Índex per November 8, 2021 a TIME Magazine

The global response to climate change is now the underlying framework for everything else that society debates IN 1989, WHEN TIME CHOSE THE ENDANGERED Earth as Planet of the Year, in lieu of the usual Person of the Year, the critics pounced. The article itself quoted a University of California scientist who called the greenhouse effect “the laugh of the century.” One reader wrote that the contents of the article “are an excellent example of the solid waste problem.” The skeptics piled in again 30 years later, when I opened a 2019 special climate issue commemorating the Endangered Earth by simply stating that the scientific fact of global warming is settled and that there isn’t another side. Today, as 20,000 delegates from 196 countries head to Glasgow for the…

ALMOST TWO YEARS INTO the COVID-19 pandemic, as booster shots roll out and this summer’s Delta-related surge subsides in the U.S., it’s still not clear exactly how, where or when SARS-CoV-2 began infecting people. Many experts believe the virus jumped from animal hosts to humans, but researchers continue to investigate the possibility that it escaped from a laboratory. The chances of figuring out which, if either, of those theories is correct grow slimmer as time passes. But on Oct. 13, the World Health Organization (WHO) revealed a new effort to capitalize on what time remains: the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO), an advisory group of international experts from specialties including epidemiology, virology, genomics, tropical medicine, public health and animal health. The group is tasked with…

THEY SAY WISDOM COMES WITH AGE. Yet so few of the nation’s leaders seem to have the wisdom to know when it’s time to call it a day. “At some point, and statistically it’s in the 80s, you begin a more rapid decline,” Republican Senator Bill Cassidy told Axios on HBO in an interview airing on Oct. 17. “So anybody in a position of responsibility who may potentially be on that slope, that is of concern, and I’m saying this as a doctor.” At 78, President Joe Biden has faced attacks on his mental fitness, as did his septuagenarian predecessor, Donald Trump. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is still negotiating reconciliation packages at 81, while the Senate’s top Republican Mitch McConnell is still trying to block them at 79.…

IN HER JUST RELEASED BOOK My Life in Full: Work, Family, and our Future, former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi offers insight into her exacting style, one laced with compassion, loyalty and deep relationships that get results. Several themes surface repeatedly with broad application for life, career and the overlaps within. First, it’s O.K. to love work. Perhaps in all the reams written on the juggle, especially for women, the part that often feels shafted is the work itself. Nooyi’s love of the job—from walks on factory floors to battles with activist investors—is apparent and infectious. She uses wonky but relatable examples to explain how to predict and embrace change even in behemoth companies, like going to supermarkets and Walmarts to assess Frito-Lay packaging and placement on shelves, and how watching…

JOHN KERRY CAN FEEL THE HEAT. It's A sunny mid-July day in Naples, Italy, and we’re sitting on the roof of his hotel overlooking the Mediterranean. As tourists on the other side of the patio snap photos of Mount Vesuvius looming in the background, Kerry is warning about the fate of human life on earth. Kerry, 77, has been on the public stage for decades as a Senator, presidential candidate and U.S. Secretary of State and, on paper, his latest role representing the U.S. as President Biden’s climate envoy may look like a demotion. But Kerry rejects any question about why he’s taken this role. The fate of civilization is on the line, and he will do anything he can to help. “I’ve fought around war and peace, and that…

IN OCTOBER 2019, THE ROTARY CLUB OF Bugolobi asked me to talk on the environment and climate change. I looked forward to the opportunity. It would be the first time as an activist that I’d be addressing Ugandan professionals, many of whom were my parents’ age (I’m 24). The audience would be civic-minded middle-class men and women who could raise awareness about the climate crisis and put pressure on the government and the private sector. Or they could do exactly the opposite: resist any change they perceived as slowing down what they considered “development” or “progress,” and dismiss the concerns of the younger generation. My presentation took about 20 minutes, after which the audience asked many questions. They seemed surprised to hear this information from someone so young who…

