MOTHERBOARD

Your team has found the city of Giza, Egypt. You gaze out across three tall pyramids built as royal tombs more than 4,000 years ago. As your team is crossing the desert to get to the base of largest Pyramid, the stones beneath your feet begin crack. An archaeologist tells you, “The pharaohs called these the temples of a million years; they were meant to last forever. Recently, erratic weather, like extreme heat, causes bricks to expand and crack and now rain can fall so furiouly that it makes dents in the mud bricks. We are trying to find and document everything . . . If worse comes to worse we will have a record of what’s been lost”

🛩️ to

Giza

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30ºN, 31ºW

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You just finished a hike to Iguazu Falls in Argentina, but it is much smaller than you expected. A park guide tells you that the falls have just 13 percent of the normal amount of water. The worst drought in 50 years is gripping this part of South America. Higher temperatures and deforestation have changed the rain patterns in this area.

✈️ to

Iguazu Falls

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25° S, 54° W

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You arrive on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. You take a drive along the famous Kamehameha Highway and see amazing views. You see lots of cracks in the road. One chunk of road has even fallen into the ocean. Unusually high tides, large waves, and increasingly intense tropical storms are starting to erode the island infrastructure and coastal land.

In effort to lead change, the state of Hawaii set a goal to stop using energy that releases carbon dioxide by 2045. Solar and wind energy are planned to be the largest sources of clean energy in the future.

✈️ to

Oahu

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21ºN, 157ºW

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You arrive in the mountain town of Sa Pa, Vietnam ready to hike through beautiful rice terraces. You notice new hotels being built, many new cars in town, and everywhere there are ads selling exciting activities for tourists. There are four times as many visitors here compared to 5 years ago. The new hotels are built in areas without, enough drinking water or proper sewer systems to contain their waste and the increased traffic is releasing more pollution into the air.

In Vietnam, climate change is hitting ethnic minorities that depend on farming the hardest. Increasing temperatures have disrupted normal weather patterns leading to times of drought and causing periods of more intense rains that erode soil. Crop failures are becoming more common. Families already on the brink are struggling to get by.

✈️ to

Sa Pa

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23ºN, 103ºE

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“Guten tag!” you hear someone say as you get off the bus in Zugspitze, Germany. You are high up in the mountains, bundled up in warm clothes. A German recommends you see the beautiful glaciers now.

Scientists predict that many of the glaciers will not be here in twenty years. Melting glaciers around the world are thought to cause about 25 percent of the rise in sea level.

The loss of glaciers also hurts the tourism and skiing industries and reduces the water supply for local towns.

🚌 to

Zugspitze

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47ºN, 11ºE

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Your team arrives in New Zealand. You drive toward Waikawa Beach, but as you get close it looks like the sea has flooded the sandy beach “We can’t drink the water anymore because it is full of salt” you hear someone say next to you. She is an artist who uses the art inspired by her people, the Moari, to encourage people to protect the environment.

⛵ to

Waikawa Beach

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44ºS, 170ºE

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You wake up on a bus and see the city of Kampala, Uganda. You get off the bus and meet a young Ugandan named Vanessa Nakate. She teaches children about the environment and has helped youth install solar powered lights and efficient stoves, and plant trees around the country. Vanessa says floods have been destroying communities in Uganda more often. She hopes to leave a better environment as her legacy.

🚌 to

Kampala

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0°N 32°E

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Your team gets off a bus high in the mountains of Sichuan 四川 Province in China. A guide tells you about the huge snow leopard he spotted last week.

Snow leopards

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live in the mountains where they hunt animals like

blue sheep

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. He said he used to seem them often, but lately it has been getting warmer and snow leopards have been disappearing. A recent study shows that high mountains are warming even faster then the rest of the planet. This will result in 30 percent of the snow leopards habitat to vanish as the forests change in response to warming. Melting mountain glaciers also cause about 25 percent of the rise in sea level.

🚌 to

四故娘山

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31°N 103°E

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Your team is on sea ice near the Inuit town of Taloyoak, Canada. The sun never rises this time of year, but the moon is bright and you see an animal watching a hole in the sea ice. It has huge paws and teeth. A local hunter says it is a Polar Bear. They wait at the edge of sea ice for seals that come up for air. Winter is an important time to get food. The last few summers the sea ice melted so much that polar bears had a hard time finding places to hunt for food. In recent years, the polar bear population in this area has dropped by 40 percent.

🛩️ to

Taloyoak

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69°N,93°W

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