DOUBLE ISSUE J U L Y 2 0 / J U L Y 2 7, 2 0 2 0

ONE LAST CHANCE

THE DEFINING YEAR FOR THE PLANET BY JUSTIN WORLAND
PLUS THE DALAI LAMA, GRETA THUNBERG, VANESSA NAKATE, OLIVER JEFFERS, STACEY ABRAMS, ANGELINA JOLIE & MORE

PROJECTED
7% DROP
IN 2020

GLOBAL
CLIMATE CHANGE
OVER TWO
CENTURIES

CO² EMISSIONS

RENEWABLE ENERGY
CONSUMPTION
AVERAGE GLOBAL
TEMPERATURE

LAND ICE
SEA LEVEL

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Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power & Peace
By Hans Morgenthau
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 VOL. 196, NOS. 3–4 | 2020

2 | Conversation
5 | For the Record
The View Features Time Off △
A school of
Ideas, opinion, What to watch, read,
The Brief innovations  Climate Crossroads see and do anthias fish
This is the year By Justin Worland 34 swarm over
News from the U.S. 25 | Gavin Yamey 93 | The power a coral reef
and around the world on the power of America’s four-year plan By Jeffrey of Black fiction in Komodo,
masks Kluger 45 How to save the oceans By Aryn Indonesia
7 | Beijing clamps
down on Hong Baker 46 Q+A with activist Vanessa 96 | TV:
27 | Ian Nakate By Angelina Jolie 56 XR comes of Peacock’s Photograph by
Kong
Bremmer on empty Brave Chris Leidy
crisis in Ethiopia age By Ciara Nugent 60 Equalizing the New World;
10 | Florida’s environment By Justin Worland 68
fraught an implausible
reopening
27 | The history The meat trap By Emily Barone 74 Little Voice;
of social The Paris plan By Vivienne Walt 76 border crisis in
11 | Milestones: distancing Stateless
composer Ennio Plus viewpoints by: Asmeret Asefaw
28 | A single act Berhe 39 Stacey Abrams 41 Mark 98 | Movies:
Morricone; actor
of carelessness smart action in
Nick Cordero Ruffalo and Rahwa Ghirmatzion 49
The Old Guard;
29 | Singing Sebastian Kurz 59 Greta Thunberg 67 an urgent
12 | Roadblocks
to police reform
through a crisis Ayana Elizabeth Johnson 71 message from
The Dalai Lama 79 Oliver Jeffers 104 John Lewis:
30 | A meme Good Trouble;
14 | Back-to-
with deeper love in Palm
school mess Biden’s Top Cop?
meaning Springs
Why Representative Val Demings,
20 | TIME with .. .
novelist David
32 | Q+A with Orlando’s former police chief, could be 102 | Books:
Pfizer CEO the VP nominee By Lissandra Villa 80 the apocalypse
Mitchell
Albert Bourla in Crooked ON THE
22 | Remembering Risky Business Hallelujah COVER:
Breonna Taylor Art by
How MLMs are thriving By Abby Vesoulis Jill Pelto
and Eliana Dockterman 84 for TIME
COURTESY ASSOULINE

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Conversation

WHAT YOU
SAID ABOUT ...
america must change The July 6/July 13
double issue, about America’s failure to live
up to its ideals, was educational for a wide
range of readers. “Thank you for opening my
eyes to the horrors that decent human be­ BEHIND THE COVER For this issue’s cover, Maine artist and scientist
Jill Pelto, 27, used watercolor and colored pencil to create a landscape
ings are enduring in out of global climate data from the 1880s to the present. The work’s
these times,” Jeanette title, Currents, is a reference to the way the earth’s ocean currents are
Fein of Prescott, Ariz., ‘More than “literally shifting as our climate changes.” Read more on how Pelto
wrote. Viet Thanh ever, right makes art based on science at time.com/climate-cover
Nguyen’s essay “The now we are
Model Minority Trap” Divided
hit home for Tracey States of TIME FOR KIDS The pandemic has scrambled
summer plans, but TIME for Kids can help. With Camp
Lin in San Francisco, America.’ TFK, parents get a daily roundup of online activities
who hailed it as “rare” ASHOK KULKARNI, for kids, created and curated by TFK editors. See the
commentary that “so West Palm lineup so far, and sign up at time.com/camptfk
clearly” represented Beach, Fla.
“what it is like to
be an Asian person NOW SETTING THE
during a pandemic and antiracism move­ STREAMING RECORD STRAIGHT
John Lewis: Good In “Trench Lawfare”
ment.” Nguyen’s piece left Judy Peace in (July 6/July 13), we
Trouble, a new
Santa Monica, Calif., “in tears” over the real­ documentary misstated the relationship
ization that society’s privileged can use their between the President
executive- and a woman suing him;
advantages either “for the good of our planet produced by TIME she is a former contestant
or for selfish ends.” Studios about on The Apprentice. In
Some Black women, like Sue Devine of the Congressman the same issue, in “The
and civil rights Model Minority Trap,” we
Chicago, objected to the cover art, a painting leader, is now misspelled the last name
by Charly Palmer, arguing that it promotes available for of Jason Andersen, the
police officer who killed
a potentially harmful stereotype of Black streaming—and
Fong Lee. And a photo
women as the face of protest. And other read­ a portion of every rental purchased at in Milestones appeared
ers noted that other aspects of the minority ti.me/2Zva3lE will go to support the with an incorrect caption;
NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Read more it showed Jean Kennedy
experience in the U.S. remain underreported. about the movie on page 100. Smith in 1965.
For example, Leonard P. Campos of Rose­
ville, Calif., called for coverage of the plight
of his fellow Puerto PROGRAMMING NOTE
Ricans, as victims of This is a special double issue that will be on sale for two weeks. The next issue
of TIME will be published on July 23 and available on newsstands on July 24.
“America’s imperial­
‘We cannot istic, militaristic, and
run away capitalistic past.”
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What is OPDIVO + YERVOY? Get medical help immediately if you develop any of these symptoms or they get
OPDIVO® is a prescription medicine used in combination with YERVOY® (ipilimumab) worse. It may keep these problems from becoming more serious. Your healthcare
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Important Safety Information for OPDIVO + YERVOY these symptoms during an infusion: chills or shaking; itching or rash; flushing;
difficulty breathing; dizziness; fever; and feeling like passing out.
OPDIVO is a medicine that may treat certain cancers by working with your immune
system. OPDIVO can cause your immune system to attack normal organs and tissues Pregnancy and Nursing:
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with YERVOY. method of birth control during and for at least 5 months after the last dose. Talk to
YERVOY can cause serious side effects in many parts of your body which can lead to your healthcare provider about birth control methods that you can use during this
death. These problems may happen anytime during treatment with YERVOY or after time. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you become pregnant or think you are
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Myers Squibb at 1-800-721-5072 as soon as you become aware of the pregnancy.
Serious side effects may include:
• Pregnancy Safety Surveillance Study: Females who become pregnant during
• Lung problems (pneumonitis). Symptoms of pneumonitis may include: new or treatment with YERVOY are encouraged to enroll in a Pregnancy Safety Surveillance
worsening cough; chest pain; and shortness of breath. Study. The purpose of this study is to collect information about the health of you
• Intestinal problems (colitis) that can lead to tears or holes in your intestine. and your baby. You or your healthcare provider can enroll in the Pregnancy Safety
Signs and symptoms of colitis may include: diarrhea (loose stools) or more bowel Surveillance Study by calling 1-844-593-7869.
movements than usual; blood in your stools or dark, tarry, sticky stools; and severe • Before receiving treatment, tell your healthcare provider if you are breastfeeding or
stomach area (abdomen) pain or tenderness. plan to breastfeed. It is not known if either treatment passes into your breast milk.
• Liver problems (hepatitis). Signs and symptoms of hepatitis may include: yellowing Do not breastfeed during treatment and for 5 months after the last dose.
of your skin or the whites of your eyes; severe nausea or vomiting; pain on the right Tell your healthcare provider about:
side of your stomach area (abdomen); drowsiness; dark urine (tea colored); bleeding
or bruising more easily than normal; feeling less hungry than usual; and decreased • Your health problems or concerns if you: have immune system problems such as
energy. autoimmune disease, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, lupus, or sarcoidosis; have
had an organ transplant; have lung or breathing problems; have liver problems; or
• Hormone gland problems (especially the thyroid, pituitary, adrenal glands, and have any other medical conditions.
pancreas). Signs and symptoms that your hormone glands are not working properly
may include: headaches that will not go away or unusual headaches; extreme • All the medicines you take, including prescription and over-the-counter medicines,
tiredness; weight gain or weight loss; dizziness or fainting; changes in mood or vitamins, and herbal supplements.
behavior, such as decreased sex drive, irritability, or forgetfulness; hair loss; feeling The most common side effects of OPDIVO, when used in combination with YERVOY,
cold; constipation; voice gets deeper; and excessive thirst or lots of urine. include: feeling tired; diarrhea; rash; itching; nausea; pain in muscles, bones, and joints,
• Kidney problems, including nephritis and kidney failure. Signs of kidney problems fever; cough; decreased appetite; vomiting; stomach-area (abdominal) pain; shortness
may include: decrease in the amount of urine; blood in your urine; swelling in your of breath; upper respiratory tract infection; headache; low thyroid hormone levels
ankles; and loss of appetite. (hypothyroidism); decreased weight; and dizziness.
• Skin problems. Signs of these problems may include: rash; itching; skin blistering; These are not all the possible side effects. For more information, ask your healthcare
and ulcers in the mouth or other mucous membranes. provider or pharmacist. Call your doctor for medical advice about side effects. You are
encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit
• Inflammation of the brain (encephalitis). Signs and symptoms of encephalitis www.fda.gov/medwatch or call 1-800-FDA-1088.
may include: headache; fever; tiredness or weakness; confusion; memory problems;
sleepiness; seeing or hearing things that are not really there (hallucinations); Please see Important Facts for OPDIVO and YERVOY, including Boxed WARNING for
seizures; and stiff neck. YERVOY regarding immune-mediated side effects, on the following page.
• Problems in other organs. Signs of these problems may include: changes in eyesight;
severe or persistent muscle or joint pains; severe muscle weakness; and chest pain.
Additional serious side effects observed during a separate study of YERVOY alone
include:
• Nerve problems that can lead to paralysis. Symptoms of nerve problems may
include: unusual weakness of legs, arms, or face; and numbness or tingling in hands
or feet.

©2020 Bristol-Myers Squibb Company. All rights reserved. OPDIVO®, YERVOY®, and the related logos are trademarks of
Bristol-Myers Squibb Company. 7356US1904019-02-01 05/20
I M P O RTA N T
FACTS
The information below does not take the place of talking with your healthcare professional. Only your healthcare
professional knows the specifics of your condition and how OPDIVO®  (nivolumab) in combination with
YERVOY® (ipilimumab) may fit into your overall therapy. Talk to your healthcare professional if you have any
questions about OPDIVO (pronounced op-DEE-voh) and YERVOY (pronounced yur-voi).

What is the most important information I should know Inflammation of the brain (encephalitis). Signs and ◦ Tell your healthcare provider right away if you
about OPDIVO (nivolumab) and YERVOY (ipilimumab)? symptoms of encephalitis may include: become pregnant or think you are pregnant during
OPDIVO and YERVOY are medicines that may treat certain • headache • seizures treatment. You or your healthcare provider should
cancers by working with your immune system. OPDIVO and • fever • stiff neck contact Bristol Myers Squibb at 1-800-721-5072 as
YERVOY can cause your immune system to attack normal soon as you become aware of the pregnancy.
organs and tissues in any area of your body and can affect • tiredness or weakness
• confusion ◦ Pregnancy Safety Surveillance Study: Females
the way they work. These problems can sometimes become who become pregnant during treatment with
serious or life-threatening and can lead to death and • memory problems
YERVOY (ipilimumab) are encouraged to enroll in a
may happen anytime during treatment or even after your • sleepiness
treatment has ended. Some of these problems may happen Pregnancy Safety Surveillance Study. The purpose of
• seeing or hearing things this study is to collect information about the health
more often when OPDIVO is used in combination with YERVOY. that are not really there of you and your baby. You or your healthcare provider
YERVOY can cause serious side effects in many parts of your (hallucinations)
body which can lead to death. These problems may happen can enroll in the Pregnancy Safety Surveillance Study
Problems in other organs. Signs of these problems may by calling 1-844-593-7869.
anytime during treatment with YERVOY or after you have include:
completed treatment. • are breastfeeding or plan to breastfeed. It is not
• changes in eyesight known if OPDIVO (nivolumab) or YERVOY passes into your
Call or see your healthcare provider right away if you
develop any symptoms of the following problems or • severe or persistent muscle or joint pains breast milk. Do not breastfeed during treatment and for
these symptoms get worse. Do not try to treat symptoms • severe muscle weakness 5 months after the last dose.
yourself. • chest pain Tell your healthcare provider about all the medicines
Lung problems (pneumonitis). Symptoms of pneumonitis Additional serious side effects observed during a separate you take, including prescription and over-the-counter
may include: study of YERVOY (ipilimumab) alone include: medicines, vitamins, and herbal supplements.
• new or worsening cough Nerve problems that can lead to paralysis. Symptoms of Know the medicines you take. Keep a list of them to show
• chest pain nerve problems may include: your healthcare providers and pharmacist when you get a
• shortness of breath • unusual weakness of legs, arms, or face new medicine.
Intestinal problems (colitis) that can lead to tears or holes • numbness or tingling in hands or feet
in your intestine. Signs and symptoms of colitis may include: Eye problems. Symptoms may include:
What are the possible side effects of OPDIVO and YERVOY?
• diarrhea (loose stools) or more bowel movements • blurry vision, double vision, or other vision problems
than usual OPDIVO and YERVOY can cause serious side effects,
• eye pain or redness
including:
• mucus or blood in your stools or dark, tarry, sticky stools Get medical help immediately if you develop any of these
symptoms or they get worse. It may keep these problems • See “What is the most important information I should
• stomach-area (abdomen) pain or tenderness
from becoming more serious. Your healthcare team will know about OPDIVO and YERVOY?”
• you may or may not have fever
check you for side effects during treatment and may treat • Severe infusion reactions. Tell your doctor or nurse right
Liver problems (hepatitis) that can lead to liver failure.
Signs and symptoms of hepatitis may include: you with corticosteroid or hormone replacement medicines. away if you get these symptoms during an infusion of
If you have a serious side effect, your healthcare team may OPDIVO or YERVOY:
• yellowing of your skin or the whites of your eyes also need to delay or completely stop your treatment with
• nausea or vomiting OPDIVO (nivolumab) and YERVOY. ◦ chills or shaking ◦ dizziness
• pain on the right side of your stomach area (abdomen) ◦ itching or rash ◦ fever
• drowsiness ◦ flushing ◦ feeling like passing
What are OPDIVO and YERVOY?
• dark urine (tea colored) out
• bleeding or bruising more easily than normal
OPDIVO and YERVOY are prescription medicines used to treat ◦ difficulty breathing
adults with a type of advanced stage lung cancer called
• feeling less hungry than usual non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). OPDIVO may be used in The most common side effects of OPDIVO when used
• decreased energy combination with YERVOY as your first treatment for NSCLC: in combination with YERVOY include:
Hormone gland problems (especially the thyroid, pituitary, • when your lung cancer has spread to other parts of your • feeling tired • vomiting
and adrenal glands; and pancreas). Signs and symptoms body (metastatic), and • stomach-area
that your hormone glands are not working properly may • diarrhea
• your tumors are positive for PD-L1, but do not have an (abdominal) pain
include: abnormal EGFR or ALK gene. • rash
• itching • shortness of breath
• headaches that will not go away or unusual headaches It is not known if OPDIVO and YERVOY are safe and effective • upper respiratory tract
• extreme tiredness or unusual sluggishness when used in children younger than 18 years of age. • nausea infection
• weight gain or weight loss • pain in muscles, bones, • headache
• dizziness or fainting What should I tell my healthcare provider before receiving and joints • low thyroid hormone
• changes in mood or behavior, such as decreased sex OPDIVO and YERVOY? • fever levels (hypothyroidism)
drive, irritability, or forgetfulness Before you receive OPDIVO and YERVOY, tell your healthcare • cough • decreased weight
• hair loss provider if you: • decreased appetite • dizziness
• feeling cold • have immune system problems (autoimmune disease) These are not all the possible side effects of OPDIVO and
• constipation such as Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, lupus, or YERVOY. Call your doctor for medical advice about side effects.
• voice gets deeper sarcoidosis
You may report side effects to FDA at 1-800-FDA-1088.
• excessive thirst or lots of urine • have had an organ transplant
Kidney problems, including nephritis and kidney failure. • have lung or breathing problems
This is a brief summary of the most important information
Signs of kidney problems may include: • have liver problems about OPDIVO and YERVOY. For more information, talk with
• decrease in the amount of urine • have any other medical conditions your healthcare provider, call 1-855-673-4861, or go to
• blood in your urine • are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. OPDIVO and www.OPDIVO.com.
• swelling in your ankles YERVOY can harm your unborn baby. Females who are
• loss of appetite able to become pregnant:
Skin Problems. Signs of these problems may include: Your healthcare provider should do a pregnancy test
before you start receiving OPDIVO and YERVOY. Manufactured by:
• skin rash with or without itching
◦ You should use an effective method of birth control Bristol-Myers Squibb Company
• itching during and for at least 5 months after the last dose. Princeton, New Jersey 08543 USA
• skin blistering or peeling Talk to your healthcare provider about birth control
• sores or ulcers in mouth or other mucous membranes methods that you can use during this time.

© 2020 Bristol-Myers Squibb Company May 2020

OPDIVO and YERVOY are trademarks of Bristol-Myers Squibb Company. 7356US2001322-01-01 05/20
 For the Record

‘I am disgusted
to my core.’
275
VANESSA WILSON, interim Aurora, Colo., police chief, after firing three
officers on July 3 over photos that made light of the death of Elijah McClain,
who died last year after being arrested and put in a choke hold

730
Number of elephants found dead from unknown
causes in Botswana in recent weeks; one
conservationist called it “one of the biggest
‘In light of recent disasters to impact elephants this century”

Distance from Earth, in light-

events around
years, to the first exposed
planetary core—a dense
our country and ‘Our nation is witnessing
object without a gaseous
atmosphere—ever
feedback from a merciless campaign
observed by scientists, our community, to wipe out our history,
according to a paper
published July 1 the Washington defame our heroes,
Redskins are
announcing erase our values and
the team will indoctrinate our children.’
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. President, in a July 3
undergo a speech at Mount Rushmore, in which he railed
against “new far-left fascism”
thorough
review of the
team’s name.’ GOOD NEWS
of the week
THE WASHINGTON REDSKINS,
in a July 3 statement on the future Janis Shinwari, a former Afghan
of the football team’s name; interpreter who is credited with
MLB’s Cleveland Indians said the saving the lives of five U.S. soldiers,
same day they too were discussing celebrated his first Independence
“the best path forward with regard Day as a U.S. citizen after taking
to our team name” the naturalization oath June 29

‘ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.’
75
KEISHA LANCE BOTTOMS, Atlanta mayor, after 8-year-old Secoriea Turner was shot and killed by an unknown
I L L U S T R AT I O N S B Y B R O W N B I R D D E S I G N F O R T I M E

assailant on July 4, over the course of a weekend in which the city reported 31 shooting victims

Number of hot dogs

consumed by Joey
‘I want to express my deepest
Chestnut at this year’s
Nathan’s Famous Hot
regrets for the wounds of the past.’
Dog Eating Contest on KING PHILIPPE OF BELGIUM, in a June 30 letter to the leadership of the
July 4—his 13th win Democratic Republic of Congo, the royal family’s first public acknowledgment
and a new record of atrocities committed against the people of the former Belgian colony

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 GROUND DOWN
A man is held
by riot police in
Hong Kong as
they clear a July 1
protest against
a new national-
security law

INSIDE

THE FIGHT OVER THE FUTURE REMEMBERING THE MOVIE THE U.S. STRUGGLES TO TAKE
OF TURKEY’S HAGIA SOPHIA MUSIC OF ENNIO MORRICONE STOCK OF POLICE USE OF FORCE

PHOTOGR APH BY DALE DE LA REY

The Brief is reported by Abigail Abrams, Engin Bas, Leslie Dickstein, Alejandro de la Garza, Mélissa Godin,
Suyin Haynes, Anna Purna Kambhampaty, Billy Perrigo, Madeline Roache and Olivia B. Waxman
TheBrief Opener
WORLD made it a global hub for business and banking. Jeffrey
Security law brings Wasserstrom, a University of California, Irvine, history
professor specializing in China, says the law “amounts
a chill to Hong Kong to a de facto form of martial law limiting speech and ac-
tion.” Other experts are adopting a wait-and-see ap-
By Amy Gunia/Hong Kong proach, and many businesses say they simply want to get

F
back to work.
OR MONTHS, THE MOSAICS OF STICKY NOTES, And where does the democracy movement go from
posters and artwork that dotted Hong Kong told here? Even before the security law, the coronavirus pan-
a story of resistance. Pro-democracy protesters demic and mass arrests sapped protests of their 2019 en-
and supporters affixed messages of hope, soli- ergy, when millions of people took to the streets.
darity and demands for greater political freedom to so- Protesters say that the law will make attending street
called Lennon Walls as protests rocked the city in 2019. gatherings even riskier but that they will find other ways
But after June 30, when Beijing passed Hong Kong’s to continue to fight for democracy. Rick, a 16-year-old
national-security law, the walls came down. student who asked to use a pseudonym for his safety, says
Books written by pro-democracy leaders like Joshua he disbanded a group supporting the protest movement
Wong disappeared from public libraries. Activists de- that he ran at his school. He says he’ll hold meetings in
leted social-media accounts. Demosisto, Wong’s political secret instead. “What has changed is the strategy I will
party, disbanded. Nathan Law, a prominent activist and use to express my views,” he says.
another key member of Demosisto, fled the city, saying Law, speaking from an undisclosed location, says he
his effort to draw international attention to the move- will continue to fight for democracy from abroad. How-
ment would likely be considered a crime under the new ever, the security legislation also says anyone who vio-
law. “It has already brought a chilling effect ... and the lates it anywhere in the world could be prosecuted.
politics of fear to Hong Kong,” he tells TIME. Pro-democracy lawmakers are hoping public disap-
The legislation’s full text—which targets secession, proval of the law will translate into victory in Sept. 6
subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces— elections for the city’s Legislative Council. But some ex-
was not made public until after it became law. It was perts say the law could be used against candidates who
passed by the Standing Committee of the National Peo- do not demonstrate loyalty to Beijing, since anyone con-
ple’s Congress in Beijing, outside the normal legislative victed under the new legislation will be barred from of-
process that semiautonomous Hong Kong was granted fice. Wu Chi-wai, chair of the Democratic Party, says re-
under the “one country, two systems” arrangement cre- sults “may not be accepted by the central government,”
ated when the U.K. retroceded the city to China in 1997. and he does not know “whether our nomination will be
It gives authorities sweeping powers to crack down on disqualified, whether we will be disqualified during the
dissent. Some cases can now be tried in main- election campaign, [or]whether we will be disqual-
land courts, and mainland security agents will ified even if we get elected.”
operate openly for the first time. Since its pas- ‘Surely this The effects will also be felt outside Hong Kong,
sage, local authorities have expanded the reach is not doom says Wasserstrom, and could deter professionals
of the law even further, adding warrantless and gloom for from moving there. Governments across the world
searches and the power to ask Internet provid- Hong Kong.’ have begun to implement punitive measures. Can-
ers to remove posts that violate the security law. ada suspended its extradition treaty with the terri-
L A M : W U X I A O C H U — X I N H U A /G E T T Y I M A G E S ; F U N E R A L : Z A W M O E H T E T — A F P/G E T T Y I M A G E S
CARRIE LAM,
The Hong Kong government, and officials in Hong Kong chief
tory. The U.K. has offered millions of Hong Kongers
Beijing, have argued that the law is necessary to executive, defending the a path to citizenship, and several other nations are
restore order after violent protests over an ex- city’s national-security considering changes to help them relocate. U.S.
tradition bill last year caused millions of dollars law on July 7 Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the Trump
worth of damage and plunged the city into its Administration will largely eliminate policy ex-
first recession in a decade. Chief Executive Car- emptions that underpin Hong Kong’s special trade
rie Lam, who admitted she wasn’t privy to the status with the U.S. Global tech companies includ-
full text of the law until it was passed, has said ing Google and Facebook have announced they’ll
the law will be used only against “an extremely temporarily halt processing requests for user data
small minority of people.” She added, “Surely from Hong Kong police, pending review of the law.
this is not doom and gloom for Hong Kong.” For now, authorities are already using the new
legislation on protesters. Ten people were arrested
BUT EVEN as the legislation’s impact is felt for offenses under the law on July 1, including sev-
on the ground, the full extent of its conse- eral holding pro-independence flags and leaflets
quences remains to be seen. Some experts (most were granted bail). But quashing the ide-
say it’s a devastating blow to the rule of als that Hong Kongers hold in private won’t be
law and unique freedoms that differenti- so easy. Says Rick, the student: “My will to fight
ate Hong Kong from mainland China and against the government did not change.” □
8 TIME July 20/July 27, 2020
 NEWS
TICKER

Trump plans
‘American
Heroes’ park
With monuments
a flash point in the
conversation about
inequality in the U.S.,
President Trump called
for the construction of
a “National Garden of
American Heroes.” His
July 3 Executive Order
mandates that the
park include statues of
historical and modern
figures, from Frederick
DANGEROUS TRADE At a mass grave in northern Myanmar on July 3, volunteers bury the bodies Douglass to Antonin
of people killed in one of the country’s worst ever mining accidents. The previous day, monsoon Scalia.
rains had caused a landslide at a jade mine that killed at least 170 people, many of them informal
migrant workers from elsewhere in the country. Myanmar supplies 90% of the world’s jade, but the
trade is a dangerous one. Days after the disaster, rescuers were still pulling bodies from the mud.
Bolsonaro
tests positive
POSTCARD for COVID-19
In Turkey, remaking a museum as a mosque Brazil’s President
Jair Bolsonaro, 65,
Seraffettin waS at home under coro- Mike Pompeo urged Turkey to keep the confirmed on July 7
that he has COVID-19.
navirus lockdown on May 29 when Quranic Hagia Sophia a museum to show it respected He took the test, his
verses were recited beneath the normally si- pluralism. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan fourth, on July 6 after
lent minarets of Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia. The responded that such reactions were “tanta- developing symptoms.
reading, to mark the 567th anniversary of the mount to a direct attack on our sovereignty.” The populist leader
Ottoman conquest of the city, lingered in his Domestically, the status of the Hagia has downplayed
the risks of the
mind weeks after he returned to the court- Sophia strikes at the heart of the battle be- coronavirus, calling it
yard outside Turkey’s most visited attraction. tween Turkey’s past and a future embodied “a little flu”; his country
“Hagia Sophia ofcially belongs to Tur- by Erdogan’s brand of religious nationalism. is the second worst-
key,” Seraffettin said, outside the UNESCO What the President proposes to do is a rever- affected in the world.
world heritage site where he has sold simit sal of Ataturk’s commitment to secularism,
bread for 15 years. “But we have to under- says Soner Cagaptay, author of Erdogan’s
stand that people come to visit it from many Empire, “flooding Turkey’s public space ICE releases
different countries. We have to let them see with his own understanding of religion.” new foreign-
and feel their history too.” Like other ven- Polls suggest slightly more Turkish peo- student rules
dors, he declined to give his full name so he ple support the Hagia Sophia becoming a
could speak freely. mosque than oppose it, but a majority think Foreign students will
A seat of power for Orthodox Christians the debate is primarily a distraction. “It’s a be barred from staying
in the U.S. to take
for almost 1000 years, the Hagia Sophia be- bluff, like poker,” says Mehmet, 60, who owns classes at colleges
came a mosque in 1453 after the Ottomans a shop near Seraffettin’s simit trolley. There’s that have switched to
breached Constantinople’s walls. In 1934, no need to convert the building, he says. “Did a fully online learning
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who envisioned we fill all the other mosques in Turkey?” model, according to
modern Turkey as a secular nation, ordered it Others worried that changing the Hagia rules announced July 6
by Immigration and
turned into a museum. But in July, a court is Sophia’s status might dissuade foreigners Customs Enforcement.
set to rule on whether the Ataturk-era decree from visiting, hurting an industry already Harvard and the
can be annulled, paving the way for the Hagia reeling from the pandemic. “Look around,” Massachusetts
Sophia to again be a mosque. says Sami Bozbey, a trilingual guide scan- Institute of Technology
Orthodox Christians in Greece and Rus- ning the courtyard for tourists, “everybody’s sued over the new
policy on July 8.
sia were aghast, while U.S. Secretary of State struggling.” —JoSeph hinckS/iStanbul
9
TheBrief News
NATION on those who have been living as if the worst has
As COVID-19 soars, passed. Local officials are still struggling to reel
in residents and tourists crowding waterfront
Miami resists reclosing parks and busy restaurants, pleading with them to
By Vera Bergengruen take the surge of infections seriously. On a recent,
near 100° day, police officers on South Beach alter-
iT had been barely six weeks since michael nated between issuing warnings and handing out
Beltran and his staff reopened his Miami restau- masks, which many people promptly peeled off.
rants when he had to sit them down again and tell Boats clogged the waterways over the July 4 holiday
them the bad news. Despite all their efforts, work- weekend, some packed with dozens of partyers. In
ing feverish, 20-hour days to reconfigure the spaces the Coconut Grove neighborhood, lines of people,
for new guidelines amid the rush to reopen, Bel- many unmasked, snaked by outdoor cafés, greeting
tran was now being forced to close again. “I had to one another Miami-style: with a cheek kiss.
look them in the eye and say, ‘You did everything
right, but you’re not going to have a job on Wednes- Florida isn’t the only state in this
day,’” says the chef and restaurant owner. “It’s predicament. At least 20 other states have had
soul-crushing.” to pause or roll back their reopening plans as
Florida, which now has one of the fastest- hospitalizations rise. “How do you do a lockdown
growing COVID-19 caseloads in the nation, is strug- backwards?” asks Dr. Aileen Marty, an infectious-
gling to balance its fresh disease expert at Florida
spike with the cost of re- International University.
closing. In the early months Marty and some local
of the crisis, things had officials partly blame state
looked good. Despite pre- officials’ mixed messaging
dictions that spring-break for Floridians’ brushing off

