Six fires

Congo · Palestine · Sudan

People forced from home.

One vault = 100,000 people. Same scale for all three.

Congo7,000,000+ displaced inside their own country

Palestine~1,900,000 displaced in Gaza · nine in ten people

Sudan13,600,000 uprooted · largest displacement crisis on earth

Different agencies, different moments, 2024–2026.

What's happening

DR Congo · since the 1990s

7M+

displaced inside their own country, with 120+ armed groups in the east

The situation: M23, backed by Rwanda, took Goma and Bukavu in 2025. Since early 2026 both sides have used armed drones and heavy artillery in neighbourhoods. An Ebola outbreak began in May.
It's in your pocket: The Rubaya mining area alone supplies an estimated 15–30% of the world's coltan — the tantalum in the capacitors of the phone you're holding.
Why it's quiet: It's been going thirty years. The news needs things to begin.

HRW Africa Center ACAPS

Gaza · Oct 2023 – Jul 2026

73,231

Palestinians killed, 173,686 injured — recorded by the Gaza Ministry of Health, reported through the UN Health Cluster

The situation: A ceasefire began 10 October 2025. Between then and 11 August 2026, another 1,259 people were killed. Over 90% of schools are damaged or destroyed.
Who says what: A UN commission of inquiry concluded in September 2025 that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. Israel rejects the finding. South Africa's case under the Genocide Convention is still open at the ICJ. Read the finding yourself.
Why it's different: You've heard about this one. That's what the wall above is for.

UNRWA UN COI Gisha

Sudan · since April 2023

13.6M

driven from their homes — the largest displacement crisis in the world

The situation: A paramilitary force called the RSF is fighting the national army. Famine is confirmed in Darfur. Two out of three Sudanese — 33.7 million people — need aid to get through this year.
Not an opinion: In January 2025 the US State Department determined the RSF committed genocide. A US government finding, not an activist one.
Why it's quiet: No Western troops, no oil angle, reporters can't get in. The 2026 aid appeal was about 20% funded in April.

UN State Dept FAO · famine

The part that doesn't make the news

Somebody's already there.

Not staff flown in. Neighbours.

Congo

Women who refused the script

Julienne Lusenge names commanders in public and runs a coalition of Congolese women's organisations. Panzi Hospital in Bukavu has treated survivors since 1999. And in Garamba, the giraffes are up fivefold in fourteen years — in a country at war.

panzifoundation.org ↗

Palestine

School, out of rubble

Gaza had some of the highest literacy rates on earth. Teachers kept classes going in shelters the whole time. UNICEF is now scaling that toward 336,000 kids. When exams happened during a pause in the fighting, one teacher called it a miracle.

unicef.org ↗

Sudan

The Emergency Response Rooms

The state collapsed in April 2023. Neighbours improvised. Now it's 700+ rooms across all 18 states and 26,000+ volunteers running kitchens, clinics and evacuations. Mostly people in their twenties. Mostly unpaid. Often under shelling.

mutualaidsudan.org ↗

Nobody here is waiting to be saved. They're asking not to be alone in it.

All free

Pick one. Not four.

Four is how people end up doing zero.

2 min

Call. Don't post.

Staffers tally calls. Nobody tallies reposts. ZIP, one sentence, hang up.

find yours ↗

Saves money

Keep your phone one more year

Coltan and cobalt demand is what makes eastern Congo's mines worth fighting over. Not upgrading is a real lever and it pays you.

no link needed

4 min

Read the Sudanese volunteers directly

Not a thread about them. Their own site.

mutualaidsudan.org ↗

10 sec

Say a number out loud to one person

Thirteen point six million. Say it at dinner. Attention is the scarce thing, and you already have it.

no link needed

Got money? Send it to the people already there. Not me. No donations, no ads, ever.

Same map, different casualties

It's happening to the places too.

Congo holds the second-biggest rainforest on earth. Same country as the first tab. The war and the burning aren't two subjects.

Nothing here is a metaphor. It's all counted.

Bengal tiger · India, 2022 census

3,682

wild tigers, up from about 1,400 in 2006 — roughly 75% of every wild tiger alive

How they know: Camera traps and DNA from scat across 20 states. Largest wildlife survey on the planet.
The catch: Gains sit inside reserves. The corridors between them are highways and farmland now, and Sundarbans habitat is going under with sea-level rise.
Why it's here: Because it went up. Keep reading.

Mongabay Corridors 2026

Tropical forest · 2025 satellite data

4.3M ha

primary rainforest lost in one year — eleven football pitches a minute

The situation: Down 36% from 2024's record, mostly because there were fewer fires. Still 46% above a decade ago.
Pressure works: Brazil cut non-fire forest loss 41% in a single year, to the lowest on record, after enforcement changed. Nobody argued the forest into surviving — somebody made cutting it expensive.
Who's counting: Maryland's GLAD lab, from satellites, published openly.

WRI Forest Watch

Air & plastic · annual

~7M

premature deaths a year linked to air pollution (WHO). Estimates run 4–8M by method — better you know a number is soft than not.

Not far away: April 2026: 152.3 million Americans — 44% — live in a county that failed at least one air quality standard. Including 33.5 million people under 18.
Plastic: Over 450 million tonnes made a year. Under 10% of all plastic ever made has been recycled.
Why it's here: This is where "far-away people's problem" stops working. Check your ZIP below.

