KODAIKANAL, India – In the dogged community of eco-activists, journalists, local leaders, and artists that find common ground defending Tamil Nadu from rapacious development and rampant pollution, Nityanand Jayaraman stands out.

Almost three decades ago, at a conference at the Woods Hole Institute, oceanographer John Martin said with “a half a tanker of iron…I will give you the next ice age.”

Before the 2015 floods that drowned Chennai, Pradeep John spent several years posting thorough and dutifully accurate updates and alerts on Twitter and Facebook as the Tamil Nadu Weatherman. An amateur meteorologist who developed considerable expertise in weather data and satellite imagery, John’s online followers relied on his crisp forecasts and advice.

This week, newly minted Secretary of Defense James Mattis joined a long list of senior U.S. military leaders who have warned about the national security threats of climate change.

“Turbulent and possibly revolutionary times are ahead for U.S. energy and environmental policy,” said Bobby Magill, a senior science writer at Climate Central, at the Wilson Center on February 3. “If there’s one message the Trump Administration is sending about environmental and climate regulations, it’s this: The future will not look like the past.”

The world’s ocean fish stocks are “on the verge of collapse,” according to a special report from IRIN. Already small fishers in poor countries are reeling, turning to ever-more destructive techniques and suffering from poor health and dwindling livelihoods.

Hans Rosling, the Swedish statistician, global health advocate, and “edutainer,” passed away this week in Uppsala, according to his foundation, Gapminder.

It was some point in May last year, shortly after ISIS surged into the city of Ramadi, and I was working on a story about Iraq’s fast-disappearing Mesopotamian Marshes. Keen to fact-check a few statistics with the Ministry of Water Resources and to hear the government line on the wetlands’ struggles, I dialed its Baghdad offices. After being passed from official to official like a hot potato, a young employee, Hussein, finally gave it to me straight. “No, no, we don’t have this sort of information,” he said, clearly impatient to get off the phone. “There are much more important things in Iraq right now.”