While Chinese officials make full frontal regulatory attacks on smog, untreated sludge, an often toxic byproduct from sewage treatment, continues to quietly spread into groundwater and contaminate soil and food.

“Alphonse, however, had not come to talk. Without saying a word, he raised a machete and brought it down onto his uncle’s skull.”

Expectations for the upcoming UN climate change summit in Paris are higher than they’ve been in years. Experts expect it will be the best chance to achieve a binding, universal agreement to limit carbon emissions. But the conference is still not getting the attention it deserves from policymakers and the public, given the stakes – and not just for the environment but for the international system writ large, said Nick Mabey, founding director and chief executive of the UK-based environmental NGO E3G at the Wilson Center on February 12.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Yemen has collapsed – again. A country that has split and been pulled together before, has the youngest and fastest growing population in the region, is running low on oil and water, and possesses a “personalist” government rather than stable institutions, was on the top of every expert’s list as the fragile state most likely to fail next.