Author: Errica Jensen

Hundreds of people sat at desks running romance scams around the clock somewhere inside a compound in Cambodia, its perimeter fenced with barbed wire and its employees unable to leave. Some were involved in human trafficking. Some were trapped after responding to job advertisements that promised respectable employment. Each was given a certain number of victims to develop, profiles to keep up, and cryptocurrency sites to direct newcomers to. They were advised not to use profile pictures of women who are “too beautiful,” as the accounts must appear authentic, according to the operation’s rapport-building advice. What sticks with you is…

For the first time in his life, a twelve-year-old Scottish boy walked the red carpet on the evening of March 25, 2026. Steve Carell, Lisa Kudrow, and a group of some of the most well-known figures in American and British entertainment were gathered around him. At Queen Elizabeth Hall on London’s Southbank, Dominic McLaughlin posed for pictures with Arabella Stanton and Alastair Stout. He was well-groomed and appeared to be a child still processing what was happening to him. According to reports, the three of them were not allowed to leave after 7:30 p.m. They had already garnered international attention…

There is a specific type of fatigue that results from knowing too much about the world you live in and feeling helpless to alter it, rather than from overwork or illness. If you ask a twenty-two-year-old about it, there’s a good chance they will understand exactly what you mean—not as an abstract concept, but as something they experienced last Tuesday while scrolling through the news about yet another heat event that broke records or staring at wildfire smoke that turned the afternoon sky an eerie shade of rust.For years, eco-anxiety has been on the periphery of public discourse, largely ignored…

Climate scientists often pause for a moment before responding to a thought experiment. What if you could rapidly cool the planet by spraying reflective particles into the upper atmosphere and reflecting some sunlight back into space instead of reducing emissions, which takes decades? Imagine being able to purchase time. What would happen if you stopped?For years, Harvard researchers have been focusing on that final question, which is the most important one for investors. The mechanism is now known as termination shock, a term taken from the language of risk management. Or, to put it more simply, a big heat followed…

Two young climate researchers were sitting in adjacent labs on a calm December morning at Stanford, with the campus mostly closed for the holidays. They were separated by a philosophical canyon and a hallway. One of them, Rebecca Grekin, had received funding from ExxonMobil for her entire academic career, including her PhD, research stipends, time spent in the Amazon rainforest, and access to an entire office building in Houston for experiments. Yannai Kashtan, the other, saw that as an issue. They had a close friendship. They spent the entire day arguing about it. One of the most subtly painful issues…

A rat-sized, round-eared creature is staring down the effects of global warming somewhere on a boulder-strewn slope in Colorado’s Indian Peaks Wilderness. When hikers pass by, it lets out a sharp, angry squeak that researchers claim they are hearing less and less. For thousands of years, the American pika has inhabited these high-altitude rock piles. However, the mountain is literally running out of space for it.The simplicity of the pika’s problem is almost cruel. The animal retreats upslope to stay cool as temperatures rise at lower elevations, which makes sense until you keep in mind that mountains taper toward their…

One scene sticks in your memory: a group of Dutch elementary school kids carefully measuring water levels with homemade gauges while ankle-deep in a man-made canal next to their classroom. Not at a science fair. Not as a project for extra credit. Like any other Tuesday afternoon. This is what water education looks like in the Netherlands, and most people outside the country are unaware of how serious, complex, and subtly urgent it is.Looking at neat Dutch cities with their bike lanes and café terraces, it’s easy to forget that about half of the country is below sea level. Without…

In June 2015, a Dutch attorney by the name of Roger Cox did something that had never been done anywhere in the world in a small, rather ordinary courtroom in The Hague. On the grounds that failing to do so would violate the citizens’ human rights, he persuaded a judge to order a national government to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by a certain, legally binding percentage. The Dutch government was incensed. The fossil fuel sector was concerned. Global climate activists sat motionless and read the decision twice.In the Urgenda Foundation case, which Cox filed on behalf of the organization…

Marine biologists have been observing something off the coast of Sydney that would have seemed unlikely a generation ago. Sydney Harbour is now frequently home to tropical fish, which are colorful, warm-water species that are typically found further north, nearer the Great Barrier Reef. Pushed south by water temperatures that their biology can no longer withstand, they are arriving on what some researchers refer to as a one-way trip. The animals that inhabit Australia’s east coast are reacting to one of the planet’s fastest-warming marine areas in the only way they know how. They’re heading out.This is not a singular…

A journalist was awake at one in the morning on a January night in the Yarra Valley, east of Melbourne, listening to the wind rip through the eucalyptus canopy over his home. The text from a friend whose family owned a sizable property in the expanding fire zone had settled something, even though smoke was already in the air—distant fires, he told himself, nothing immediate. “Definitely leave.” The family was in the car by the next morning, when catastrophic fire danger warnings were in effect throughout Victoria and temperatures were predicted to reach 46 degrees Celsius.That January 2026 story is…