Monthly:September 2013
This week, the Woodrow Wilson Center’s New Security Beat blog kindly featured my new eBook, MELTDOWN: China’s Environment Crisis, and interviewed me about its production. Please find below an excerpt of the interview. Make sure to visit their excellent website which is dedicated to environment and security issues. China is one of the world’s 12 “mega-biodiversity” countries, but its incredible natural landscapes, from Sichuan’s sparkling, turquoise-colored lakes to Guilin’s dramatic karst topography, are bearing the cost of rapid economic development, […]
I do live where the air can kill you. Actually, I think I am based in the capital of cities where the air can kill you. Beijing. According to this map released by NASA, China’s capital isn’t the only city however that suffers from air pollution levels so severe that they pose a major health risk to those that live under the grey skies which regularly envelop them. According to NASA: “The map above shows the model estimate of the […]
The text below is an adapted excerpt from MELTDOWN: Climate Change on the Tibetan Plateau, featured on UTNE Reader this week. There are some places in the world where you don’t want to get a flat tire. The middle of China’s vast Taklamakan Desert—with no cell phone coverage and no hint of civilization—is one of them. So when we got our second flat tire on our trek, we started to worry a little. We were suddenly a wheel short and […]
I came across this quite stunning image today, depicting the movement of global aerosols across the planet. Click on the image above to see the high resolution version from NASA. It’s really very beautiful but at the same time provides a stark reminder about some of the environmental issues we face on a global scale. The image is described as follows: “High-resolution global atmospheric modeling run on the Discover supercomputer at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation at Goddard Space […]
The stench was over-powering. As I looked out onto the wooden benches before me, the bleached bones seemed to glisten under the Indonesian sun. I was in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, working on a story how the city is being threatened by climate change and flooding. This particular afternoon, however, I was distracted by the shocking scene before me. I was out with my guide, exploring the port area of the north of the city. As we walked around […]
Delighted to share with you the news of a recent guest blog post that I contributed to the National Geographic website, in their News Watch section. The post is titled “5 Myths about China and the Environment” and highlights some of the misconceptions about China’s environmental issues that I’ve come across over the years covering these issues. Below is the first one. Myth 1. Reintroduction of the Giant Panda Into the Wild Has Been a Success Natural forests cover about […]
A recent report led by the World Bank lists the cities most at risk from flooding, due to rising sea-levels. The study, “pinpoints cities around the world that will be most at risk and finds the costs of global flood damage could rise to $1 trillion a year if cities don’t take steps to adapt.” This is an issue I have great interest in, having covered the subject in my travels across Asia, most recently documenting the challenges the Indonesian […]
A quick post today to say thanks to the folks at Mongabay for featuring excerpts from my new eBook on their website this week. If you’re not aware already, Mongabay is a wonderful resource for all the latest news and stories related to the natural world. If it’s not a bookmark in your browser, it should be. Here’s an excerpt from the post: “With soaring mountains and vast grasslands, the Tibetan Plateau covers approximately one quarter of China. The plateau’s […]
I am very pleased to announce the launch of MELTDOWN: China’s Environment Crisis, my new eBook for iPad and Kindle, produced with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, which is now available for download on iTunes and on Amazon. This new free eBook is a culmination of 6 years of my work focusing exclusively on documenting, through photos and video, the many environmental challenges that China is facing in the early 21st Century. The challenges of capturing the many facets […]
– This incredible footage of a mudslide was caught via a dashboard camera in Taiwan yesterday. It seems this area of the island had been suffering from some severe weather recently, resulting in the slipping of a major piece of earth. This one driver had a VERY close call. Keep an eye out 3 seconds into the video at the top of the mountain, for a clue what’s about to come. Mudslides are a mixture of water, soil and rock, […]