“We were so terrified with the water coming into the house and the sound of the storm. In front of my eyes, the walls of our house collapsed.” That’s Geeta Maiti, a resident of Mousuni Island, part of the Indian Sundarbans—a 4,000 square-mile World Heritage site on the Bay of Bengal, shared by India and Bangladesh. There, a rich ecosystem supports the world’s largest mangrove forest and several hundred animal species, including the endangered Bengal tiger. The region is home to approximately 13 million people. It is one of the most vulnerable areas to climate change in the world.
“Losing Ground” was directed by Lisa Hornak and Erin Stone. It is part of The Atlantic Selects, an online showcase of short documentaries from independent creators, curated by The Atlantic.
The frozen continent of Antarctica contains the vast majority of all freshwater on Earth. Now that ice is melting at an accelerating rate, in part because of climate change. What does this transformation mean for coastal communities across the globe? William Brangham reports from Antarctica on the troubling trend of ice loss and how glaciers can serve as a climate record from the past.
