Isabel Wilkerson Instagram – The hatreds wrought by our false divisions are endangering our planet and the species, and that is why I wrote Caste. The passage above (slides 3 & 4), about anthrax resurfacing in the Siberian tundra in the heatwave of 2016, presages our current crisis and is a section that readers most often highlight, according to Goodreads.
Before I had written a single word, I knew that the story of the melting of the Russian permafrost would be the opening.
I heard a news brief that summer, just a line or two, that a record heatwave had exposed anthrax that had lain dormant since World War II and was sickening people in Siberia.
It sounded otherworldly to me. I instantly saw it as an allegory for the resurgence of hatreds and hostilities in the US election that year and the dangers facing humanity and the planet.
I had to research the geology of a part of Russia I hadn’t known existed, the mechanisms of anthrax, the symptoms of exposure, the effects on the local people, had to track down accounts of relocating the villagers and disposal of the pathogen. All of this just for a few paragraphs in a single chapter.
The anthrax story was central to the mission of the book, of awakening us to what we otherwise might not see.
And here we are, years later, seemingly having learned nothing.
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Repost from @guardian “The air is unbreathable, the heat is unbearable, and the level of fossil fuel profits and climate inaction is unacceptable. Leaders must lead. No more hesitancy, no more excuses, no more waiting for others to move first. There is simply no more time for that.”
These are the words of the UN secretary general, António Guterres, after scientists confirmed July was on track to be the world’s hottest month on record.
“Humanity is in the hot seat,” Guterres told a press conference on Thursday. “For the entire planet, it is a disaster….The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived.”
#castetheoriginsofourdiscontents #climatechange | Posted on 29/Jul/2023 01:08:21
