Blackened rivers snake the ring roads of Beijing, carrying pollution and often smelly water from one end of the city to another. The most polluted of these have been dubbed “foul and filthy” rivers (黑臭河) by China’s Ministry of the Environment (MEP) and Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development (MOHURD). However, the government has decided to clean these up – and is enlisting the help of the public to do so.

Though governments have agreed to try to limit global warming to no more than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, a paper by James Hansen et al. in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics finds that goal may not prevent major changes on an irreversible and unadaptable scale. Studying the last interglacial period, about 120,000 years ago, when the temperature was less than one degree Celsius warmer than today, Hansen et al. estimate sea level was six to nine meters higher than today.

Zika is a global health challenge. Since its outbreak in Brazil last May, the virus has spread to more than 30 countries and territories and ignited global discourse about family planning, vaccine development, reproductive rights, contraceptive security, and even gender norms.

Developing countries are in a pitched fight against the effects of climate change, and women, playing prominent roles in agriculture and household resource collection, are “at the front lines in the battle,” writes UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres, in a new report.

The climate agreement reached in Paris last December, seen by many as a critical step toward lowering greenhouse gas emissions, was big news – perhaps too big. Pointing to the thousands of articles about COP-21, National Geographic Senior Editor Marla Cone asked at a recent Wilson Center panel, “Is this a wise use of resources, when newsrooms are so stretched thin, to have everybody pretty much chasing the same stories?”

China’s “strictest air protection law” yet took effect on January 1, 2016, promising to bring big changes to its smog-filled cities. But some municipal governments have been ahead of the curve, working to clean up the air through experimentation and innovation. Shenzhen, China’s first special economic zone and which recently passed its neighbor Hong Kong to lead China’s most competitive cities, is one of these.

DURBAN, South Africa — Arguably the most elegant aspect of an inelegant subject is how this city of 3.2 million residents, South Africa’s second largest, is solving monumental water and waste challenges in its jammed informal settlements.

In December 2015, Beijing issued its first-ever “red alert” for smog, its highest air pollution warning, which closed schools and restricted the number of cars on the road. Less than two weeks later, it issued its second.