BRIGHT-ON BEACH Glowing bioluminescent plankton in the tide line washes up onto a beach on Vaadhoo Island, Raa Atoll, Maldives, with stars above and a ship’s lights on the horizon. (Photo: Doug Perrine / Barcroft Media via The Telegraph)
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The Disappearing Country: With 80% of the country less than one metre above sea level, the residents of the Maldives’ 1,200 tropical islands have long been aware of their vulnerability to rising sea levels. In 2008, it was announced that the government would start diverting a percentage of the nation’s income from tourism into a fund to buy a new homeland. The deep irony that the island nation’s economy relies heavily on tourists arriving in polluting aircraft has not been lost on the islanders. (Sakis Papadopoulos)
UP WITH SEA LEVELS Clouds moved above a palm tree in Male Atoll, Maldives, Tuesday. (Photo: Reinhard Krause / Reuters via the Wall St. Journal)
DEEP IMPACT In the Maldives, the country’s ministers donned scuba gear and met on the ocean floor to draw attention to the dangers of global warming for the island nation, which lies only an average seven feet above sea level. (Photo: AFP-Getty via the New York Times)
