“You cough and it’s all black. Blackness in blackness.” So says a Palestinian man wearing a blue cotton Covid mask in “Toxic Fumes: Gaza Under Siege,” a six-minute video shot inside Gaza and presented on Al Jazeera English. The video is part of “Climate & War,” a series of eyewitness reports commissioned by Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism that highlights how war, beyond its terrible human costs, “drives carbon emissions, destroys ecosystems, and spreads toxic pollution.” The reports provide valuable context for yesterday’s landmark International Court of Justice ruling requiring all countries to reduce planet-heating emissions sufficiently to limit global temperature rise to the Paris Agreement’s 1.5-degree-Celsius target.
“Toxic Fumes” opens with billowing refugee tents against a blackened landscape. Smoke wafts over piles of concrete rubble and twisted metal, the remains of bombed buildings. The camera zooms to a worker raking a fire in a make-shift furnace. The man in the Covid mask and a third worker feed pieces of plastic scavenged from the bombed buildings into an air-tight barrel. Plastics are made from petroleum; these men are, in effect, reversing the refining process, vaporizing plastic into crude forms of gasoline and diesel that will be sold in liter bottles at roadside stands.
Israel’s blocking of food supplies into Gaza has sparked widespread condemnation, with 28 nations on Monday taking the extraordinary step of calling for an immediate end to Israel’s war in Gaza and rebuking the “drip feeding of aid” that has left two-thirds of Gaza’s pre-war population at risk of severe malnutrition or starvation, with children particularly suffering. “There is no case since World War Two of starvation that has been so minutely designed and controlled,” said famine scholar Alex de Waal. “Toxic Fumes” brings an additional dimension to the story, revealing that fuel is almost as scarce in Gaza as food is and the desperate things people will do to cope.
The men burning plastic know their work is very dangerous. Incinerating plastic produces some of the most carcinogenic pollution known to man, and their work site could “catch on fire at any moment,” says one crew member. Nevertheless, the man tells the interviewer, “Don’t ask about danger. It’s not as dangerous as the bombs that fall on us.”
Gaza has become the most dangerous place on Earth to be a journalist. “[A]lmost 200 reporters were killed in Gaza by the Israeli army over the first 18 months of the war,” Reporters Without Borders said in May. Because Israel has forbidden international media from entering Gaza, virtually the only first-hand reporting has come from journalists already on the ground, many if not most of them Palestinian.
The director of “Toxic Fumes” is Mohammed al-Sawwaf, a veteran documentary maker who has won an Edward R. Murrow Award and a Royal Television Society award. In 2006, his father founded Felesteen, the largest circulation daily newspaper in Gaza. Both of al-Sawwaf’s parents, along with two of his four brothers and the brothers’ children, were killed when Israel bombed their family home in November 2023. Al-Sawwaf’s two remaining brothers were killed in a second Israeli attack that also left him temporarily paralyzed. “Their deaths drained my desire for life,” al-Sawwaf told The Intercept. “Yet, I am still trying to rise and continue our work and mission.”
From Us
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The Climate Newsroom CCNow is expanding its newsroom training initiatives to enhance climate coverage at local US media outlets. The project builds on the success of The Climate Station local TV training program and is aimed at helping reporters, editors, newsroom managers, and digital journalists produce more robust climate coverage for online, social, radio, and print. Learn more.
Quote of the Week
“They did not die as a result of natural disaster. They died as a result of choices — terrible and deadly choices — made by Kerr county officials, made by the state of Texas and made by the Trump administration.”
– Samantha Gore, who grew up attending a summer camp along the Guadalupe River, told The Guardian.
Noteworthy Stories
Clean energy age? UN Secretary-General António Guterres says that the world is poised for a clean energy breakthrough “with more than nine in 10 renewable power projects globally” now cheaper than fossil fuel options, according to new data from the International Renewable Energy Agency. By Fiona Harvey at The Guardian…
Data dive. Carbon Brief details five of the key points from the reports and Guterres’ speech, explaining why switching to renewable energy is “smart economics.” By Molly Lempriere at Carbon Brief…
COP momentum. The EU and China issued a joint statement reaffirming support for the Paris Climate Agreement and calling for “strong action at the upcoming COP30” today in Beijing. By Sam McNeil and Ken Miritsugu at the Associated Press…
Declarations of dissent. As the Trump administration reportedly is drafting a memo to end the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to fight climate change, 160 EPA employees are still on administrative leave after they signed a petition protesting the agency’s policies earlier this month. This week, employees at the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and NASA wrote letters denouncing cuts in funding and programs at the agencies. By Alexa Robles-Gil at The New York Times…
World Cup scorcher. A heat dome that settled over the eastern US seaboard brought record-breaking temperatures during the Club World Cup tournament last week. The “very dangerous” conditions raised concerns about FIFA’s ability to protect athletes’ health at next year’s World Cup hosted in the US, Canada, and Mexico. By George Timms at Time…
Too darn hot. Last month, BBC meteorologist Simon King wrote an article in which he wondered whether climate change, and especially the extreme heat it intensifies, is changing summer vacation plans for travelers in Europe. The audience response was so overwhelming that it inspired this podcast episode that helps travellers navigate tourism in a warming world. By Graihagh Jackson at The Climate Question…
Resources & Events
Amplified conspiracies. New research from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) details how social media platforms “amplified conspiracy theorists while sidelining vital emergency information, putting lives at risk” for profit in the wake of recent extreme weather events, such as the LA fires and Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Read the report…
Lived experience. Just experiencing extreme weather isn’t enough to boost support for climate policies, according to a new study published in Nature. What did increase support? Lived experience plus the understanding that climate change played a role in making the event worse. Read an interview with a study author…
Digital News Report 2025. The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism is hosting an exclusive webinar with Nic Newman, lead author of the just released report, who will present key findings in this year’s research that reflect the biggest and latest audience needs in North America on August 7, at 12pm US Eastern Time. RSVP
Jobs & Fellowships
Mongabay is looking for an investigative researcher and reporter to fact check and write stories (remote). National Geographic is looking for a Senior Editor for its digital and print platforms (Washington, D.C.). The Boston Globe is hiring a climate science and environment reporter (hybrid). The Conversation UK is looking for a commissioning editor for climate (hybrid). The Environmental Reporting Collective (ERC) is seeking a managing editor to lead future investigations and support partner newsrooms (southeast Asia).
The IP List 2025, a project piloted by PopShift and guided by top journalism and Hollywood professionals, is looking for exceptional journalism available for adaptation in the film and television optioning market. Learn more and apply.
The Global Heat Health Information Network, in partnership with Internews’ Earth Journalism Network (EJN), has launched the Extreme Heat Photo Contest. This global photography competition showcases the real impacts of extreme heat and the ways communities around the world are responding to it. Learn more and apply.
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