We frame climate change in terms of the future: cities underwater by the year 2040, 2050, 2100. But for a growing number of people across the globe, that watery future is already here.

As higher temperatures lead to sea level rise and more extreme rainfall, more and more people are already learning to live with catastrophic flooding. Many find creative ways to adapt. But it comes at a cost—first and foremost to them, but in the end to all of us.

Using the library’s main branch to promote a despot’s private event betrays the NYPL’s founding mission of serving the public.

From the conspiracy-site far right to the anti-imperialist left, the question of why Assad would attack his own people when he was already winning the war managed to sow confusion and doubt. But history tells us that Assad had plenty to gain from using chemical weapons.

As Trump ushers in an era of deals between states, the real conflicts will be between increasingly authoritarian states and their increasingly dissatisfied subjects.

The debate over a theoretical American intervention against Assad is obscuring this central fact: the United States already has intervened militarily in the Syrian conflict. As of October 25, the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS had carried out 5,616 airstrikes in Syria, the vast majority of them by U.S. warplanes.

In the realm of ideas and images, the Syrian government’s propaganda is just as effective as its bombing campaigns.

The long history of water as a weapon in the Syrian conflict.

What happened in Aleppo was many things, but most of all, it was a warning – to anyone who may think of resisting the power of the state.

U.S. president-elect Donald Trump has made it clear that he considers the fight against the so-called Islamic State more important than anything else in the Middle East – including Syrian civilian lives, which are likely to be a low priority for his administration.

Like the Syrian government, ISIS is a net cereal exporter – and may get almost as much revenue from the spikes of grain above the ground as the black gold underneath.