M I A M I : C H A N D A N K H A N N A — A F P/G E T T Y I M A G E S ; M O R R I C O N E : F E R D I N A N D O S C I A N N A — M A G N U M P H O T O S ; C O R D E R O : D A N I E L Z U C H N I K — W I R E I M A G E /G E T T Y I M A G E S
crowds, a large elderly the new emergency orders.
population and a delayed “We’ve got leaders that
lockdown would make it a refuse to acknowledge how
major hot spot, Florida was serious this is,” she says.
spared the worst of the pan- More than perhaps any
demic that has killed more other governor, DeSantis
than 131,000 Americans. As has tied his political future
the state came out of lock- to Trump’s when it comes
down in early May, Presi- to the handling of the pan-
dent Donald Trump repeat- demic. He has resisted pres-
edly praised its governor, sure to issue a statewide
Ron DeSantis, saying he was mandatory mask order, and
doing a “spectacular job.” echoed the President’s line
A month later, the num- that the economic damage
ber of confirmed cases spiked dramatically. The △ of a prolonged lockdown could do more harm than
number of coronavirus patients filling Miami-Dade A couple drinks at a the virus. He has angrily pushed back on allegations
County’s hospitals has doubled in the past two restaurant in Miami from a former state employee that Florida manipu-
weeks to more than 1,600. On July 4, Floridians ac- Beach on June 26 lated data to drum up support for reopening. At an
counted for more than a fifth of all new COVID-19 Oval Office sit-down with Trump in late April that
cases in the country. In a rush to curb the spread, some in the state warned was a premature victory
officials temporarily closed beaches, reimposed tour, he boasted that despite the “draconian orders”
curfews and issued a county-wide mandatory mask issued in other states, “Florida has done better.”
order in Miami-Dade, but it wasn’t enough. On That declaration hasn’t aged well. In Miami, the
July 6, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez abruptly lines of cars outside drive-through testing centers
announced that restaurants, gyms and event ven- are growing. Hospitals warn that they will be inun-
ues would have to shut back down again, a drastic dated if cases continue to rise: some 56 ICUs across
attempt to break through the false sense of security the state were projected to reach capacity on July 8.
that many Floridians have lived with for months. And with no end in sight, many newly shuttered
Hours later, he backtracked to allow some outdoor businesses say they won’t be able to weather an on-
dining. “Simply relying on public compliance was going seesaw between case spikes and hasty reopen-
clearly not working,” says Miami Commissioner ings. “Why even start this process?” Beltran, the
Ken Russell. chef, wonders aloud. “I hope those people that didn’t
But it’s hard to impress the severity of the danger abide by rules are happy with themselves.” □
10 Time July 20/July 27, 2020
Milestones
DIED DIED
Country singer and
bandleader Charlie
Nick Cordero
Daniels, on July 6, Broadway star
at 83.
BEFORE COVID-19, ACTOR
REOPENED Nick Cordero was in the
The Louvre Museum
in Paris, home of the prime of his life. His wife,
Mona Lisa, after a Amanda Kloots, had recently
nearly four-month given birth to their first
closure, on July 6. child, and the young family
EXTENDED
had moved west after Cor-
The deadline dero accepted a role in a play
for Paycheck in Los Angeles.
Protection Program Then came the pandemic.
loan applications, Cordero, who according to
after President Trump
signed a new law on
Kloots had no pre-existing
July 4; $130 billion in health conditions, contracted
funds remains to be the disease in March. He
distributed. spent the rest of his life in the
hospital, facing secondary
APOLOGIZED
A Kansas newspaper lung infections, ministrokes
owner and local GOP and an amputation—and, as
official, on July 5, Kloots shared his daily prog-
for posting a cartoon ress on social media, became
that appeared to one recognizable face of a
equate a statewide
order to wear masks global crisis. On July 5, 95
with the Holocaust. days after he fell ill, Cordero
died. He was 41.
ARRESTED Morricone, pictured in 2003, four years before he Friends remembered Cor-
Jeffrey Epstein received an Academy Award for lifetime achievement
associate Ghislaine
dero, who was nominated
Maxwell, by the DIED for a Tony Award in 2014
FBI, charged with for his portrayal of a tap-
facilitating and
Ennio Morricone dancing gangster in Bullets
participating in his Cinematic soundscaper Over Broadway, as a vivacious
sexual abuse of
minors, on July 2. By Danny Elfman performer, and his family re-
called a devoted father and
OBSERVED THE 20TH CENTURY WAS THE ERA OF FILM MUSIC, AND THE husband. “He was every-
Record-high average world just lost one of that century’s true giants. Ask a dozen film one’s friend, loved to listen,
temperatures in the
composers to name their heroes and you’ll get many different an- help and especially talk,” said
Siberian Arctic for
the month of June, swers, but I would confidently bet that one name would be on every Kloots. As states press for-
per E.U. data. single list. The name of a true, undeniable musical genius: Ennio ward with reopening, close
Morricone. friend Zach Braff had a mes-
RESIGNED But Morricone, who died at 91 on July 6, was more than a musi- sage for the public. “Don’t
David Clark,
New Zealand’s Health cal hero. He was an icon. What really set him apart were his abso- believe,” the actor wrote
Minister, on July 2. He lutely unique sensibilities. His imprint on cinema music’s culture on Twitter, “that COVID
admitted to breaking was so strong that entire genres were defined by him. His 1960s only claims the elderly and
coronavirus lockdown compositions for Sergio Leone’s westerns, like The Good, the Bad infirm.” —BILLY PERRIGO
rules imposed in and the Ugly, entered the popular culture so deeply that almost
late March and drew
public anger for everyone knows their sound, even without being aware of it. And
appearing to blame countering that highly idiosyncratic music were scores so lushly Cordero, 41,
quarantine lapses on romantic, like that of Once Upon a Time in America, they redefined starred in
a popular official. what truly emotional and purely evocative film music could aim Bullets Over
BOUGHT
for. His was the high mark. Broadway,
Postmates, by Uber, His work goes beyond the movies he composed for and will be Waitress and
for $2.65 billion, deeply embedded in the art of film music for as long as there is Rock of Ages
subject to regulatory film. He will be missed, but his music will not be forgotten.
approval, per a July 6
announcement. Elfman is an Oscar-nominated film composer

11
TheBrief Nation
Why we still don’t
know how often
police kill people
in America
By Vera Bergengruen

One: GeT pOlice deparTmenTs acrOss The cOunTry TO

report when their officers use lethal force or seriously
injure someone. Two: Collect that information in a national
database. Three: Release those statistics to the public.
That simple formula has been at the heart of nearly every
comprehensive police-reform proposal in modern U.S. history.
And for good reason: police chiefs and community organiz-
ers, Republicans and Democrats, federal lawmakers and local
leaders all agree that a comprehensive database of use-of-force
incidents is key to fighting racial injustice in law enforcement.
But that bipartisan agreement, as well as a 26-year-old federal
law mandating the creation of a database and a five-year effort
by the FBI to build one, have all failed to produce reliable data
on how and when America’s police officers use force against its
own people.
“I’ve been around so long, and it seems they just keep
rediscovering the wheel,” says Geoffrey Alpert, a criminology
professor at the University of South Carolina. When he
testified at the Justice Department on June 19, he covered “the
same thing I’ve talked about for 30 years” in similar meetings
during the Bush, Clinton and Obama administrations, he says.
“It’s always been obvious: If we don’t know the data, how
do we identify the problem? The only way forward is with analysts say that unless lawmakers ac-
evidence, but we continue to spin in circles.” knowledge and address the roadblocks
As of May, only 40% of police departments across the that stalled previous efforts, the current
country had submitted information to the FBI’s National momentum is likely to end in the same
Use-of-Force Data Collection, the most recent effort to △ disappointment.
collect this data, an agency spokeswoman told TIME. Police advance
The database, which began collecting the information in on protesters of course, addressing those road-
January 2019, has run into the same basic issue that has in Minneapolis blocks is easier said than done. Offering
stalled previous attempts: it relies on voluntary participation, on May 30 grants to cooperative agencies—the tac-
which results in an incomplete and skewed picture of how tic favored by Trump and legislators—
police officers are using force across the country. To fix the might work to some extent. “Almost
problem, participation “should be mandatory for every everyone is getting federal funding of
law-enforcement agency,” Steven Casstevens, head of the some type, and they certainly don’t
International Association of Chiefs of Police, testified to the want to risk that, so it can be an effec-
Senate Judiciary Committee on June 16. But truly mandatory tive tool,” says Matthew Hickman, chair
J A S O N A R M O N D — L O S A N G E L E S T I M E S/G E T T Y I M A G E S

reporting would require an act of Congress, and legal experts of the criminal justice department at Se-
tell TIME it’s not clear federal lawmakers have the power to attle University and a former statistician
require state and local departments to comply. at the Bureau of Justice Statistics. But
The nationwide protests that followed George Floyd’s kill- that is still less effective than making
ing by a police officer who had a record of conduct complaints collection and reporting mandatory.
have revived efforts to collect this data. A June 16 Executive Trump’s Executive Order is almost
Order from President Trump and competing police-reform identical to a law that already exists, a
bills put forward by House Democrats and Senate Repub- provision in the 1994 crime bill signed
licans all seek to create a more complete database by tying by President Bill Clinton. Both direct
federal grant funding to regular reporting. But police chiefs, the U.S. Attorney General to gather use-
former FBI and DOJ statisticians, and law-enforcement of-force data and periodically make it
12 Time July 20/July 27, 2020
 to simplify uploading cases in bulk. board, 368 agencies, making up 90% of
The FBI’s National Use-of-Force Data law-enforcement ofcers in Michigan,
Collection, rolled out to great fanfare in signed up to submit data on use of force.
November 2018, established what the In the wake of recent protests, Michigan
FBI hailed as the first “mechanism for ofcials said they would release the
collecting nationwide statistics related state’s police use-of-force data, which
to use-of-force incidents.” had been gathered in the joint effort
But despite all that, as of this with the FBI.
spring, fewer than half of U.S. police Police departments across the
departments were enrolled in the FBI’s country should realize that collecting
program and sharing data. According and analyzing this data serves everyone,
to an FBI pilot study reviewed by Stevenson says. “Now we’ll have the
TIME, the first public report of the data to have that conversation, to
database’s statistics was “scheduled for actually lay it out [and say], ‘Look, we’re
March 2019.” It never materialized. An not massacring people left and right,
FBI spokesperson tells TIME the first and here’s where we can do better,’”
publication is now expected to be “this he says. “This gives us the opportunity
summer.” to have that informed conversation
An FBI overview of the program without the misperceptions and
listed a few reasons police departments misinformation.”
would be reluctant to participate in the Meanwhile, the reforms being
database, including the time burden debated in Congress, and their
on ofcers—roughly 38 minutes per competing efforts to create a better
incident. “They made it a federal database, remain in a stalemate. On
law, but Congress did not June 24, Senate Democrats
appropriate any funds to blocked debate on the
actually do the job,” says ‘If we Republican bill, which
Seattle University’s Hickman. don’t know includes a data-collection
“It’s not like you flip a switch, the data, proposal, for not going
and data flows in from 18,000 how do we far enough. The following
agencies—it’s challenging.” identify the day, Democrats passed a
problem?’ sweeping police-overhaul
public, though neither actually requires All of these problems bill in the House, which
police departments to provide that data. contribute to widespread GEOFFREY ALPERT, includes a provision
criminology
Following the 1994 law, the Justice De- agreement that no matter for a national database
professor and use-
partment’s strategy was to expand its what happens in Washington, of-force expert that would collect this
Police Public Contact Survey, which for now the most effective leg- information in more detail
asks U.S. residents about their encoun- islation is likely to happen at and make it public, but
ters with police. The latest report avail- the state level. Some states, including that’s unlikely to get past the Senate.
able, from 2015, polled 70,959 residents California, Colorado, Connecticut and Like previous efforts, neither bill
but still contained no comprehensive Texas, already gather and report state- includes a legal mandate that could be
data on use-of-force incidents. wide policing data, which they can then tested in court to answer the question
The dearth of information has led to forward on to the FBI as well. of whether police can be compelled
open frustration by the nation’s top law- Robert Stevenson, executive director to report their data to the federal
enforcement ofcials. “It’s ridiculous of the Michigan Association of Chiefs government. Even so, advocates hope
that I can’t tell you how many people of Police, says that state lawmakers the resulting legislation will move the
were shot by the police in this country pushing for more transparency were country toward finally having a fuller
last week, last year, the last decade—it’s surprised when he told them a federal picture of where and how often U.S.
ridiculous,” then FBI Director James program to collect this data already ex- police ofcers use force, and on whom.
Comey admitted in February 2015. isted. “Many have never even heard of “I have to be tentatively optimistic,”
In the spring of that year, the Obama the [FBI’s] national database collection, Alpert says. “I don’t want to be here in
Administration launched a separate FBI even within law enforcement,” he said. 10 years when we have another horrible
initiative. The program convened its Lawmakers in Michigan agreed that event and everyone relives the same
first task force in 2016 and ran a pilot the state’s police departments would thing again. We’ve got to see progress.
program in 2017. It established a help- report to the federal FBI database We at least have to be able to say, ‘Last
desk hotline and an email address for and those numbers would also be time we got step one and step two done.
police ofcers submitting data, and released to the public. After getting What’s next?’” —With reporting by
developed a web application meant the Michigan Sheriffs’ Association on Tessa Berenson/WashingTon •
13
TheBrief Education
How school
reopenings
became political
By Molly Ball

The PresidenT PracTically snarled as he

made the accusation. “They think it’s going to be
good for them politically, so they keep the schools
closed,” Donald Trump said in the East Room of the
White House on July 7, referring to Democratic gov-
ernors. “We’re very much going to put pressure on
governors and everybody else to open the schools.”
With that, Trump waded into a debate that’s
come to the fore of America’s pandemic response.
Mere weeks before schools start, a brutal reality
has descended on parents: after months of hunker-
ing down with their kids, there may be no end in
sight. The coronavirus is still raging, which means
the school closures imposed as temporary mea-
sures in March will be difficult to reverse. Schools
at every level are struggling to figure out when and
how to resume in-person instruction. Most have
not announced a path forward.
The debate is coming both too late and too
soon. Too late because there’s now scant time to
devise a plan to fully reopen schools in a safe fash-
ion. And too soon because the pandemic’s jagged can’t reopen if their workers don’t have a place
advance—and scientists’ evolving understanding— for their young children to go during the day, and
make it impossible to know how things will look by teachers and school staff crave normality—even as
Labor Day. So parents and teachers wait in limbo, they worry they’re the ones most at risk.
anxious and enraged by the looming dilemma and △
the lack of federal guidance or support. An empty Despite the Dismal ratings Trump has
Trump entered the fray with his usual subtlety. classroom at received for his handling of the pandemic, the
“SCHOOLS MUST OPEN IN THE FALL!!!” he Sinclair Lane question of how to handle school in the fall
tweeted out of the blue on July 6. The issue came Elementary presented the President a political opportunity.
to the President’s attention in part because White School in Public-health experts mostly deplored Trump’s
Baltimore
House staff were affected by the news that pub- drive to reopen consumer-oriented businesses such
lic schools in the D.C. suburbs of Fairfax County, as bars and shops. But when it comes to schools,
Virginia, would offer just two days per week of in- the experts are broadly on his side. The American
school instruction, a former White House official Academy of Pediatrics “strongly advocates that
told TIME. New York City, the nation’s largest dis- all policy considerations for the coming school
trict, announced a similar “hybrid” plan on July 8. year should start with a goal of having students
But the alternatives are as unclear as the need physically present in school.” There is evidence
is evident. Children have been falling behind in that children—especially young children—are at
their studies since the abrupt closures. Those in minimal risk of getting the virus and appear not to
poor and minority communities—the same ones spread it efficiently, either. The risk, the academy
E R I N S C H A F F — T H E N E W YO R K T I M E S/ R E D U X

disproportionately ravaged by the virus—have says, should be weighed against the harm children
been hardest hit. Many low-income children rely suffer when they miss out on the educational, social
on public schools for food and social services; they and emotional experiences schools provide.
are less likely to have parents who can work from But experts caution that getting back into
home, or computers and wi-fi to connect to the classrooms safely is a balancing act. “When you
“distance learning” curricula hastily devised in the say you’re going to reopen, you can’t just unlock
spring. Meanwhile, millions of parents unexpect- a door,” says Emily Oster, a Brown University
edly thrust into improvised day care and home- economist. Many other countries have reopened
schooling are desperate for a break, businesses schools in recent months without spurring new
14 Time July 20/July 27, 2020
 who desperately want to hug their kids,” says
Lily Eskelsen García, president of the National
Education Association teacher union. “But we will
not be complicit in standing by and letting politi-
cians cavalierly warehouse those kids without car-
ing about their safety because, oh, we need their
moms and dads to go back to work. We could do
this in a safe, medically sane way, but it’s going
to take money. Why was that not even a question
when it was Shake Shack that might have to lay
people off and go bankrupt?”
Trump’s demands for reopening have not been
accompanied by pledges of more resources. In-
deed, the Administration has yet to disburse most
of the $13 billion allocated to education in the
CARES Act. The Democratic-controlled House of
Representatives pledged an additional $58 billion
to education in the HEROES Act, which passed on
a near party-line vote in May, along with billions
more in aid to state governments whose budgets
have been gutted by pandemic-related revenue de-
clines. But that legislation has gone nowhere in the
Republican-controlled Senate.
All this comes against a backdrop of a presi-
dential election in which Trump is trailing in the
polls, a deficit largely driven by suburban voters,
especially the college-educated suburban women ‘We will
who swung decisively to Democrats in the 2018 not be
midterms. Trump’s campaign sees the school-
outbreaks, but they’ve done so with extensive pre- reopening issue as a way to appeal to those vot-
complicit in
cautions, including protective equipment, reduced ers, which is why the President and his allies have standing by
and restructured classes, distancing requirements, sought to cast it as a binary question pitting Trump and letting
modified schedules and beefed-up staffing. On and his concern for kids’ education against the politicians
July 8, Trump tweeted that he disagreed with his cautious, shut-it-down Democrats. cavalierly
own Administration’s “impractical” public-health Yet most governors get far better ratings than the warehouse
guidelines for schools. Administration for their handling of the pandemic, those kids.’
These calculations have to be made with an and Trump’s opponent, Joe Biden, has proposed a
LILY ESKELSEN
eye to local conditions, everything from climate detailed school-reopening plan. The upshot is that GARCÍA, president,
to density to demographics. “American localism— Trump’s message may not be landing. A USA Today/ NEA teacher union
the fact that we have 14,000 school districts—is a Ipsos poll in May found 59% of parents of K-12 stu-
great blessing in a situation like this,” says Andy dents weren’t comfortable sending their children
Smarick, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute back to school full time. “Parents feel very sympa-
and former Education Department official under thetic toward what school districts and teachers
George W. Bush. “We’re going to see literally thou- are dealing with,” says Robin Lake, director of the
sands of different approaches that hopefully reflect Center on Reinventing Public Education at the Uni-
the needs of different communities, not a single versity of Washington. “I find it disgusting to inten-
national solution.” The federal government should tionally make students a pawn in all this.”
provide information and support, Smarick argues, Trump has squandered an opportunity to tap
not dictate or pressure local school boards. parents’ frustration, says GOP strategist Liam
Parents, teachers and advocates note that Donovan. “There’s a nonpolitical sense among
Congress was able to rush through multitrillion- working parents of all kinds that they can’t send
dollar relief packages when small businesses were their kids back to school soon enough,” Donovan
at risk. Yet the state and local governments that says, “but the President has bigfooted it, and not
moved quickly to build field hospitals, source in a thoughtful way.” As usual, Trump has polar-
protective equipment and put business regula- ized the debate. The result may be angry parents
tions in place now seem helpless to restore fami- flooding local school-board meetings this fall to
lies’ most important government support. “There yell at one another about mask requirements.
are 3 million teachers and support staff out there —With reporting by Brian Bennett •
15
TheBrief TIME with ...
Best-selling novelist poverty and failure isn’t really very good
for the writing life.”
David Mitchell visits Yet this is the milieu that Mitchell’s
the Age of Rock characters draw inspiration from in Uto-
pia Avenue. The novel is a sprawling, im-
By Dan Stewart mersive account of the British and U.S.
music scene of 1967 and 1968, tracing
the eponymous band’s halting trajectory
in DaviD miTchell’s new novel, Utopia from penury in London to the crest of
Avenue, a member of the 1960s psychedelic folk global stardom. A linear narrative mainly
rock band that gives the book its name is asked by set in England, it’s a departure from the
an interviewer which category its eclectic music time-hopping, continent-straddling
falls into. “You’re like a zoologist asking a platypus, works he is best known for. “It is maybe
‘Are you a ducklike otter? Or an otter-like duck?’” one of the most structurally straightfor-
replies Jasper, the group’s virtuosic guitar player. MITCHELL ward things I’ve done,” he says.
“Like the platypus, I don’t care. We make music we QUICK The group’s rise is viewed mainly
like. We hope others like it too. That’s it.” FACTS from the perspectives of three of the
It’s hard not to read this as a wink at Mitchell’s band members, each following their
own reputation for genre fluidity, given a body own journeys of self-discovery: folk
Let’s dance
of work that encompasses historical fiction (The Mitchell has singer Elf, bassist Dean and guitarist
Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet), bildungs- created a Spotify Jasper. As the book begins, penniless
roman (Black Swan Green), science fiction (The playlist inspired Dean is fleeing an abusive working-class
Bone Clocks) and a combination of the above by Utopia Avenue. upbringing. Elf is stifled by the expecta-
(Cloud Atlas, for which he is best known). So, I tions of her middle-class family. Jasper,
Here, there and
ask the novelist over a recent video call, Are you a everywhere the estranged scion of a Dutch aristo-
platypus? The 51-year-old chuckles. “All artists are. Eagle-eyed cratic family, is grappling with the re-
Actually, all human beings are. It’s not just within readers can spot turn of mental-health issues he thought
art, it’s what kind of person you are. We all hit the a key Utopia he had long since left behind.
speed bump of reductivism.” It’s the price he ac- Avenue character
in The Bone
cepts for his interest in “hybridizing genre,” he Clocks. The germ for The novel was his love
says. Few, though, seem to pay as much attention of the music of this era, Mitchell says—
when Ian McEwan or Margaret Atwood does it. Time is bands like Pink Floyd, Fairport Conven-
Mitchell qualifies among their ranks; twice on my side tion and the Grateful Dead that shunned
short-listed for the Booker Prize, his work has been Mitchell wrote a conformity and found “new ways of put-
work to be placed
compared to that of Haruki Murakami, Thomas in a time capsule ting a song together that hadn’t really
Pynchon and Anthony Burgess. But he occupies a until 2114, part of been done before.” But he was also fas-
field of his own. His eight novels are experimental the Future Library cinated by these years as a pivot point, a
but approachable. His sentences can be lyrical, but art project. time when the 1960s reached “a critical
his prose is propulsive. Beneath the layers of refer- kind of ideological mass, where enough
ences and unconventional structures lie lucid nar- people thought that society was re-
ratives. Mitchell’s obsessions—beyond the fictional bootable,” he says. “You could disassem-
meta-universe he has created—are with human ble the flawed or repressive structures
voyages of self-actualization; the process of figur- of the old world and replace them with
ing out who we are, and how we connect, in the something more just and more equita-
brief time we have. ble.” Music, he adds, was the “medium of
Speaking via video chat from the cottage in transmission.”
southwest Ireland where he has lived for 15 years, Above all, it’s a book about music—
Mitchell is engaging and boyishly passionate about a fly-on-the-wall look at the realities
his latest interests. He jokes about his reputa- of making a living from it, but also
tion as an introvert—of life stuck in lockdown, he the process of writing and rehearsing
says, “Yeah, but what else is new?”—and excitedly songs. Mitchell has no background in
shows me his current reading material, a lavishly music, but began learning guitar and
illustrated collection of Vincent van Gogh’s letters. piano while writing the book to lend
Reading about the painter’s struggles put his own authenticity to scenes where the char-
life as an artist in perspective. “Some measure of acters try out new chord sequences and
success is actually the greatest enabler,” he says. piece together songs. He interviewed
“So reading this it makes me feel fortunate that I musicians, and read roughly a dozen
have a [readership]. In my experience, pain and memoirs by survivors of the era and
20 Time July 20/July 27, 2020
 giving people character traits that they
really didn’t have,” he says. “I also didn’t
want them to play an instrumental role
in the plot, or co-opt them into an alter-
native universe where they didn’t die or
they had a huge impact on something.”
They’re in the novel for much the same
reason as the music—because that’s
how it actually was.

But this Book also exists as a chapter

in what Mitchell calls his “strange, on-
going übernovel.” Characters recur and
connect from book to book, players in a
meta-narrative about a centuries-long
battle between two groups of immor-
tals. Here, regular readers will spot at
least a dozen connections to his previ-
ous works, but Jasper’s arc has special
significance. (His surname, de Zoet,
may suggest how.) Mitchell says that
while he enjoys servicing fans who are
“kind of immersed at the deepest level
in my books,” he also takes care not to
alienate new readers. The novel’s fantas-
tical sequences can be read as the prod-
uct of Jasper’s mental illness, he says.
“It’s realism if you have read my books,
but it’s psychosis if you haven’t.”
He hints that Jasper may have a fu-
ture role to play in the meta-novel, but
next up he’s working on a collection of
his short stories, which he is rewriting
so they are linked—similar in structure
to his 1999 novel Ghostwritten. “It’ll
be more contemporary and it won’t be
historical,” he says. “I’d like to write a
‘now’ book.” He’s also been working on
a possible TV show and a film, though
he’s reluctant to divulge details. He
previously did some credited work on
a mooted reboot of The Matrix, whose
original directors—the Wachowski
absorbed details “like harvesting plankton,” he sisters—also directed the 2012 adapta-
says. He also went down a YouTube rabbit hole. tion of Cloud Atlas.
The technology is “a great resource for novelists,” ‘Utopia Avenue These kinds of collaborations are
he says. “If this was the year 2000, I’d have no way is maybe one “great fun,” Mitchell says, but also
to find out what Syd Barrett’s voice sounded like. of the most hugely important creatively. “Nor-
Now it’s easy. You just need a laptop.” structurally mally, I labor away for four years see-
This was especially important as the novel’s straightforward ing nobody. I have no colleagues. Just
C L A R A M O L D E N — C A M E R A P R E S S/ R E D U X

fictional characters interact with a greatest-hits things I’ve done.’ try working with nobody but yourself
album of historical figures as their fame grows. for four years. It does your head in,” he
Barrett, David Bowie, Brian Jones and many oth- DAVID MITCHELL, says. “Saying yes to one or two projects
on his departure from
ers wander in and out of the book, while one char- genre experimentation that take you outside the orbit of your
acter shares a stage with Leonard Cohen and an- habits is a great way of putting distance
other trips with Jerry Garcia. Mitchell says all these between your novels stylistically, and
scenes were the product of “close study” of their thematically. Hopefully it’s one way you
speech and language. “It behooves you to not start can evolve.” •
21
 LightBox
Remembering her name
A Breonna Taylor mural at Chambers Park in Annapolis, Md.,
is captured by drone on July 5. Future History Now, an art
nonprofit, partnered with the Banneker-Douglass Museum and
the Maryland Commission on African American History and
Culture to create the work. Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman,
was shot and killed in her Louisville, Ky., home in March by
police executing a “no knock” warrant as part of a narcotics
investigation. No drugs were found. In June, one officer was
fired, and the Louisville Metro Council unanimously voted to
ban such warrants in the city, naming the policy Breonna’s Law.

