Hurricane Erin to scrape East Coast as Category 4 hurricane; other news from around the world

Viewing global conflict through the lens of climate change

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Hurricane Erin will strengthen slightly before scraping the coastline of the mid-Atlantic states this week, with estimated storm surge for some places reaching up to four feet. Erin is expected to reach Category 4 strength in the next 48 hours with top wind speeds of 130 mph (115 knots).

Two other systems are likely to develop in the coming days, as well, following the general trajectory of Erin, though it’s too soon to say for sure. Hurricane Erin, from a structural standpoint, is a beautiful, monster of a storm.

Hurricanes are now strengthening with frightening speed, a process scientists call rapid intensification, and climate change is the accelerant. Warmer ocean waters—the fuel for storms—provide more latent heat, allowing cyclones to jump from minor to major hurricanes in a very short period of time.

At the same time, a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, driving torrential rains, while weaker wind shear in some regions removes the barriers that once slowed storms. This means coastal communities face less warning and greater destruction, as storms like Milton, Harvey, Maria, Ian, and Otis have shown. Rapid intensification is climate change made terrifyingly immediate.

Tropical cyclone activity is expected to increase over the coming weeks as we reach the peak of the season.

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Genocide in Gaza¹

In Gaza, the horror of war collides with the slow violence of environmental collapse. Bombardment shatters water plants and power grids, leaving families to drink brackish, contaminated water. Climate change compounds the misery as heat waves intensify suffering under blockade. Farmland, already scarce, is scorched and poisoned, making hunger a weapon as well as an outcome.

What unfolds is not only genocide by bullet and bomb but by the stripping away of ecological foundations that sustain life. In a world growing hotter, Gaza’s devastation is a grim preview of climate injustice made absolute.

Egyptian officials confirmed that Hamas accepted a ceasefire proposal similar to a previous one accepted by Israel, which stipulates the negotiation of a lasting ceasefire; Egypt and Qatar sent the proposal to Israel, a senior Egyptian official said. Israel rejected the offer — the 18th time they’ve done so.

The estimated death toll from the Israeli and US-backed genocide in Gaza ranges from 200,000 to 350,000, with most of the deaths being women and children. Israel has murdered more members of the press than were killed in World War I, World War II, Vietnam, Korea and Afghanistan combined.

Israel recently began discussions of ethnically cleansing the Gaza enclave by forcibly removing Palestinians from their homes and sending them to war-torn South Sudan under threat of death.

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Crisis in Congo²

The Democratic Republic of Congo sits atop some of the richest reserves of cobalt, coltan, and copper on Earth—the very minerals that make our electric cars run and our phones buzz in our pockets. Yet for the Congolese people, this abundance has not brought prosperity but instead a long, grinding catastrophe.

The global hunger for batteries and electronics has transformed forests and farmlands into scarred pits of extraction, while armed groups—more than a hundred at last count—jockey for control of territory and resources.

Layered atop this man-made violence is the destabilizing drumbeat of climate change: rains have become erratic, flooding once-stable villages, while prolonged dry spells push rural families to the edge of famine. The Congo Basin, often called the "lungs of Africa," is under siege not only from chainsaws but from the altered climate that weakens its capacity to absorb carbon and shelter biodiversity.

The crisis here is not simply local mismanagement or regional conflict—it is global exploitation written across the land. Our choices in Europe, Asia, and America—to consume, to extract, to demand more power at lower cost—echo as gunfire and hunger in Congolese towns.

Climate change amplifies these stresses: swollen rivers wash away fragile infrastructure, while warming temperatures threaten the rainforests that regulate weather patterns across the continent. In this crucible, displacement has become the norm—millions forced from their homes by fighting and failing harvests.

If South Sudan is the frontline of climate’s war on stability, the DRC is its supply chain battlefield, where the costs of a warming planet and a consuming world converge.

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Starvation in South Sudan³

South Sudan continues to suffer from one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, magnified by the worsening effects of climate change, macroeconomic shocks, and spillover from the nearby civil war in Sudan.

The country sits on the frontlines of climate change: rains that once nourished crops now fall in torrents that submerge entire villages, while seasons of drought grow hotter and longer. Livestock, the lifeblood of many families, perish in parched pastures, and harvests wither under a sun that feels more unforgiving each year.

These disruptions are not random flukes of nature but the predictable consequence of a planet altered by fossil fuels. In a nation already fragile from decades of conflict, the collapse of climate stability has deepened hunger, displaced millions, and sharpened old divisions into open conflict.

The story is a cruel one: climate change did not cause South Sudan’s civil war, but it has poured accelerant on the fire.

As herders and farmers scramble for dwindling resources, the lines between survival and violence blur. Floodwaters push people from their homes into contested lands, and scorched earth leaves them little choice but to compete for what’s left.

In this way, carbon emissions from far-off industrial centers reach their bloody conclusion in the Nile basin, where a child goes hungry because fields won’t yield, and neighbors turn against one another over a bucket of water. What’s happening in South Sudan is not just a humanitarian crisis—it’s a warning flare for a warming world.

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Side Note: Culture Wars This Week

The soup de jour of faux outrage this week comes from Minnesota, where two male cheerleaders have joined the Vikings’ squad. Why is this controversial? It’s really not. Men have been part of cheerleading since its inception. Presidents George W. Bush, Ronald Raegan, and Dwight Eisenhower, and FDR were male cheerleaders in college.

Two senators from Mississippi - Trent Lott and Thad Cochran - were cheerleaders at Ole Miss. Mitt Romney was a cheerleader in high school, as well.

A lot of the “backlash” has its origins in the same disinformation channels that got mad about non-existent litter boxes in high schools.

1. United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). (2020). Environmental Impact of Conflicts in Gaza.
Human Rights Watch. (2022). Gaza’s Water Crisis.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). (2021). Climate Change 2021: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability.
OCHA. (2023). Occupied Palestinian Territory: Humanitarian Needs Overview.

2. International Crisis Group. (2023). Congo: The Politics of Resource Extraction.
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). (2022). DRC Situation Report.
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). (2021). Climate Change and Security in the DRC.
Global Witness. (2021). The True Cost of Cobalt.
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). (2022). Impact of Climate Change on Food Security in the DRC.

3. International Crisis Group. (2021). Water and Conflict in South Sudan.
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). (2020). Climate Change, Conflict and Migration in South Sudan.
World Food Programme (WFP). (2022). South Sudan Emergency Dashboard.
NASA Earth Observatory. (2021). Flooding in South Sudan.
FAO. (2023). South Sudan Humanitarian Response Plan.