FOR A BRIEF TIME WE KNEW HER AS LADY DI, and for a longer span as Princess Diana. But in the end, whether you loved or loathed what she stood for, no appellation felt adequate. By the time the former HRH the Princess of Wales died in a car crash in 1997, at age 36, she had become just Diana, one name with a complicated set of ambitions, joys and disappointments folded within its petals. You can adore her or decry her as a wily social climber. The one thing you can’t do is stop looking at her: 24 years after her death, her specter is finding life everywhere, on TV, in the movies and on Broadway. In our imaginations, at least, Diana is more alive than ever. She is…

Natural talent helps, but icons are made, not born. Colin in Black and White, from co-creators Ava DuVernay and Colin Kaepernick, traces that process, connecting the iconic pro footballer turned activist of 2021 to the teen athlete he was in the early 2000s. Jaden Michael from The Get Down stars as the young Colin, a biracial boy growing up with white adoptive parents (played by a clean-shaven Nick Offerman and a pinched Mary-Louise Parker) in a conservative town. His run-ins with prejudiced cops and coaches—exacerbated by his mom and dad’s well-meaning obliviousness—become case studies in white privilege and systemic racism. The real Kaepernick hosts each episode, offering primers on everything from Black hair to the birth of hip-hop. That these are such worthy topics makes the show’s dry, awkward…

DARCIE LITTLE BADGER HAS BEEN shaped by stories—the stories passed down to her through generations of family members, the stories she devoured as a fantasy-obsessed kid, the stories she now writes in books for young adults. And, of course, the story that gave her her name. She was born Darcie Erin Ryan—Little Badger coming, in the tradition of the Lipan Apache tribe, upon graduation from high school. “Badger” is an important figure in the tribe’s origin narrative, which says that at first, the earth was empty—and then the creatures of the world below set out to explore it. Pausing on a park bench in Brooklyn, the author describes the significance of her namesake. “Badger is the animal person who went up to earth and was responsible enough to then go…

You have written several books about the ocean. Why this one, National Geographic Ocean: A Global Odyssey, and why now? This book is my attempt to sum up what we now know about the ocean and make it accessible in digestible bites. If you’ve got 10 minutes, you can sit down and learn something, with beautiful images. Why is the ocean so important? The ocean is where the action is: 97% of the earth’s water is in the ocean. It’s where 95% of the biosphere is. If I were an evil alien wishing to alter the nature of life on earth, I would change the temperature of the ocean, I would change the chemistry. That is exactly what we are doing: excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere becomes excess carbon…

DELETE “FACEBOOK”? After reading Billy Perrigo and Roger McNamee’s features in the Oct. 25/Nov. 1 issue, which addressed fallout following the most significant leak of internal research in Facebook’s 17-year history, readers shared their frustrations with the social network—and social media in general. “When sustained, resounding global success is achieved by a single company, we may find ourselves at the ‘mercy of’ the morality of its leadership,” wrote Alan Fedeli of Ringwood, N.J. Sara Bledsoe of Sterling, Colo., called Facebook whistle-blower Frances Haugen “heroic,” but worried about consequences she might face for revealing her identity. “She needs our collective prayers for ongoing protection from the harassments she will surely endure for speaking out,” she wrote. ‘People have to realize that their data is worth a ton of $$$.’ @TRAVISHB,…

A MORE COMPLETE PORTRAIT of how Facebook has been vividly aware of its harmful effects came to light on Oct. 25, via a series of reports on internal Facebook documents leaked to the media by whistle-blower Frances Haugen. On the same day, Haugen testified in front of British lawmakers shaping new Big Tech legislation. “Mark Zuckerberg has unilateral control over 3 billion people,” Haugen said. “There’s no will at the top to make sure these systems are run in an adequately safe way.” “FACEBOOK PAPERS” Damning details from the leaked documents have revealed Facebook’s problems with hate speech and disinformation are dramatically worse in the developing world—the social network has long underinvested in building safety systems for languages spoken outside of North America and Europe. (On Oct. 25, Zuckerberg called…