Photograph by Patrick Smith—Getty Images

▶ For more of our best photography, visit time.com/lightbox
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HEALTH

THE POWER
OF MASKS
By Gavin Yamey

At long last, we have made a

truly game-changing scientific
breakthrough in preventing
the spread of COVID-19. We
have found a disease-control
tool that, when used properly,
can reduce transmission by
somewhere between 50%
and 85%. The tool is cheap and
remarkably low-tech. You can
even make one at home. ▶
INSIDE

WHAT IF YOU GIVE DREAMING OF SINGING TROUBLING LEGACY

SOMEONE COVID-19? TOGETHER AGAIN OF WHITE WOMEN

The View is reported by Mariah Espada, Anna Purna Kambhampaty and Madeline Roache 25
TheView Opener
If this tool were a vaccine or a medicine, reach 180,000 COVID-19 deaths by Octo-
we’d be high-fiving one another and popping ber, they say we could prevent 33,000 of these
the champagne, knowing we’d discovered a deaths if at least 95% of people wore masks. SHORT
READS
crucial means to help prevent the spread of That’s right. We can avert the deaths of
▶ Highlights
the pandemic. 33,000 of our parents, grandparents, siblings, from stories on
I’m talking, of course, about face masks. co-workers, teachers, bus drivers, nurses, and time.com/ideas
Face masks block the spread of respiratory store workers by just sticking a $1 piece of
droplets that can carry the novel corona- cloth over our noses and mouths. Making an
virus. But just as with so many other aspects So what’s stopping us? One problem is the investment
of the response to COVID-19—including mass “me first” culture in the U.S., in which anti-
testing, contact tracing and the early use of maskers claim that their right to go around Martin Luther King Jr.
stay-at-home orders—the U.S. is once again unmasked in public matters more than saving dreamed of guaranteed
income as a way of
squandering this opportunity. lives. What they don’t seem to get is that while combatting economic
In many countries that have so far suc- masks may protect the wearer, the more impor- insecurity. Now 11 U.S.
cessfully controlled their COVID-19 epidem- tant reason to wear them is to protect others. mayors have formed
ics, health experts, politicians and the public What’s more, the higher the proportion of peo- a coalition to work on
have fully embraced the use of face masks ple who wear masks, the lower the risk that the that issue. “Against
a similar backdrop of
without controversy. A recent study found coronavirus will spread through the commu- racial and economic
that nations—like Hong Kong, South Korea, nity, akin to herd immunity after vaccination. unrest, we mayors are
Taiwan, Vietnam—where masks were widely This is why it is so important for govern- bringing that dream to
used soon after ments to issue and life,” they write.
their COVID-19 enforce mask man-
outbreaks began dates. COVID-19
were more likely cases are on the rise Temporary
to keep death rates again in 40 states, relief
low (fewer than six according to the As-
deaths per million sociated Press—and The Supreme Court
people) and to have are growing expo- ruling in June Medical v.
Russo was a win for
shorter outbreaks. nentially in states abortion rights. But
like Arizona, Texas Kathryn Kolbert and
Yet in the U.S., and Florida that Julie F. Kay, lawyers
where the death acted too quickly to who have argued major
rate from COVID- reopen businesses. abortion cases in the
U.S. and abroad, say
19 is now 394 per The only way to

M A S K S : A L E X I R O S E N F E L D — G E T T Y I M A G E S ; S O C I A L D I S TA N C I N G : L I U G U A N G U A N — C H I N A N E W S S E R V I C E /G E T T Y I M A G E S
A New York City parks employee hands out masks it’s not enough:
million people, as the city moves into Phase 2 of reopening control the dramatic “We cannot be
face masks have rise in these hard- complacent and rely
been weaponized for partisan purposes. Tak- hit states will be to reinstate lockdowns and upon the federal
ing their cues from President Trump, who has mandatory social distancing. Mass masking isn’t courts to preserve
women’s autonomy.”
refused to appear on camera wearing a face the way to end a huge surge in COVID-19. In-
mask and has said Americans who wear masks stead, it is one of the ways that we can help avoid
are doing so to show their disapproval of him, repeated cycles of surge, lockdown and release.
many of his supporters now see wearing a face There is plenty of evidence from coun- Vision for
mask as an affront to personal liberty. tries around the world that widespread mask the future
As a result of this alarming polarization, wearing—in combination with social dis- As Israel prepares to
only 23 states and the District of Columbia are tancing, handwashing and track-and-trace annex part of the West
mandating face masks in public. Only four— testing—will allow us to more safely do the Bank, Salam Fayyad,
Massachusetts, Maryland, Texas and West things we so desperately want and need to do: former Prime Minister
Virginia—have GOP governors. Some Repub- go back to work, reopen schools, see friends of the Palestinian
National Authority,
lican-led states are trying to subvert local mea- and family, and rebuild our economy. argues that the
sures that require masks. Wearing a face mask is not a sign of weak- Palestinian leadership
Rejecting face masks inevitably means em- ness. It is an act of solidarity, an expression should rethink the
bracing more COVID-19 cases and deaths. One that all of us—Democrats, Republicans and 1988 peace initiative
U.S. study found that states with mask man- independents—have a role to play in defeating and its framework for
a two-state solution:
dates had more rapid declines in daily growth one of the greatest challenges we have faced “We need an agenda
rates of COVID-19, and estimated that mask in our lifetimes. that empowers us to
use had prevented up to 450,000 cases by become the masters
May 22. While researchers at the University of Yamey is a physician and professor of global of our own destiny.”
Washington now predict that the U.S. could health and public policy at Duke University
26 Time July 20/July 27, 2020
THE RISK REPORT
Ethiopia faces a precarious QUICK TALK
political moment The origins of
By Ian Bremmer social distance
Doctoral student Lily Scherlis
The June 29 murder country. Unemployment among young discusses her research into
of activist, singer and people remains high. The protests finally the term social distancing
political icon Hachalu forced Prime Minister Hailemariam and its surprising history
Hundessa has ignited Desalegn to step down.
violence across Addis How did the term social
distancing evolve? It’s
Ababa and other Ethi- EntEr Abiy AhmEd, who was sworn in as
used as a euphemism
opian cities. This is the Prime Minister in April 2018. Abiy com-
for class and race in the
latest chapter in this country’s tumultuous mitted himself to national reconciliation 19th century. In the 1920s,
journey from authoritarian rule toward and political openness. He lifted the state the Social Distance Scale
genuine democracy. Reports of vandalism, of emergency, welcomed greater press [describing comfort levels
arson, robbery and murder have made na- freedom, released political prisoners and between people of different
tional headlines. Some 1,200 people have invited dissidents to return from exile. races] becomes a social-
been arrested. In the city of Ambo, police He ended 20 years of war with neighbor- science tool. During the
have shot and killed at least nine people, ing Eritrea. For all this, Abiy was awarded AIDS crisis, it’s used to
some of them mourners at the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize. describe misguided fears of
Hundessa’s funeral. The streets Then his job got harder. contagion. It’s not until 2004
Ethiopia, Africa’s second Abiy, an Oromo, has offered that the CDC picks it up to
most populous nation, is no
are the only a vision of Ethiopian national talk about airborne illness.
stranger to unrest. The coun- place where identity that transcends
try’s constitution divides the Ethiopian ethnic divisions. Observers How did the idea become
Ethiopia into ethnically based people can say some Oromos have been part of the study of race?
territories, but many disputes air a growing emboldened by Abiy’s rise and The Social Distance Scale
over boundaries have never list of have attacked other groups turns up in the wake of the
summer of 1919, especially
been resolved. Oromo, the larg- grievances in revenge. Freeing political
the Chicago race riots, in
est of Ethiopia’s many ethnic prisoners and welcoming
order to try to make sense
groups, make up about one- dissent meant opening a
of race. It makes it seem like
third of the country’s 112 million people, Pandora’s box of tribal grievance. When people fit very neatly into
but they say they’ve been excluded from violence escalated after Hundessa’s these groups. It’s just this
holding national power. murder, Abiy shut down the Internet. huge reduction.
In 2014, in the Oromo-dominated city Without obvious suspects or clear
of Ambo, university students began dem- motives for the killing, Abiy has hinted What do you hope
onstrations against a plan to expand Addis that Hundessa may have been murdered people take away from
Ababa, the nation’s capital, into the sur- by Egyptian security agents acting on your research? How
rounding countryside and onto land that orders from Cairo to stir up trouble. Egypt much the term has been
is part of the Oromo homeland. Confron- and Ethiopia are locked in a dispute over used to justify elites’
tations between protesters turned deadly, construction of the controversial Grand sequestering themselves
triggering demonstrations across the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, an Ethiopian from marginalized or
country against its autocratic government. project which Egyptians say will divert disenfranchised folks in the
For Oromos, Hundessa’s music provided water from the Nile. “Calls for war have U.S. across 200 years.
the protest soundtrack. The expansion echoed across Egyptian media and —Olivia B. Waxman
plans were scrapped, but only after hun- Twitter, though negotiations continue.
dreds were killed and thousands arrested. But Prime Minister Abiy may just be
Outsiders were startled by the violence, looking for a scapegoat that can unite
because Ethiopia was considered an Ethiopians against a perceived common
economic success story. In the decade enemy. Unfortunately, the anger and fear
before the authoritarian government in Ethiopia’s largest cities now has few
finally gave up power in 2018, Ethiopia’s outlets. The Internet remains down, and
economy grew at 9.9% per year, and Abiy has postponed a national election
building projects produced some of sub- scheduled for August for one year in
Saharan Africa’s best roads, bridges and response to COVID-19. The streets are the Social distancing at a park
electricity grids. But the spoils weren’t only place where the Ethiopian people can in San Francisco on May 24
shared equally. Ethiopia is still a poor air a growing list of grievances. •
27
TheView Essays
COMMUNITY den spike of anxiety and guilt as I re-
We think we gave our membered his situation.

neighbor COVID-19 It’s very hard to imagine being conta-

gious when you don’t feel sick, especially
By Belinda Luscombe in familiar situations, like when you’re
in your own home or with good friends.
a few days before our longTime nexT-door neighbor This is this virus’s most deadly aspect;
moved out of his New York City loft in late March, he texted it is spreading before its carriers even
us and asked if we would look after his fsh and some plants, know they have it. It’s the termite of
since he could not move into his new place for a while. “Sure,” diseases; by the time you put your foot
we texted back. “It’s not like we’re going anywhere.” Our his- through the floorboard, it’s too late.
tory of looking after things is spotty, but he needed a hand, That is difficult to get used to. Mis-
and I thought it might be time to skill up. takes will be made. We should have put
His home and ours have only ever been separated by a semi- on masks. We should have wiped down
permeable membrane anyway. We share a common outdoor our ladder. We should have declined the
space. We have each other’s spare keys, use each other’s appli- fsh. Discarded aquariums and plants are
ances, have permission to just go in and borrow anything when a run-of-the-mill moving story; the de-
the other is away. When we had young kids in the home, Acts that mise of a prominent sociologist because
we hosted big pancake breakfasts. As they got older, we would normally feel of his neighbors’ carelessness is a trag-
let each other know when we could smell them smoking pot. edy. Acts that normally feel like the right
We had a standing invitation to his dinner parties.
like the right thing to do—a favor for a friend, the cel-
So he brought over his fsh and plants and borrowed our thing to do ebration of a birthday or a wedding—
ladder. He was masked, because of the movers. We were not, can turn can turn out to be very wrong.
because we were just lolling about; it was pure luck that we out to be So as I watch people emerging from
were even dressed. It was a quick handover. We didn’t touch. very wrong their isolation and gravitating toward
Two days later, we came down one another at parties and
with COVID-19 symptoms. beaches, I want to hire a
It was bad, especially for my plane to fly with a banner
spouse. Two weeks later, our saying, if you like Those
neighbor texted to say he people, sTand back
thought he had it too. a biT. Nobody is going out
He has a baby, a wife and of their way to infect oth-
an elderly mother who was ers, but the damned thing
living nearby. When I read about this virus is that peo-
on her social-media page a ple have to go out of their
week or so later that he was way not to infect others.
in the hospital with pneu- As communal beings we are
monia, my stomach began drawn to each other, and as
to churn. We were not sure communal beings, we need
we were the ones who gave it to avoid each other for that
to him—neither was he, for very same other’s sake.
the record—but the possibil- But I also want to fly
ity was horrifying. The self- a banner over the homes
recriminations were legion and grim: Why were we not more of those who are staying in and judg-
careful? How is it that we—who were fully aware of the dan- ing those who slip up. This one would
gers of the virus, the measures one was supposed to take to say, humans: sTill only human. Part
keep it in check and his family situation—still acted in a way of looking out for each other is under-
that meant he could get infected? What if he died? standing that well-intentioned people
I L L U S T R AT I O N S B Y J O E Y G U I D O N E F O R T I M E

Having had the virus, I knew that people who check in make mistakes and those mistakes are
too often can be a burden, but I occasionally texted his wife, not more idiotic, often, than yours. This
warily monitored his mother’s updates for any change in tone much we know about the virus: it’s se-
and sent him tips on things we did that helped. While he was rious, contagious and, in more than
in the hospital, I texted photos of the flourishing plants on 132,000 cases so far in America, fatal.
his side of the deck to cheer him up. My husband did some That’s dangerous enough without its tear-
moving-house-type favors. I changed the aquarium water, ing communities apart too. My neigh-
a lot. We were determined to prove we were responsible bor survived; the fsh didn’t. (Too many
human beings. Even so, a couple of times a day, I’d have a sud- water changes.) We’re still friends. □
28 Time July 20/July 27, 2020
 left two choir members dead.
In an operatic twist of tragic irony,
this thing that was so good for people
was now an epidemiologist’s nightmare.
Imagine a warm room, filled with re­
cycled air, packed with people—the ideal
distance between singers has been put
at 18 to 24 in., but often we were literally
rubbing shoulders—potentially emitting
six times the percentage of airborne drop­
let nuclei as a roomful of people merely
talking would. A dynamic engine for pro­
ducing transcendent sound was now a
virulent conduit for spreading pathogens.
As the spring weeks wore on, de­
prived of my voice, I turned to Smule,
the popular karaoke app. It goes like
this: using your phone and earbuds,
you either sing one­half of a song or
join someone else’s prerecorded track.
FAMILY
As in a kind of Facebook in song (come
No joy without singing find me at the handle “adultbeginner”),
you friend people, you “favorite,” you
By Tom Vanderbilt leave comments. Singing into your
phone with strangers may seem odd,
A few yeArs Ago, I begAn tAkIng vocAl lessons. lIke but curiously enough, the old power of
many people, I was an enthusiastic, lifelong singer, at least music to connect people can still come
in the privacy of my shower. But I wondered if I could actu­ through. Smule says there are hundreds
ally acquire any skill in the discipline, enough that my family of “Smule babies” it knows of—the chil­
would stop flinching as I belted out the occasional tune around dren of people who met through the app
the house. As with any motor skill—what singing primarily and started families. I’m not looking for
is—it took a lot of work. But, gradually, I began staying more love, but I’ve sung Sondheim with Indo­
on pitch, expanding my range, improving my breath control. nesians and R.E.M. with Floridians, I’ve
I soon felt the need to do something with this singing. sung Spanish ballads with Germans and
As I was hardly ready for a solo recital at Carnegie Hall, reggae anthems with Koreans. I’ve sung
I decided to join a choir.
I’ve sung with people in their parked cars or in
I signed up with a group called the New York Choir Proj­ Sondheim with their bedrooms. I’ve made new singing
ect, largely on the strength of two things: First, they did Indonesians, buddies around the globe—there’s noth­
songs by Oasis and Eminem. Second, and more important, R.E.M. with ing like opening up via the vulnerable
they didn’t require auditions. Even so, the early days were Floridians act of singing to find out if you strike
terrifying. I probably lip­synched half the time, taking shelter and reggae a chord with someone.
in the sonic envelope of my fellow choristers. anthems But I miss my real­world choir. I miss
But a funny thing happened. Choir became a high point in with Koreans feeling the actual energy coming off of
my life. I’d close out normally dreary Mondays with that eve­ other people. I miss having an audience
ning’s rehearsal and leave on an absolute high. Small wonder, beyond my wife and daughter. Like any
for as science and experience have shown, singing together number of quarantined choirs—and
is ridiculously good for us. There’s a raft of evidence for how choral singing is America’s most popu­
it improves our sense of well­being, releases a flood of ben­ lar performing art by participation—my
eficial hormones, lowers blood pressure and boosts immune choir has moved online, to the familiar
response. The choir brought things to my life I wasn’t even Zoom grid. It’s reassuring to see this sea
aware I was missing: new friends, a reassuring ritual, the chal­ of earbud­clad friendly faces, but as the
lenge of doing something novel. technology isn’t quite there, we can’t all
sing together live. I’m dreaming of the
But then a not­funny thing happened: COVID­19. In early day our voices—and breath—reunite.
March, we were rehearsing energetically for a show. By the
next week, the rehearsals, and the show, were history. Later, Vanderbilt is the author of Beginners:
news would emerge of how a choir rehearsal in Washington The Joy and Transformative Power
State was a “superspreader” event that infected dozens and of Lifelong Learning, out in January
29
TheView Society
‘Karen’ and the violence
of white womanhood
By Cady Lang

When you look up The hashTag #karen on insTagram,

a search that yields more than 773,000 posts, the featured image
is a screenshot of a white woman staring into the camera, purs-
ing her lips into a smile as she touches a finger to her chin,
a movement that’s at once condescending and cloying. The
woman’s name is Lisa Alexander, but on the Internet, she’s
most recognized as the “San Francisco Karen.”
In a clip that went viral in June, Alexander confronts James
Juanillo, who is stenciling Black lives maTTer in chalk on the
front of his own home, and demands to know if he is defacing pri-
vate property. Juanillo, who identified himself in a social-media
caption as a person of color, is seen telling her and her partner that
they should call the police if they feel he is breaking the law. He
later told ABC7 News that the couple did call the police, who he
says recognized him as the resident instantly.
After Alexander and her partner were identified by their full
names by online sleuths, her skin-care business was boycotted
and he was fired from his job. Both Alexander and her partner
released apology statements. In hers, she expresses regret for
her behavior: “When I watch the video, I am shocked and sad
that I behaved the way I did. It was disrespectful to Mr. Juanillo
and I am deeply sorry for that.” The ‘Karen’
With her actions, Alexander joined a growing number of meme is a
“Karens”—Internet shorthand for certain type of a middle-aged reminder of
white woman—who have hit new levels of notoriety in recent the troubling
weeks. Though the “Karen” meme began as a joke about white legacy
women with bad haircuts who ask to speak to the manager, and of white
has existed on Reddit since at least 2017, according to Know women
Your Meme associate editor Adam Downer, it’s taken on a new lost custody of her dog, and on July 6,
meaning lately. Thanks to a flood of footage that’s become in-
weaponizing the Manhattan DA said she would be
creasingly violent and disturbing, “Karens” have now become their charged for filing a false report. She told
infamous online for their shameless displays of entitlement, victimhood CNN after the incident she wanted to
privilege and racism—and their tendency to call the police “publicly apologize to everyone” and
when they don’t get what they want. claimed she was “not a racist” and “did
“When it got to the protests and the avalanche of incidents not mean to harm that man in any way.”
where white ladies were calling the cops, that’s where it began Christian Cooper accepted her apology,
to get a bit more menacing,” Downer says. but urged viewers to focus on not just the
In June alone, there was the “Karen” who was recorded spew- clip but also the “underlying current of
ing multiple racist tirades against Asian Americans in a park in racism and racial perceptions.”
Torrance, Calif., upon which the Internet discovered that she André Brock, an associate professor
had a history of discriminatory outbursts, earning her the title of Black digital culture at Georgia Tech,
“Ultra Karen”; the “Karen” in Los Angeles who used two ham- says it makes sense that this meme is res-
mers to damage her neighbors’ car as she told them to “get the onating in this moment. He points to the
f-ck out of this neighborhood”; and the “Karen” who purposely convergence of the pandemic—“where
coughed on someone who had called her out for not wearing we’ve been trapped in our house for six
a mask at a coffee shop in New York City. weeks with nothing to do but feel”—and
Perhaps most notably, there was Amy Cooper, the “Central the outrage over police brutality and sys-
Park Karen,” who on May 25—the day George Floyd was killed— tematic racism. Now when people see
called the police on Christian Cooper (no relation), a Black a “Karen” online, they’re not just observ-
man who had asked her to leash her dog in a part of the park ing a singular act. They’re reminded of a
that required it, and claimed that “an African-American” man troubling legacy of white women in the
was “threatening” her. She was fired from her job, temporarily U.S. weaponizing their victimhood.
30 Time July 20/July 27, 2020
 dangerous,” says Apryl Williams, an assistant professor in
communications and media at the University of Michigan and
a fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society
< at Harvard. White women’s assumed virtue gives them power,
Clockwise from she says, “and when you couple that with this racist history,
top left: “San where white women are afraid of Black men and Black men
Francisco Karen”; are hypersexualized and seen as dangerous, then that’s really
a “Karen” in New a volatile combination.”
York City; “Ultra Williams says the visuals of “Karens” exploiting their privi-
Karen” in Torrance,
lege are challenging the long-standing ideas about who is a threat
Calif.; “Central
Park Karen” in to whom, but she cautions against letting the at times humor-
New York City ous nature of the meme minimize the underlying truth about the
danger white womanhood has posed to Black and brown lives.
“On the one hand, the humor is a way of dealing with the
pain of the violence, so in that way it’s helpful, but on the other
hand, the cutesiness or the laughability sort of minimizes or
masks the fact that these women are essentially engaging in
violence,” she says. “The fact that Amy Cooper is saying, ‘I’m
going to call the police and tell them that an African-American
man is threatening my life’ is a very racially violent state-
ment and a racially violent act, especially if you look at it in
a larger, broader historical context, and think about the way
that Emmett Till’s accuser [Carolyn Bryant] did the same exact
thing, and it resulted in his death.”
According to Williams, “Karen” memes can serve different
purposes for different audiences. For white people, it can help
them recognize a pattern of behavior that they don’t want to
be a part of but might be complicit in, and can be an easier way
to have a conversation about white fragility, entitlement and
privilege; it also holds them accountable for racism. For Black
people, the memes can act as a news source, evidence and an
archive of injustices, the attempts to control bodies and situa-
tions, or, as Brock puts it, “microaggressions that often scale
to macroaggressions when the police are called in.”
The hisTorical narraTive of white “I try to push back on the idea that memes are frivolous
women’s victimhood goes back to myths ways of articulating a particular phenomenon because in many
constructed during the era of American ways, it’s much more potent shorthand than me trying to ex-
slavery. Enslaved Black men were pos- plain to you exactly the way people are reacting to a certain sit-
ited as sexual threats to white women, uation,” he says. “Social media is a platform for communicating
the wives of slave owners, when in real- feelings, and the stronger the feeling, the more viral things go.”
ity, slave masters were the ones raping According to Williams, the “Karen” memes—as well as
enslaved girls and women. This narrative other popular alliterative memes like “BBQ Becky” and “Per-
perpetuated the idea that white women, mit Patty,” which called out white women for calling the po-
who represented the good and moral lice on Black civilians who just want to grill in the park in
in American society, needed to be pro- peace or on 8-year-old Black girls selling water on the side-
tected by white men at all costs, thus jus- walk, respectively—are part of a genre she calls “Black activist
tifying racial violence toward Black men memes.” The accounts of the real people who have experienced
or anyone who posed a threat to their the racism documented in these memes and in the hashtag
power. It was the overarching theme of #LivingWhileBlack are helping to demand accountability
The Birth of a Nation, the 1915 film that and push forward legislation. An Oregon law enacted in 2019,
was the first movie to be shown at the for instance, allows victims of racist 911 calls to sue the caller.
White House, and is often cited as the “These memes are actually doing logical and political work
C A F É : I N S TA G R A M ; T W I T T E R (3)

inspiration for the rebirth of the KKK. of helping us get to legal changes or legislative changes,” says
“If we’re thinking about this in a Williams. “While, of course, they aren’t a stand-alone move-
historical context where white women ment on their own, they actively call out white supremacy
are given the power over Black men, and call for restitution. They really do that work of highlighting
that their word will be valued over a and sort of commenting on the racial inequality in a way that
Black man, that makes it particularly mainstream news doesn’t capture.” □
31
TheView 7 Questions
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla is raising
expectations that the pharma giant will
deliver a COVID-19 vaccine this fall
PFIZER IS INCREASINGLY CONFIDENT So it was a big moment?
that its efforts to develop a coronavirus For me, it was the moment when I saw
vaccine will be successful. In a the data, plus many other data that we
July 7 interview with TIME, Pfizer haven’t published yet, [that] made me
CEO Albert Bourla said he believes say that until now I was thinking if we
that Food and Drug Administration have a vaccine. Now I’m discussing when
approval could come as soon as we’re going to have a vaccine.
October. On the basis of promising
results in an early-stage trial released Let’s talk timing. You said your re-
on July 1, Pfizer has dramatically action was not if but when. So when?
increased the projections for the A new weekly Well, let me be accurate and factual here.
number of doses it will produce this interview series with One, we will only know if the vaccine
year, to 100 million. Bourla also the world’s most works when we have the final study. We
disclosed that the company has begun influential CEOs and have a lot of indications that make me
commercial talks with governments leaders, emailed feel that really it should make it ... We
directly to you.
around the world about how many Subscribe at time should be able in the September time
doses they will receive. .com/leadership frame to have enough data to say if the
Bourla is so convinced his global vaccine works or not. And to submit that
pharmaceutical giant is on the right to the FDA. So for a potential approval in
track that he has decided Pfizer will October, if we are lucky. It’s feasible.
start producing the vaccine before
receiving approval from the FDA. It’s And when will it be ready to be
a move as risky as it is unorthodox. distributed?
Pfizer’s vaccine, being developed with The most interesting and important
its German biotech partner BioNTech, thing is that if the vaccine is successful,
uses a novel genetics-based approach which means that if we are convinced
called messenger RNA; Bourla about it, effective and safe, and the FDA
acknowledges that no messenger-RNA is convinced about it, effective and safe,
vaccine has ever been approved to we will have already manufactured doses
prevent infectious disease to date. that will be readily available.
Pfizer is set to launch a large-scale
clinical trial later in July, which will So have you ever done that before,
involve 30,000 people at 150 locations started manufacturing pre–FDA ap-
by the end of the test period. Bourla, 58, proval to get it ready to ship?
who was born in Greece and trained No, never.
to be a veterinarian before working
his way up the ranks at Pfizer, plans Are you currently manufacturing
to price the vaccine to make a profit, the possible vaccine itself or just the
but believes governments should bottles and the containers it will
distribute the first doses to the most go in?
vulnerable, at no cost. Pretty soon we will start manufac-
turing actual vaccine. We may not
What did the data that Pfizer bottle it yet because we are waiting,
and BioNTech released on but there are a lot of stages.
July 1 show?
ROBERT DURON — COURTESY PF IZER

That the vaccine in humans You’ve invested more than $1 bil-

created the very robust immune lion in this. What if the FDA rejects
responses in all individuals that the vaccine?
received the vaccine. And those We will just have to write it off and call
responses were also able to kill the it a day. We will throw it away. It’s only
virus. What we learned is that this money we’re going to lose. —EBEN
vaccine can neutralize the virus. SHAPIRO; with reporting by ALICE PARK
32 TIME July 20/July 27, 2020
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 CL I MATE

STANDING AT
A CLIMATE
CROSSROADS
I NS IDE

The Last Exit Before Catastrophe B Y J U STI N WORLA ND

Forestalling a Sea Change BY A RY N BA K ER
A Rebellion Tries to Avoid Extinction B Y C IA R A NU G ENT
The Environment Needs Racial Justice
B Y JUS T IN WOR L A N D PLUS,
VI EWP O IN T S
ILLUSTR ATION BY CHRIS DENT FOR TIME
F RO M:
Stacey Abrams
Greta Thunberg
The Dalai Lama
... and more
 CL IMAT E

THE On April 20, T H E PR IC E

F OR CR UD E O I L fell

DEFINING
to –$37.63 per barrel,
the first time in history
it dropped below zero,
throwing the market
into disarray
$80

YEAR
40

0
2020 -40
MAMJ J

The world was ready From our vanTage poinT Today, 2020
looks like the year when an unknown
Later in April, Ursula von der Leyen,
the president of the European Commis-
to tackle climate virus spun out of control, killed hundreds sion, in a video message from across the
change. Then 2020 of thousands and altered the way we live
day to day. In the future, we may look back
Atlantic, offered a different approach for
the continent’s economic future. A Euro-
happened at 2020 as the year we decided to keep pean Green Deal, she said, would be the
driving off the climate cliff—or to take the E.U.’s “motor for the recovery.”
B Y JU S T I N WO RLA ND
last exit. Taking the threat seriously would “We can turn the crisis of this pan-
mean using the opportunity presented by demic into an opportunity to rebuild
this crisis to spend on solar panels and our economies differently,” she said. On
wind farms, push companies being bailed May 27, she pledged more than $800 bil-
out to cut emissions and foster greener lion to the initiative, promising to trans-
forms of transport in cities. If we instead form the way Europeans live.
choose to fund new coal-fired power For the past three years, the world out-
plants and oil wells and thoughtlessly fire side the U.S. has largely tried to ignore
up factories to urge growth, we will lock Trump’s retrograde position on climate,
in a pathway toward climate catastrophe. hoping 2020 would usher in a new Pres-
There’s a divide about which way to go. ident with a new position, re-enabling
In early April, as COVID-19 spread the cooperation between nations needed
across the U.S. and doctors urgently to prevent the worst ravages of climate
warned that New York City might soon change. But there’s no more time to wait.
run out of ventilators and hospital beds, We’re standing at a climate cross-
President Donald Trump gathered CEOs roads: the world has already warmed
from some of the country’s biggest oil and 1.1°C since the Industrial Revolution. If
gas companies for a closed-door meeting we pass 2°C, we risk hitting one or more
in the White House Cabinet Room. The major tipping points, where the effects of
industry faced its biggest disruption in climate change go from advancing gradu-
decades, and Trump wanted to help the ally to changing dramatically overnight,
companies secure their place at the center reshaping the planet. To ensure that we
of the 21st century American economy. don’t pass that threshold, we need to cut
Everything was on the table, from a emissions in half by 2030. Climate change
tariff on imports to the U.S. government has understandably fallen out of the pub-
itself purchasing excess oil. “We’ll work lic eye this year as the coronavirus pan-
this out, and we’ll get our energy busi- demic rages. Nevertheless, this year, or
ness back,” Trump told the CEOs. “I’m perhaps this year and next, is likely to be
with you 1,000%.” A few days later, he an- the most pivotal yet in the fight against
nounced he had brokered a deal with Rus- climate change. “We’ve run out of time
sian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi to build new things in old ways,” says Rob
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to Jackson, an earth system science profes-
cut oil production and rescue the industry. sor at Stanford University and the chair
36 Time July 20/July 27, 2020
 Sunrise over a power
station in Adelaide,
Australia, in 2019.
City skies across the
world have been clearer
during the COVID-19
pandemic, but that’s
unlikely to last
PHOTOGR APH BY
TRENT PARKE
 CL IMAT E

of the Global Carbon Project. What we do

now will define the fate of the planet—and
human life on it—for decades.
The time frame for effective climate
action was always going to be tight, but
the coronavirus pandemic has shrunk it
further. Scientists and policymakers ex-
pected the green transition to occur over
the next decade, but the pandemic has
pushed 10 years of anticipated invest-
ment in everything from power plants
to roads into a monthslong time frame.
Countries have already spent $11 trillion
to help stem the economic damage from
COVID-19. They could spend trillions
more. “It’s in this next six months that re-
covery strategies are likely to be formu-
lated and the path is set,” says Nicholas
Stern, a former World Bank chief econo-
mist known for his landmark 2006 report
warning that climate change could devas-
tate the global economy.
We don’t know where the chips will
fall: Will a newfound respect for science
and a fear of future shocks lead us to fi-
nally wake up, or will the desire to return
to normal overshadow the threats lurking
just around the corner?

