Chances are, if you have read or seen any news items on Iran over the past year it concerned the conflict in the Middle East. Tehran’s short-lived war with Israel and the U.S., its waning influence on proxies across the region and speculation over the future of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have all made headlines.

What hasn’t penetrated the news cycle, however, is Iran’s ongoing environmental crisis. And it is grave.

Sanam Mahoozi, who researches media framing of environmental news in the Middle East, lays out the multiple problems that a changing climate is having on Iran: massive water shortages in Tehran with dams at their lowest levels for nearly 70 years; whole cities sinking as subsidence swallows cars and pedestrians; Iran’s iconic lakes turning into a bed of salt; provinces being blanketed by sand and dust storms, sending thousands to hospital.

And war has only added to the crisis. Israeli missile strikes on oil depots close to Tehran earlier this year, for example, reportedly released 47,000 tons of greenhouse gases into the city’s air.

Yet all this went mostly unnoticed outside Iran, Mahoozi notes, shedding much-needed light on an underreported subject.

Elsewhere this week, we have been explaining how Madagascar’s military takeover fits the trend of coups across Africa and looking at the powerful clans battling Hamas for control of parts of Gaza.