Peter
Schwartzstein

Environmental journalist @NatGeo, @NYT, @bbc etc. Global Fellow @ The Wilson Center, Fellow @ Center for Climate & Security

@pschwartzstein

Latest Stories

Center for Climate & Security 

Jun 7, 2018

Pirates and Climate Change

A Dispatch From the Bangladeshi Sundarbans

Smithsonian 

May 29, 2018

How Saddam and ISIS Killed Iraqi Science

Within decades the country’s scientific infrastructure went from world-class to shambles. What happened? Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-saddam-and-isis-killed-iraqi-science-180969097/#sBTwkLWJqFjGDmEi.99 Give the gift of Smiths

National Geographic 

Mar 19, 2018

The Explosive Battle to Build an Iraqi National Park

Amid land mines, militants, and air strikes, conservationists are trying to carve out a protected area in the war-torn country. Can they succeed?

UN Environment 

Feb 25, 2018

How dangerously dirty water is threatening one of the world's ancient religions

On an unseasonably warm winter afternoon in Baghdad, Sheikh Anmar Ayid hitches up his robe and crouches by the Tigris river. Rocking back and forth on his haunches, he flicks the water from side to…

The Daily Beast 

Feb 20, 2018

The city’s embassies have come to form a kind of timeline in bricks and mortar for ‘who’s hot’ and ‘who’s not’ in the Arab World.

The city’s embassies have come to form a kind of timeline in bricks and mortar for ‘who’s hot’ and ‘who’s not’ in the Arab World.

UN Environment 

Jan 22, 2018

How climate change and population growth threaten Egypt’s ancient treasures

In his 40-something years as an archaeological excavator on Luxor’s West Bank, Mustafa Al-Nubi has witnessed a flurry of changes.

Tourist numbers have surged, fallen, and then slowly grown…

UN Environment 

Dec 19, 2017

Cairo's Bad Breath

If the Nile is Cairo’s ailing heart, then polluted skies are its black lungs.

Choking the city with swirling dust from the early hours, they cake the towering apartment blocks with muck and…

Smithsonian 

Dec 11, 2017

The Greatest Clash in Egyptian Archaeology May Be Fading, But Anger Lives On

After 200 years, the sad story of Qurna, a so-called ‘village of looters’, is coming to a close

Newsweek 

Nov 22, 2017

What Will Happen If The World No Longer Has Water?

Summer is always scorching in Amman, Jordan, but last July was particularly brutal for Tarek el-Qaisi, a mechanic who lives with his family in the eastern part of the city. A gang of thieves tapped…