We find ourselves on the brink of cli-

mate catastrophe in large part because of
the decisions made during a past crisis. As
the world came out of the Great Depres-
sion and World War II, the U.S. launched a
rapid bid to remake the global economy— in the postwar era, the U.S. assiduously ^
running on fossil fuels. In the first post- spread abroad. The promise of endless One of Los Angeles’ most crowded
war years, Americans moved to suburbs growth also required an endless supply highway interchanges was nearly
and began driving gas-guzzling cars to of oil to power factories, automobiles and empty during rush hour on April 24
work, while the federal government built jet planes. In 1945, President Franklin D.
a highway system to connect the country Roosevelt sealed a deal with Ibn Saud, the drive hundreds of millions of people into
for those vehicles. The single biggest line first King of Saudi Arabia, trading security poverty, destroy coral reefs and leave some
item in the Marshall Plan, the U.S. govern- for access to the country’s vast oil reserves. countries unable to adapt. A 2019 analy-
ment program that funded the European Every U.S. President since, implicitly or sis in the journal Nature identified nine
recovery, went to support oil, which en- explicitly, has continued that exchange. tipping points—from the collapse of the
sured that the continent’s economy would The coronavirus pandemic is the most West Antarctic ice sheet to the thawing
also run on that fossil fuel. Meanwhile, significant disruption yet to the postwar of Arctic permafrost—that the planet ap-
plastic, an oil derivative, became the go-to fossil-fuel order. The global economy is pears close to reaching, any one of which
building block for consumer goods after expected to contract more than 5% this might very well be triggered if warm-
the U.S. had developed production capac- year, according to the International Mon- ing exceeds 1.5°C. “Going beyond 2°C
ity for use in World War II. etary Fund (IMF). This is a challenge so is a very critical step,” says Johan Rock-
The underlying philosophy of eco- big that it has also created a once-in-a- strom, director of the Potsdam Institute
nomic development in this time period lifetime opportunity to change direction. for Climate Impact Research, “not only in
was a focus on gross national product, a This moment comes just in time. In terms of economic and human impact but
term developed by U.S. government econ- 2018, a landmark report from the Inter- also in terms of the stability of the earth.”
omists during the Depression, which in- governmental Panel on Climate Change, To keep temperatures from rising past
cluded consumption as a proxy for pros- the U.N.’s climate-science body, warned the 1.5°C goal, we would need to cut global
perity: the more we consume, the better that allowing the planet to warm any more greenhouse-gas emissions 7.6% every year
off we are, according to this model, which, than 2°C above preindustrial levels would for the next decade, according to a report
38 Time July 20/July 27, 2020
 VI E WP O IN T

We must be antiracist
in our fight against
climate change
By Asmeret Asefaw Berhe
As a Black scholar, I am usually economies have caused the loss
one of the few dark-skinned of almost 120 billion metric tons of
people in scientific, educational, carbon to the atmosphere in the past
communication and policy spaces 200 years. But natural solutions—
searching for natural solutions to including reduced tillage, preventing
climate change. Demographics overgrazing, reforestation and
of a group are a window into its adding carbon to soil from current
culture, equity and inclusivity, so the waste streams—exist and can draw
absence of voices of marginalized down a third of the atmospheric
communities means that the issues carbon dioxide we need to reduce
that concern us do not get the global warming. They also come
attention they need. with the co-benefits of improving soil
Take soils, for instance. In the health that is critical for food and
context of human security, climate nutritional security.
change is a threat multiplier, When people hear “Black lives
meaning it exacerbates the existing matter,” they don’t often think of
threat of food and nutritional climate change. But the location
insecurity for nearly a billion people and nature of climate change’s
around the world—a significant worst effects on human society
percentage of whom are Black or are geographically delineated by
brown—who don’t have access persistent legacies of racism, slavery
from the U.N. Environment Programme to adequate food and water. The and colonialism. The climate-change
(UNEP). That’s about the level the COVID- interconnected nature of the community desperately needs to
P R E V I O U S S P R E A D : M A G N U M P H O T O S ; L O S A N G E L E S : S T U A R T PA L L E Y; I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y A L E X F I N E F O R T I M E

19 pandemic will reduce emissions this climate, soil systems and the address historic inequities in access
year, but virtually no one thinks a deadly future of global food production to resources and opportunities as
pandemic and accompanying unemploy- demands that we simultaneously well as socioeconomic and political
address climate change and factors that are the root causes of
ment is a sustainable way to halt climate
rehabilitation of degraded soils. But the climate crisis, and we must adopt
change—and recessions are typically fol-
partly due to the lack of diversity mitigation and adaptation strategies
lowed by sharp rebounds in emissions. in the climate-change community, informed by local and Indigenous
To achieve the 1.5°C goal without cre- a disproportionate focus is put on knowledge. Climate change can-
ating mass disruption has always meant the physical impacts of increasing not be another global crisis—like
thoughtfully restructuring the global atmospheric temperatures on malaria or the many extreme pollution
economy, moving it away from fossil- melting polar sea ice, rising sea episodes—that is propagated by
fuel extraction slowly but surely. Sci- level, thawing permafrost and the and solved for fair-skinned folk in
entists and economists agree this is the plight of polar bears. These are all the northern hemisphere while com-
last opportunity we have to do so. “If we important issues, but my research munities of color globally continue to
delay further than 2020,” says Rockstrom, over the past 20 years has convinced suffer as a result of unjust practices
“there’s absolutely no empirical evidence me that soils should be a priority too. and policies that continue to silence
that it can be done in an orderly way.” The soil system stores four times our voices.
As of late June, countries had spent more carbon than the atmosphere
some $11 trillion on measures to halt the and controls the transfer of Berhe is a professor of soil
pandemic and stem its economic im- greenhouse gases between the land biogeochemistry and the Falasco
pact, according to the IMF. Economists and the atmosphere. Excessive Chair in Earth Sciences at the
say that’s not enough, and countries and use and abuse of soil by human University of California, Merced
central banks plan to keep doling out
39
 CL IMAT E

money to help the global economy stay city streets have been transformed into building a new world,” says Costa Rican
afloat. There are lots of things we could be pedestrian space with cars banished, and President Carlos Alvarado Quesada.
buying with that money that would make many cities say they’re not going back. “Whatever we decide as a country or as
our lives better and protect us from cli- The oil industry has faced a reckoning, a global community in the next six or 10
mate disaster. In recent months, leading with the U.S. benchmark price at one or 12 months is going to determine what
institutions across the spectrum have of- point in mid-April dropping into negative happens on the earth for the next decade.”
fered approaches that are varied in their territory and investors fleeing the indus- Nowhere will such an approach have
specifics but generally similar in philoso- try; smaller firms filing for bankruptcy; as large an impact as in the E.U. When
phy: invest in greener infrastructure. and some of its biggest players writing compared with countries, the bloc is
The International Energy Agency down assets they say have lost their value. the world’s second largest economy and
(IEA), for example, calls for an annual With the writing beginning to appear third largest emitter. Its pandemic recov-
$1 trillion investment in clean energy for on the wall, many countries are starting ery will help achieve the proposed target
the next three years. At a cost of about to build a different world. In South Korea, of halving its emissions in 10 years by
0.7% of global GDP, this would represent a the newly re-elected government has spending $100 billion annually to make
small portion of the funds spent to combat promised a $10 billion Green New Deal homes energy-efficient, $28 billion to
COVID-19 but could be transformative. to invest in renewable energy and make build renewable energy capacity and up
Expansion and modernization of electric public buildings energy efficient. In Costa to $67 billion for zero-emissions trains.
grids would allow for easier flow of renew- Rica, one of a few developing countries to The European investment in going green
able energy. Governments could buy out commit to eliminating their carbon foot- will hurt coal-mining jobs in places like
gas-guzzling vehicles, pushing consumers print by 2050, leaders have created a new Poland and the Czech Republic, but the
to go electric. Homes and buildings could fee on gasoline to fund social-welfare pro- European recovery program will pay bil-
be retrofitted to consume less energy. grams and are planning to issue new green lions to retrain the workers and transi-
This spending would also help solve bonds to fund the next stage of climate ad- tion them to other industries. The mea-
the immediate problem of lost jobs and aptation programs. Rwanda, which has a sure awaits approval by the member
economic stagnation by creating nearly GDP of roughly $9 billion, has adopted an countries, and the details are subject to
10 million jobs worldwide and increasing $11 billion plan to reduce emissions and negotiation, but observers do not expect
global GDP by 1.1%, meaning it would add adapt to climate change, which includes the direction of the policy to change.
more to the economy than it costs. Impor- a push for buses, cars and motorcycles to Other major players in the global econ-
tantly, green investment would result in a go electric. “We cannot afford to have the omy, most notably the U.S. and China,
slew of “co-benefits.” For example, some same mode of recovery, the same mode have not made as clear commitments to
rural communities would receive access to of doing business, the same mode of eco- a green-tinged recovery. Upcoming de-
electricity for the first time. For another, nomic activity,” says Juliet Kabera, direc- cisions in both of those countries, which
air pollution would decline all over the tor general of the Rwanda Environment combined are responsible for nearly half
world. “If governments do not make use of Management Authority. of global emissions, are urgent.
this opportunity, they may miss a very im- International institutions are playing China is being pulled in two directions
portant tool for the economic recovery,” a critical role nudging these countries. as it develops a plan that will set the course
says Fatih Birol, head of the IEA. The IMF, which has said it “stands ready” of its development—and, by extension, its
But this moment is not just about to use its $1 trillion lending capacity to emissions—for the next half decade. In
opportunity; even maintaining the sta- stave off the effects of the coronavirus March, as China’s coronavirus epidemic
tus quo is dangerous. Research from the pandemic, has made climate resilience a began to subside, the nation’s powerful
UNEP released last year shows that if na- key criterion for its lending. This has al- Politburo Standing Committee, which is
tions stick with current plans to reduce ready paid dividends: some 50 nations, made up of senior leaders of the Commu-
emissions, global temperatures will rise including dozens of developing countries, nist Party, including President Xi Jinping,
more than 3°C by the end of this century. committed in late June to address climate endorsed a proposal to expedite $1.4 tril-
change in their coronavirus recovery plans. lion in spending on so-called “new infra-
For the past Five years, climate ad- “It’s a great catalyst to think about structure” that includes electric-vehicle
vocates had positioned 2020 as critical in charging stations and high-speed rail, as
the fight against climate change. Under well as 5G technology, which wouldn’t
the Paris Agreement, countries are re- cut emissions per se but would help ad-
quired to submit new plans to reduce ‘WE’VE RUN OUT OF vance the country’s tech sector rather
emissions in 2020, and climate diplomats than its heavy industry, stimulating eco-
had planned a series of meetings around nomic growth with lower emissions.
the world this year to build momen-
TIME TO BUILD NEW But the degree of commitment to those
tum, culminating with the U.N. climate green recovery measures remains unclear.
conference in Glasgow, in November. THINGS IN OLD WAYS.’ The Politburo Standing Committee’s push
The Glasgow event was postponed a —ROB JACKSON, professor at Stanford is unfunded, leaving provincial govern-
year, but the coronavirus pandemic has University and chair of the Global ments to follow through. So far, the evi-
created a new sort of momentum. Empty Carbon Project dence on the ground has not been encour-
40 Time July 20/July 27, 2020
 aging. Local Chinese governments have
approved new coal-fired power plants this
year at the fastest clip since 2015—a sure-
fire way to stimulate economic growth
and emissions. And the country is report- VI EW P OI NT
edly planning to ramp up production of
oil and natural gas. Demand has fallen, Take climate action
at the ballot box
but cheaper oil and gas typically stimu-
late the economy. Abroad, China contin-
ues to fund emissions-intensive projects
through its Belt and Road Initiative. In Af- By Stacey Abrams
rica, for instance, China is financing new
coal-fired power plants, even as many Halfway into the year, our nation daily lives. Only then can we build
international financial institutions have has reached a precipice: a criminal- alliances to overwhelm the system
walked away from the energy source. justice system infected by racism with our votes.
External pressure is likely to force the that continues to take Black lives, Climate change may be one of the
issue, and the E.U. is trying to offer just avoidable deaths that keep climbing greatest threats to our democracy,
as COVID-19 sprawls, the scourge of but the right to vote is our most
that. To push China and others along, the
voter suppression, and an economy powerful tool to defeat it. We can no
bloc is crafting a new tax on imports from
that has left millions of Americans longer simply appeal to the hearts
countries that aren’t reducing emissions. wondering how they will survive. and minds of our elected leaders.
Climate and trade are both currently Teetering on the edge in the midst Climate actors must work to strip
being discussed by officials behind the of this tumult, a familiar peril still the skeptics of their power. Change
scenes and were planned to be on the top looms—inaction on climate change comes when those in authority risk
of the agenda at a now postponed Septem- threatens the future. being swept away. It becomes perma-
ber summit between the E.U. and China. I understand the impulse nent when we elect climate warriors
“Europe is a very important market for to divert our attention toward up and down the ballot.
the Chinese,” says Laurence Tubiana, the seemingly more immediate If our vote did not count, the
CEO of the European Climate Foundation challenges. But extreme weather forces trying to take it away would
and a key architect of the Paris Agree- continues, natural disasters not be so desperate, throwing
ment. “China can be secured in its poten- are intensifying, polar ice is still up roadblocks through voter-roll
tial exports to Europe by understanding melting, sea levels are rising, and purges, racially discriminatory
that it can secure positive trade rela- the human cost remains stubbornly voter-identification laws and five-
tions by increasing its climate ambition.” high. The reckoning is felt by those to-six-hour lines to vote. We know
Still, when it comes to turning the cli- who struggle to breathe as carbon- the power voting has on national
mate ship around, there’s no substitute dioxide levels reach their highest efforts to tackle climate change.
point in 800,000 years and those Voting brought us to the table as
for the U.S., and the country has already
who cannot afford their utility bills President Obama signed on to
missed opportunities. For example, be-
given that 19 of the 20 warmest the Paris Agreement. Then not
fore doling out bailout money, France voting devastated our progress, as
years on record have occurred since
demanded that Air France stop operat- 2001. And as with the public-health President Trump—whose election
ing emissions-intensive short routes, and crisis, police brutality and economic was decided by fewer than 80,000
Austria forced Austrian Airlines to agree collapse, communities of color will votes across three states—
to cut its emissions 30% by 2030. Contrast suffer the disproportionate impacts abandoned the accord. In 2020, the
that with the U.S., where the government of climate change. choice is ours once again.
decreed that to receive federal dollars, air- Our obligation to confront this When we commit to stewardship
lines could not drop any of their destina- catastrophe has not changed; to of our resources on behalf of all
tions—even if that meant flying planes continue on our current trajectory communities, we carve out more
empty—and Congress rejected an attempt without aggressive action will doom time for future generations. Let us
from several Democratic Senators to at- millions. But what has changed be ruthless in our righteousness
tach green strings to the airline bailout. is the calculus the environmental and boundless in our boldness in
It’s hard to imagine anything substan- movement ought to make. The work the fight for climate justice. Because
tive so long as Trump is President. He to make advanced energy policy when we fight, we win.
I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y A L E X F I N E F O R T I M E

and his GOP allies in Congress have an a reality and to actuate climate-
effective stranglehold on any policy that mitigation efforts requires engaging Abrams, the former Georgia house
could push the U.S. to decarbonize, and a diverse array of voices. The most Democratic leader, is the author of
effective climate-action coalition will Our Time Is Now and the founder
thus far they have rejected big legislation
center discussions about how delay of Fair Fight and the Southern
to address climate change—portraying it
will affect their neighborhoods and Economic Advancement Project
as “socialist” and part of the Green New
Deal that the progressive wing of the
41
 CL I M AT E

Democratic Party proposed last year to “We’ve got to strike now. We can’t let The story of climate change has un-
the derision of Republicans. Instead, the this go,” Biden said at a League of Con- folded over decades, but its trajectory is
Trump Administration is reportedly pre- servation Voters virtual event on June 16. much the same. For years, we’ve watched
paring a $1 trillion infrastructure pack- “Not because of me but because of the op- as the evidence has grown. We’ve gaped as
age focused on roads and bridges. “If we portunity.” Importantly, Biden has prom- superstorms have battered the globe from
label it green, that would actually prob- ised to re-engage with the rest of the world Bangkok to Houston and unprecedented
ably decrease its chances of being in- on the issue, including by helping fund heat waves have popped up, killing a few
cluded,” said a Democratic congressio- climate measures in developing countries. thousand here and there. As I write this,
nal aide who works on energy and climate. China wouldn’t be eligible to receive such it’s 100°F in Siberia, and wildfires are rag-
So the future of U.S. emissions will funding, but the nation is keeping a close ing in an area infamous for its yearlong
likely fall to the winner in the fall. Joe eye on how U.S. climate policy is unfold- ice. “These are the warning signs” of cata-
Biden, the former Vice President and pre- ing. China has delayed several key deci- clysmic climate change, says Gail White-
sumptive Democratic presidential nomi- sions and signaled its intention to hold off man, a professor at Lancaster University
nee, is well aware of the role the pandemic making new climate commitments until who runs an Arctic research program.
recovery will play in shaping emissions. after the U.S. presidential election. Even If Wuhan and Milan offered a preview
Biden oversaw the last U.S. stimulus after three years of Trump’s tearing down of what the U.S. is now experiencing with
a decade ago in the midst of the Great the U.S.’s global reputation on climate, it COVID-19, where should the country
Recession. That package totaled nearly turns out the U.S. is still leading the world. look for a glimpse of a climate-changed
$800 billion, with $90 billion for clean- In what direction remains to be seen. world? Last year, I traveled to Fiji and
energy measures, and helped launch many found that for many of those living on the
of America’s green advances, including To many who sTudy climaTe, the small Pacific Islands, on the front lines of
funding Tesla’s transformation from a pandemic looks eerily familiar. At first, brutal storms and sea-level rise, climate
boutique car company to the world’s most the new virus seemed distant and incon- change is already the defining issue. If a
valuable auto manufacturer; funding a sequential to most people, so long as you storm destroys a school, students can’t
program that doubled the fuel efficiency weren’t in the eye of the storm. The rest of learn. If the sugarcane crops are flooded,
of Daimler Trucks’ Freightliner model; the world watched in amazement as China farmers lose their jobs. If sea levels rise
and supporting the weatherization of shut down Wuhan. Horror stories of pa- too much, entire communities disappear.
more than a million homes to reduce resi- tients dying in hallways in Milan shocked Climate concerns are at the center of
dential energy consumption. That pack- the U.S., but not enough to make the na- their economies and the center of their
age created 900,000 jobs and turned a tion prepare. In late February, at the last development plans.
profit for the government, even as it suf- Democratic primary debate before voting “This can’t be the purview of even
fered high-profile failures like the collapse in the critical state of South Carolina, mod- 25,000 or 40,000 or even 100,000 peo-
of the Solyndra solar-panel company. erators didn’t ask about the issue until one ple,” says Christiana Figueres, who led
Last year, Biden released a proposed hour and 15 minutes into the discussion, the U.N. climate-change body during the
Green New Deal, calling for $1.7 trillion in and spent less than five minutes on it. Paris climate talks. “This has got to per-
spending over 10 years on everything from Researchers estimate that by the meate through every single corner, every
electric vehicles to reducing pollution in time the U.S. collectively woke up to the single channel, every single flow of eco-
low-income communities—all in service stakes of the pandemic on March 11— nomic development and modernization.
of the U.S.’s achieving net-zero emissions the day Tom Hanks said he tested pos- It’s got to become the new norm.”
by the middle of the century. Since the itive, the NBA canceled its season and That will come one way or another.
coronavirus pandemic began, Biden has Trump banned travelers from Europe— Every country will be combatting cli-
doubled down: he’s touted his Green New thousands of people had already been in- mate change for the foreseeable future;
Deal and has appointed a committee that fected in the country. In the few months the change in climate we’re experiencing
includes both longtime Washington cli- since, more than half a million people today is in large part the result of emis-
mate advocates like former Secretary of have died worldwide, including some sions that happened more than a decade
State John Kerry and emerging leaders of 100,000 in the U.S., and there’s no sign ago. However, we do have a choice of how
the Democratic progressive wing like cur- we’ll be rid of the virus anytime soon. bad it will get. If we invest in preserving
rent New York Congresswoman Alexan- nature and transitioning our energy sys-
dria Ocasio-Cortez to craft new climate tem today, we will stave off the worst, giv-
policy. Top congressional Democrats, sig- ing us the ability to manage the hurricanes
naling support for a big climate package, ‘WE’VE GOT TO and floods as they come. If we wait, we’ll
unveiled a 500-page legislative road map be stuck flat-footed when the worst ar-
on June 30 that includes tax incentives STRIKE NOW. WE rives, watching in dismay as the temper-
and infrastructure spending to eliminate ature curve ticks up and up.
the country’s carbon footprint by 2050. It The choice is ours. We just don’t have
won’t become law this year, but it sends
CAN’T LET THIS GO.’ much time to decide. —With reporting
a signal that the issue will be on the leg- —JOE BIDEN, presumptive U.S. by LesLie Dickstein, ALejAnDro De
islative agenda if Biden wins in the fall. Democratic presidential candidate LA GArzA and josh rosenberG □
43
 CL I M AT E

NAT ION

The four-year plan for America

By Jeffrey Kluger

DonalD Trump has

smashed a lot of environ­
mental china in four years.
To name a few instances:
he pulled out of the 2015
Paris Agreement (a move
that becomes official on
July 6, 2021); loosened
automotive­mileage and
power­plant­emission stan­
dards; and sought to elimi­
nate the protected status of
the sage grouse, opening up
9 million acres to oil and gas
extraction.
Reasonable minds may
differ on the wisdom of any
one of those moves, but no
one can deny the unprec­
edented sweep of Trump’s
policies. Data from Harvard
Law School’s Environmen­
tal and Energy Law Program
and Columbia University’s in. One way to improve its ^ a green agenda. On June 30,
Sabin Center for Climate chances would be for the U.S. Climate protesters at a the House Select Commit­
Change Law show that the to present an even more am­ Biden campaign event in tee on the Climate Crisis did
President has signed more bitious greenhouse­gas re­ 2019 raised pressure on unveil an ambitious plan
than 100 administrative duction target than it had be­ the presumptive nominee for the U.S. to achieve net­
rules, Executive Orders and fore, says Joseph Goffman, zero carbon emissions by
acts of deregulation, 66 of the Harvard program’s ex­ Orders. Biden could simply 2050—something Biden
which have gone into effect. ecutive director. That origi­ reverse the Trump reversals could embrace, though its
If presumptive Demo­ nal target for the U.S. was by issuing his own day­one chances would likely de­
cratic presidential nominee a cut of 26% to 28% below Executive Orders. But any pend on the Democrats’
Joe Biden defeats Trump in 2005­level carbon emissions regulatory change requires holding the House and flip­
November, what could he do by 2025. If Biden agreed to public comment and review, ping the Senate as well.
in his own four years to undo more, he might win the U.S. as well as a rationale that can Biden could also, Freeman
the work of the Trump era? the favor of the other 196 sig­ withstand legal challenges. says, attach climate poli­
“The biggest, flashiest thing natories to the pact, but then Those day­one moves might cies to coronavirus­related
would be for Biden to stand he would have to deliver; thus not yield results for a economic­recovery bills that
up on day one and say the that’s where the work on the year or three. are likely to pass.
U.S. is recommitting itself to domestic side would begin. What would come next The environment has
Paris,” says Jody Freeman, would go beyond the mere never been Biden’s animat­
director of the Harvard pro­ AmericA’s lArgely dys­ reparative. Nobody expects ing passion. He markets
gram. “We should make clear functional Congress is usu­ a Green New Deal out of a himself instead as more of a
we’re going to take back the ally a bad thing. In the case of hypothetical Biden Admin­ Mr. Fix­It, a President who
SCOT T EISEN — GE T T Y IMAGES

reins we’ve relinquished.” recent environmental policy, istration. Freeman believes will set right what he sees as
It wouldn’t necessarily be however, it could be a plus, Biden will look to environ­ the serial messes of the past
easy. The U.S. would not sim­ because Trump’s environ­ mental laws now on the four years and then try to
ply be permitted to rejoin the mental moves are not fixed in books like the Clean Air move beyond them. The en­
agreement but would have legislative cement but written Act of 1970 and apply them vironment will be one of his
to negotiate its way back in the softer sand of Executive more strictly to advance biggest cleanup jobs of all. □
 CL IMAT E

TURN
THE
TIDE
This was meant to be
the year the world agreed
on a plan to save the
oceans. It still can
B Y A RY N B A K E R /

S N OW I S L A N D, AN TA RC TICA

For Mick Baron, the giant kelp

forests of Tasmania were a playground,
a school and a church. The former ma-
rine biologist runs a scuba-diving center
on the Australian island’s east coast, and
rhapsodizes about the wonders of the sea-
weed’s dense habitats. “Diving in kelp is
one of the most amazing underwater ex-
periences you can have,” the 65-year-old
says, likening it to flying through the
canopy of a terrestrial rain forest. “You
won’t find a single empty patch in a kelp
forest ... From the sponge gardens on the
seafloor all the way up to the leaves on the
surface, it’s packed with life.”
Or rather, it was. In late 2015, a marine
heat wave hit eastern Australia, wiping
out a third of the Great Barrier Reef, and
the kelp forests Baron had been explor-
ing for most of his life. “We were diving
in a nice thick forest in December,” says
Baron. “By end of March, it looked like an
PHOTOGR APHS BY CHRIS LEIDY
Despite the ocean
floor’s proximity and
its essential role in
human survival, we have
MA PPE D L ES S O F
IT S TO P O GR AP HY
than the surface of Mars

99%

19%
Mars Earth
ocean
floor
 CL IMAT E

asphalt driveway.” Recurring heat waves

have prevented kelp and coral from recov-
ering; marine temperatures on Australia’s
east coast are on average 2°C higher than
a century ago, an increase scientists attri-
bute to rising greenhouse-gas emissions.
“The ocean is deceptively fragile,” says
Baron. “Two degrees doesn’t sound like
much, but not many species can handle
that kind of temperature change.”
Baron, a gregarious, bearded and pe-
rennially sunburned Australian, intro-
duced generations of divers to Tasmania’s
kelp cathedrals. His own grandchildren,
he says, will have to learn about them
from his YouTube videos. Nearly 95% of
eastern Tasmania’s kelp forests are gone,
a preview of what is to come for the ocean
as a whole. “Tasmania’s kelp forests are
the poster child for what climate change
means for our oceans,” he says. “What
is happening here is what will happen
everywhere else in a decade or two.”

Human beings owe their life to the sea.

Four in 10 humans rely on the ocean for
food. Marine life produces 70% of our ox-
ygen; 90% of global goods travel via ship-
ping lanes. We turn to the sea for solace—
ocean-based tourism in the U.S. alone is
worth $124 billion a year—and medi-
cal advancement. An enzyme used for
COVID-19 testing was originally sourced
from bacteria found in the ocean’s hydro-
thermal vents. The ocean also acts as a
giant planetary air conditioner. Over the
past century, the ocean has absorbed 93%
of the heat trapped in the atmosphere by
greenhouse-gas emissions. “If all that
heat hadn’t been taken up by the ocean,
we’d all be living in Death Valley condi-
tions by now,” says marine-conservation
biologist Callum Roberts at the U.K.’s Uni-
versity of York.
But we humans have also been squeez-
ing life out of the sea. Increased CO₂ levels
in the atmosphere have made the ocean
more acidic, threatening food chains.
Warming waters are not only killing sea ^ on Climate Change warned that without
life, they are also changing currents and Vibrant coral off the coast of “profound economic and institutional
affecting global weather patterns. Mean- Papua New Guinea, which is transformations,” there would be irre-
while we dump 8 million tons of waste noted for its extraordinary versible damage to oceans and sea ice.
into the ocean a year, in addition to agri- biodiversity of coral reefs This was supposed to be the year those
cultural and industrial runoff that poisons transformations began. A series of inter-
coastal areas. At the rate we are harvest- national policy meetings in 2020 was
ing fish, by 2050 there will likely be more meant to set global targets for managing
plastic than fish in the oceans. A 2019 re- fish populations, restoring biodiversity
port by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel and controlling pollution. As it did with so
48 Time July 20/July 27, 2020
 much this year, the coronavirus pandemic
put those talks on hold. Nonetheless, en-
vironmentalists, scientists, policymakers
and ocean advocates are working desper-
ately to keep the momentum going, aware
that this might be the last, best chance VI E WP O IN T
they have to reverse the tide. “What’s
the phrase? Never let a good crisis go to We need to trust
waste? As we restart the economy, this is
the chance to reset our goals for a healthy the locals
ocean,” says Carlos M. Duarte, a Spanish
marine biologist at the King Abdullah By Mark Ruffalo and Rahwa Ghirmatzion
University of Science and Technology
in Saudi Arabia. “We have a very narrow As the COVID-19 pandemic and supporting affordable housing were
window of opportunity where we can ac- police-brutality protests heat up leveraged for rent relief. These
tually still be effective. Twenty years from metaphorically, we can’t forget that solutions were deployed within days
now, it will be too late.” the earth is still heating up literally. of the crisis’s hitting—and weeks
Duarte and Roberts have co-written Because of systemic racism, these before Congress passed its first
a sweeping new study published in the crises are hitting communities of stimulus bill.
journal Nature that offers a blueprint for color especially hard. At the same Black kids in the U.S. are
time, these very communities are four times as likely as white kids
how the ocean might be restored within
developing concrete, homegrown to die from asthma, according
a generation. The proposed measures
solutions. Too often, the money to the EPA, and as the climate
would cost billions of dollars a year, but and decisionmaking power needed warms, dangerous air pollution will
the return on investment would be 10 to address a crisis rest in faraway worsen, increasing vulnerability to
times as high in increased biodiversity, offices that deploy far-flung diseases from asthma to COVID-19.
fish stocks, jobs and tourism revenue, consultants and contractors to Similarly, extreme weather events—
says Roberts. “We have seen over and affected areas. It’s no surprise which disproportionately ravage
over again that given a chance, ocean life that these responses without communities of color—are projected
can come back. We just have to be willing community leadership tend to make to become more common—further
to give it time to heal.” matters worse. When communities exacerbating economic inequality.
A revitalized ocean would not only have resources to build on local PUSH is far from the only U.S.
feed a growing population but could strengths and buy-in, they come up community group figuring out solu-
also strengthen our fight against climate with effective, durable and creative tions to the twin problems of climate
change. Coastal habitats such as man- solutions to address short-term change and racial inequality. On the
groves and salt marshes are extraordi- crises and long-term inequities. Pine Ridge reservation, the Oglala
nary carbon sinks, sequestering as much For example: in 2018, when Lakota’s Thunder Valley Community
CO₂ per acre as 16 acres of pristine Ama- developers wanted to turn Development Corporation is building
zonian rain forest. New developments in abandoned School 77 in Buffalo, solar-powered affordable housing, as
N.Y., into luxury condos, members well as distributing food and cleaning
offshore wind-farm technology can pro-
of the local community organization supplies to elders during the pan-
vide an inexhaustible supply of green en-
PUSH Buffalo gathered support demic. In Atlanta, the Partnership
ergy, while mineral deposits on the sea- from governments, nonprofits and for Southern Equity has responded
floor, if mined sustainably, offer the raw businesses, and led a $14.8 million to COVID-19 by launching a Rapid
ingredients for the batteries to store it. renovation that turned the former Response Relief Fund. These
“It’s time to stop thinking of the ocean as public school into 30 affordable examples show how, by working to fix
a victim of climate change and start think- apartments for seniors, a theater long-term problems and mobilizing
ing of it as a powerful part of the solu- company, meeting spaces for quickly in times of crisis, local groups
tion,” says Jane Lubchenco, a marine ecol- community groups, and a gym— are tenaciously untangling the knot
ogist who served as head of the National all powered by New York’s first of inequity and injustice. We must
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration community-owned solar array learn from communities of color
(NOAA) under President Barack Obama. designed specifically to serve low- across the nation as we all work to
When the coronavirus pandemic income households. create the future we want.
I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y A L E X F I N E F O R T I M E

forced the global economy into a state When COVID-19 hit, PUSH was
of suspended animation, carbon emis- ready. Street teams already in place Ruffalo is an actor and a co-founder of
sions slowed, shipping idled, and fish- for educating neighbors about free the Solutions Project, which supports
eries closed. The ocean was allowed a energy-efficiency upgrades were climate-justice organizations;
moment to breathe. The pause was short- redirected to deliver groceries and Ghirmatzion is executive director of
lived, of course, and the economic cost medical supplies. Existing grants PUSH Buffalo
potentially catastrophic. But, like the
49
 About half the
world’s shallow
coral reefs, like the
one below in Papua
New Guinea, have
already vanished

50 Time July 20/July 27, 2020

once unimaginable sight of blue skies over
industrial areas, it offered a reminder that
change is within our grasp. “The corona-
virus crisis has shown us when there is a
threat to the global population, there is
a willingness to act collectively to limit
that threat,” says Roberts. The tough les-
sons of COVID-19 may yet translate into
a stronger understanding of the inter-
connectedness of our personal and plan-
etary health—and a demand for action.

