Så här års är det svårt att undkomma hettan, och då talar vi bara om medierna. ”Klimatändringar gör dödliga värmeböljor vanligare”, förklarar CNN. ”Extrema värmeböljor kommer att förändra våra liv. Vi är oförberedda”, varnar Time. Somliga historier är mer sensationsdoftande än andra, men det finns ett gemensamt tema: farliga värmeböljor kommer att öka i antal och grymhet till följd av jordens uppvärmning.

While the world focuses on the devastating storms in South Asia and the US, it is timely to ask ourselves two broad, related questions. First, how do we prevent such disasters from being so devastating in the future? And second, how do we best help the vulnerable people who are most affected?

When big weather events happen, often the first thing talked about is climate change. Perhaps it’s a matter of trying to pin blame for a natural disaster. “South Asia is also suffering the horrors of climate change” was one recent American headline.

Climate change has been blamed for a dizzying array of absurd woes, from the dwindling number of customers at Bulgarian brothels to the death of the Loch Ness monster. Most of us can see through these silly headlines, but it’s far harder to parse the more serious claims when they’re repeated in good faith by well-meaning campaigners.

In order to help future victims of hurricanes, focusing on climate change is the most expensive way to help the fewest people. Instead, we should focus on better infrastructure, porous surfaces, drainage, levees and dams, better building codes, and better zoning, as Lomborg explains on France24.

Bjorn Lomborg joined The Economist's podcast The Economist asks to discuss the question: "Poverty, health, education or climate change: where should governments spend their money?" Within each of these areas, some solutions are better than others: shouldn't we do the smart ones first?

Promoting his climate change film An Inconvenient Sequel, former US vice-president Al Gore likes to say that the nightly news has become “a nature hike through the Book of Revelations”.

He’s not the only one touting an apocalypse. In a much-shared story, New York magazine warned that famine, economic collapse and “a sun that cooks us” will happen as soon as the end of this century, as “parts of the Earth will likely become uninhabitable, and other parts horrifically inhospitable”.

Donald Trumps Kündigung des Pariser Klimavertrags ist ein Problem. Jedoch lassen sich auch so erhebliche Mängel am abkommen feststellen. Langfristig wird die Welt so oder so effizientere und tragbarere Alternativen finden müssen.

La nutricionista Rocío Pastor enumera los pros y contras de un estilo de vida que «comenzó con la cultura hippie» y que ahora «tiene un público con un nivel económico medio-alto».

Num mundo onde não há falta de boas causas, fazer o melhor bem possível exige que nos concentremos nas melhores oportunidades primeiro.

Malnutrition receives less attention than most of the world’s other major challenges. Yet it is one area where a relatively small investment can have the most powerful impact.