Jessica McKenzie

3 weeks ago | thebulletin.org | Jessica McKenzie

Road damage in Yancey County, North Carolina, from Hurricane Helene. Despite facing an estimated $60 billion in damages, some towns have yet to receive federal funds to repair roads and public buildings. (Photo: North Carolina Department of Transportation/Flickr) Eight months after Hurricane Helene tore through the Southeastern United States, many communities in North Carolina have yet to fully recover.

3 weeks ago | thebulletin.org | Jessica McKenzie

Conflict and environmental risks are both on the rise around the world, and they’re often connected in complex ways. In the past five years, the number of global conflicts has doubled. At the same time, human activity is pushing the planet beyond the “safe operating space,” increasing the risk of instability. Researchers studying the links between conflict and environmental change have found that war and violence almost always harm the environment.

1 month ago | thebulletin.org | Jessica McKenzie

Editor’s note: This story was originally published by Yale e360. It appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. China has announced plans to build the world’s largest hydroelectric project at a remote river gorge in eastern Tibet, an ecological treasure trove close to a disputed border with India. Indian politicians have reacted angrily, saying it gives China the ability to release destructive “water bombs” across the border in any future conflict.

1 month ago | thebulletin.org | Jessica McKenzie

In the early 1990s, a University of Michigan graduate student named Jeff Masters started working on an internet weather project to share real-time weather information and satellite imagery, something most people take for granted today but was at the time revolutionary.

1 month ago | thebulletin.org | Jessica McKenzie

For more than half a century, US intelligence agencies and the armed forces have analyzed threats to national security from a range of environmental angles, including dependence on fossil fuels, competition for scarce water resources and strategic minerals, and especially human-caused climate change. These reports have been produced under presidential administrations across the political spectrum.