When Passing debuts on Netflix on Nov. 10, the film—starring Tessa Thompson and Oscar nominee Ruth Negga—will draw new attention to Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel. Questions about the relationship between the two female protagonists in this novel have made it not only a milestone work of the Harlem Renaissance, but also a milestone in LGBTQ+ history. Scholars of the 1920s and ’30s point out that acknowledging the queer culture and nightlife of the Harlem Renaissance is essential in order to paint a full picture of the time—and also to show that there was a thriving LGBTQ+ scene in New York City that long predated the 1969 Stonewall uprising. The Prohibition era paved the way for LGBTQ+ nightlife and drag balls, but the Harlem Renaissance ended when its patronage dried up…

GROWING UP, I BELIEVED THAT MY THOUGHTS HAD AN effect on everything, from the role I would get in the school play, to what my future would hold, to how tall I would grow. This habit of magical thinking has persisted. Some of my superstitions: If I plan a trip, I will be sure to get a modeling or acting job that conflicts. If I dream of someone, I expect to hear from them soon. If I share good news before it’s official, it won’t come to pass. My latest belief is that if I keep my son’s name on my body, on a necklace or a bracelet inscribed with his initials, he will remain healthy. If there is something, anything, I can do to steer the outcome of events,…

LIFE FOR WHITNEY GREEN LOOKS A LITTLE different these days. She wakes up to the sounds of Rome: scooter engines echoing off cobblestones, the lilting chatter of café patrons collecting their morning espresso shots. She goes to Italian classes in the afternoons. She eats bowls of pistachio gelato and handmade pasta, and watches tourists congregate at the Trevi Fountain and Piazza Navona. She’s teaching herself to play keyboard and building a website for her dream job—her own telehealth practice. It’s a far cry from her past life as a community mental-health therapist for at-risk youth in San Francisco, a job she quit in June to move to Italy with her girlfriend. Green is one of millions of Americans leaving traditional jobs this year—and choosing not to recommit to clocking in…

COP26, shorthand for the 26th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, is in many ways as wonky as it sounds. For two weeks in early November, negotiators from nearly 200 countries will gather in Glasgow to debate the granular details of how best to put the world on a path to tackle climate change, hashing out everything from carbon markets to transparency mechanisms. Alok Sharma, the official charged with leading this year’s U.N. climate-change conference, knows how inaccessible this can all sound. He describes himself as a “normal person” in the climate space rather than a longtime “eco warrior.” But in nearly two years of planning for this summit, Sharma says he has come to understand the urgency of the crisis firsthand, visiting frontline…

Military coup in Sudan ousts government Sudan’s military re-took control of the country in an Oct. 25 coup, jailing prime minister Abdalla Hamdok and deposing a transitional government weeks before it was to transfer control to civilians. The coup undid fragile progress made after massive protests brought down the last military-led government in 2019. Pig kidney transplant successful Surgeons in New York City announced Oct. 21 that they had attached a kidney grown in a genetically altered pig to a brain-dead human patient—where it worked normally for 54 hours. As the first successful operation of its kind, it could suggest a path forward for accessing organs for transplant patients. Bolsonaro may face COVID charges A committee of Brazilian Senators recommended Oct. 26 that President Jair Bolsonaro be criminally charged for…

THE COWS IN FARMER JOHN’S PASTURE lead an idyllic life. They roam through tree-shaded meadows, tearing up mouthfuls of clover while nursing their calves in tranquility. Tawny brown, compact and muscular, they are Limousins, a breed known for the quality of its meat and much sought-after by the high-end restaurants and butchers in the nearby food mecca of Maastricht, in the southernmost province of the Netherlands. In a year or two, meat from these dozen cows could end up on the plates of Maastricht’s better-known restaurants, but the cows themselves are not headed for the slaughterhouse. Instead, every few months, a veterinarian equipped with little more than a topical anesthetic and a scalpel will remove a peppercorn-size sample of muscle from their flanks, stitch up the tiny incision and send…