent for the Rights of Nature movement five years later, sending ripples around the globe. 

But what exactly makes this law so innovative? Previously, animals, nature, or parts of nature were protected only if damage done to them caused detrimental effects to humans. Their protection, which therefore occurred as a side effect rather than the main prerogative, was solely due to the protection of human benefit and not because of an animal’s or nature’s intrinsic value. On the contrary, Ordinance No. 33 today protects the Amazon stingless bees as subjects of rights, and if a certain activity harms them, the damage is calculated based on the direct harm inflicted upon the meliponines.

In practical terms, the ordinance requires municipal decision-makers in Satipo to consider the bees’ rights when making any decision that could potentially harm them, either when deciding on permits or authorizations or when enforcing sanctions against those who violate their obligations under the ordinance. The municipal environmental controls and standards that now need to be applied are thus stricter and solely focus on the well-being of the stingless bees. 

Never before had any insect been granted such recognition and protection.

What Does the Future Hold?

Espinoza and ELC’s actions have since grown beyond their local constraints and gained nationwide attention. The ordinance inspired similar action across Peru. The municipality of Nauta adopted its own version in December 2025, while a global petition was launched to adopt the substance of Satipo’s Ordinance No. 33 at the national level. To date, the petition has garnered more than 390,000 signatures, and promises that, with enough signatures (500,000 was set as the goal), Indigenous allies will deliver the petition and its demands directly to Peru’s lawmakers. 

In the meantime, Delgado and Espinoza have continued in their mission to work with Indigenous communities to train those interested in stingless beekeeping. Their next step is to establish a fair-trade economic system that will benefit both communities and the ecosystems they help protect. This way, the relationship between stingless bees and their keepers has taken on a new meaning: a reminder that science, Indigenous knowledge, and law can work together to safeguard both nature and the people who live alongside it.

Featured image: Luis Garcia Solsol.

You might also like: Should Nature Have Rights? A Critical Analysis of Ecocentrism and the Future of Water Protection

• Instagram
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Bluesky
• YouTube
• Mail

With the first 14 days of conflict in the Middle East unleashing emissions exceeding the annual footprint of Iceland, the race is on to understand the short- and long-term climate impact of this latest chapter in modern warfare.

—

“World leaders do this, while I’m expected to save the planet by drinking from a soggy paper straw? Life’s not fair,” reads a meme accompanied by an image of explosions and warplanes, highlighting the disconnect between everyday conservationism and the profligacy of wartime emissions.

The meme has been shared widely across social media since the US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28. The conflict quickly spread across the Middle East as Iran attacked neighboring Gulf countries in retaliation, sending shockwaves across the globe.

The US has launched more than 8,000 combat flights since “Operation Epic Fury” – the coordinated US-Israeli attack on Iran from late February. Aircraft include Bombers and fighter jets, drones, reconnaissance aircraft, cargo planes and refueling tankers, as well as military helicopters. 

A Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II fighter jet, one of these, consumes approximately 5,600 to 6,500 liters of kerosene during a single combat sortie of one-and-a-half to two hours, according to Lennard de Klerk, head of the Initiative on Greenhouse Gas Accounting of War. This emits some 14-17 tons of carbon dioxide, around that of the entire lifetime of a conventional passenger car. Meanwhile, Lockheed Martin, a major weapons manufacturer, says its products emitted nearly 14 million tons of CO2 equivalents when in use in 2024.

Difficult to Calculate

An analysis by the Climate and Community Institute has found that the total greenhouse gas emissions from the first 14 days of assault is more than 5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, which is higher than the total climate pollution of Iceland in 2024. But exact emissions are notoriously difficult to calculate. 

De Klerk’s team estimates that Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, now going into its fifth year, has already emitted 311 million tons of greenhouse gas equivalents, while the war in Gaza has emitted 32 tons over two years. “Now we’re talking about two weeks, it’s a couple of million tons of CO2 for this war. Just direct emissions from warfare,” he told Earth.Org. 

