Weeks before most of the world began to take the spread of COVID-19 seriously, Africa was already threatened by another plague, the biggest locust outbreak in the last 70 years. Locusts swarmed into Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Uganda, and South Sudan in January and February this year. Those hordes of voracious locusts laid eggs, and now the second wave, 20 times the size of the first group, is arriving. According to Locust Watch, “The current situation in East Africa remains extremely alarming as more swarms form and mature in northern and central Kenya, southern Ethiopia, and probably in Somalia.”

On a rainy July afternoon in 2017, I was in Jinhua, China, a city just south of Shanghai, to visit a pig farm. This was not just any pig farm—the Mebolo farm grows pigs that become the prized Jinhua Hams, a Chinese delicacy for nearly 1500 years. Long before Italians produced prosciutto and the Spanish their Jamón serrano ham, Marco Polo discovered Jinhua ham in the 13^th century and brought ham-making techniques back to Europe.

In the Global South, climate change-induced resettlement requires a holistic and integrated approach, involving all stakeholders—state institutions, local customary and civil society institutions—and in particular respectful engagement with local traditional actors and networks. In a policy brief for the Toda Peace Institute, we examined climate change-induced resettlement from the Carteret Islands in the Pacific, a case which encompasses a broad range of issues relevant to future relocation efforts elsewhere. Those who seek to make this type of resettlement possible would do well to heed these lessons.

Houston after another major flood a few weeks ago; the Bahamas after Dorian; Paradise, California, after the Camp Fire; Haiti after a major 2010 earthquake; Puerto Rico after Maria; New Jersey and New York after Sandy; New Orleans after Katrina; Thailand and Indonesia after the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004… The list goes on. As we head into another hurricane season, we should once again examine what we’ve learned and prepare to reduce the impact of disasters on communities worldwide.

Without warning, water rushed into a woman’s home on a raised platform above the floodplain of Bangladesh’s Teesta River. She was just a hand’s distance from her infant son, but she couldn’t stop him from falling into the floodwaters. “She can’t recover back from the trauma,” said the University of Dundee’s Nandan Mukerjee of the mother who lost her child to the currents of climate change.