The sTakes for ocean healTh have

never been higher. The dying kelp and dis-
appearing coral reefs should be sounding
an urgent alarm, says Christopher Trisos,
a senior researcher at the African Climate
and Development Initiative at the Uni-
versity of Cape Town who focuses on the
intersection of climate change, biodiver-
sity and human well-being. “Biodiversity
loss from climate change looks like a
trickle right now, but it could become a
flood very quickly,” he says. Even greater
“catastrophic multispecies die-offs” could
begin within the decade, Trisos predicts,
starting with tropical oceans and spread-
ing to tropical forests and temperate eco-
systems by the 2050s.
Coastal nations would be first and
hardest hit, with devastating conse-
quences for the billions of people who de-
pend on these ecosystems for their live-
lihoods and nutrition. “We fish on coral
reefs. We depend on ecotourism. We rely
on healthy [kelp] forests for carbon stor-
age and water filtration,” Trisos says. “If
there is a sudden collapse of these eco-
systems in a single decade, we could lose
these services. Income is at risk. Food se-
curity is at risk.”
But there are ways of preserving the
ecosystems many nations depend upon.
Spanish-American marine ecologist and
conservationist Enric Sala has spent the
past 12 years surveying and document-
ing the ocean’s last wilderness areas as
a National Geographic explorer in resi-
dence. Through his Pristine Seas project,
he has rallied governments to set aside
5.7 million sq km of coastline and ocean
as marine parks where fishing, dump-
ing, mining and other destructive indus-
tries are prohibited. The results, he says,
have been astonishing. Even over a short
time frame, he has watched depleted fish
populations grow sixfold, kelp flourish
and coral reefs bloom. Given the chance,
51
 CL IMAT E

he says, the ocean has an extraordinary

ability to regenerate. “I have seen mira-
cles on the water. The ocean is sending us
a very clear message: if you just give me
some space, look what I can do.”
So far, says Sala, only 2.5% of the ocean
enjoys the full protection it needs to do
so. He has backed a global call to set aside
a third of the ocean in similarly protected
areas by 2030. These marine protected
areas aren’t just about turning back the
clock. They are a bulwark against future
stresses, a kind of immunity booster for
the sea that enables it to deal with threats
like acidification and plastic pollution.
“Not only is it necessary from a perspec-
tive of trying to undo some of the harm
that we have done to the ocean over time,”
says Roberts, “but it’s absolutely vital that
we give it the resilience it needs to cope
with what’s coming down the pike.”
Not many fishermen, or fishing na-
tions for that matter, are likely to em-
brace the idea of fencing off a third of
the world’s oceans. But the industry is on
the brink of fishing itself out of business.
The U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organi-
zation, which monitors the state of global
fish stocks, rates 33% of species as over-
fished, and an additional 60% as fished to
their full potential. Yet the FAO also esti-
mates that a growing global human popu-
lation, slated to hit 10 billion by 2050, will
require 70% more food than the planet
can currently provide. The ocean can help
make up the shortfall, if fish stocks are
managed better now, says Lubchenco,
the former head of NOAA, who is now
a professor of marine biology at Oregon
State University. Counterintuitively, that
means the more fish in protected areas,
the better off we will be in the long run.
For those who fish, says Sala, marine
protected areas act a little like a savings ^ consensus that this requires an urgent
account where fish can be set aside to A redfish navigates through and a globally coordinated response in
grow and reproduce like compound inter- a colony of sea pen near Raja improved ocean management,” says Runa
est. “The larger your principal, the larger Ampat, Indonesia Haug Khoury, director for sustainability
the returns. The more fish in the reserve, at Norway’s Aker BioMarine, the largest
the greater the reproductive output. And krill-fishing company in the world. “For
the only way to get the large principal responsible fishery players, marine pro-
is to have fully protected areas.” When tected areas are not an enemy, they are a
that bounty spills out of the sanctuaries, helping hand.”
which it often does, the fish are fair game
for industry. It’s like living on interest. EffEctivEly roping off one-third
The fishing industry, at least in some of the world’s oceans will require an
areas, is starting to come around. “Given unprecedented level of global coopera-
the speed at which marine species and tion. Many countries, including the U.S.
habitats are declining, there’s a growing and the U.K., have committed to expand-
52 Time July 20/July 27, 2020
 you need only look south to the seas sur­
rounding Antarctica, home to some of the
most rare, vulnerable and critical eco­
systems in the world. Cold­water currents
spiraling away from the continent push
the region’s nutrient­rich waters across
the planet, pumping life into coastal fish­
eries even north of the equator.
Rising temperatures threaten this pre­
carious environment. In January, a team
of scientists with New York’s Stony Brook
University conducted a census of chin­
strap penguins on the rocky islands and
rugged shores of the Antarctic peninsula,
braving pounding surf, howling winds
and piles of knee­deep guano to count
nesting birds by hand. These birds feed
exclusively on krill, the tiny shrimplike
creatures that form the backbone of the
entire ocean food chain, and their condi­
tion gives a picture of the overall health
of the region. They are the canaries in the
Southern Ocean’s coal mine, and they are
starting to disappear.
The researchers found that most colo­
nies they surveyed had declined over the
past 50 years, some by half and others up
to 77%. “This big of a drop means that
there is something broken in the South­
ern Ocean,” said ornithologist Noah
Strycker, as he paused to watch a pair of
fluffy gray chicks waddle through his sur­
vey site on Snow Island. “Climate change
is potentially driving shifts in krill popu­
lations, and then that’s rippling its way up
the food web and affecting the penguins.”
The continent of Antarctica is pro­
tected from exploitation by international
agreement, but the waters around it are
not. The Commission for the Conserva­
tion of Antarctic Marine Living Resources
(CCAMLR), a body made up of 25 coun­
tries and the European Union, commit­
ing protections in their own territorial ^ ted in 2009 to establish a network of nine
waters. But these pledges, even while A sea turtle surveys the large­scale marine protected areas around
being one of the biggest conservation ef­ reefs surrounding the Gili the continent. The one in the Ross Sea,
forts in history, cover a combined total of Islands in Indonesia twice the area of Texas, is the largest such
less than 10% of ocean areas. The higher region in the world.
goal can be reached only by establishing Yet a decade later, only this and one
protected areas in the high seas, which other have been implemented. Three
are open to all nations and will require a others, proposed by the E.U., Argentina,
broad consensus. Negotiations to forge a Chile and Australia, have been blocked
U.N. treaty for the oceans had been sched­ by Russia and China, which are intent
uled for March 2020 but were postponed on expanding their regional fishing
because of the coronavirus. operations. “China doesn’t want restric­
Protecting areas of the high seas, tion on access to resources anywhere,”
which account for 60% of the oceans, says Rodolfo Werner, an Argentine con­
won’t be an easy undertaking. For proof, servationist who has served as an adviser
53
 CL IM AT E

to CCAMLR’s scientific committee for the using solutions to make a point, having Ocean, for example, could yield massive
past 17 years. “Setting up a [marine pro- recently co-authored a study that calls increases in cobalt, nickel, copper and
tected area] in Antarctica sets a precedent itself a to-do list for reducing emissions other materials essential to meet the de-
that could be replicated elsewhere on the currently produced through human use mand for clean-energy technologies and
high seas, and [China sees] that as a threat of the ocean. The shipping industry can batteries. The U.N.’s International Sea-
to [its] sovereignty.” be decarbonized through the use of hy- bed Authority is expected this year to
The coronavirus pandemic has only brid battery technology. If offshore wind codify environmental-protection codes
elevated geopolitical tensions, especially power could be harnessed from floating before allocating permits for the extrac-
between the U.S. and China. But environ- platforms in the deep sea as well as from tion of so-called polymetallic nodules.
mental activists point to the fact that the fixed turbines in shallow water, as new But environmentalists and marine biol-
Antarctic Treaty of 1959, which defines prototypes promise, the industry could ogists are calling for a moratorium on per-
and protects the continent as a “natural supply the equivalent of 11 times today’s mits until more research has been done
reserve, devoted to peace and science,” global demand for electricity, according on these deposits and their role in the
was signed by 12 countries including the to the International Energy Agency. Wet- ecosystem. The mining industry is ask-
U.S. and the Soviet Union at the height of lands, mangroves and seagrass meadows ing them to look at the bigger picture.
the Cold War. are important carbon sinks, she says, and “There is a single deposit on the seafloor
Roberts, whose paper for Nature calls should be protected and restored. that can provide the minerals we need for
for 30% of the world’s oceans to be set Most vital would be changing the a clean-energy transition, which will slow
aside to recover from overfishing and ex- human diet. If sustainable aquaculture ocean acidification—the biggest negative
ploitation, believes that the pandemic and mariculture methods (farming sea- contribution to ocean health,” says Kris
might yet clarify minds. “If there’s a les- weed for consumption by both humans Van Nijen, managing director of Belgium-
son from the coronavirus crisis, it’s that and livestock) were implemented, the based Global Sea Mineral Resources, one
global problems need global solutions,” ocean could supply six times more food of the companies vying for a permit. “Yes,
he says. “Hopefully the outliers will be than it does today, Lubchenco says, repre- it is an extractive industry, and yes, it is
more open to that message in the com- senting two-thirds of the animal protein going to come with some impacts, but so-
ing years, moving toward greater interna- that the FAO estimates will be needed to lutions to combat climate change will not
tional cooperation and agreement when feed the global population in 2050. “Be- fall from the sky. It’s all about trade-offs.”
it comes to the things that are vital to our cause cattle in particular are so carbon in- The trade-offs work in both directions.
existence here on earth.” tensive [the beef industry accounts for 6% If the ocean is to also become humani-
of global emissions], switching from meat ty’s partner in combatting the twin chal-
An internAtionAl Agreement to to sustainably farmed fish would make a lenges of climate change and a growing
protect the oceans would be a huge step— significant impact.” population, the era of limitless exploita-
but it is only one tool, and an expensive Added all together, the paper’s authors tion must come to an end—and soon. The
one. No amount of protection can block conclude, the ocean could provide as ocean does not live on a human timescale.
pollution or plastic debris, or reduce tem- much as one-fifth of the carbon-emission Actions taken now will take decades to
peratures. Establishing marine protected reductions needed to limit global warm- bear fruit, yet if nothing is done, the re-
areas is like taking an aspirin for brain ing to 1.5°C by the end of the century. percussions will be swift. This year, the
cancer, says Camilo Mora, a reef-ecology “That’s just a very specific example of pandemic forced a pause in the negotia-
scientist at the University of Hawaii at how the ocean has been out of sight, out tions that were to decide the ocean’s fate.
Manoa. “You think it’s working because of mind, and whoa, here, look, there is It also offers an opportunity to consider
the headache goes away, but the tumor is huge potential we hadn’t been paying what the ocean means to us.
still growing. Unless we cut greenhouse- attention to,” Lubchenco says. For far too long we have viewed the
gas emissions, the threat remains.” But the balance between sustainable ocean, with its incomprehensible vast-
The key to reducing emissions may use and conservation of the oceans is del- ness, as a source of infinite bounty and
also lie within the oceans, according to icate, and sometimes fraught with com- too big to fail. Then, when the ocean—
Lubchenco, who has been studying the plications. Deep-sea mining in the Pacific robbed of its fish, sickened by plastic and
impact of global warming on ocean ecol- poisoned by pollution—started to de-
ogy for decades. In 2009, she memora- cline, the problem seemed too big to fix.
bly demonstrated to the U.S. Congress DYING KELP AND But ours is an ocean planet, and without it
the dangers of increasing ocean acidifi- we won’t survive. The truth may be dawn-
cation by submerging chalk, represent- DISAPPEARING ing that the ocean, as Lubchenco puts it,
ing the calcium carbonate component “is too big to ignore.” —With reporting by
of most sea creatures’ shells, into solu- CORAL REEFS SHOULD madeline roache/london
tions of water, water mixed with vinegar,
and pure vinegar. In plain water, noth- The accompanying photographs by
ing happened. In the half-and-half solu-
BE SOUNDING AN Chris Leidy appear in the recently
tion it started to break down. In vinegar, published book The Coral Triangle
it dissolved within minutes. She is still URGENT ALARM (Assouline)
54 Time July 20/July 27, 2020
Marine protected areas
offer shelter to animals
like this humpback
whale near the eastern
Solomon Islands
 CL IMAT E

Q+A Climate activism is not easy in many

Angelina Jolie
places, but you’re in a place where
you could be arrested. You are really
very courageous to do what you do. It

interviews Vanessa is not easy to go out there, especially in

the beginning when I was doing these

Nakate about activism

strikes by myself. My family didn’t really
understand what I was doing. Most of
my friends found it very, very weird.

and the power of But later on, many of them started

understanding why I was doing this. And

African voices
some of them decided to get involved.

You’re not only speaking out and

raising awareness, but you’re also
looking for practical solutions,
ConCerned abouT her CounTry’s [working] with young people [and]
rising temperatures, Ugandan climate schools. I decided to start a project that
activist Vanessa Nakate, 23, spent involves the installation of solar energy
months protesting alone outside the and institutional stoves in schools. We
gates of Parliament in Kampala. Her need a transition to renewable energy,
About 17% of the
Rise Up Movement seeks to amplify and many of these schools are in the
world’s population lives
in AF R I CA N N ATIO N S ,
voices from Africa. rural communities, and they can’t
yet they are responsible
afford the solar panels or stoves and
for only 3% of the The work you’re doing is really teach- all the costs that are involved in the
world’s total carbon ing all of us because, as you know installation. They helped to reduce the
dioxide emissions more than anyone, the conversation amount of firewood that these schools
about the climate crisis has been use in a term. For example, if a school is
17% very limited to a few voices. How did to use five trucks of firewood, they use
Population you get involved? Before my gradua- two trucks of firewood with the stove,
3% tion, I started carrying out research to hence reducing the amount of firewood
Emissions understand the challenges that people used. And it’s also a learning experience
[in my community] were facing, and I for the students, teachers and parents.
was really surprised to find that climate
change was actually the biggest threat I know you’re passionate about the
facing humanity right now. I realized effects of [climate change] on girls.
every part of my country, Uganda, is af- And with so many girls out of school
fected by the climate crisis: when you [because of the pandemic], things
go to the north, the people are suffering are, sadly, very dangerous. I have seen
with long dry spells; when you go to the it especially in this period of time that
eastern part of the country, they’re suf- more girls got pregnant during this
fering with landslides and floods. I de- lockdown. And it is really heartbreaking
cided that I had to become a voice in the to see how vulnerable the girl child is.
climate movement and try to get justice. It’s very, very, very disturbing. Women
are the ones who put food on the table.
Often you hear people are going They provide all these things for their
hungry because of conflict or bad families. And yet in a disaster, they
governments. But it’s often linked, suffer the most. In my country, they
as you point out, to climate. Some of never allowed girls to climb trees,
the conflicts arise from shortages in mainly because it would take their
resources. For example, Lake Chad, in dignity and values, as we were told. But
Africa, has shrunk to a tenth of its size then during a flood, the fastest way to
in just 50 years. The population keeps survive, if you cannot swim, or if you
growing. So there is definitely going to cannot escape, is by climbing a tree
be a struggle for resources. And this will until help comes. And that makes me
disrupt the peace in the area. When you realize that women are really affected
look at the root of all of this, sometimes it the most in the climate crisis. We
starts [with] climate change. could not get climate justice without
56 Time July 20/July 27, 2020
 addressing the challenges that women ^ country. It’s actually a continent with
are facing in their daily lives. In January, the AP cropped Nakate 54 countries. I remember the history
out of a photo of young climate that we learnt about [in school], and it
I’m living in the U.S., and there’s activists; below, in Davos talked so much of slavery and all that. I
a lot happening with Black Lives think that that is a narrative that needs
Matter. Would [you] speak about to change. We don’t need to learn about
the inequality that you see when it all that cruelty that our people went
comes to the way these global issues through, because to me it completely
are handled? This inequality, of course, lowers your value as a person. I think
starts from the kind of system that African children or any other children
we are in. It is the system that needs should be told about the power that lies
to be completely shattered. Because within Africa. The African continent
if we continue in this kind of system, is not just about the history of slavery.
we are continuously going to see It’s about the young people who grew
inequalities, and we are going to see up and became doctors, who became
the most affected people continuously professionals in their own careers. The
N A K AT E : I S A A C K A S A M A N I — A F P/G E T T Y I M A G E S ; D AV O S : M A R K U S S C H R E I B E R — A P

being traumatized, continuously being other thing they need to know: that
destroyed and being left with nothing. going to happen unless you put an when an African voice speaks, then it’s
In regards to Black Lives Matter, when end to a system that promotes white really an important matter, because
I found out about that, it was very, very saviorism. If we don’t address the issue for a very long time, we have [had so]
heartbreaking and very disturbing to of racial justice, we won’t be able to get few voices coming out of the African
think that there are actually people out climate justice. So every climate activist continent that are amplified. But [so
there who are suffering terrible, terrible should be advocating for racial justice many others] never get a chance for
actions of racism. It is something that because if your climate justice does not their stories to be heard. I personally
I experienced to some extent, but it involve the most affected communities, believe that every person who demands
wasn’t as deep as what is happening then it is not justice at all. justice or advocates for change in their
in the States. I remember in January I community, they have a story to tell. And
happened to be cropped out of a photo Are there ways we need to change our I believe that their story has a solution to
with other climate activists, and to me education systems or ways we can give. People need to understand that the
that was a form of racism, and it felt like further educate people about Africa? African people have solutions that will
I had been robbed of my space. And I I think what people really need to first change the world. —This interview has
wasn’t the first. This is continuously understand is that Africa is not just a been condensed and edited for clarity □
57
 CL IMAT E

HOW WE
GREAT COVID-19

-7%
RECESSION

GOT HERE
Carbon emissions have plummeted during
-1%
2008–09
2019–20
The pandemic
the pandemic because of drops in traffic, The financial might cause
power usage and industrial production. crisis resulted 35 emissions to
in huge CO2 BT drop to levels
Historically, however, brief dips have had CO2
drops among last seen a
little lasting effect on climate change developed decade ago;
countries, still, those
Where fossil-fuel CO2 offset by levels are
comes from USSR an increase 11 times
COLLAPSE from China higher than

-3%
Industry Electricity, in 1900
23.8% heat and
energy
30

41.4% 1991–92
Fossil-fuel
production
Transport collapsed in
24.5% the Soviet
Union
Other following its 25 WHAT WE
10.3% NEED TO DO
dissolution
in 1991
-50%
2020–30
POST–WW II To keep global

-17%
temperatures
20 from rising
1.5°C above
1943–45 preindustrial
Wartime levels, the
GREAT spending dried world must
DEPRESSION up as nations cut emissions

-26%
pivoted to in half by
1918 FLU peacetime OIL CRISIS 2030; to do

-15%
1917–19
1929–32
In the three
economics;
factories
making bombs
-4%
1979–82
15
so, countries
must move
to cleaner
years following shifted to cars energy or else
The influenza the stock- and toasters The second oil emissions
pandemic market crash, crisis in five will spike
hit certain industrial years triggered again when
sectors, like production in a global price life returns to
transportation the U.S. fell shock; the normal after
and coal by half U.S. was also 10 the coronavirus
mining, in the midst of
particularly a recession
hard

Billion metric 5
U.S. SHARE
tons of CO2 Emissions are
SOURCES: GLOBAL
CARBON PROJECT;
per year ICOS; CICERO
trending down, CENTER FOR

but not enough INTERNATIONAL

CLIMATE RESEARCH;

Global to reach IEA; WMO; U.K. MET

OFFICE
international NOTE: INDICATED

U.S. climate goals DROPS ARE PEAK

YEAR TO TROUGH
YEAR
0 TIME GRAPHIC BY
EMILY BARONE AND
1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 2030 LON TWEETEN

+0.1°C TEMPERATURE CHANGE

COMPARED WITH +0.3°C +0.5°C +1.1°C
1850–1900 AVERAGE
 VI EW PO I NT

The climate fight cannot be partisan

By Sebastian Kurz
The COVID-19 crisis has and paternalism have able future. Instead, the a low-carbon economy, is an
been a reminder to all of failed always. No matter key will be changing how we ambitious first step worth
us that when it comes where they came from do things going forward— building on.
to getting things done, ideologically, they caused sourcing from renewable In Austria, my party’s
pragmatism trumps social injustice, economic energy, building with coalition government
ideology. Yet the public misery and much worse. biodegradable materials, with the Green Party
debate around climate They will not suddenly help powering our travels with has recently passed an
change is often polarizing us now. synthetic fuels, reducing investment package
and oversimplified. We CO2 levels through carbon of more than €6 billion
are frequently told that IF WE WANT to effectively capture and other promis- ($6.8 billion), of which
we face a choice between fight climate change and ing technologies. a significant proportion
saving the economy and at the same time stay The key to all of this will goes into renewable
the environment. This on the path of economic be innovation. And there is energy, railway expansion,
is false. We can tackle progress, we should build no better breeding ground forestation and incentives
climate change, transform on the best model human for innovation than a free for green investments.
our economies and at the history has seen: liberal and open system that We have committed to
same time be better off democracy, based on a enables entrepreneurs, carbon neutrality by 2040.
than before—in Austria, free-market economy and employees, scientists, and Many other governments
in Europe and all over the rule of law. As with any civil society to generate have made similar plans
the world. The required societal model, we need new ideas and reap their and pledges.
response, however, must to continuously improve it. benefits. Governments We must not let the
come from the political Most of us would probably need to ensure this fight against climate
center and not the fringes. agree that economic system is embedded in a change become a partisan
If we are to use this growth is always a means regulatory environment issue. The stakes are
moment as an opportunity to an end, never an end that incentivizes the rapid simply too high. In the
to rebuild and perhaps in itself. The end really is reduction in CO2 emissions end, success will build on
rethink our societies, our well-being—prosperity, and other harmful effects of contributions from each
political leaders must health and quality of life. consumption. and every one of us—as
together develop a narrative So, naturally, we must not Europe can and should countries, communities
for a green transformation let our drive for economic play a leading role in and individuals. It will be
that counters the radical progress damage our well- developing and exporting the day-to-day decisions in
solutions presented by being along the way, as we these innovations and our politics, workplaces and
populists. We cannot afford have in the past with carbon thus be the driving force personal lives that will bring
the denial and skepticism emissions and other forms behind the global transition lasting change. The younger
of the far right, as it might of pollution. toward a green economy. generation is rightly
soon be too late to prevent We will not make prog- We have the economic pushing for this change
irrevocable harm to our ress by suddenly trying to strength to bring forth to come today rather than
climate. Equally, we should change what we are doing global market leaders and tomorrow. We must ensure
beware proposals from today. We will still produce, a regulatory environment that our liberal order is
the far left, which, instead trade and consume goods that can enforce change. ready to deliver it.
of fixing our system, globally, and use electricity, On the Continent, there
I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y A L E X F I N E F O R T I M E

often advocate breaking heating and transportation is broad consensus that

it in favor of a socialist individually in the foresee- climate change needs to be Kurz is the Chancellor
centralized state in green tackled now. The European of Austria
disguise. We must be very leadership’s Green Deal,
clear: collectivist ideas of which offers a road map to
centralization, prohibition

59
A REVOLUTION’S
EVOLUTION
One of the world’s most influential climate activist groups
tries to find a new path forward after losing its way
B Y C I A R A N U GE NT
 In the past decade,
the SH AR E O F U. S .
AD ULT S who say
climate change is a
threat has increased far
more among Democrats

DEM.
61% 88%

25% GOP 31%

Extinction
Rebellion members
disrupt London
Fashion Week in
the U.K. capital
on Feb. 2
PHOTOGR APH
BY CRISPIN HUGHES
 CL IMAT E

T
student in London, shudders remember-
ing the feeling of dread when she heard
about the action. “It was like, ‘Wait, are
we the bad guys?’” she says a few months
later. “It felt like a callout from the public
saying, ‘We support your efforts. But this
is just not the way.’”
The honeymoon for exTincTion The moment distilled three problems
Rebellion, the hugely influential climate bubbling under XR’s surface: First, as a
activist group, ended on Oct. 17, 2019. predominantly white movement, founded
From its launch, a year earlier, until in a small, wealthy town in England, XR
that day, it seemed like the group might has faced persistent criticism for its failure
have cracked the formula for saving the to include people of color and working-
planet: its strategy of shutting down city class communities in its activism. Second,
centers with disruptive, nonviolent civil the group is fiercely resistant to hierar-
disobedience had drawn ordinary people chy, and has no formal leader and no ef-
onto the streets to demand action on the fective way of vetoing actions, even when
climate crisis. It had also made the group, they cause internal divisions. And third,
now present in 75 countries, the most rad- its strategy of disrupting the public walks
ical of a wave of climate activist groups a fine line between pressuring the govern-
sweeping the world in recent years, in- ment to act and becoming villains easily
cluding the youth-focused Sunrise Move- dismissed by the British media.
ment in the U.S. and the school strikers Falling donations and stagnant mem-
led by Greta Thunberg. bership over the six months after Canning
In the U.K., Extinction Rebellion (or Town forced reflection and a rethink of
XR) is a household name, able to gener- core parts of XR’s operations. But just as
ate enough pressure to reach milestones XR announced a new strategy for 2020,
that traditional environmental campaign- the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Nationwide
ers spent decades chasing: within weeks quarantine measures disrupted public life
of XR’s first two-week mass mobilization more than any XR action ever could, and
in London in April 2019, the U.K. govern- prompted the group to temporarily sus-
ment declared a climate emergency and pend its central tactic of mass mobiliza-
announced a legally binding target for tion. The health crisis has also shifted the
net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Chris- climate crisis down the agenda for gov-
tiana Figueres, the former U.N. climate ernments, the media and the public. On a sunny afternoon earlier this year,
chief, compares XR’s potential impact to Scrambling to learn from its mistakes Gail Bradbrook, 48, sat at the kitchen
that of groups like the suffragists and the and avoid losing hard-won momentum, table of a startup-like office on the first
civil rights movement. “When you’re talk- XR is now planning a large-scale action floor, surrounded by fellow activists bus-

P R E V I O U S PA G E S : PA N O S P I C T U R E S/ R E D U X ; T H E S E PA G E S : R O D G E R B O S C H — A F P V I A G E T T Y I M A G E S
ing about a large systemic transformation, for September. If the group gets its next ily typing on laptops. She acknowledged
history shows us that civil disobedience steps right, it could offer a blueprint for that the movement she co-founded has
is a very important component,” she says. activists around the world. If it flounders, had a bumpy ride as it amassed more
But on Oct. 17, as XR began a second XR could join the chorus of ignored voices than 200,000 members worldwide in
two-week mass mobilization in London, shouting as the climate breaks down. less than two years. “It feels like 15 of
one local branch staged an action in us started off pedaling on this bike, and
Canning Town, a predominantly Black Since January, XR has made its head- then we realized we needed a train, so
and Asian working-class neighborhood, quarters in a hollowed-out apartment we keep sticking bits on while we’re
in which several XR members clambered building in a trendy area of East London. pedaling,” she said.
onto a subway car, preventing the train It was in Bradbrook’s home in Stroud,
from leaving. Commuters dragged the southwest England, that XR began on a
protesters down onto the platform spring weekend in 2018. Fifteen environ-
and beat them. Video of the incident ‘IT WAS LIKE, mental activists gathered to discuss ways
prompted a massive backlash. “Upsetting to overcome the inertia on carbon emis-
the general public travelling to work “WAIT, ARE WE THE sions despite decades of warnings by sci-
in an environmentally sound way is entists and pressure from NGOs. Draw-
plain stupid,” tweeted David Lammy, a BAD GUYS?”’ ing on the work of Harvard social scientist
prominent Black lawmaker for the left- Erica Chenoweth, they decided they
wing Labour Party. —DAZE AGHAJI, needed numbers. Chenoweth’s 2011
Daze Aghaji, 20, a member of XR and a Extinction Rebellion member study of nonviolent civil-disobedience
62 Time July 20/July 27, 2020
 more” and quit in 2018 to start volun-
tarily coordinating XR’s finances, gettin-
garrested three times during actions. In
April 2019, thousands of XR rebels shut
down central London, dominating the
British media’s attention for two weeks.
Millions of dollars in donations rolled
in from philanthropists, celebrities and
crowdfunders. While school strikers were
raising global momentum around the cli-
mate crisis, XR seemed on the verge of a
revolution in the U.K.
“What [XR] achieved, in a short
space of time with few resources, was
pretty outstanding,” says veteran activ-
ist Kumi Naidoo. After participating in
civil-disobedience actions challenging
apartheid in South Africa as a teenager
in the 1980s, Naidoo served as director
of Greenpeace from 2009 to 2015, and
then as secretary-general of Amnesty
International, before stepping down in
December 2019 for health reasons. He
says there’s “no question” that XR con-
tributed to a shift in public consciousness
on climate change, reflected in opinion
polls that are “unrecognizable” from his
time at Greenpeace. Naidoo sees XR’s
more disruptive disobedience as “one of
the only really strong, convincing paren-
tal voices” answering youth activists’ ap-
peal for adults to act.
The nonhierarchical structure seems,
in theory, to be democratizing and in line
^ XR. That has proved to be both its driv- with XR’s belief in equality. But in prac-
Young XR activists demonstrate ing force and its Achilles’ heel. There’s a tice, it has meant there was no one to
outside South Africa’s Parliament in national U.K. actions team, made up of blame for decisions that many felt were
Cape Town on June 1 about a dozen people, that plans mass insensitive to Black people and other peo-
mobilizations, and a finance team that re- ple of color. The Canning Town stunt was
movements that aim to overthrow author- sponds to funding applications from local highly controversial within XR when its
itarian governments concluded that those groups. But there are some 400 of these planners began sharing details days ahead
that engage at least 3.5% of the population local groups, all of which lead their own of it. A statement released by its U.K.
always succeed. XR’s critics point out that actions, with no single body in charge of team hours after the action read: “Very
demanding drastic action on emissions in sign-off. Internationally, more than 1,100 few people in XR wanted this to happen,
a democracy does not exactly map onto groups across 75 countries are working in but the ‘postconsensus’ organizational
Chenoweth’s scenario. But the group’s a similarly loose structure. model which we currently employ is such
founders believe that if they can get 3.5% That grassroots strategy drew in that it happened all the same.”
of a country’s population to participate in people who had never previously got- That did little to dampen the anger
the “rebellion”—either attending actions ten involved in activism. Among them of critics. “From the get-go, they were
or assisting behind the scenes—and com- are grandmothers like Hazel Mason, 71, asked by environmental justice cam-
bine that with a small core of a few thou- who had “never been a rebel” but went paigners in London to consult with com-
sand people willing to be arrested, as well from trying to recycle more to taking to munities about how to not alienate peo-
as the passive support of 50% of the pop- the streets. “I thought, Why am I hop- ple,” climate-justice campaigner Suzanne
ulation, they can force governments into ing ‘they’ do something? Why don’t I do Dhaliwal wrote in a London newspaper
a position where taking climate action is something?” she says. It also resonated after the Canning Town incident. “[XR]
less painful than XR’s disruption. with parents like Andrew Medhurst, 54, is not taking heed of the call to look at its
Bradbrook and her fellow founders who told his colleagues at a pension fund class and privilege blind spots.”
envisaged a decentralized structure for that he “couldn’t ignore the crisis any- These blind spots are particularly
63
 CL IMAT E