Along with the emissions from military vehicles and aircraft, immediate contributions to global warming can include emissions from fires and explosions. However, de Klerk said, “People tend to think that explosions of attacks on depots and oil refineries generate a lot of greenhouse gas emissions, but the biggest impact is the fuel consumption by both Israel and US military, the kerosene used by the fighter jets and the diesel used by the US navy. The emissions from fuel consumption are 20 to 30 times bigger than those from the destruction from the energy infrastructure.”

Forced changes to commercial aviation routes are also emerging as a major short-term impact of the Iran war, with half a million passengers per day traveling through Gulf hubs under pre-war conditions – many of which are now being re-routed to longer routes, consuming greater quantities of fuel and generating more emissions. Sometimes, flights are re-routed because of deliberate jamming of their Global Positioning Systems, while others avoid the area as a precaution against being mistaken for a military aircraft. 

Methane and black carbon are among the other air pollutants from conflict that may create climate impacts. “It’s not just CO2 from burning the oil, it’s the uncontrolled release of methane that concerns me,” Neta Crawford, author of The Pentagon, Climate Change, and War: Charting the Rise and Fall of U.S. Military Emissions, told Earth.Org. “It’s the same with the targeting of storage facilities in Iran – some are oil, and some are natural gas, which is not combusted but just put into the atmosphere.” 

A new source of operational emissions from warfare may come from the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The US Department of Defense has promised that “AI-enabled warfare and AI-enabled capability development will re-define the character of military affairs over the next decade.” Data centers already consumed about 1.5% of global electricity consumption in 2024, and AI use may cause this amount to double by 2030.

Long-Term Impacts

The full scale of climate damage will not be known until after the war. 

“In terms of climate impact, we need time to see the medium-term and long-term effects,” Grace Alexander, Researcher at the Conflict and Environment Observatory (CEOBS), told Earth.Org.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has caused massive emissions from forest fires, while attacks on urban areas tend to generate greater carbon dioxide emissions in the long term, during the reconstruction period. “Given the length of the conflict in Ukraine, rebuilding is going to be an important source of greenhouse emissions. A lot of climate impacts are unclear because it depends on the length of the war,” said Alexander.

The “other” elephant in the room, according to de Klerk, is rearmament. “Already, because of Russia’s aggression, military spending is rising,” he said. “If insecurity goes up, then many other countries around the world will ramp up spending and increase military emissions.”

Crawford pointed out that emissions from everyday operations of bases and installations, including training, food, cooling, and transportation are enormous even before a conflict begins. Scope 1 and 2 emissions from the US military’s standard operations in 2024, prior to the current war, reached almost 32 tons of CO2 equivalent. 

While the overall figures for everyday operations fluctuate, for example because of the increased use of outside contractors whose emissions are not included in the calculations, greater military spending is generally expected to increase emissions. US President Donald Trump recently called for a military budget of $1.5 trillion for 2027, significantly higher than the $901 billion approved for 2026.

At a structural level, wars can also impact the way a country’s infrastructure develops. “When the military creates demand and a new system, that changes the economy,” said Crawford. “For example, when the military turned its TNT factories to the production of nitrates for soil for fertilizer [following the second world war], that changed the pattern of fertilizing fields. And we know nitrous oxide is a potent greenhouse gas.” Likewise, the US established its highway system following the first world war to transport equipment between industrial states on the coast to places where steel was made, resulting in an explosion of sub-urbanization that increased emissions. 

Will War Polarize the Energy Transition?

The new war’s most lasting impact may come in its long-term effect on the energy transition, particularly driven by increased natural gas prices. “We’re looking at countries from the affected region that are reliant on LNG. This may mean a switch to other fossil fuels, even coal in some countries – and a switch comes with an investment cost, which means that countries will be locked into a fossil fuel source,” explained Alexander. According to a new analysis released by CEOBS, Pakistan and Bangladesh are particularly vulnerable to transit flow disruptions, with two thirds of their LNG supply shipped through the Strait of Hormuz in 2025. 

