Peter
Schwartzstein

Enviro journalist & researcher, think tanker @ The Wilson Center & @ Center for Climate & Security, Author of 'The Heat and the Fury: On the Frontlines of Climate Violence'

@pschwartzstein

Latest Stories

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…

National Geographic 

Nov 14, 2017

Climate Change and Water Woes Drove ISIS Recruiting in Iraq

Battered by shifting resources, desperate farmers were driven into terror recruiters’ clutches. Can it happen again?

NPR 

Nov 7, 2017

The Slow Destruction Of Much-Loved Masgouf, An Iraqi National Dish

ISIS suicide bombers devour it as a last supper. Iraqi exiles clamor for it. Such was Saddam Hussein’s love of this fishy delicacy that it might have even

BBC 

Oct 10, 2017

Death of the Nile

The world’s longest river is sick - and getting sicker.

Booming populations have dirtied and drained it, while climate change threatens to cut its flow. And some fear that competition…