Asia

A film by reporting duo Jerry Redfern and Karen Coates — supported by a grant from the Society of Environmental Journalists — shows the ongoing human and environmental harm of the unexploded U.S. bombs and other ordnance dropped on Southeast Asian villages during the Vietnam War. “Eternal Harvest,” which builds on their earlier book on the topic, was made painstakingly over years, and in the latest FEJ StoryLog, the couple explains their process and storytelling approach.

When Europeans colonized remote Indonesian islands centuries ago to dominate the trade in nutmeg and cloves, they were repeating a pattern of domination of peoples and nature that author Amitav Ghosh argues in his latest book has brought us to the present-day environmental crisis. BookShelf reviewer Melody Kemp offers praise for the book’s strong narrative qualities and incisive historical analysis.

How will the UN’s yearly climate treaty talks in Egypt next month touch domestic U.S. reporting? The latest Backgrounder has an outlook, with close attention to the question of compensation for nations suffering the worst impacts of global warming, plus the politics of war and energy, methane and HFCs. The prospects for action in and after Egypt.

Concerns about seaborne plastic waste go back decades, but science writer Juli Berwald suggests that myths and disinformation about sources and solutions continue to cloud the waters. From lentil-sized nurdles to sprawling fishing nets, 200 million tons of plastic now fill the ocean and, for her, it has become evident that the ocean plastics story is really a land story. But will the newly signed international treaty on plastics offer relief?