Iran has effectively blocked traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s busiest oil shipping channels, following the February 28 attacks by the US and Israel. Some 20-25% of global oil supply typically passes through it, making it a critical global energy chokepoint.

“On the other hand, with this insecurity of fossil fuel supply, other countries will be more motivated to go towards an energy transition [to renewables]. A crisis like this really highlights the insecurity around fossil fuel energy infrastructure,” she added.

The most likely impact, according to the experts, is that the Gulf will be widened between those countries that are already further along their energy transition. Countries with a strong renewable energy base will embrace the energy independence that it provides, while those more dependent on LNG will turn to other fossil fuel replacements.

“The broader point is simple: the further a country advances its energy transition, the more resilient – and the more sovereign – it becomes. This war makes that equation impossible to ignore,” Sebastian Kind told Earth.Org in an email. As Argentina’s former Undersecretary of Renewable Energy, Kind led the country’s energy transition in the late 2010s. 

For him, fossil fuel dependency is not just a climate risk but also “an economic burden and a national security vulnerability,” and only those countries that have already scaled up domestic renewable energy will be immune to geopolitical disruption. “The lesson is not new, but the urgency is. Every government watching oil above $100 a barrel should be asking how quickly it can build the policy and financial architecture to unlock private investment in renewables. The technology is ready and cost-competitive. What has been missing is political will, and crises like this one should provide it,” Kind said.

Meanwhile, the perception that climate change may accelerate warfare can also create a negative spiral. “For years, people have been talking about climate change as a threat multiplier – climate refugees may destabilize local governments, or climate change leads to stress on the resources for daily life like food and water, or resources for the transition like lithium. But then that [idea] has been used to say that we need to do more military preparation,” said Crawford.

Ultimately, experts emphasize, the decision to go to war has consequences not only for the combatants but for the rest of the planet. “We’re overlooking the real, present and future consequences of militarization and war in favor of paying attention to possible, avoidable, speculative conflicts with powers that do not threaten the United States in particular, and which may never,” said Crawford.

Featured image: Wikimedia Commons.

• Instagram
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Bluesky
• YouTube
• Mail

Water infrastructure is increasingly and deliberately targeted in modern warfare as a strategic tactic of the evolving warfighting strategies, as recent events in Iran have shown. 

—

Water infrastructure has increasingly become a silent but critical dimension of modern conflict.

In arid regions, desalination plants are not merely industrial facilities; they are lifelines that sustain entire communities. Iran, like several countries in the Middle East, has invested in desalination infrastructure and the transfer of water from the Persian Gulf to water-poor areas in central Iran. Desalination facilities on Qeshm Island, the largest island in the Persian Gulf near the Strait of Hormuz – known for arid climate and water scarcity – are crucial for providing the surrounding rural settlements with reliable groundwater.

Earlier this month, Iranian officials accused the US of attacking the desalination infrastructure in the island, cutting water supply to 30 surrounding villages. 

Such attacks are not merely incidental damage during military operations. Rather, they reflect a growing pattern in modern warfare in which water infrastructure is deliberately targeted as a strategic tactic of the evolving warfighting strategies. Disrupting access to water in conflicts can severely compromise people’s livelihoods, while crippling agricultural economies and impacting food security. In fact, targeting water systems weaponizes one of the most fundamental human rights – the right to water – turning an essential resource for life into a tool of coercion and pressure against civilians in conflict contexts.

Historically, the vulnerability of desalination infrastructure has been recognized worldwide. During the Gulf War in 1991, Iraqi forces sabotaged much of Kuwait’s desalination plants, leaving millions without reliable water. More recently, Yemen’s Houthi groups launched drone and missile attacks on Saudi desalination facilities at Al-Shuqaiq in 2019 and 2022, demonstrating that water infrastructure continues to be a strategic target in regional conflicts. 

