Essays and Features

As we continue our dangerous experiment with the Earth’s climate, it’s expected that extreme weather and natural disasters will become more frequent and intense. The water cycle will become so unpredictable that droughts, floods and rising sea levels could cripple entire cities and countries.

With its low elevation and severe tropical storms, Bangladesh is among the countries most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, though it has contributed little to the emissions that are driving it.

http://www.paolopatrizi.com/index.php?/projects/facing-rising-seas/

Matilde Gattoni  Photographer Matilde Gattoni captures life in Laos 50 years since the first US combat troops entered Vietnam.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2015/feb/01/laos-suffers-lethal-legacy-of-vietnam-war

Pak choi drying on a fence, ducks dangling off a balcony and precarious potted plants hanging up high. Enter the astonishingly crammed alleyways of Hong Kong where people battle for space, as captured by photographer Michael Wolf.

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2015/mar/27/store-wars-hong-kongs-extreme-storage-solutions-in-pictures

The city of Handan in Hebei province is the birthplace of Qin Shihuang, the first emperor of China. That illustrious history isn’t apparent today. Aging, coal-burning steel factories belch grime over the city of 1 million, one of China’s 10 most polluted. Dotting the downtown area are half-constructed high-rises, relics of a property bubble that started more than five years ago but was finally punctured last summer after the central government in Beijing curtailed credit and developers stopped paying creditors. Locals who lost their savings in dodgy real estate investments regularly block city streets in angry protests, demanding their money back from the developers. (James Whitlow Delano)

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-02-26/air-pollution-turned-this-chinese-city-into-a-ghost-town