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November 1, 2022
A Dispatch from the United Kingdom
Hannah Hunt
On July 4, around 2 p.m., I stood staring at Velázquez’s “The Rokeby Venus” in the National Gallery in London. It’s barely noticeable, but if you look closely, you can see that tiny stitches bind five cuts slashed into the painting’s canvas — an act of civil disobedience performed by the Canadian suffragette Mary Richardson 108 years ago as part of the campaign that won women the right to vote....
November 1, 2022
A Dispatch from Turkey
Erin O’Brien
Yakup Şekip Okumuşoğlu has dedicated his life to a cause bound to fail. He is the primary counsel for the protest movement fighting to protect the İskencedere valley in the northern Turkish province of Rize. Every day since March 2021, he and dozens of fellow İkizdere activists have thrown everything they can — lawsuits, vocal pleas, and even their bodies — in front of the heavy machinery brought in by...
November 1, 2022
A Dispatch from Patagonia
Chanelle Adams
Earth is now “the largest shareholder” of outdoor clothing retailer Patagonia, per the company’s homepage. Fall gear is 50 percent off in advance of the change, which will of course outlast the season. Rather than going public like competitor North Face, Patagonia rebranded as “going purpose.” In an unprecedented stroke of generosity, or otherwise a creative retirement plan, the billionaire Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard donated the entire company to the...
November 1, 2022
A Dispatch from New Zealand
India Logan-Riley
Whether for gun control quickly passed after the Christchurch mosque attacks, or for far-reaching lockdowns and border closures to keep Covid out and prevent thousands of deaths, the government of New Zealand is admired around the world. That’s partly because the government’s many mistakes don’t reach the international stage. The supposedly sterling Covid response is a prime example: those who lost their jobs after the pandemic began were given twice...
November 1, 2022
A Dispatch from the Arctic Circle
Vince Cooper
The ship rose up onto the ice, balanced there for a moment, and then lurched back onto its side. We were stuck. The open water had frozen, shutting us in place against a pressure ridge, a thick wall on the ocean’s surface formed by the convergence of sea ice. Our vessel was called the Sikuliaq, and we were some 375 miles due north of Alaska, on a 30-day, 29-person research...
November 1, 2022
A Dispatch from Pakistan
Zoya Rehman
Even though Pakistan emits less than one percent of the world’s greenhouse gasses, our country is among those hardest-hit by climate change. This summer, monsoon rains and melting glaciers have combined to displace some 35 million people, while over 1,500 are already reported dead. It is estimated that Pakistan will lose around $30 billion as a result of the widespread destruction caused by the floods. Farms have been devastated and...
November 1, 2022
“The Task of the Next Generation of Climate Activists”
Jake Bittle
The passage of the Inflation Reduction Act and the permitting deal have the potential to jump-start a golden age of energy infrastructure — not just solar farms and wind farms but geothermal facilities, nuclear plants, carbon capture projects, offshore and onshore oil rigs, natural gas pipelines, natural gas export terminals, lithium and rare earth mineral mines, battery manufacturing facilities, biogas processing plants, electric vehicle assembly lines, and more will now...
November 1, 2022
“A War Against the Global South”
Ama Francis
This August, more than 30 million people in Pakistan were affected by unprecedented flooding that left one third of the country underwater. Climate minister Sherry Rehman called Pakistan “ground zero” for the climate crisis, joining the growing list of leaders who liken climate change to a war against the Global South. One of the fundamental inequalities that will shape the coming years is the fact that low-emitting countries like Pakistan...
November 1, 2022
“A Few Hundred Words Written by the Right People”
Arvin Alaigh
After Senator Joe Manchin abruptly killed talks on President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better proposal last December, advocacy groups slammed him for having strung along fellow legislative Democrats and the White House for over a year. His announcement followed a year of grassroots (and grasstops) advocacy: thousands of calls to his office, dozens of mobilizations across his home state of West Virginia, numerous constituent meetings with his Senate staff, and...
November 1, 2022
“An Ecology of Oppression”
Jack McCordick
What else could have secured a “yea” vote on the Inflation Reduction Act from Senator Joe Manchin other than a juicy pot-sweetener? In addition to a promise to ease permitting restrictions for new fossil fuel infrastructure, Manchin won a pledge from Democratic leaders and the White House that they would “take all necessary actions” to “complete the Mountain Valley Pipeline,” a 300-mile fracked gas pipeline through poorer regions of West...