Globally, desalination plants in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region – a political and economic union of six Arab states bordering the Arabian Gulf – produce 40% of the world’s total desalinated water. This highlights how attacks on these facilities have far-reaching consequences beyond their immediate location. Understanding the targeting of water infrastructure, therefore, requires examining its humanitarian and legal dimensions, particularly in contexts where civilian populations are directly affected.

Dimension of Weaponizing Water in Conflicts

The deliberate targeting of water infrastructure reflects multiple overlapping motives and methods that extend far beyond immediate physical destruction. Research on the weaponization of water shows that water systems hold strategic, tactical, and psychological value, which often drives their targeting during conflict. 

Cutting off water supplies is motivated by tactical motives of military necessity, such as designating pumping stations or desalination plants as military objectives to impede the advance of adversaries, but also by broader strategic objectives, including weakening governance structures and coercing political concessions. In some cases, attacking water systems or cutting water supply serves as a means to force displacement, dominate civilians or collectively punish them. Even when water systems are not intentionally and directly attacked, they still collapse from the cumulative impact of urban warfare, deepening the humanitarian consequences for civilians.

Modes of Water Weaponization

Water is typically weaponized in two ways: through deprivation, by denying or contaminating access to water resources, and through inundation, by deliberately releasing stored water or manipulating water flows to generate flooding.

Recent reports of strikes on desalination facilities on Iran’s Qeshm Island illustrate how these dynamics intersect in practice. In water stressed-regions such as Iran, where water infrastructure is highly centralized and where resource scarcity exacerbates existing inequalities, targeting such facilities is not a mere military escalation but can amplify pressure on civilian populations, particularly marginalized groups.

In this sense, water – particularly in conflict settings – has become a mechanism of political and social control, highlighting how environmental resources are intertwined with  military strategies.

What Does International Humanitarian Law Say?

International humanitarian law recognizes the gravity of attacks on water systems.

The legal framework governing armed conflict, particularly the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocol I, explicitly prohibits attacks against objects indispensable to the survival of civilian populations. Article 54 of Additional Protocol I states that parties to a conflict must not destroy or render useless installations that provide drinking water to civilians, including desalination plants, reservoirs, and irrigation systems.

This legal principle is reinforced by customary international humanitarian law, as articulated by the International Committee of the Red Cross, which emphasizes the obligation to distinguish between military targets and civilian infrastructure. Deliberately disrupting desalination plants or otherwise depriving populations of water may constitute a violation of these legal norms and potentially undermine fundamental human rights, making such actions a potent and illegal form of coercion against civilian populations under the Rome Statute.

Water Weaponization in Practice

Historical precedents demonstrate the profound humanitarian and legal stakes of such attacks.

Syria’s Aleppo provides a stark example of water weaponization during the Syrian civil war. Both government forces and opposition groups repeatedly targeted water infrastructure, cutting supplies, destroying treatment systems, and deliberately contaminated drinking water in governorates including Deir ez-Zor, Raqqa, and Aleppo. The destruction and manipulation of water systems have not only supported battlefield strategies but also deepened the humanitarian crisis, with UN experts and human rights monitors highlighting these actions as potential violations of international humanitarian law.  

In Iraq, after capturing Mosul in 2014, ISIS strategically flooded surrounding areas by manipulating the Mosul dam, which hindered the Iraqi army’s advance and forced mass evacuations. By extending its control of other water infrastructure, such as the Falluja dam and water facilities in Baqubah, ISIS managed to flood government-held farmland near Baghdad and displace up to 40,000 inhabitants. Observers raised concerns that ISIS’s control of the Mosul Dam and other water infrastructure enabled the use of water as a tool of coercion, with significant humanitarian ramifications for civilians, including disrupted livelihoods, food insecurity and displacement.

In Sudan, according to the IHL in Focus Spot Report published by the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Right, the deliberate targeting and seizure of water resources have worsened famine conditions and triggered mass displacement, underscoring clear violations of international humanitarian law.

These examples demonstrate that attacks on water infrastructure are rarely incidental. They constitute a potent form of coercion, carry long-term consequences for civilian populations, and trigger clear international legal responsibility for parties that fail to protect essential services.  