XR protesters dressed as dead A die-in protest under the blue-whale

polar bears in Westminster, skeleton at the Natural History
London, on Feb. 17 Museum in London on April 22

apparent in the movement’s interac- and has led youth-outreach efforts for arations and remediation led by and
tions with British police forces, which XR, says the initial “focus on the ar- for Black people, Indigenous people,
have a history of discrimination against rests” in media coverage put off young people of color and poor communities
Black communities. In July 2019, many people of color from joining the move- for years of environmental injustice.”
heard a dog-whistle message in XR’s call ment. “Arrestability does lie in privilege, (The rival faction, dubbed XR America,

F R O M L E F T: J E R E M Y S E LW Y N — E V E N I N G S TA N D A R D/ R E D U X ; S T E V E B E L L— C A M E R A P R E S S/ R E D U X ; E X T I N C T I O N R E B E L L I O N
on Twitter for police in London to “con- and not everyone needs to get arrested,” stripped out the specific language on
centrate on issues such as knife crime, she says. “I never really identified as race and class.)
and not nonviolent protesters who are arrestable.” In the U.K., XR’s decentralized struc-
trying to save our planet.” In October, XR’s international chapters have also ture has led to incidents that alienated the
one XR member delivered flowers and a been criticized for centering white per- wider public and contributed to a narra-
note thanking officers for their “decency spectives. In Canada, members of the tive of its activists as careless. In Septem-
and professionalism” to the Brixton po- Scia’new First Nation accused XR of en- ber 2019, a group of XR activists, includ-
lice station in London. It was the same tering their lands without permission ing co-founder Roger Hallam, attempted
police station where, during the 1990s while protesting a gas pipeline in Feb- to use drones to block flights taking off
and 2000s, three Black men had died in ruary of this year. Some members splin- from Heathrow, the U.K.’s largest airport,
police custody, sparking large local pro- tered off from XR U.S. in opposition to to protest air-travel expansion. Though
tests at the time. Kevin Blowe, coordina- language on its platform calling for “rep- XR had released a pre-emptive statement
tor for the Network for Police Monitor- saying the group had collectively decided
ing, a watchdog group, wrote that the not to back such an action, it still hurt the
incident displayed a total lack of “em- movement’s image, says Jackie Scollen, a
pathy for communities who experience ‘WE CAN’T JUST BE member of XR from a working-class area
racist policing” and “outright, blatant of County Durham, in northern England.
racism [in] choosing to not ‘see’ race.” PISSING PEOPLE OFF. “When my friends heard about that, they
Critics also point to the visible dom- said, ‘You can’t do that.’ People work and
inance of white people at XR’s actions, WE NEED TO TARGET THE save all year long to go on two weeks’ holi-
even in ethnically diverse cities like day to Spain or somewhere.”
London, and to the core importance of PEOPLE WITH POWER.’ XR activists interviewed by TIME say
confrontations with police and arrests such unpopular actions contributed to a
in XR’s strategy. Aghaji, who is Black —JACKIE SCOLLEN, activist leveling off in sign-ups and donations
64 Time July 20/July 27, 2020
 XR activists climb onto a train at London’s
Canning Town station, prompting a
standoff with commuters, on Oct. 17

in late 2019 and early 2020. XR is burn- with the environment. There were things communities in the Global South, re-
ing through its savings. From November to avoid: using phrases that implied sponses must be geared toward address-
to January, XR U.K.’s income averaged overpopulation was a problem; focusing ing systemic inequalities.
around $120,000 a month, while it spent on individual lifestyle changes rather Antiracism protests that have spread
close to $240,000. than systemic change; and using “lefty around the world after George Floyd, an
Aghaji believes XR will have to learn language” (no examples were given). Al- unarmed Black man, was killed by police
to weather these unpredictable contro- most every point set off a fierce debate on May 25 in Minneapolis, have put fur-
versies. Imposing a top-down structure, among attendees. Rolled out at the start ther pressure on XR to address its fail-
she argues, would undermine the reason of the year, the workshop was an effort ings on race. “We have made mistakes,
that XR has been successful in the first to learn from XR’s missteps and unify and we’re now taking the time to lis-
place. “It’s people taking power into their a movement that has sometimes strug- ten, educate ourselves further and work
hands, saying the social contract is broken gled to agree on its message to the world. out a plan for taking responsibility for
and rebelling in a way that’s true to them. Aghaji says the movement has been these mistakes properly,” Alanna Byrne,
I think that’s beautiful.” through an ongoing learning process on a London-based member of XR’s media
both race and class since Canning Town. team, said in early June. “Racism is a key
On a Saturday in February, before “It was a turning point for us. The per- factor in the causes and continuation of
the pandemic put an end to in-person spectives of marginalized groups are the climate and ecological emergency,
meetings, a dozen people sat in mis- now at the forefront rather than just an and tackling it needs to run through all
matched chairs in the half-painted lobby addition.” One result has been an effort aspects of our work.” The XR Interna-
of XR headquarters, trying to learn from to emphasize that you don’t need to get tionalist Solidarity Network, a group
the group’s rocky ride. During an all- arrested to take part in actions, Agh- formed in early 2019 and led by Black
day “DNA training,” designed to teach aji says. In January, XR started a team XR members from the Global South,
new members the movement’s core val- looking at how race and class oppression would have a “much more” central role
ues, a session leader taught attendees intersects with the climate crisis and going forward, Byrne added.
how “to tell XR’s story” to get others in- why members of some groups were less XR organizers say they are more
volved. Tips included holding meetings likely to join XR. The movement has also broadly shifting strategy toward a model
in “inclusive spaces” that didn’t feel ex- intensified its focus in messaging on cli- that prioritizes the communities in which
clusive to white people and asking peo- mate justice—the idea that since climate they operate. Co-founder Bradbrook
ple about their personal experiences change is hitting harder and earlier in says XR will ramp up outreach to local
65
 CL IMAT E

residents, getting members to knock on ^ EvEnts in 2020 have made that strat-
doors and talk with people one-on-one Co-founder Gail Bradbrook egy much harder to execute. It was
about how XR should organize locally, speaks to activists blocking a meant to be a landmark year for climate
to avoid clashes. More surprisingly, the road in Central London on Oct. 9 action. The U.K. was due to host this
group will also move away from its focus year’s U.N. climate conference in No-
on disrupting the public, which won it so spent two months working on the 2020 vember, where international negotiators
much attention. Bradbrook says repeating strategy. He argues that public disrup- would gather to scale up emissions tar-
the same tactic won’t sustain media inter- tion is what got the movement to where gets, five years after the Paris Agreement
est. “We’ve made our point to the public. it is today, and that outweighs the risk was signed. To ramp up pressure on law-
The public, frankly, are not the problem.” of upsetting people. “The disruption makers, XR had planned mass mobiliza-
Instead, XR will direct its actions at is minimal and tiny compared to the tions for May and November.
institutions, businesses and government disruption that’s going to come as the But in May, the British govern-
G E O R G E C R A C K N E L L W R I G H T — L N P/S H U T T E R S T O C K ; I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y A L E X F I N E F O R T I M E
bodies preventing climate action. “We planet breaks down,” Scott-Halkes says. ment said it would postpone the sum-
can’t just be pissing people off,” agrees In his view, the movement’s most pow- mit by a full year because of the pan-
Scollen, the member from Durham. “We erful tactic is mass mobilization. When demic. Largely stuck at home since late
need to target the people with power.” security forces can’t contain the protests, March, XR activists have used their daily
In late February, Scollen helped lead the argument goes, it will be easier for the lockdown-sanctioned exercise periods
one of XR’s last major actions before the government to take drastic action to cut to post posters or graffiti at oil compa-
U.K. entered a lockdown, as 300 activists emissions—what XR has been pushing nies and banks that invest in fossil fuels,
dressed as canaries blocked the entrance for—than to do nothing and allow pro- urging the government not to give them
of an open-pit coal mine near Durham to tests to continue. XR claims it came close bailout packages. In late June, a group of
protest its expansion. The action exempli- to overwhelming authorities in October. XR activists led a 125-mile march from
fied the new strategy, disrupting the mine London’s police force had to draft officers Birmingham to London to protest eco-
owners, not the local area. from elsewhere, and even resorted to is- logical disruption by a planned high-
But not everyone is happy. Joel Scott- suing a ban on XR protests—a move Eng- speed rail link.
Halkes, 27, traveled up from London for land’s high court later ruled unlawful. “If Fundraising has also gotten harder.
the mine action. He describes a “mini we had even 3,000 or 4,000 more peo- Since March, XR’s monthly income has
civil war” inside XR over the decision ple, we would have done it,” Scott-Halkes fallen to around $60,000, Medhurst, the
to shift away from public disruption. says. “We would have broken something finance coordinator, says. In mid-April,
A member of the U.K. actions circle, he in history.” the group suspended payments to 150
66 Time July 20/July 27, 2020
activists who had been receiving small
grants for living expenses. A recent
$300,000 donation will help, but the
pot is far smaller than in October 2019,
when XR spent close to $1.2 million.
COVID-19 has also threatened to sap
VI E WP O IN T
the momentum of the climate move-
ment as a whole. Some fear that in the
rush to revive failing economies, coun- No ‘green deal’ will
tries will abandon their climate goals.
Indigo Rumbelow, a 25-year-old mem- be ambitious enough to
ber of the U.K. actions circle, says the
pandemic has filled XR “with both hope save the planet
and fear.” Governments could opt to
prop up the fossil-fuel industry, she says.
By Greta Thunberg
“But there’s also a sense that we can re- In the aftermath of the coronavirus awareness required are still nowhere
build something new and create a more crisis, there are many who will claim in sight.
just society.” that we need to use this as an Things may look dark and
To get there, though, effective orga- opportunity. They’ll say that when we hopeless, but I’m telling you there
nizing will be crucial. Naidoo says XR restart the economy, we must adopt is hope. And that hope comes
must “continue to do substantially bet- a so-called green recovery plan. And from the people, from democracy,
ter” on understanding race and class. For of course it’s incredibly important from you. From the people who are
him, the convergence of COVID-19, the that we invest our assets in starting to realize the absurdity of
climate crisis and high-profile incidents sustainable projects, renewable the situation. Everywhere there are
of police brutality may create a “boiling energy, technical solutions and signs of change, of awakening. Just
point” for anger over inequality, making research. But we must not for one take the #MeToo movement, Black
collaboration between environmentalism second believe that it will be even Lives Matter or the School Strike
and other social movements essential. “It close to what is actually required, movement, for instance. It’s all
is critical that we have an approach that or that the so-called targets set out interconnected. We have passed a
celebrates a million flowers blooming for today would be ambitious enough. social tipping point. We can no longer
the fights of justice,” he says. If all countries were to actually look away from what our society
go through with the emission ignores, whether it is equality, justice
XR appears to have embraced that
reductions they have set as goals, or sustainability.
philosophy. On July 3, it announced that
we would still be heading for a From a sustainability point of
it would stage its next large-scale action, view, all political and economic
catastrophic global temperature rise
starting Sept. 1. While following social- of at least 3°C above preindustrial systems have failed. But humanity
distancing guidelines, activists around levels. The world’s planned fossil- has not yet failed. The climate
the country will target institutions and fuel production alone by the year and ecological emergency is not
businesses they accuse of blocking 2030 accounts for 120% more than primarily a political crisis. It is an
emission reductions, and “peacefully what would be consistent with a existential one, based completely
blockade” Parliament in London as it target of 1.5°C temperature rise. The on science. The science is there.
returns from a summer break. “There math just doesn’t add up. The numbers exist. We cannot get
is growing frustration at government If we are to avoid a climate away from them. Nature doesn’t
inaction, not just on climate but on our catastrophe, we have to tear up bargain, and you cannot compromise
health, well-being, on racial injustice, contracts and abandon existing with the laws of physics. Either we
inequality and more,” Byrne says. “It’s deals and agreements on a scale accept and understand the reality
time to express that and come out on the we can’t even begin to imagine. No as it is, or we don’t. Either we go on
streets again.” “green recovery plan” or “deal” in as a civilization, or we don’t. Doing
Scollen, the organizer from the the world would alone be able to our best is no longer good enough.
northeast, says XR’s future will be de- achieve such emission cuts. Even We must now do the seemingly
fined by its ability to make people from debating it risks doing more harm impossible. And that is up to you and
than good, as it sends a signal that me. Because no one will do it for us.
all parts of society feel empowered.
the changes needed are possible
“Most people, unless they’re highly edu-
within today’s societies. As if we Thunberg, TIME’s 2019 Person of
cated and privileged, don’t feel like they could somehow solve a crisis the Year, is a climate activist and
can change anything,” she says. “But without treating it like a crisis. A lot co-founder of Fridays for Future. This
look around: it has started. People will may have happened in the past two viewpoint is adapted from an essay
see that you can be a part of this. You can years, but the changes and level of originally broadcast on Swedish radio
do this.” —With reporting by Madeline
Roache/london □
67
 CL IM AT E

JUSTICE
FOR ALL
The larger climate movement is
finally embracing the fight against
environmental racism
B Y J U ST I N WO R LA N D

The 2019 fire aT The PhiladelPhia Derek S. Green, an at-large city-council

Energy Solutions refinery started with a member in Philadelphia. “If you’re living
simple failure: one leaky elbow pipe in there every day, the pollution is something
a 1,400-acre facility covered with pipes, that you were constantly dealing with.”
tanks and industrial towers. Within a few Eight months later and five miles away,
hours last June, enough gaseous propane a group of Black voters from across Phil-
had seeped into the air to ignite the facil- adelphia filed into a bland conference
ity into a fiery hellscape with an explosion room of a downtown office building for a
hurling human-size pieces of industrial focus group on climate change organized
equipment into the air and shaking the by Third Way, a center-left Washing-
ground miles away. Workers rapidly shut ton, D.C., policy think tank. The warming
down the facility, which had for decades planet ranked low on the attendees’ list of
converted crude oil into usable products. priorities, at least at first, but the conver-
The workers escaped with only a few sation turned passionate when it came to
minor injuries, but the facility had al- the pollution in their own backyard.
ready spent decades killing its neighbors “You come out and it’s hard to breathe
in South Philadelphia. The refinery—the on most days,” said one attendee. Another
largest on the East Coast, dating back to noted that in Southwest Philadelphia,
the early days of the oil industry in the “all the African Americans grew up with
19th century—was single-handedly re- asthma.” The Energy Solutions refinery
sponsible for more than half of the city’s drew near universal condemnation. “All
cancer-causing air toxics, according to y’all did was put out the fire,” said another
a report from the city. And it contrib- attendee, pointing to the government re-
uted to the 125 premature deaths that sponse. “You didn’t do nothing for those
the American Thoracic Society and New thousand houses who have to breathe in
York University say result from air pol- this air. It’s messed up.”
lution in Philadelphia each year. The These dynamics are nothing new. For
South Philadelphia area surrounding decades, environmental-justice advocates
the facility, where 60% of residents are in the U.S. have worked to bring attention
Black, has some of the highest asthma- to the heightened environmental risks
hospitalization rates in the city, where faced by communities of color: higher lev-
asthma numbers top those in all but a few els of lead exposure, higher risks of fac-
U.S. cities. The explosion “was kind of a ing catastrophic flooding, and poorer air
wake-up call for the rest of the city,” says quality, to name just a few. But progress
68 Time July 20/July 27, 2020
 Latino and Black
American communities
are, respectively,
exposed to 63% and 56%
MO R E P O LL UT IO N
T H AN T H EY PRO D UCE

60%
40
20
0
Black
Latino -20
White

The Philadelphia Energy

Solutions Refining
Complex after catching
fire on June 21, 2019
PHOTOGR APH BY MATT ROURKE
 C LIMAT E

has been slow on the national stage as the

most powerful groups fighting for envi-
ronmental rules, not to mention govern-
ment leaders, have largely ignored them.
Today, that conversation is changing.
With partisanship at record levels and Re-
publicans still skeptical of climate rules,
environmental activists have realized
they need a big coalition to pass legisla-
tion, and that means getting the enthu-
siastic backing of people of color. To do
that, they are not only talking about the
environmental hazards faced by people
of color but also putting their concerns
at the core of their campaigns.
“Silo activism is exactly what the ex-
tremists want,” the minister and activist
William J. Barber II told me ahead of a
speech at a climate event last year. “His-
torically, the only way we’ve had great
transformation in this country is when
there’s been fusion of all coalitions.”
COVID-19, which is killing Black
Americans at twice the rate of their white
counterparts in large part because of en-
vironmental issues like pollution-caused
asthma and heart disease, has only ad-
vanced the urgency for climate backers.
And so as the U.S. approaches an elec-
tion and, potentially, a once-in-a-decade
opportunity to pass climate legislation,
finding a way to address centuries of sys-
temic environmental racism has emerged ^ knew that minority groups largely lacked
as a key concern. The stakes are high: A Jan. 17 protest in opposition to the the political power to stop them.
failure means not only that people of color reopening of the Philadelphia Energy With this in mind, hundreds of early
will continue facing disproportionate en- Solutions Refining Complex environmental-justice advocates gathered
vironmental hazards, but also the possi- in Washington, D.C., for the first People

P R E V I O U S PA G E S : A P ; T H E S E PA G E S : E R I K M C G R E G O R — S I PA U S A ; I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y A L E X F I N E F O R T I M E
ble failure of efforts to reduce emissions race was the single greatest determin- of Color Environmental Leadership Sum-
and take humanity off a crash course with ing factor of whether an individual lived mit, in 1991. Over four days, the attendees
dangerous global warming. near a hazardous-waste facility, which in discussed their experiences with environ-
turn contributed to a range of ailments. mental racism, from widespread cancer
Long before the phrase I can’t Three of five landfills were in predomi- on Native American reservations where
breathe became a rallying cry for Black nantly Black or Hispanic neighborhoods, nuclear waste was dumped to higher-
Lives Matter activists protesting the the study found, affecting 60% of Ameri- than-average asthma rates in predomi-
deaths of Black people at the hands of cans in those groups. nantly Black communities near industrial
police, environmental-justice activists Scholars explained the problem sim- sites. Going forward, their mission would
warned that pollution was choking and ply as environmental racism: discrimina- be to put these concerns at the heart of en-
killing people of color in the U.S. tory housing policy throughout the coun- vironmental policy; they drafted 17 prin-
They had good reason: study after try forced people of color into the same ciples to reflect that. “That first People of
study in the 1970s and 1980s emerged neighborhoods, and racist lending prac- Color conference is where environmental-
to document how minority groups— tices meant land in those neighborhoods ism and conservationism were redefined,”
and Black people in particular—suffered was worth less just because minorities re- says Richard Moore, co-coordinator of the
disproportionately from a slew of envi- sided there. This made the land ripe for Environmental Justice Health Alliance.
ronmental hazards, and resonated with polluting industries, which need large For a few years afterward, progress
many who saw this in their own back- spaces for their facilities and were able seemed to come quickly. In 1992, the 17
yards. The research was crystallized in to get local buy-in in part by arguing they principles were distributed to thousands
a landmark 1987 report called “Toxic created jobs. Moreover, the companies of environmental activists from around
Wastes and Race.” Across the country, that owned and operated these facilities the globe who gathered in Rio de Janeiro
70 Time July 20/July 27, 2020
 VI E WP O IN T

Black Lives Matter

matters for the climate
By Ayana Elizabeth Johnson

The Black Lives Matter movement tens of millions of people of color in

is not a distraction from saving the the U.S. who could be a major part of
planet. We can’t solve the climate the solutions we need if unburdened
crisis without people of color, but by white supremacy.
we could probably solve it without The climate crisis requires that we
racists. build the biggest team possible. So
Whether it’s Hurricane Katrina or wouldn’t it make sense to prioritize
air pollution, storms and exposure to the people who already get it?
toxins cause much greater harm to For environmental groups,
communities of color. (Although, yes, whether to consider justice is
in the longer term, climate change no longer a question; it is now
is coming for us all, even if you have expected. But there is an impulse to
a bunker in New Zealand.) So it oversimplify and say climate justice
follows that if we’re thinking about is racial justice, to use an equal
how to become more resilient to the sign. While they are inseparably
impacts of climate change, we must intertwined, they are also distinct,
focus on the people who are actually layered. In the wise words of feminist
the most impacted. And we must and civil rights activist Audre Lorde,
understand that it is people from “There is no such thing as a single-
for the U.N. Earth Summit. In subsequent their own communities who are best issue struggle because we do not
international meetings, poorer nations equipped to lead them. live single-issue lives.”
would use the principles to argue for cli- I simply don’t see how we win at How we address climate change
mate action that addressed their needs. In addressing the climate crisis without will determine what the future holds
the U.S., President Bill Clinton signed an elevating Black, and Indigenous, and for humanity. How do you deal with a
Executive Order in 1994 requiring agen- Latinx, and Asian leaders. Because crisis facing humanity without caring
cies like the Environmental Protection it is not merely a technical challenge about the humans? Who are we
we are facing. It’s not just about saving the planet for?
Agency and Federal Emergency Manage-
solar panels and electric cars. This is Let’s include ever more
ment Agency to consider environmental
about how we implement solutions, expansive understandings of
justice in their policies. how we replicate and scale them; it’s justice in environmental work.
But when it came to the domestic con- about communities and governments Let’s integrate an understanding
versation around new laws to address and corporations changing the way of interdependence. Let’s take
climate change specifically—already they do things—solving the climate a holistic approach inspired by
emerging as the defining environmen- crisis is about everything. So we ecosystems. Let’s value human
tal challenge of the time—some of the need to find ways that everyone can diversity as much as we do
national environmental groups paid the be a part of this transformation. biodiversity. Let’s think about the
activists little attention, fearing that con- If climate organizations fail to world we want to live in, and how we
cerns about racial justice would distract prioritize welcoming people of color, can build it, together.
from efforts to reduce emissions. “We the movement will never grow large
were taken for granted,” says longtime enough to succeed. Furthermore, Johnson is a marine biologist,
environmental-justice leader Beverly people of color are significantly more founder of Urban Ocean Lab and
Wright, executive director of the Deep concerned about climate change co-editor of All We Can Save: Truth,
South Center for Environmental Justice, than white people are (49% of whites, Courage, and Solutions for the
“like a gnat that just wouldn’t go away.” 57% of Blacks, 69% of Latinx). That’s Climate Crisis
The philosophy—focus first on stop-
ping greenhouse gases and worry later
71
 C LIMAT E

about how to fix the disparate socio­ trade on its own, but a slew of analyses of
economic effects—still guides many cli­ why the bill foundered cited a failure to
mate activists to this day, but thus far it earn grassroots support. And there was
has proved a mistake. Not only did ignor­ a clear missed opportunity: both groups
ing environmental­justice concerns leave shared a common rival in the fossil­fuel
people of color behind, but the decision industry, which is responsible for both
also alienated a bloc whose support would greenhouse­gas emissions and air pol­
have helped pass climate legislation. lution and uses its deep pockets to fight
The George W. Bush presidency saw regulation.
little progress on climate issues, but when Since then, significant opportunities
President Barack Obama took office in to advance the climate cause in the U.S.
2009, national environmental groups have been few and far between. Obama
sensed an opportunity. To capitalize on it, enacted a range of rules to slow emissions
they partnered with some of the country’s and cut pollution, most notably the Clean
biggest corporations and lobbied for cap­ Power Plan, which targeted coal. But even
and­trade, which would have set a limit members of his Administration have said
on carbon­dioxide emissions and required the initiatives fell short.
companies to pay if they exceeded it. This Climate activists hope they will have
was, in many ways, a smart compromise: another chance to pass bold legislation
cut emissions without alienating busi­ to reduce emissions if former Vice Presi­
nesses that had the ear of the GOP. dent Joe Biden wins the presidential elec­
Environmental­justice activists were tion in November. With the 2009 fail­
furious. Not only were they left out of the ure in mind, environmental groups have
discussion, but they argued that cap­and­ sought to build grassroots support. That
trade would worsen the plight of people effort includes partnering with youth
of color by allowing Big Industry to con­ activists like the Sunrise Movement,
tinue polluting minority communities which advocates for a Green New Deal.
so long as they cleaned up their act else­ These groups have been widely credited
where. That argument, largely theoreti­ with changing the climate conversation
cal at the time, has since been backed up and helping the public understand the
by research, including a 2016 study by connections of climate to everyday life,
researchers from four California univer­ but the environmental­justice activists Conservation Voters.
sities that showed the state’s cap­and­ have played a significant role too. Na­ The new alliance may be young, but
trade program reduced the greenhouse­ tional groups that once avoided talking it has quickly become deep and wide.
gas emissions that cause climate change about race have adopted the language of Most important, national environmen­
but did nothing to alleviate the toxic pol­ environmental­justice activists, point­ tal groups, Democratic political organi­
lution facing communities of color. ing out that climate change will hit the zations and members of Congress alike
With those concerns in mind, the most vulnerable the hardest and talking have allowed environmental­justice lead­
environmental­justice activists, along about the other social benefits of stem­ ers to take the reins in crafting policies to
with many other progressives, actively ming emissions. “Centering reducing address environmental racism. Last sum­
fought against a federal cap­and­trade toxic pollution in frontline communities mer, after months of consultation, a group
system. “We were brought in after they is both the right thing to do, and it’s also of leading environmental­justice activists
made their decisions,” says Wright. essential to building the power that we announced a coalition under the banner of
“Whatever decision they made, we were need to have the overwhelming support an Equitable and Just Climate Platform.
throwing bricks at the window.” we need to overpower the fossil­fuel in­ The platform committed groups like the
The legislation passed the House in dustry,” says Sara Chieffo, vice president Center for American Progress, a mainstay
2009 by only seven votes, and the grand of government affairs at the League of of the Democratic political establishment,
coalition supporting cap­and­trade fell along with environmental groups like the
apart before it could be brought to the League of Conservation Voters and the
Senate floor. Sensing the lack of a man­ ‘WE WERE TAKEN Natural Resources Defense Council to
date for the policy, many of the corporate combatting “systemic inequalities” along­
leaders who had supported cap­and­trade FOR GRANTED, LIKE side climate change. “We need to address
reversed their position. They had come to greenhouse­gas emissions,” says Cecilia
the table in hopes of a compromise, but A GNAT THAT JUST Martinez, a professor at the University
they were just as happy to let the legisla­ of Delaware’s Center for Energy and En­
tion fail and avoid new rules altogether. WOULDN’T GO AWAY.’ vironmental Policy, who helped lead the
The lack of support from environmen­ effort. “But we cannot do that divorced
tal­justice activists didn’t doom cap­and­ —BEVERLY WRIGHT and disconnected from the other types of
72 Time July 20/July 27, 2020
 color today, especially when you take a
cursory glance at the past five months.
The COVID-19 pandemic has hit African
Americans especially hard, killing them at
twice the rate of their white counterparts.
The economic challenges have hurt too,
leaving the unemployment rate substan-
tially higher for Latinx, Asian and Black
Americans than for their white counter-
parts. And the highly publicized killings
of African Americans like Floyd, Breonna
Taylor, Tony McDade and others have
jolted the country into recognizing the
systematic mistreatment of Black Amer-
icans by law enforcement.
And yet environmental racism is at
the center of this moment: COVID-19
has hit Black people hard in large part
because environmental hazards like air
pollution lead to conditions like asthma
and heart disease, which in turn make a
person more likely to suffer the worst of
the virus. To address systemic racism, the
country needs to address environmen-
tal racism, and vice versa. “The system
that created inequality in terms of pol-
lution choking our neighborhoods is the
same system that’s choking Black people
and brown people when it comes to po-
licing,” says Robert Bullard, a scholar of
urban planning and environmental policy
legacy pollution that have been harming ^ whose work earned him the moniker “the
our communities.” Children in one of the communities father of environmental justice.”
On the campaign trail, Biden has spo- next door to the Philadelphia Energy Climate change is only going to make
ken about racial disparities as a top con- Solutions Refining Complex, on Jan. 12 the challenges for people of color worse.
cern for climate policy and appointed Just look at how Hurricane Katrina, a taste
longtime environmental-justice leaders too. In late June, the House Committee on of superstorms to come, displaced New
like Martinez to help. He framed the cli- the Climate Crisis, formed in early 2019 Orleans’ Black community; how Latinx
mate plank of his platform during the pri- by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, re- agricultural workers are more likely to
mary campaign, a $1.7 trillion spending leased a 500-plus-page report outlining suffer in the stifling heat of farms; or how
proposal, as a plan for a “clean-energy rev- a path forward on climate change. The urban communities can be 22°F warmer
olution and environmental justice.” opening of the report references the po- than nearby areas that are less developed.
On Capitol Hill, Democrats say they lice killing of George Floyd, and the doc- Research has even linked higher tempera-
are now privileging the solutions pro- ument incorporates a slew of policies to tures to increased crime and police bru-
posed by communities affected by envi- address environmental racism from the tality. These realities may explain why
ronmental racism. Representative Donald Environmental Justice for All Act. surveys have shown people of color to be
McEachin, a Virginia Democrat, described Speaking on Capitol Hill in June, Pe- more concerned about climate change
his proposed Environmental Justice for losi cited the work of environmental- than their white counterparts.
All Act as a collection of solutions—from justice leaders among others in a coali- This understanding has come slowly,
amending the Civil Rights Act to allow tion needed to pass legislation. “They but the increased attention to systemic
people who face disproportionate pol- have transformed the conversation,” she racism and the urgency of climate change
lution to sue, to requiring federal em- said. “We cannot succeed without the out- has made for a unique opportunity: ad-
ployees to receive environmental-justice side mobilization that they bring.” dress centuries of racism while saving the
training—suggested by those affected by world from a global warming catastrophe.
LISA RIORDAN SE VILLE

environmental injustice. “This is a unique On the surface, the environment Indeed, tackling the two together may be
bill in that I didn’t have any part in author- and climate change may look like minor a political necessity. —With reporting by
ship,” he says of the legislation. concerns in the scheme of issues facing Mariah Espada, MadElinE roachE
Democratic leadership is taking note Black Americans and other people of and Josh rosEnbErg □
73
 CL IMAT E

