“What we do during this decade can be critical for the future of Amazonia,” said São Paulo Research Foundation member, Paulo Artaxo, at a recent Wilson Center event on efforts to support sustainability and development in the Amazon region. The recently accelerating environmental change in the Amazon region warrants greater collaboration between the civil and scientific communities on community and international scales, according to a panel of experts.

Finding domestic alternatives for rare earths has become a matter of national security, according to a recently released Pentagon report. The United States’ defense, economy, and infrastructure depend on the electronics that rely on these mineral elements. Trade tensions between the United States and China over rare earths illustrate an important dynamic surrounding little-seen building blocks of our daily life.

The challenge of peacebuilding missions is not only to stop violence and prevent a rekindling of conflict, but also to help societies and governments reset their internal relations on a peaceful path towards sustaining peace.

Once again, we find ourselves witnessing another calamitous hurricane event in the United States, just weeks after a George Washington University report estimated that nearly 3,000 more people died in the 6 months following last year’s Hurricane Maria than would have without the hurricane. We have been here before, too many times. With each and every major disaster, the scientists who study public health in crises ask ourselves, is what we have learned and shared being taken seriously—or is it just being ignored? The response to Hurricane Maria, which devastated Puerto Rico last year, is just one more example where we have to ask if our work is valued by those who have the political power to improve public health. The staggering number of excess deaths—most of whom died after the storm—point to a deadly lack of prevention and preparedness, particularly in the public health system.

The security implications of climate change emerged as an important area of concern in the mid 2000s in both policy circles and academia. Since then, there has been much research exploring causal pathways between climate phenomena and violent conflict, often with inconclusive or mixed results.

In Judy Brady’s iconic essay, “I Want a Wife,” the feminist activist enumerates the dozens of practical and emotional tasks wives perform as a matter of duty. At the end, she asks: “My God, who wouldn’t want a wife?”

While the World Population Prospects—the UN Population Division’s demographic estimates and projections—will never land on anyone’s non-fiction best-seller list, the latest version holds some noteworthy true stories. And the most remarkable demographic story of all may be Bangladesh’s.

Great power competition in Asia is not only about control of critical waterways in the South China Sea, but also about who controls Asia’s fresh water. The future of Asia’s water—upon which about four billion people depend—lies in China’s hands. Through its presence in Tibet, China controls the headwaters of ten of the eleven major rivers of Asia. So far, China has taken a relatively cooperative approach to sharing water with its neighbors as part of the systematic consolidation of its “soft power” over downstream countries. But climate change and rapid growth are threatening to upset this delicate diplomatic balance. What happens when China’s own thirst outpaces its resources? And how will China’s choices affect U.S. interests in the strategic Asia-Pacific region?