Specimens of goldenrod sewn into archival paper folders are stacked floor to ceiling inside metal cabinets at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. The collection, housed in the herbarium, dates back to 1842 and is among five million historical records of plants from around the world cataloged there. Researchers turned to this collection of goldenrod – a widely distributed perennial plant that blooms across North America from summer to late fall – to study concentrations of protein in goldenrod pollen because it is a key late-season food source for bees.

In January, over the objections of indigenous groups that live there, the government of Ecuador sold oil exploration rights to 500,000 acres of the Amazon to a consortium of Chinese companies. Whenever we hear about stories like this, there is a tendency to think: How can this happen? How can obscenely rich investors run roughshod over the land, livelihoods, and rights of impoverished local communities, and with utterly no consequences?

Today, new nations are pursuing civilian but dual-use nuclear capabilities, the threat of non-state actors seeking nuclear materials may be growing, and countries continue to debate proper ways to enhance nuclear safety, security, and nonproliferation systems to keep up with the pace of change. At the same time, governments worldwide are having difficulty managing the effects of a rapidly changing climate, such as more damaging natural disasters and resource stress. The relationships among nuclear, climate, and security risks are growing more complex and interconnected, and these issues are likely to begin converging in new ways. By early 2016, it has become clear that the international community must take a fresh look at the ways in which they are likely to connect and potentially collide in the years ahead, and foster deeper dialogue on what should be done about it.

People in developed countries rarely think of weather in life-or-death terms. But millions in the developing world have no choice but to do so. The global rich have stable governments, savings accounts, insurance, and more to fall back on when disaster strikes. People in poorer countries don’t, so they’re often faced with tough decisions in times of drought: Sell the only ox for food and plow by hand next year? Take the kids out of school and put them to work chopping firewood for extra cash? Abandon the farm and family to look for work in the city?

“The Zika outbreak is a result of something; it is the result of the lost attention to sexual and reproductive health issues as a human right and women as subjects of rights,” said Jaime Nadal Roig, the United Nations Population Fund representative to Brazil, at the Wilson Center on April 12. [Video Below]

Ashraf and Shazia use the word “guilt” often.* Their voices tremble as they rewind to the day when they read an article in an Indian magazine, Manorama, that opened their eyes to the reality of khatna – the practice of female genital mutilation among their community. “We felt guilt – immense, powerful guilt – when we realized that this was not needed, that we didn’t need to put our elder daughter through this,” the parents say. “We had no idea this was just going on, prevalent, generation after generation.”

This Earth Day, the United States, China, and Canada are among more than 170 countries expected to take part in the largest one-day signing of an international agreement in history. The ratification of the climate agreement hammered out at the Paris Conference of Parties (COP-21) last December could be the most significant elevation of environmental issues on the global stage yet.

A couple of weeks ago, the task force Michigan governor Rick Snyder appointed to investigate Flint’s now infamous water crisis issued its long-awaited report.