OWID · air OWID · plastic ALA

One line, going up

This is what winning looks like.

1972: maybe 1,800 wild tigers left, falling. 1973: Project Tiger. Reserves, wardens, money. Fifty years later it more than doubled off the low.

Not luck. Not charity. Boring pressure, applied by people who got mocked for caring.

NTCA mean estimates. The 2022 figure has a stated range of 3,167–3,925.

1,411 → 1,706 → 2,226 → 2,967 → 3,682 wild tigers

All free

Pick one. Not four.

30 sec

Check your own air

ZIP into AirNow. If anyone in your house has asthma, this is the most useful link here.

airnow.gov ↗ 5 min

Watch a forest from orbit

Global Forest Watch is free. Pick a place you love, see what's happened since 2001.

globalforestwatch.org ↗ 2 min

Photograph one living thing

iNaturalist turns a phone photo into a research-grade occurrence record. Scientists actually use this data. You've now done fieldwork.

inaturalist.org ↗

Free · saves money

Skip one flight this year

Not all of them. One. It's the single largest lever most people have and nobody wants to say it.

no link needed

The drawer

Things I keep.

Free reading, free tools, work by people I know, and a few things that are here purely because they help.

This tab grows. Nothing here is behind a paywall.

Read the primary source, free

The paywall is optional more often than you think.

Unpaywall

Browser extension. Hits a locked paper, finds the author's legal copy. Works about half the time, which is enough.

unpaywall.org

PubMed Central

Every NIH-funded paper, free, no embargo since 2025. This is most US biomedical research.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc

DOAJ

Directory of Open Access Journals. Vetted, so you're not wading through predatory titles.

doaj.org

Mongabay

Nonprofit conservation journalism, 500+ correspondents, nine languages, free forever. Most of the forest reporting on this site is theirs.

news.mongabay.com

ProPublica

Nonprofit investigative reporting. Free, and they publish their data.

propublica.org

My library

Everything I've actually read, with a note on each one and where I got it. Filter to witness for the books behind this page.

garden.tahreemkarim.xyz/library

Our World in Data

Every chart downloadable, every source cited, licensed for reuse. When someone says "source?", this is the answer.

ourworldindata.org

Ten minutes, real contribution

You can do actual science tonight.

No degree, no fee, no application. The data goes into real papers.

10 min

Zooniverse

Classify camera-trap animals, transcribe old weather logs, find galaxies. Hundreds of live projects, credited in publications.

zooniverse.org ↗ Browse

NASA Earth Observatory

Public-domain satellite imagery with the science written plainly. Free to reuse, including commercially.

earthobservatory.nasa.gov ↗ 5 min

eBird

Cornell's bird database. Your backyard list becomes one of the largest biodiversity datasets on earth.

ebird.org ↗ Free

Open Library

Borrow scanned books free, one at a time, like a library. Because it is one.

openlibrary.org ↗

If this got in you

People get paid to do this work.

Most people don't know that. Cheapest first.

ComSciCon

Scicomm workshops run by grad students, for grad students. Free if accepted, travel funded.

free · in person · comscicon.org

The Story Collider

True science stories, told live and on the podcast. Workshops too. The podcast is free forever.

online + in person · storycollider.org

The Art of Science Communication

ASBMB's online course, run with The Story Collider. Structured, remote, low barrier.

online · asbmb.org

SciArt Initiative — The Bridge

A virtual residency pairing an artist with a scientist. No relocation, no money down.

online · sciartinitiative.org

Leonardo / ISAST

Fifty years of art–science work via MIT Press. Runs a month-long residency for five artists and five scientists.

residency · in person · leonardo.info

PLAYA Art/Sci Residency

Funded, biodiversity-focused, explicitly open to naturalists and data people — not just painters.

funded · in person · artistcommunities.org

ASTC Job Bank

Where the actual openings are: outreach coordinator, exhibit developer, museum educator.

jobs · astc.org

UC Santa Cruz Science Communication

One year, ten students, two internships. The only US program that requires a science degree first.

graduate · in person · scicom.ucsc.edu

People I know

Work by people I'd vouch for.

Rising Tigers Initiative

Free help with college applications and figuring out what comes after. No fee, no catch, no upsell. The reason this page exists at all.

free · tahreemkarim.xyz

The garden

Where this page's offcuts go, plus everything else I'm still thinking about. Nothing there is finished on purpose.

free · garden.tahreemkarim.xyz

My library

Everything I've actually read, with notes, including a standing argument about where you buy books. Slower than this page and meant to be.

free · garden.tahreemkarim.xyz/library

Free resources

Papers, tools and code, downloadable, no email required. The free-education thing I've spent years on and don't intend to stop.

free · tahreemkarim.xyz

The source repo

Every figure on this page as a plain text file, with the date I checked it. Fork it, correct it, use it in your own thing.

open · github.com/TahreemK13/Rising_Tigers_Initiative

Adding more as I get people's permission to link them. If you've written something free and good, tell me.

Housekeeping

If this is too much today.

Reading atrocity all day is a known occupational hazard for the people who do it professionally. They pace it. You're allowed to.

Close the tab. Nothing here expires. The Sudanese volunteers are not counting on your Tuesday.

Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma keeps free, unsentimental guidance on this — written for reporters, useful for anyone. dartcenter.org