Ensuring the Protection of Water as a Human Right in Armed Conflict

Ultimately, protecting water resources and infrastructure is not only a legal obligation but also a moral imperative. In regions where climate change and population growth are intensifying water scarcity, these facilities represent the difference between stability and crisis. Ensuring that water infrastructure remains off-limits in armed conflict is therefore essential for safeguarding both human security and environmental sustainability. When water becomes a weapon, the effects reverberate far beyond the battlefield, undermining the resilience of communities and ecosystems for generations.

International organizations, including the United Nations and humanitarian agencies, have increasingly emphasized the protection of water infrastructure as part of broader efforts to safeguard civilian populations during armed conflict. Still, preventing such violations requires stronger international oversight and accountability mechanisms. One proposed approach involves designating critical water facilities – including desalination plants – as protected humanitarian infrastructure, similar to hospitals and schools. In addition, the establishment of demilitarized zones around key water systems could help reduce their exposure to hostilities, while ensuring that ceasefire and peace agreements explicitly include provisions safeguarding water infrastructure and enabling repair and maintenance. 

Greater protection should also extend to water utility personnel, who must be recognized as essential civilian actors whose work is indispensable for maintaining access to water. At the institutional level, improved international coordination is needed to develop early-warning and rapid response mechanisms, supported by satellite monitoring and independent verification, to detect threats and assess damage to water systems in real time. Finally, stronger accountability measures, including targeted sanctions and expanded investigative mechanisms, are necessary to deter deliberate attacks and ensure compliance with international humanitarian law. 

Featured image: Ninara/Flickr.

• Instagram
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Bluesky
• YouTube
• Mail

At the frozen tip of South America, where the mountains of Tierra del Fuego meet the jagged currents of the Beagle Channel, a dedicated team of scientists and explorers is diving into one of the planet’s last truly intact marine refuges. While the rest of the world’s underwater forests vanish at an alarming rate, these resilient subantarctic kelp systems offer a rare blueprint for how we might still protect the life-sustaining pulse of our oceans.

—

By Andi Cross

It was five in the morning, and the team was meeting for the first time on the dock in Ushuaia, Argentina. We barely knew each other, but months of planning had led us to this point. Everyone had taken a different path to arrive, but we shared a common goal: to explore one of the most intact and overlooked ecosystems left on the planet. This far south – what some call the “end of the world” – cold-water kelp forests are still surging with life. 

For those who know where Ushuaia is, it is usually considered a gateway to Antarctica. On one side, jagged mountains, glaciers, and dense forest. On the other, the Beagle Channel. The setting alone makes it feel like the edge of something – especially outside the summer tourism window, when the area quiets down and winter creeps in with its annual ferocity.

Tierra del Fuego, or “Land of Fire”, straddles Chile and Argentina and is home to the resort town of Ushuaia. The further east you go, the wilderness becomes more pure, untouched in ways most places no longer are. While many adventurers head to the peaks, we were headed below the surface to a world even fewer have charted, but one filled with life you can spot even from ashore. Endangered sei whales pass through the channel. Magellanic penguins skim the coastline. Kelp geese feed off thick patches of seaweed right at the town’s edge. Witnessing this on dry land made us realize that what we were about to witness out to sea would be of another world – something that would intensify as we escaped the confines of civilization.

Our team was scrappy, loading our gear onto the sturdy sailboat that would be home for the next eight days. The mission was to explore these remote kelp forests in partnership with Por El Mar, an Argentine non-profit working to protect 90% of the country’s kelp forests – most of which can be found in Patagonian regions. The non-profit’s conservation team has derived that 10% can be found in Chubut, 30% in Santa Cruz, and 60% in Tierra del Fuego. For the last three years, the team has been doing whatever it takes to keep these forests from being exploited, fighting for the kind of protections that are becoming rare globally.