COOLING 60
THE FOOD
CHAIN
BUS INE S S conditions that might trigger consumers Food security is essential in
both normal and pandemic

Can Big
to take a closer look at the supply chain—
times. But the agriculture
are rare. The pandemic might be an ex-
industry’s greenhouse-gas
ception, but even that, experts say, isn’t

Agriculture
emissions put everyone at risk 40
likely to have a lasting impact. “COVID-19
has slowed us down a little bit and forces

ever go 1
From farm to table, food
us to think about some of these things,”
accounts for 26% of all
says Teng Lim, an associate professor at emissions—much of it

green?
the University of Missouri’s commercial- from farm activities
agriculture program. “But when we get
back to what we do normally, we forget Kg of CO2-equivalent emissions
per kg of slaughtered meat
By Emily Barone how things were before.”
Meat processing has already started Processing/
20
other
to recover since April, and consumers are
Feed
On April 12, A meAT-prOcessing ready to buy. In June, the USDA forecast
Farm
plant in Sioux Falls, S.D., owned by that not only will red meat and poultry
Land use
Smithfield Foods shut down after production bounce back from the corona-
hundreds of employees contracted virus dip, it’ll keep growing and hit a rec- 7
coronavirus. The closure was hardly ord 107 billion lb. in 2021. 6
unique. Food-processing plants are
tinderboxes for infection because It’s not unusual for farmers to get 10¢
employees work in close proximity and on a chicken that sells for $6 at the super-
often need to shout, spraying droplets market, or around $10 for a whole pig that
that can be laced with the virus. Cargill, takes six months to raise. Given such slim
Tyson and other major industry players margins, it’s easy to see why the industry POULTRY PORK BEEF
closed about two dozen poultry-, pork- is fixated on efficiency and economies of
and beef-processing centers over the scale. There are fewer meat packers now
following weeks as workers fell ill. In compared with decades ago, and the
April and May, more than 17,000 industry plants operating today are much larger. ciency improves the farmer’s bottom line
workers tested positive for COVID-19 and Farms have dramatically consolidated, as and lowers the emissions per glass of milk.
91 died, according to the U.S. Centers for well. A 2017 USDA census found that just However, farm emissions overall continue
Disease Control and Prevention. 4% of all farms control 58% of farmland. to rise, in part because today’s larger an-
The impact rippled to grocers, who To boost margins, farms and proces- imals eat more. In the case of cattle and
struggled to stock certain items, and to sors have streamlined and specialized op- dairy cows, that means more belching
restaurants like Wendy’s, which tempo- erations in every way possible in recent and more cow pies, two major sources of
rarily changed its menu at some locations decades. They use techniques that yield methane gas.
to compensate for beef shortages. At the more for each animal, ranging from vac- “We have optimized our efficiencies,”
same time, farmers were forced to kill an- cinating the animals and improving their says Frank Mitloehner, a professor in the
imals that couldn’t be slaughtered. The feed, to more controversial practices like animal-science department at the Univer-
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) breeding animals to be larger, packing sity of California, Davis. “That has bene-
estimates that beef and pork production them into confined spaces and slaugh- fits, but it’s also a problem. We have very
in April was down 20% and 10%, respec- tering them inhumanely. For example, few processing plants, and if one or two
tively, compared with a year earlier. in 1950 there were 25 million dairy cows have a problem, it runs through the whole
Processing plants emit carbon dioxide, in the U.S. Today there are 9 million but supply chain. It’s very painful to watch.”
and when their operations slow down, so they produce 60% more milk. Such effi- With foundations like these, the sys-
do emissions. But the real climate benefit tem was bound to wobble when the pan-
from slowing the agriculture industry is demic hit. So far, it has mostly held up
reducing the methane from livestock and to the pandemic, but as the number of
nitrous oxide from treating fields with fer- NOT ONLY WILL RED COVID-19 cases continues to rise in the
tilizers. When you add it all up, about 10% U.S., there’s no certainty that it will do
of all U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions come MEAT AND POULTRY so forever. Arguably, what makes the ag-
from the agriculture industry. riculture industry vulnerable in a pan-
Americans too often don’t think PRODUCTION BOUNCE demic is also what puts it in a good po-
about where the milk or ground beef in sition to tackle emissions. Larger farms
their shopping carts originated, let alone are more suited to comply with govern-
the carbon footprint of those products.
BACK, IT’LL HIT A ment regulations—and the more land
That’s because the U.S. food system is so and livestock under their control, the
robust that shortages or price spikes—two RECORD IN 2021 greater the impact their actions have.
74 Time July 20/July 27, 2020
2 3
Energy and transport, two major As meat production in the
emitting sectors, primarily produce U.S. has increased,
CO2 from fossil fuels. Farming mainly CO2 livestock-related emissions
emits methane and nitrous oxide 81% of have also gone up
U.S. emissions
1,000+ years
Change from 1990 +64%
60%
life span

Meat
40 production
NITROUS
OXIDE 20
Emissions from
meat production
+20%
METHANE
7% of
10% of U.S. emissions
U.S. emissions 0
100+ years
12 years life span 1990 2000 2018
life span

4
Despite a pandemic-related
drop in 2020, U.S. meat
production is projected to
rebound

Warming
power relative
to CO2
25x
298x During
COVID-19
APRIL 2020
COMPARED WITH
APRIL 2019
Poultry

+3%
Pork

–10%
Beef

–20%

82%
Share that
comes from
agriculture 40% After
COVID-19
NOTES: 1) EMISSIONS ARE BASED ON GLOBAL FIGURES AND ARE REPRESENTED AS CO2-EQUIVALENT, WHICH ADJUSTS
ALL GASES TO CO2’s WARMING POTENTIAL. 2) FLUORINATED GASES ACCOUNT FOR ABOUT 3% OF ALL EMISSIONS.
2021 PROJECTIONS
COMPARED WITH
2019
+2% +2% +2%
SOURCES: JOSEPH POORE, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, AND THOMAS NEMECEK, AGROSCOPE; SCIENCE; EPA; UNFAO; USDA

TIME GRAPHIC BY EMILY BARONE AND LON TWEETEN

But so far, there hasn’t been nearly technologies that capture methane that U.S. Balk doesn’t think the country can
enough progress. comes off of ponds of cow poop. The rely on consumers to make such a massive
Methane is distinctly different from method—already widely used in Canada dietary shift. Instead, he says, the food in-
other greenhouse gases. It’s about 25 and Europe—involves capping the ponds dustry can help elevate plant-based foods,
times better at trapping and emitting heat with a liner to trap the gas, which then by selling them alongside animal products
than CO₂. But animal-produced methane gets piped to a facility called a digester in grocery stores, and offering them as
is part of a natural cycle, unlike CO₂ from system several miles away, where it is con- menu items, as White Castle, Burger King
fossil fuels, which rides a one-way street verted into biogas that can be used as fuel and other restaurant chains have started
from beneath the earth’s surface to the to run delivery trucks. to do with plant-based meat alternatives.
atmosphere. After it’s belched out of the To combat emissions from the other Overall, the agriculture industry has
cow, methane breaks down after about end of the cow, feed additives like sea- a major stake in lowering emissions. If
10 years; CO₂, on the other hand, sticks weed that inhibit the methane-producing emissions continue to rise, plants bred
around for centuries. enzymes in the cow’s digestive system and crossbred over decades to optimize
Even so, reducing methane emissions may do the trick. Other additives have the food system may not withstand ris-
is important to the globally agreed-to been shown in trials to change the fer- ing global temperatures. Industry changes
goals to keep planetary warming well mentation process in the cow’s digestive that address both emissions and the wel-
below 2°C above preindustrial levels. The tract so that the cow burps up hydrogen, a fare of animals may also reduce the risk of
best way to eliminate agricultural meth- harmless gas, instead of methane. There’s the next pandemic. COVID-19 didn’t start
ane emissions would be to stop farm- also ongoing research in genetics. If cows at farms, but animals packed into con-
ing cows. But dietary patterns change can be bred to produce more meat or milk, fined spaces can easily spread infection.
slowly, and in the interim, the U.S. farm- it might also be possible to breed them Poultry, for example, has been known to
ing industry is working on ways to limit to emit less methane. Some industry re- make people sick with avian flu.
methane emissions while still providing searchers and consultants, like Place and There’s no one point in the food system
the public the meat products it expects. Mitloehner, are excited about these tech- solely responsible for making the neces-
The industry is poised to apply science nologies. But there are plenty of critics. sary changes. At the end of the day, we all
that can both improve the health of live- “Rather than continually engineer our have to eat, and consumers, processors,
stock and reduce their emissions, says way out of problems with animals, there’s distributors and producers alike have a
Sara Place, chief sustainability officer at a simpler solution: eat more plants,” says role in ensuring that food is available to
animal-health giant Elanco. For exam- Josh Balk, vice president of farm animal all—and produced in a way that is sustain-
ple, U.S. farms are increasingly adopting protection at the Humane Society of the able for the planet and humanity. •
75
 CL IMAT E

THE
PARIS
PLAN
The U.S. has 63 of
the WO R L D ’ S T O P
1 0 0 PE R CAP I TA
C O 2 - E MI T T IN G CI T IE S ,
more than four times
as many as China, which
comes in second
Lockdowns offered cities a
glimpse of a greener future.
20

40 63 U.S.

Mayor Anne Hidalgo wants 60

14 China
to turn it into reality
80

100
23 Others

B Y V I V I E N NE WA LT/PA RI S

The cyclisTs pedaling up To a cob- Paris Agreement, a 2015 global climate

bled square on Paris’ Left Bank looked like pact on carbon emissions. But it is the cit-
any group of friends enjoying a Sunday af- ies, where most of the world’s population
ternoon ride in late June. But this was no lives, that must figure out how to meet
casual outing. To them, it was a revolu- those targets. While cities occupy just 2%
tion in the making. From one bike hopped of the earth’s surface, they consume 78%
a slight dark-haired woman in a Chicago of the world’s energy and produce more
Cubs windbreaker: Anne Hidalgo, the than 60% of its entire carbon emissions,
mayor of Paris. Unclipping her bike hel- according to U.N. statistics. “Cities are a
met, she told journalists gathered there relic of the industrial age,” says Richard
that the French capital needed to dras- Florida, an urban specialist at the Uni-
tically cut car use—the key message on versity of Toronto. “They have to be re-
the campaign trail for her re-election on designed to be healthier and safer.”
June 28. “We are getting there,” she said, The eerie silence that fell over the
“but we have long way to go.” world’s cities during months of lock-
Hidalgo is hardly alone among city down helped reinforce that message,
leaders in trying to transform urban life. says Hidalgo, sitting in her vast wood-
Across the U.S. and Europe and even in paneled office in Paris’ city hall two days
the megalopolis of Istanbul, mayors have after clinching a second six-year term.
pledged to create millions of acres of new “We could breathe. We heard birds,” she
parkland, finance companies’ switches to says. “It was not real life. People were
solar-powered electricity, retrofit build- afraid,” she adds, in a nod to the nearly
ings and ban private cars from inner-city 30,000 French killed by the coronavirus.
districts, all in an effort to cut carbon “But nonetheless, we thought, ‘If it could
footprints and rein in pollution. be like this, how pleasant it would be.’”
Their efforts could not be more urgent. The years since Hidalgo came to office
It was national leaders who signed the in 2014 have been anything but pleasant
76 Time July 20/July 27, 2020
 During lockdown,
Paris quietly
converted 31 miles of
streets into bike lanes,
or corona pistes
PHOTOGR APH BY
SAMUEL BOIVIN
 CL IM AT E

for Paris, from the devastating terrorist

attacks of 2015 to the calamitous fire in
Notre Dame cathedral last year. Yet even
as tragedies struck, she kept rolling out
plans to transform her city into a greener
and more people-friendly place. Her am-
bitions have won her plaudits from the
green lobby but also the ire of drivers and
other Parisians.
Hidalgo’s most controversial act has
been to create about 870 miles of bike
lanes that now crisscross Paris, a plan
she intends to vastly expand. In the pro-
cess, Hidalgo has eliminated thousands of
parking spaces and shut several key roads
entirely to car traffic. That includes the
road on the northern bank of the Seine
River, which for years allowed drivers to
zip across the city in minutes; now it is
reserved for pedestrians. From 2024, die-
sel cars will be banned from Paris. Mean-
while, engineers have mapped the city’s
buildings according to their energy effi-
ciency, the mayor says, and so far have ret-
rofitted about 50,000 of them with bet-
ter insulation and ventilation. Hidalgo
has also loosened rigid building codes,
allowing residents, for example, to plant
trees in their neighborhoods—an act that ^ Now that she has won re-election, she
previously required overcoming steep bu- Hidalgo says she wants is thinking of new ways to transform the

P R E V I O U S PA G E : N U R P H O T O/G E T T Y I M A G E S ; T H E S E PA G E S : YO A N VA L AT — E PA - E F E /S H U T T E R S T O C K ; I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y A L E X F I N E F O R T I M E
reaucratic hurdles. Paris to rank alongside urban environment. One key concept is
Globally, Hidalgo has also been one Amsterdam and Copenhagen the “15-minute city,” crafted by one of
of the most visible city executives on cli- as havens for cyclists Hidalgo’s consultants, Carlos Moreno, a
mate change since her city hosted the professor of innovation at the Sorbonne
COP 21 summit, when the Paris Agree- and many mayors are already beginning University in Paris. The idea is to develop
ment was signed, in 2015. Until late last to take action. Giuseppe Sala, mayor of infrastructure enabling residents to
year, she was the rotating chair of C40, Milan, has proposed 22 miles of new bike access services like public transportation,
an organization of large cities founded lanes, telling a reporter, “People are ready stores and schools, all within a quarter-
in 2005 to coordinate local climate poli- to change attitude.” London Mayor Sadiq hour walk from home. “We’ve seen
cies. The group has emerged as a crucial Khan increased the tolls for driving into through the COVID pandemic that it’s
network for city leaders trying to roll out the inner city. possible to work differently, to create new
environmental initiatives, especially in Hidalgo has also seized the moment. hubs,” Moreno says. “I am optimistic.”
countries—like the U.S.—where federal As millions of Parisians languished in-
officials offer little help. “We are pretty doors, the city quietly turned another 31 Not all ParisiaNs feel so upbeat
much on our own,” Philadelphia Mayor miles of road into bike lanes and named about the changes. The morning after
Jim Kenney told TIME at a C40 meeting them corona pistes, or “corona lanes.” By I met Hidalgo in her office, thousands
in Copenhagen last October, referring to the time the city reopened, in mid-May, of drivers working for Uber and other
American mayors. “We can have a big im- residents found that cars were no longer private taxi companies converged on
pact, but we cannot do it all.” The sense of allowed on the main east-west artery, Paris’ Boulevard Raspail, a major road
sharing a green foxhole has forged a bond Rue de Rivoli. Now you can cycle or scoot cutting through the Left Bank, in an
among mayors that has held through the through the commercial heart of Paris, enraged demonstration against the
pandemic. One of the first calls Hidalgo from the Louvre Museum to the Bastille mayor’s anti-car program. For hours, they
received after her re-election victory was Square, in minutes. Handily for the bike- parked their cars across two lanes along
from Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, loving mayor, the bike lane cuts straight several miles of the four-lane boulevard,
who succeeded her as head of C40. past city hall. “I often go by bike from my honking their horns. “We have 2,500
The group convened online in May home to city hall, and there are no cars, drivers demonstrating, all because of
to discuss how to reshape their cities in just bikes and pedestrians,” Hidalgo says. Mme. Hidalgo,” fumed Anthony, 53, at
the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, “All of a sudden there is this silent space.” the postelection protest against Hidalgo;
78 Time July 20/July 27, 2020
he runs his own private taxi service and
declined to give his last name. “This is
not a matter of being for the environment
or against the environment. Look, we are
driving electric cars!” he said, pointing at VI EW P OI NT
some of the vehicles.
And yet increasingly, voters are on
the side of the environmentalists. The
We must act as one to
June 28 elections saw France’s green
party, called EELV, win mayorships in
preserve our world
major cities like Lyon, Bordeaux and By the Dalai Lama
Strasbourg. Hidalgo also owed her victory
in some measure to an election alliance This planet is our only home. Therefore, now we need a sense
with the greens. Green parties also won Environmental experts say that of oneness of all 7 billion human
nearly 10% of the seats in the European over the next few decades, global beings. In the past, many problems
Parliament last year, as well as about 20% warming will reach such a level that were created because of too much
of votes in Germany’s local elections, with many water resources will go dry. emphasis on our differences, such
many voters saying that climate change So ecology and combatting global as nationalities and religions. Now, in
was now their biggest worry. Hidalgo warming are very important. modern times, that thinking is out of
says she is not surprised. “I have seen this For example, my country, Tibet, is date. We should think about human-
coming for a long time,” she says. “The the ultimate source of water in Asia. ity, about the whole world.
preoccupation around the environment Rivers including Pakistan’s Indus, We must listen to scientists
among residents is very, very strong in all India’s Ganges and Brahmaputra, and specialists. Their voices and
the big cities of the world. It is really the China’s Yellow River, as well as the knowledge are very important. And
No. 1 subject.” Mekong, flow from Tibet’s plateau. religious people should pay more
Beyond the current crisis, Hidalgo So we should pay more attention to attention to scientists rather than
the preservation of Tibetan ecology. just pray, pray, pray. In the ancient
has her eyes set on July 2024, when the
This is not only for the interest of Nalanda Buddhist tradition, which
Olympic Games are scheduled to kick off
6 million Tibetans but all people in we Tibetans follow, everything is
in Paris. Hidalgo says she envisions a city investigated and not accepted by
this region. In the past, when I was
finally transformed through the Olym- flying over Afghanistan, there were faith alone. If through reasoning
pics. A string of riverside public pools, clear signs that what used to be we find some contradiction, even
purpose-built for the Summer Games, lakes and streams were already dry. in Buddha’s own words, then we
will become permanent fixtures, with I feel that Tibet also may become like have the right to reject them. From
the Seine cleaned and swimmable. The that soon. Regarding Tibet’s political childhood, I was always engaged in a
immigrant-heavy town of Seine-Saint- matters, I have already retired. But lot of debate. Our thinking was based
Denis, northeast of Paris—one of the regarding Tibet’s ecology and very not in faith but reasoning.
poorest areas in France—will see a build- rich culture, I’m fully committed. Buddha himself was not born in a
ing boom, with an eco-friendly Olympic We human beings have these palace but under a tree. He attained
Village and Media City and the Olympic marvelous, brilliant minds. But we enlightenment under a Bodhi tree.
aquatic center all located there. Electri- are also the biggest troublemakers When he passed, it was under a tree.
fied rapid transit will be expanded across on the planet. Now we should utilize One of the rules during our monsoon
the capital. And despite the steep Olym- our brains with compassion, and a retreat is that we should not cut down
pic budget for the city of about $8 bil- sense of concern. This is why one anything green. So this shows that
lion, Hidalgo is determined to adhere of my commitments is promotion of Buddha himself paid attention to
to environmental principles; she nixed deeper human values. green issues.
From birth, we rely on others, Hours, minutes and seconds:
a €100 million ($112 million) sponsor-
particularly our mothers. From then, time never stands still. We also
ship deal with the French oil giant Total
each individual’s existence entirely are part of that nature. The past is
and has banned the fossil-fuel industry depends on a community, because important, but already past. The
from being involved. “The Games will be we are a social animal. Community is future is still in our hands, so we
a very, very important motor to transform the source of our happiness, so we must think about ecology at the
the city,” she says. must take care of the community. So global level.
If her prediction proves correct, Pari- now, in modern times, the concept
sians will soon be living in a much leaf- of humanity is one community. East, The Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader
ier city, and with far more quiet—even west, north, south: everyone is inter- of Tibetan Buddhists and a Nobel
with the honking from drivers protest- dependent. The modern economy laureate. This essay is adapted from
ing Hidalgo’s ideas. With reporting by has no national boundaries. his recent TIME 100 Talk
Ciara NugeNt/CopeNhageN and
MÉlissa godiN/loNdoN •
79
80 Time July 20/July 27, 2020
 <
Demings, at a House
Intelligence Committee
hearing on impeachment
in November, is in the
running to join the
Democratic ticket

Too Blue?
VAL DEMINGS’ PAST AS ORLANDO’S TOP
COP COULD BE AN ASSET IN THE
DEMOCRATIC VEEP STAKES—OR A LIABILITY
BY LISSANDRA VILLA

PHOTOGR APH BY
GABRIELLA DEMCZUK
FOR TIME

81
Nation
it was important to them that Biden choose a woman of color.
Biden has confirmed that Demings is among nearly a dozen women on
his list. But her candidacy faces challenges as well. Biden, 77, has said he’s
looking for a running mate who is “ready to be President on Day One.” Dem-
ings is only in her second term representing Florida’s 10th District, a short
political résumé for national office. And to some of the Black voters whom
Biden is counting on in November, her career in law enforcement is not an
asset. Demings was “a leader within an institution that is inherently vio-
lent, racist, patriarchal and protective of capitalism,” says Charlene Car-
ruthers, an organizer in Illinois with the Movement for Black Lives. “It’s
not simply enough to have someone who looks like me as the vice-presi-
dential nominee. I’m interested in someone who shares my values and is
aligned with our vision.”
Demings rejects the proposition that her record in law enforcement might
be a liability in this political climate. “I have no regrets about the career paths
that I’ve taken,” she says from her Washington apartment in a June 25 inter-
view with TIME. But her chances to become Vice President rest in part on
whether Demings—and Democrats—can reconcile her identity as a former cop
with that of a Black woman in a country where Black people have the most to
fear from police. Some on the left see her as a symptom of the problem, not
a beacon of progress. This raises some hard questions for
Americans. How much should we expect our politicians >
to account for injustices that are bigger than any one per- Demings at
son? Is it fair to ask public servants how their own experi- the scene of a
ences with racism or sexism guide their approach to fight- mass shooting
ing such forces stacked against them? And are those who in Orlando’s
have found success within existing structures an extension Gateway
of systemic failure or the ones best equipped to fix them? Center in 2009

When Valdez Venita demings Was tapped as Or-

lando’s police chief in 2007, the announcement reached
officers in the department by pager. She was the first
woman to hold the role, and kudos poured in—flowers,
phone calls, emails. But it didn’t take long for Demings
to notice something odd: Congratulations, well-wishers
would say. You know that’s a big job.
It was. But no bigger than it had been under the seven
male chiefs Demings served under before taking the posi-
tion. None had been challenged on whether they could do
it. The implicit sexism wasn’t a surprise: as she climbed
the ladder in the department, she recalls being quizzed
on policy by subordinates to see if she knew what she
was doing. “When you are a woman and a Black woman,”
Demings says, “when you walk into the room, unfortu-
nately, men and women sometimes determine what they
think you are capable of.”
Demings was born in Jacksonville, Fla., one of seven
children crammed into a two-room house. By age 4, she’d
been called racial slurs. Her mother was a maid; her father
worked as a janitor, and mowed lawns and picked oranges
on the side. Sometimes he had to ask his employers for
JOE BURBANK— ORL ANDO SENTINEL

advance pay to foot the bill for his children’s class trips.
Demings took her first job as a dishwasher at 14, and later
became the first in her family to graduate from college.
Her first career was as a social worker, working with
foster children. In 1983, she left Jacksonville for Orlando,
where she joined the police force as a way to save money
for law school. But she stayed, drawn to a job where she
82 Time July 20/July 27, 2020
Some 72% of Democrats say
it is important that Biden
choose a woman of color

83
Society
Pandemic
Schemes
AS MOST RETAIL BUSINESSES STRUGGLE, MULTILEVEL MARKETING
DISTRIBUTORS ARE USING THE INTERNET—AND COVID-19—TO GROW
THEIR BUSINESSES BY ABBY VESOULIS AND ELIANA DOCKTERMAN

