Unpredicting Climate Catastrophe
By Rosie Sourbut Author’s Note: Trigger warning for mentions of sexual violence. Following Donald Trump’s election, Margaret Atwood’s...
It’s been a busy year in the climate world. This summer, the Northern Hemisphere saw record-breaking summer heat waves and seemingly endless wildfires. In October, the IPCC published a special report on the potential impacts of 1.5°C of warming – and the news wasn’t great (Shea, pg. 28). The United States remains the only country in the world out of the Paris agreement, and climate denial persists in the Anglo-American world, despite increased floods, heat waves, and other impacts (Dudman, pg. 18).
At the same time, there is reason for hope. Young people around the world are taking back the future through activism, political engagement, research, and small personal actions like flying less, driving less, or eating vegetarian. This spring, we published the first issue of Anthroposphere: The Oxford Climate Review, with contributors in and around Oxford University – now, we present our second issue (and first international issue!) with student contributors from around the world. Our goal is to provide an outlet for the next genera- tion of climate communicators: policymakers, journal- ists, scientists, and researchers who can write (and talk) intelligently about climate change.
In this issue, we have steered away from traditional climate framings – disaster narratives or techno-optimism – and dived into climate politics (Heilmann, pg. 10), local impacts (Arora, pg. 7), and the perils of poor communication (Blackman, pg. 24). Our featured interviewee is a journalist on a mission: Alan Rusbridger, who redefined climate coverage in his 20 years as Editor of the Guardian (Blanchard, pg. 12).
We are proud to have created a magazine that resonates so widely – our writers (and readers) come from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Singapore, China, India, and more; they are oceanogra- phers, novelists, artists, and most importantly, students. We hope you enjoy this second issue of Anthroposphere.
All proceeds go towards printing, designing and maintaining our publication, and your contributions will help keep our climate journalism interdisciplinary and accessible for all.
Editors-in-Chief
Sofia Blanchard
Shannon Osaka
Managing Editors
Meghan Shea
Rupert Stuart-Smith
Online Editor
Hugh Thomas
Senior Editor
Ming Zee Tee
Sub-Editors
Nuala Burnett
Jake Davies
Benedict Gardner
Emily Harrison
Alexandria Herr
Rachel Qiu Kexin
Patrick Naylor
Rosie Sourbut
Jonnathon Turnbull
Lauren Xie
Design Director
Isabel Galwey
Artists
Issy Davies
Megan Rose
Ani Voruganti
Jasmine Yang
Designers
Giles Blanchard
Issy Davies
Steffen Ridderbusch
Hope Sutherland