While most vessels around us were headed toward Antarctica, we were eastbound toward Peninsula Mitre, the tip of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago. After two years of traveling the world in search of intact kelp systems, we kept arriving at the same recommendation. From our advisors at the US Marine Conservation Institute to kelp researchers across the Pacific Northwest and even as far as Tasmania, all signs pointed here. If we wanted to see giant kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera) forests that were still thriving, this was the place.

Carolina Pantano, Science & Conservation Manager at Por El Mar, explained that giant kelp forests cover 28% of the world’s marine coastlines, but they are declining faster than tropical rainforests and coral reefs. Rising ocean temperatures are one of the main reasons. But Patagonia’s subantarctic waters are different. Here, temperatures have remained relatively stable, creating one of the last remaining global refuges for these underwater forests. As we prepared to set sail, Carolina told us that what we would see in these waters would be unlike anything we had seen before. We came to learn very quickly that she was right.

Life on the sailboat was focused and repetitive in the best possible way. We lived alongside a team of scientists, conservationists, policymakers, content creators, and writers, with all onboard sharing a love of diving. The routine was simple: sleep, eat, dive, talk about kelp, repeat. As we made our way through the Beagle Channel, hugging the Chilean and Argentine border, the world as we knew it fell behind us. Civilization faded from our line of sight, and hours passed without a single boat in our near vicinity. No lights, no noise – just sea, sky and dense, remote land. The sun stretched long into the evenings, giving us time to take this wild corner of Patagonia all in. This untouched and undisturbed wonderland.

Cristian Lagger, Por El Mar’s Science & Conservation Director and a National Geographic Explorer, led our dive operations alongside Carolina. As the team suited up, layer by layer into drysuits and cold-water scuba gear, sea lions popped up at the surface, eyeing us newcomers. Peale’s dolphins tracked the boat, leaping in and out of the wake with effortless motion. We were all bracing for the shock of 8C water, which we knew would be sharp, biting, and immediate. But it was the pull of the strong ocean surge that proved to be much more daunting.

Even from the deck, it was obvious we had found what we came for. Giant kelp stretched in every direction, with southern bull kelp (Durvillaea antarctica) hugging the coastlines, proving to be exceptionally thick and towering. In some places, the visibility was so clear you could see all the way to the seafloor, 30 meters down. At times, diving almost seemed unnecessary. The scale and health of the forest was visible from the surface. Nonetheless, we dropped in, ready to be fully immersed. This was one of the last intact underwater forests on Earth, giving us a chance to witness what a healthy kelp ecosystem is supposed to look like. A rarity in today’s modern world. 

Edges of the world like these deliver their fair share of “unforgettables”, as we like to call them. The constant clicks and clacks of tiny marine life going about their work. Octopi flashing from orange to yellow as they vanished into the kelp. Bright sea sponges standing out ostentatiously on every dive. And the curious and unbothered sea lions circling us while our hands froze to our cameras, too mesmerized to pull away.

But the most unforgettable thing while down at depth was the kelp itself. Twice a day, we dropped into these forests and let our bodies move with theirs. Massive strands surged with the tide, pulling and releasing in a rhythm we wouldn’t dare fight. Often we’d lock eyes with our dive buddies, clearly all thinking the same thing: we were inside something ancient, something essential.

Kelp forests sustain life on a global scale. They draw down carbon more efficiently than most land-based plants, buffer coastlines from storm surge and erosion, regulate oxygen levels, and provide essential habitat for thousands of marine species – from fish nurseries to feeding grounds for top predators. This makes them one of the planet’s most powerful natural climate tools. 

Unlike high-tech solutions still in development, kelp is already doing its share. But as we dropped into these dense, vibrant forests, the signs of risk were impossible to ignore. 

Patagonia, on both the Chilean and Argentine sides, has long been a place of extraction. Its vast resources have drawn industries ranging from agriculture to fisheries to oil and gas. Now, as those sectors shift, wild algae harvesting is emerging as the next frontier. With no regulation at the provincial or national level, kelp forests are left exposed. Layer in coastal pollution and mismanagement, as well as a warming world, and the pressure on these ecosystems is only growing.

