TOWARDS THE END OF HIS LIFE, James Baldwin wrote a meditation on the polymorphous nature of human sexuality and the irrational fears awakened by it. For its title, he chose an old, possibly apocryphal phrase used in ancient maps to mark the region where America would one day be discovered: “Here Be Dragons.” For what are dragons but potent symbols of our deepest anxieties (and farthest hopes)? Some are ancient, others are new. None is as novel or as unprecedented as climate change, if only because there is nothing imaginary about its effects.
Governments have been talking about reducing greenhouse-gas emissions for almost three decades, from the Rio Earth summit of 1992—on the whole, to very little effect. Some fifty percent of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution was added after 1990. Currently, the best estimate— provisional like all estimates—tells us that if global warming is limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius, there is some chance of avoiding the worst. Above this, large swathes of the natural world will cease to exist. As it happens, this state of nature is not very old—a mere twelve thousand years or so, when the last glaciation ended and the current interglacial began. Homo sapiens is much older than that, but most of the achievements we associate with our condition date from the Holocene: agriculture, cities, states, culture in the sense of artifacts, writing, art, and the built environment.
Denne historien er fra February 2020-utgaven av The Caravan.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra February 2020-utgaven av The Caravan.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Mob Mentality
How the Modi government fuels a dangerous vigilantism
RIP TIDES
Shahidul Alam’s exploration of Bangladeshi photography and activism
Trickle-down Effect
Nepal–India tensions have advanced from the diplomatic level to the public sphere
Editor's Pick
ON 23 SEPTEMBER 1950, the diplomat Ralph Bunche, seen here addressing the 1965 Selma to Montgomery March, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The first black Nobel laureate, Bunche was awarded the prize for his efforts in ending the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.
Shades of The Grey
A Pune bakery rejects the rigid binaries of everyday life / Gender
Scorched Hearths
A photographer-nurse recalls the Delhi violence
Licence to Kill
A photojournalist’s account of documenting the Delhi violence
CRIME AND PREJUDICE
The BJP and Delhi Police’s hand in the Delhi violence
Bled Dry
How India exploits health workers
The Bookshelf: The Man Who Learnt To Fly But Could Not Land
This 2013 novel, newly translated, follows the trajectory of its protagonist, KTN Kottoor.