That’s why Por El Mar has made kelp its focus. Their work – exploration, protection, and if needed, rewilding – is all aimed at creating a science-based marine protected corridor along the coasts of Tierra del Fuego and its provincial neighbor, Santa Cruz. It is an ambitious effort, but one that is already showing results.

In just three years, this small but determined team of 36 has made major strides. They have been leading scientific expeditions along Patagonia’s southern coastline, working with partners like Más Kelp and Kelpwatch to produce the first comprehensive maps of Argentina’s kelp ecosystems and the species they support. Carolina and Cristian were at the core of that effort, helping confirm what we were told before our first dive: these forests are still holding the line despite rising pressures from development, invasive species like Undaria pinnatifida, and a rapidly warming planet.

To confront these threats head-on, Por El Mar is developing science-based management plans and expanding conservation strategies, always in close collaboration with local communities. In December 2022, years of advocacy, research, and grassroots organizing culminated in a major milestone: the creation of Península Mitre Provincial Park, now the largest provincial park in Argentina.

This remote region, originally home to the nomadic Haush people, holds one of the planet’s last great peatland reserves. Often overlooked, these wetlands are now recognized as Argentina’s most important carbon sink. Península Mitre alone stores approximately 84% of the country’s peatlands, sequestering an estimated 315 million metric tons of carbon, according to the UN Environment Programme. This landmark move by the Tierra del Fuego government now protects over one million hectares of land and sea, including the province’s most pristine and dense kelp forests. Those very forests we were diving through during our eight-day expedition.

And the momentum has not slowed. In December 2024, the Tierra del Fuego legislature unanimously passed a law protecting all kelp forests in the province – whether inside marine protected areas or not. The law backs science-based management, promotes regenerative ocean farming as a sustainable alternative, and explicitly bans destructive practices like wild kelp extraction and underwater deforestation.

This is a local solution with global relevance – a practical model for how other regions might safeguard their own marine ecosystems. And this is proof that community-led action, grounded in science, can shift the future of a threatened ecosystem. They show what happens when people take ownership of the resources that sustain them, and make the choice to protect them in return.

Places like Península Mitre, and teams like Por El Mar, push back against the narrative of despair often portrayed when it comes to climate change. They offer something rare: a working blueprint. Certifiable proof that protecting what is still intact is not only possible, but already happening.

Ángeles De La Peña, a Tierra del Fuego local and one of the legal and strategic forces behind Por El Mar, knows what it takes. She played a key role in the creation of the park, and was also behind the successful push to ban open net salmon farming in the region in 2021, a full year before the park was established. Ángeles understands that building legal momentum in a place that still feels, to many, like the end of the world, is not something that happens overnight by any means. Before we set sail back to Ushuaia, she said something that stayed with us, and should stick with anyone working to protect what’s left: “You don’t need to look far to find what’s worth protecting. You just need to recognize the value of what’s already in front of you and then not back down when it comes to preserving it.”

This far off corner of the globe had more encounters and eye-openers than we could’ve hoped for. Those sea lions, sei whales, dolphins, penguins and of course, the ancient kelp forest itself, in all its wild splendor. But what left its indelible mark more so was the fighting spirit. A spirit present in every person we met along the coast – from divers and scientists to legal advocates and local organizers. 

It takes a particular kind of grit to live in a place this wild; to endure the harshness and isolation of this land and its surrounding waters and; to push for a better future where it’s needed most. But that unwavering strength comes from a deep understanding of just how special and critical this place truly is. As we stood shivering on deck, dive after dive, aboard that humble boat we were starting to relish calling home, we knew that the fight we witnessed here was one thing, above all else: unforgettable.

Featured image: Adam Moore.

—

This story is part of an editorial collaboration between Earth.Org and Edges of Earth Expedition, a team dedicated to uncovering powerful stories from the frontlines of the climate crisis. Leading the charge is Andi Cross, an expeditionist, impact strategist, writer, and SSI divemaster who has spent over two years traveling the world, immersing herself in the realities of environmental change.