ILLUSTR ATION BY GU Y SHIELD FOR TIME

Society
When Christine Baker, from the virus. “With the flu and coronavirus
spreading throughout the U.S., things are selling
a financially strapped out,” wrote a seller for doTERRA, an essential-oils
stay-at-home mom to two little girls, made up her MLM. “If you are running low on these immune
mind to lose 30 lb., she took a cue from a friend who’d boosting protection items, now is a good time to re-
gotten fit with Beachbody. The company’s online plenish.” TIME reviewed dozens of similar claims
workouts and diet products cost Baker about $160, made on social media.
but they worked. The FTC has sent letters to 16 MLMs warning
“Literally within 30 days, I looked and felt like a them against making claims about the coronavirus-
different person,” says Baker, of Roseville, Calif., who related health benefits of their products, the poten-
was so impressed with her 2015 transformation that tial earnings for investors, or both.
she decided to become a Beachbody fitness coach But the FTC is fighting an uphill battle as the
herself. She started paying around $135 per month to $35.2 billion industry rapidly evolves, courtesy of
set up her own online portal and to purchase Beach- the Internet. Unlike MLMs of yesteryear that relied
body products, and she got to work looking for cus- on door-to-door sales, today’s MLM distributors can
tomers. Yet as she spent more hours trying to sell reach millions of potential recruits around the world
people on Beachbody and fewer hours working out on Facebook, Instagram and other social networks.
herself, Baker says the pounds piled back on but the Included in a distributor’s marketing tool belt are
money did not roll in. private messages, which regulatory agencies like the
“You’re working your ass off. You’re having to FTC can’t monitor. “[Social media] can be like a lab-
check in every day in your group, you’re having to oratory for deception,” says Kati Daffan, the FTC’s
keep everybody motivated, because if they don’t lose assistant director for marketing practices. “You’ve
weight and see results, they’re not going to keep buy- got all these members competing with each other
ing from you,” says Baker, 48. “It was like I was just to deceive more people. And they can do it however
throwing money away.” By the time she gave up on they want if there’s no one watching from above.”
Beachbody, Baker says, she’d lost several thousand And with so many people out of work, there’s an
dollars and countless hours that she wishes had been eager audience. The Direct Selling Association (DSA),
spent with her daughters. the trade group representing MLMs, says that 51%
Multilevel marketing companies (MLMs) like of the 51 companies that participated in a survey in
Beachbody, which rely primarily on distributors like early June said COVID-19 has had a “positive” im-
74% of MLM Baker instead of salaried staff to sell goods and ser- pact on their 2020 revenue; 59% reported the same
sellers are
women, vices, have long been eyed with suspicion by regu- in a later survey. DSA president Joseph Mariano says
and 20% are lators, and for good reason. The Consumer Aware- some sellers have inflated the potential rewards of
Hispanic ness Institute, whose research has been posted on investing in their companies. “You inevitably have
Direct Selling the website of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), a few overzealous people saying things that perhaps
Association found that 99% of people who participate in them lose they shouldn’t,” he says. “When you have a vulnerable
money. “Statistically, it is more likely you will win the population of people who have lost their jobs or are
lottery than you will make hundreds of thousands of concerned about losing their jobs, the fact of the mat-
dollars selling for an MLM,” says Robert FitzPatrick, ter is .. . direct selling is generally a modest supple-
the co-author of False Profits, a book about MLMs, mental income opportunity. It’s not something that
and the president of PyramidSchemeAlert.org. is going to make you rich.” Mariano says the DSA has
But as the COVID-19 pandemic sends the econ- worked with the Better Business Bureau to monitor
omy into its worst tailspin since the Great Depres- claims about products’ benefits and sellers’ potential
sion, some MLM distributors are wooing new inves- earnings. The DSA-funded Direct Selling Self-Regu-
tors with promises of big money and the opportunity latory Council has referred four cases to the FTC this
to work from home—seemingly ideal for people who year for investigation of possible falsehoods.
are unemployed. Facebook posts promising jobs are
easy to spot, though the caveats that these opportu- But recessions tend to be good for MLMs,
nities do not offer guaranteed paychecks are rarely and this recession shows no sign of abating as new
mentioned. “Worried about the Coronavirus?” reads COVID-19 outbreaks slow reopenings. During the
a Facebook post by a Young Living essential-oils dis- 2007–09 Great Recession, the number of MLM sell-
tributor touting its Thieves product line. “Thieves ers began rising and went from 15.1 million in 2008
kills germs!” A similar post by a seller for Color to 18.2 million in 2014, according to a DSA report.
Street, an MLM that sells nail-polish strips, urged Celebrity support helped. Soccer star Cristiano
members to “invest some of that stimulus check in Ronaldo, lifestyle guru Rachel Hollis, former Presi-
yourself and start making money instantly.” dents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton (after they’d
Some sellers imply that their non-FDA-approved left office), and private citizen Donald J. Trump have,
supplements and essential oils can protect people over the years, appeared at MLM events or endorsed
86 Time July 20/July 27, 2020
Attendees at Beachbody’s Coach Summit in July 2019 in Indianapolis take part in a group workout
E VA N J E N K I N S F O R T I M E
Society
companies. Many influencers and athletes still back (plus transportation, food and housing) to attend a
them, as distributors sign on to sell everything from three-day “success school” sponsored by AdvoCare
leggings to home cooking products. to learn sales techniques. When their car broke down
At most MLMs, investors, who are also known on the trip, the couple was forced to face their finan-
as distributors or sellers, make money by selling a cial straits. For years, Ludwig could not bring herself
company’s products and recruiting others to do the to look at the boxes of unsold shakes in her pantry.
same. They then earn commissions or bonuses based AdvoCare is one of a handful of MLMs that
on their recruits’ sales. But after investors have re- the FTC has declared a pyramid scheme. Accord-
cruited as many friends and relatives as they can ing to the agency, 72% of AdvoCare’s distributors
find, communities become saturated, making it dif- made no money in 2016, and 18% made $250 or
ficult for new sellers to find customers. Countless less that year. After its investigation, the FTC in Oc-
distributors end up wallowing in merchandise they tober 2019 required AdvoCare to pay a $150 mil-
can’t sell and sinking into debt as they’re pushed to lion settlement and to stop using the MLM busi-
spend more money attending training seminars and ness model. (AdvoCare said in a statement that it
bonding conferences, critics say. “They tell you if you “strongly disagree[s] with the FTC allegations” but
don’t go to a training, if you miss a single training, you has changed the way it does business.) One month
will never be successful,” says Illyssa Demarino, 31, a later, the FTC alleged that Neora, an MLM sell-
Phoenix bartender who tried three MLMs and spent ing supplements and skin creams, was a pyramid
thousands of dollars without making any money. “It’s scheme. (Neora asserted that it was “not a pyramid
2014
so easy to get wrapped up in the cultlike mindset.” scheme under the law” in its own lawsuit against
2008 the FTC, where it accuses the agency of reinterpret-
MLMs fashion theMseLves as alternatives to the ing laws to unfairly label it.)
gig economy, which has been hit hard by COVID-19; In the past 41 years, the FTC has filed cases against
apps like Uber are suffering as people avoid shared 30 MLMs alleging they were pyramid schemes, ac-
transport, while others, like Instacart and Doordash, cording to Truth in Advertising, an independent
are flooded with new workers, driving down gig pay. watchdog group. In 28 of those cases, courts ei-
MLM The MLM world implies a glamorous and safer alter- ther agreed with the FTC or companies paid settle-
participation native, and its prime target is women, who have been ments or changed their business plans to resolve the
rose during the hit especially hard in this recession. Their service- cases. But the number of MLMs makes it difcult
Great Recession,
sector jobs were the first to go when restaurants, for the FTC to make sure each one is operating law-
going from
15.1 million bars, hotels and casinos closed, and when babysitting fully, especially since the number is always in flux.
in 2008 to and housekeeping jobs ended. The Direct Selling Association estimates that 1,100
18.2  million Even before the pandemic, MLMs adopted the lan- MLMs are in operation in any given year but cannot
in 2014 guage of pop feminism with hashtags like #bossbabe be sure. “Many companies may even come and go
Direct Selling and #momtrepreneur. Some sellers post doctored before they could even be ‘counted,’” the DSA says
Association before-and-after photos for fitness and beauty prod- on its own website.
ucts online in hopes of selling not just a payday but MLMs are not illegal, but many are at best finan-
unattainable beauty. cially risky. The chances of financial success are so
“I was the perfect target,” says Jamie Ludwig, grim that the DSA president, Mariano, has called par-
who in 2014 was convinced by a friend that she ticipating in MLMs an “activity” rather than a job.
could make good money working from home in Kan- The numbers that MLMs report often paint a
sas City, Mo., while selling weight-loss shakes and dark picture for sellers. At Young Living, 89% of
other supplements for an MLM called AdvoCare. “A U.S.-based distributors earned an average of $4 in
new mom with baby fat I wanted to lose, desperate to 2018, according to an income-disclosure statement.
be at home with my kids.” New Orleans Saints quar- At the skin-care MLM Rodan + Fields, 67.1% of sell-
terback Drew Brees endorsed the company, which in ers had an annual median income of $227 in 2019.
Ludwig’s eyes gave it an air of legitimacy. More than half the distributors at Color Street fell
She and her husband Josh bought a $79 starter into the company’s lowest tier of earners in 2018,
kit, and she scaled back her hours as a hairdresser with average monthly profits below $12.
to devote time to AdvoCare. All they had to do, their As the industry grows, so does awareness. Data
recruiter told them, was find enough buyers for the obtained by TIME through Freedom of Information
$900 in supplements that arrived on their doorstep Act requests shows that consumer complaints to
each month. “I spent the entire time on the phone the FTC about MLMs have risen in recent years.
trying to sell, giving my kids no attention, working From 2014 to 2018, complaints against Amway, a
50 or 60 hours a week, more than I did before,” says company co-founded by Secretary of Education
Ludwig, 39. She and her husband, who is 41, found Betsy DeVos’ father-in-law, went from 15 to 36;
only a handful of buyers. They gave up AdvoCare in those complaints, consumers reported losing a
18 months later, but not before spending about $300 total of more than $380,000. Complaints against
88 Time July 20/July 27, 2020
 SeneGence, a makeup and skin-care MLM, jumped settle for millions in arbitration, their wrongdoing The Beachbody
from two in 2016 to 14 the following year before doesn’t become as public as a court settlement. summit in 2019
falling to six in 2018; consumers reported total drew thousands
losses of nearly $25,000. Complaints against According to the dSA, 74% of MLM sellers are hoping to earn
Monat, whose hair products stand accused of women, and 20% of sellers are of Hispanic origin, a money selling the
making people’s hair fall out, jumped from two demographic that critics say highlights the indus- company’s products
and fitness routines
to 30 from 2015 to 2018, with consumers alleging try’s systemic targeting of economically vulnerable
losses totaling $7,572. (Monat says its products communities. José Vargas, a 39-year-old from Con-
are “dermatologist-tested” and that its research necticut, is one Latino man who suffered. After the
indicates they are safe.) mid-2000s real estate crisis forced him out of his
But the resources and time required to determine career in the mortgage industry, he was struggling
if a company is operating a pyramid scheme make it to support his family as a cable technician. He was
impossible for the FTC to investigate every MLM also about 25 lb. overweight.
with questionable practices, experts say. “It’s like a Enter Herbalife Nutrition, which since its found-
policeman trying to stop cars that are speeding on a ing in 1980 has sold dietary supplements. Vargas
highway,” says Peter Vander Nat, a retired FTC econ- started buying Herbalife’s shakes in 2012 and was
omist who spent more than two decades representing so happy about his weight loss that he became a full-
the government in cases against MLMs. “For every time Herbalife distributor in hopes of making a bet-
one that it stops for speeding, five roll on by.” ter income and helping others get in shape. But as 72% of
States have taken up some of the burden, with he shed the pounds, his wallet got lighter too. He AdvoCare’s
Washington, California, Illinois and others repre- says he paid about $2,500 for the privilege of calling distributors
made no money
E VA N J E N K I N S F O R T I M E

senting plaintiffs in suits against various MLMs. himself a supervisor, which he was told would help
in 2016, and 18%
But legal action has become increasingly challeng- him earn more money faster. He paid roughly $700 made $250 or
ing as more companies insert clauses in contracts a month to rent space for a storefront, which was less that year,
that force sellers into arbitration rather than litiga- recommended as a way to build up a clientele. He according to
tion in open court. Even if the MLMs are forced to says he attended mandatory local training sessions the FTC
89
Society

and “highly encouraged” national events in faraway distributors to be with Herbalife for a year before
cities. By the time Vargas gave up Herbalife in 2014, opening a storefront, but some changes are not yet
he says, he had lost close to $10,000. in effect in non-U.S. markets. In 2016, Herbalife said
Approximately 30% of Herbalife’s distributors are the settlement with the FTC showed that its “busi-
Latino, according to the company. Herbalife in par- ness model is sound.” Company officials declined to
ticular has faced criticism for targeting low-income comment on the record for this article.)
Latino sellers in Mexico and California. The com- Its website also invokes COVID-19 as a reason to
pany has a 10-year, $44 million sponsorship of the trust its products, which it says have earned Herba-
Los Angeles Galaxy professional soccer team, which life the designation as an “essential” business.
boasts a massive Latino fan base. On April 29, Vargas’ former Herbalife recruiter
“You have a lot of Latinos that come here, looking messaged him on social media after being out of
to achieve the American Dream and become success- touch for several years to ask how his family was
ful,” says Vargas, who is back to working as a mort- faring through the pandemic. Vargas, suspecting the
gage consultant. “I think it’s a big smack in the face.” conversation would turn into a recruitment pitch,
A 2016 FTC complaint accused Herbalife of de- stopped responding after exchanging pleasantries.
99% of people ceiving consumers and portrayed issues in tune This time, he won’t be swayed. “What they promise,”
who participate with Vargas’ experiences. Among other things, it he says of MLM distributors, “is very undeliverable.”
in multilevel said Herbalife banned storefront operators from
marketing displaying prices for anything other than Herbalife BeachBody ceo carl daikeler, who is 56 and
companies
lose money membership fees. estimated by Forbes to be worth hundreds of millions
From a 2017 report
Herbalife evaded official classification as a pyra- of dollars, says that achieving his level of success by
by the Consumer mid scheme, but only barely. Then FTC chairwoman selling Beachbody’s shakes and recruiting others to
Awareness Institute Edith Ramirez said the company was “not deter- do so isn’t easy. “This is not something you jump into
mined not to have been a pyramid.” Herbalife said and instantly make a lot of money,” he tells TIME.
it believed “many of the allegations made by the FTC Daikeler says he sounds a warning to those who
are factually incorrect,” but it agreed to pay $200 mil- want to quit their jobs and be full-time Beachbody
lion to consumers who the FTC said had been incen- coaches. “I will literally say, ‘Are you sure? And do
tivized to recruit people to buy Herbalife products— you have money saved? Because this is starting your
whether or not there was a market for them. own business, and starting your own business is very
Vargas recalls getting about $600 in the settle- hard. Most new businesses that start, fail.’ ”
ment but says worse than his financial loss is that It is months before COVID-19 had become a
he persuaded others to join Herbalife. Herbalife still household term, and thousands of Beachbody dis-
operates in the U.S., but its biggest regional market tributors have gathered in Indianapolis to be in-
is overseas in the Asia-Pacific region, where FTC spired, to be motivated and to learn how they can
rules don’t apply. (Herbalife says it has made signif- turn the hours they’ve devoted to Beachbody into a
icant changes since the FTC settlement to better pro- profit—or at least earn back what they’ve spent on
tect distributors, such as compensating distributors the company’s products and on attending this three-
based on how much they sell to customers rather day conference.
than how much they personally buy, and requiring A fit man with close-cropped gray hair, Daikeler
90 Time July 20/July 27, 2020
 Celebrities and
athletes lend an air of
legitimacy to MLMs.
From left: author
Rachel Hollis speaks
at a LulaRoe event
in October 2018;
the Los Angeles
Galaxy soccer team,
in November 2012,
wearing Herbalife
jerseys; essential
oils from doTERRA;
quarterback Drew
Brees, in a TV ad for
AdvoCare’s Spark
energy drink

uses the gathering to announce an array of prod- I took, that’s when I was like, I’m in the red. This
ucts to sell: an exercise program designed by a isn’t helping me at all. In fact, I’m probably worse
celebrity coach, a plant-based chocolate almond off than when I started.”
crunch bar, a pumpkin-spice protein beverage. Christine Baker, who left Beachbody in 2017, says
“We have 300,000 coaches,” he says to wild cheers. she was paying about $100 per month to remain an
“And we need to find the next 300,000.” The words active coach, but her highest commission check was
I can be my own boss had just flashed on the $300. (Beachbody says it is possible to remain active
screen behind the stage he’s now standing on. by purchasing or selling as little as $67 worth of prod-
Rachel Hollis will take the stage at some point, uct per month and paying a $15.95 monthly fee.) Like
but Daikeler is the person thousands of people in Brown, Baker says the truth hit her around tax time.
that audience want to be. She recalls her accountant telling her, “You know,
One of the people in the crowd is LindsayAnn the only reason why you’re doing half good on your
Hammarlund of Atlanta, a mother of three who left taxes this year is because you lost so much money.”
her teaching job two years after joining Beachbody, The same year Baker left Beachbody, a judge in
when her sales surpassed her teaching salary. “We Santa Monica, Calif., ruled the company must pay
HOLLIS: MELIS SA GOLDEN — REDUX; SOCCER: HARRY HOW — GE T T Y IM AGES; OILS: RODIN ECK ENROTH — GE T T Y IM AGES

were paying so much in day care, and I cried liter- $3.6 million in penalties and restitution after the
ally every single day I took them to day care and I city accused it of charging customers’ credit cards
went to school,” says Hammarlund, 35. She’s re- for renewal fees without consent, and of exaggerat-
cently gone back to the classroom now that her kids ing its products’ health benefits. Now, Beachbody
are older. But that MLM income, she says, has en- must clearly define renewal terms, obtain consent
abled her to pay down debt and take “many trips” from customers for subscription renewals and sup-
with her Beachbody team. Dozens of other coaches port its health claims with “competent and reliable”
who attended the Indianapolis convention told scientific studies.
TIME they signed up because they liked the prod- That hasn’t deterred customers. Since COVID-
ucts, enjoyed the camaraderie and wanted to get in 19 closed gyms, Beachbody’s business has been
shape—not because they wanted to make money. booming. Daikeler tells TIME that April, May
But on its website, Beachbody emphasizes that and June were the top streaming months for
being a coach “means earning an income while you Beachbody on Demand workout videos since
help yourself and others live healthier.” Except that the program launched in July 2015: the num-
wasn’t the reality for more than half of its coaches ber of subscribers has blossomed more than 33%
last year: 57% of them earned $0 in commission since mid-March, and customers are averaging The majority
and bonuses in 2019, according to the company’s 600,000 fitness classes on the platform per day. of sellers for
income-disclosure statement. Andy Brown, 38, a And a lot of these customers are attempting to a skin-care
former Beachbody coach, thought he’d made be- turn their newfound workout regimens into income MLM called
tween $4,000 and $5,000 in 2015, until he did his streams. Of the approximately 405,000 Beachbody Rodan +
Fields made
taxes. “I was starting to estimate how much money coaches who are eligible to recruit participants and an annual
I spent on everything compared to the amount of make money off them, more than 141,000 signed median
money that I actually made, and that was sort of a up on or after March 1. —With reporting by currie income of
wash,” says Brown. “And then on top of the tax hit engel/new york □ $227 in 2019
91
 CENTERING
BLACK STORIES
Novelist
Jasmine Guillory
celebrates the
power of fiction
to foster empathy
for Black lives

INSIDE

PEACOCK LAUNCHES WITH A DOCUMENTARY CELEBRATES GROUNDHOG DAY ARRIVES

A BRAVE NEW WORLD THE ACTIVISM OF JOHN LEWIS IN PALM SPRINGS

PHOTOGR APH BY NAKEYA BROW N FOR TIME

Time Off is reported by Mariah Espada, Josh Rosenberg and Julia Zorthian
TimeOff Opener
ESSAY

For greater empathy,

read Black fiction
By Jasmine Guillory

nyone who knows me will Tell

A you that I love being the center of

attention. But for my fifth book,
Party of Two, I was compelled to
write about a character who shies away from
the spotlight. Yes, she’s a Black woman like
me, and yes, she’s a lawyer, which I was. But
just because Olivia and I are alike on the sur-
face doesn’t mean we’re the same.
The five Black women at the heart of each
of my books are all different from one another,
and from me, which means I’ve had to discover
their histories and quirks one by one. For Ol-
ivia, caught by her love of a man whose life as a
public figure threatens to derail her own ambi-
tions, I had to figure out what she was scared
of, what brought her joy and how to balance the
two. In other words, I needed my empathy.
Writing fiction helps me relate with peo-
ple who have inner and outer lives different
from my own. Reading fiction can do the same
thing. To find that kind of empathy for Black
people—for Black lives of all kinds—we need
look no further than fiction. △
As antiracism books fill up the best-seller Guillory worked you know and recognize and ones you
lists, I’m thrilled that people want to learn as a lawyer before don’t. It helps you to put yourself in
more about racism, white supremacy and publishing her first the shoes of those characters, even
their own role in both. But when we say Black novel in 2018 when you have a different perspective
Lives Matter, we mean the whole of Black when it comes to race, gender or sexual
lives—not just when we die at the hands of the identity. I’ve read so many books about
police and not just when our lives intersect people who are nothing like me—
with white lives to our detriment. Racism is often by necessity, since I can think of
not the only thing to know about what it means only one book I was assigned to read
to be Black. Our joys, our sorrows, our love, in my entire K-12 education that was
our grief, our struggles to fit in, our families, about a Black girl or woman—and I’ve
our accomplishments and our triumphs— learned something from many of them.
these things also matter. Black children matter, As characters confront events and
and not only the ones killed before their time. situations we’ve never experienced,
You may think you already know that, but fiction helps us imagine how we would
G U I L L O R Y: J AY L . C L E N D E N I N — C O N T O U R B Y G E T T Y I M A G E S

history has proved otherwise. deal with them.

Black lives are not a problem to be solved My second book, The Proposal,
or an academic text that can be studied. starts with the main character, Nik,
To recognize Black lives as ones to celebrate, refusing a public marriage proposal
empathize with and care about, here’s your at Dodger Stadium with thousands
antiracism work: read more fiction by and of people watching. I knew that I—
about Black people. as a consummate people pleaser
who has to work up to correcting a
Multiple studies have shown that mispronunciation of my own name—
reading certain types of fiction increases would have never been able to say
a reader’s empathy for others in the world. no under that much pressure. So I
Fiction gives you a window into both lives had to get into Nik’s head, learn what
94 Time July 20/July 27, 2020
 READING LIST understood the lifelong, generational
Guillory’s picks effects of the Tulsa massacre.
for all ages But fiction can also make you smile
from ear to ear, and thrill in the
wonder of new discovery, magic or
FUMBLED
ALEXA MARTIN love. When I read One Crazy Summer
After a teen pregnancy by Rita Williams- Garcia, about three
splits them apart, little Black girls who lived with the
high school sweethearts Black Panthers, I felt how much fun
unexpectedly reunite they had, even amid family struggle
years later
and revolution. When I read Leah
THE BOYFRIEND Johnson’s You Should See Me in a
PROJECT Crown, I knew in my soul what it was
FARRAH ROCHON
Following a messy
like to be a Black teenager growing up
and public breakup, an in a small town in Indiana and falling
app developer navigates in love for the first time.
new relationships I hope that when people read my
romance novels, and those of other
FROM THE DESK OF Black writers like Farrah Rochon and
ZOE WASHINGTON Alexa Martin and Kennedy Ryan and
JANAE MARKS
Twelve-year-old Zoe seeks many more, they feel the joy of Black
justice for the incarcerated women who are happy and desired and
father she’s never met accomplished and loved. White media
rarely portray Black women as worthy
of a happily ever after. Too often,
HOMEGOING
YAA GYASI we’re rendered as objects, created to
This multigenerational carry out another character’s purpose.
epic traces the impact We can be sexual, yes—but not for a
of slavery through the
paths of two sisters

kind of person she was and how and YOU SHOULD SEE
ME IN A CROWN Fiction can also
why she wouldn’t hesitate to turn LEAH JOHNSON
someone down on a Jumbotron. That
make you smile
A shy high school
work helped me understand people senior runs for prom
from ear to ear, and
in the world who make bold, fearless queen and falls for thrill in the wonder
decisions. It made me envy them—and one of her competitors of new discovery,
sympathize with the blowback they magic or love
inevitably receive. QUEEN MOVE
KENNEDY RYAN
Reconnected in their
when we read heartbreaking 30s, two childhood
reportage that includes the numbers of friends embark on a relationship, not to fall in love with.
dead, sick, enslaved or impoverished— steamy romance We can be maternal, yes—but for white
they can feel like just that: numbers. children, not our own. We can be funny,
But fiction brings out recognition in yes—What a great, sassy best-friend
a way that nonfiction doesn’t; when it ONE CRAZY character that woman was—but never
SUMMER RITA
does its job, you are engrossed in the WILLIAMS-GARCIA the star.
story, feeling everything the characters A mother sends her three In the pages of the romance novels
do. When I read Homegoing by Yaa young daughters to a camp I read and write, I see the Black women
Gyasi, which tells the stories of the run by the Black Panthers I’ve seen my whole life. They are suc-
descendants of two half sisters—one cessful, respected and involved in lov-
line raised in Africa and one in slavery RED AT THE BONE ing, fulfilling and happy relationships.
in America—I viscerally understood JACQUELINE I want the world to know not just about
WOODSON
the pain that the Fugitive Slave Act An unplanned pregnancy
our pain, but the whole of our lives, and
had caused. When I read Jacqueline ties two families together especially our joy.
Woodson’s Red at the Bone, about a in a coming-of-age portrait
mother, daughter and grandmother of class and community Guillory is the best-selling author of five
living in present-day Brooklyn, I —Annabel Gutterman books. Her new novel is Party of Two
95
TimeOff Reviews
◁
Immaculate conception: the World State
glitters with genetically engineered beauty

Far from the grand rose-tinted vis-

tas of Lenina’s and Bernard’s home
city New London, a young man named
John (Alden Ehrenreich) lives with his
mother (Demi Moore, nice to see but
underutilized) in a wasteland populated
by so-called Savages, where religion,
family and poverty persist. In the novel,
this place is a reservation of sorts. Wie-
ner combines it with a theme park for
World State tourists. Inhabitants play
redneck caricatures in re-enactments
of, in one case, Black Friday at a big-box
store. But a faction of militant Savages
is rising up. This is Brave New World
meets Westworld—until the action
abruptly shifts back to New London.

The show looks gorgeous—and

costly. Ehrenreich’s John has a brooding
TELEVISION charm. Scripts are fast-paced and fun.
Yet something is missing. TV thrives
In Peacock’s flagship, on rich, layered characters, not virtual
a Brave New Westworld clones. The rare burst of anger or pas-
By Judy Berman sion does not a complete person make.
This wasn’t a problem for Huxley, be-
ConsCiousness defines humaniTy. iT gives us emo- cause his characters served as vehicles
tions and choices, allows us to form societies, create art, un- for ideas that dominated the cultural
derstand the world around us. But it also opens the door to in- conversation in his time: the efficiency
equality, war, genocide, environmental destruction. It’s what gospel of Henry Ford, Soviet commu-
makes us dream of utopia and—because any perfect society nism. And from a thematic perspective,
would still require drudge work no self-actualized individual it’s a sad quirk of 2020 that it’s so hard
would be happy doing—what keeps that idyll out of reach. to feel outraged at the prospect of a so-
The futuristic World State of Aldous Huxley’s classic 1932 ciety free from violence, indigence and
novel Brave New World, which comes to TV in a pulpy adap- illness. The show barely tries, muddling
tation for NBCUniversal’s new streaming service Peacock, its message with dazzling New London
believes it has solved that paradox. Each person is geneti- set pieces and neglecting to plumb the
cally engineered to be an ideal member of their caste: Alphas ‘It’s horrors of a culture that manufactures
are the brilliant ruling class. Epsilons are the simple manual obviously an contentment so effectively as to provide
laborers. The rest fall in between. Each rank performs a cru- immensely neither inspiration nor need for art.
cial function, has its material needs met and is conditioned powerful Huxley didn’t romanticize the Sav-
to enjoy its daily routine. Family and monogamy are illegal. instrument.’ ages, either. In a foreword from 1946,
Pregnancy is obsolete. To regulate brain chemistry there’s he expressed regret for failing to flesh
soma, a happy pill dispensed like candy. The World State has, ALDOUS HUXLEY, out a third, superior society, where indi-
reflecting on
in effect, hacked consciousness to eliminate dissatisfaction. viduals would work to discern the pur-
television in a
Showrunner David Wiener (Homecoming) populates his 1958 interview with pose of human life. He would revisit the
adaptation with mostly the same characters as Huxley’s novel. Mike Wallace idea in 1962’s Island. Considering how
Entangled in a sexual relationship that has become exclusive, empty Brave New World feels as a serial-
Beta-Plus hatchery worker Lenina Crowne (Jessica Brown ized drama—and how desperately our
Findlay) is sent to Alpha-Plus counselor Bernard Marx (Harry culture thirsts for utopian thinking—
Lloyd) for a scolding. After he humiliates her with a holo- I wish we’d gotten that show instead.
graphic replay of her monogamous trysts—Brave New World
has as much weird sex as any premium-cable romp—they BRAVE NEW WORLD will debut with the
form a bond based on mutual stirrings of discontent. launch of Peacock on July 15

96 Time July 20/July 27, 2020

 TELEVISION

A crisis at an invisible border

Some of the beSt tV of our time in a twist the show takes its time explain-
has been set at the intersection of human ing, Sofie shows up at an immigration
folly and systemic rot, from The Wire’s detention center in the Australian desert.
Dickensian Baltimore to the gallows It’s there that the four main
comedy of the carceral state in Orange characters converge. Ameer (Fayssal
Is the New Black. Using large casts and Bazzi) is an Afghan refugee fleeing the
multiseason sprawl, these shows slowly Taliban with his wife and daughters.
O’Grady sings the blues widen their frames to capture more Another kind husband and father, Cam
misery—and access more insight. (Jai Courtney), takes a well-paid job as
TELEVISION Though immigrant stories abound in a guard at the facility over the objections
A Little Voice the Trump era, American TV has yet to
perform such a thorough dissection of
of his activist sister. Finally there’s
Clare (Asher Keddie), a public servant
with little to say our immigration system. The next best freshly promoted to an impossible post
Like a designer T-shirt that thing is Stateless, an emotional look at controlling the center’s public image.
reads “Good Vibes Only,” Little Australia’s similar crisis from creators Stateless starts slow, and its earnest-
Voice longs for authenticity Cate Blanchett, Tony Ayres and Elise ness may be off-putting to some. But it
but is all too saturated with McCredie, inspired in part by the has something profound to say about
the well-intentioned naiveté real scandal of Australian permanent how injustice can snowball into catas-
of privilege. Featuring original resident Cornelia Rau’s unlawful trophe. Institutional power compounds
but generic coffeehouse detention in the early 2000s. What’s the effects of choices made by deluded,
tunes from “Brave” hitmaker remarkable is how broad a picture self-interested, poorly trained individu-
Sara Bareilles (an executive the miniseries manages to create in als; even good intentions can backfire,
producer, with J.J. Abrams and just six episodes featuring a handful with lethal results. How can a system en-
Jessie Nelson), the musical of characters. trusted with the world’s most vulnerable
series casts fresh-faced
Yvonne Strahovski (The Handmaid’s populations possibly succeed when—
Brittany O’Grady as Bess,
Tale) plays the Rau-like Sofie, a misfit for the people who live and work within
a young New York City singer-
songwriter who’s afraid to
flight attendant who channels her lone- it—excelling at your job or providing for
perform her own material. As liness into a cultish dance troupe run your family doesn’t always mean doing
a result, she’s stuck in a Disney by a charismatic couple (Blanchett and the right thing? —J.b.
version of the struggling-artist Dominic West). But when she blows a
hustle—walking dogs, tending big performance, they banish her. Later, STATELESS comes to Netflix on July 8
bar and caring for a brother on
the autism spectrum (delightful
newcomer Kevin Valdez)
whose existence seems
contrived to demonstrate
her goodness.
Only in the storage unit
where she keeps her piano,
and where her British love
interest (Sean Teale) has
B R AV E N E W W O R L D : N B C ; L I T T L E V O I C E : A P P L E T V+; S TAT E L E S S : N E T F L I X

a makeshift office, does

she dare play her songs.
“I should’ve been born
50 years ago,” she laments
to him. But the problem isn’t
that Bess loves Bob Dylan as
much as that she’s an older
person’s fantasy of a broke,
talented young woman in the
contemporary city. Even Carrie
Bradshaw’s life was more
plausible. —J.B.

LITTLE VOICE premieres July 10 △

on Apple TV+ Ameer (Bazzi) and daughter Mina (Soraya Heidari) seek a better life in Australia
97
TimeOff Reviews
MOVIES a longtime couple. (They met during the
The Old Guard offers new crusades, on opposite sides of the fight,
and have been inseparable ever since.)
hope for action movies Andy’s tight band specializes in heroic
By Stephanie Zacharek extractions, like rescuing groups of kid-
napped girls in the desert. But when
Because acTion-fanTasies—parTicularly Those they’re betrayed by a seemingly earnest
produced under the Marvel umbrella—have become such ex–CIA agent (played by Chiwetel Ejio-
huge moneymakers, few filmmakers seem motivated to for), her disillusionment intensifies.
make better ones. These blockbusters seem designed to fill
expectations rather than to surprise and delight. Their action LuckiLy, a young soLdier who’s
sequences get faster and louder, but never smarter. Their dragged into their fold, Nile (played
pathos feels lab-created. Yet these movies make so much with understated intensity by Layne,
money that revitalizing them has come to seem hopeless. perhaps best known for If Beale Street
Enter Gina Prince-Bythewood, a filmmaker who has never Could Talk), jolts Andy out of her ennui.
before made an action movie, to show the world how it’s done. Nile is a lot of work: she’s reluctant to
Though the summer is young, The Old Guard is almost cer- acknowledge her special powers—an
tainly the best action entertainment of the season. Starring immortal who’s wounded can generally
Charlize Theron as an immortal, ancient warrior, and KiKi heal in a matter of seconds—and she
Layne as a newbie-immortal just coming to terms with her views Andy as the enemy. Early on, the
own powers, The Old Guard is based on a comic-book series by two go at it in a hand-to-hand combat
Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernández. But don’t lump it in with sequence that’s superlative in its
the big-franchise comic-book movies: in its craftsmanship choreography and visual clarity. When
and soul, it has more in common with the 1990s films of ac- one throws a punch, you can easily
tion genius John Woo than with anything that’s been extruded follow the swing; a roundhouse kick
through the franchise Play-Doh pumper in recent years. If an reads like a brutal sonnet. Action is a
action movie can be elegant and thoughtful, this one is. language, and Prince-Bythewood—who
Kicking the door
Theron’s Andromache, Andy for short, is the leader of a has made three terrific films in other
down: Theron
small gang of ageless mercenary warriors, but her years on the and friends do their genres—already knows the vocabulary.
job—centuries, in fact—have taken a toll. Her closest cohort part in an action Some filmmakers work all the time,
is Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts); a fellow loner, he’s the one movie in which making movies even when you wish
who understands her best. But she also feels a deep, protec- craftsmanship they wouldn’t. Prince-Bythewood is the
tive affection for the two others in their group, Nicky (Luca matters other kind: in the years since her mar-
Marinelli) and Joe (Marwan Kenzari), who also happen to be ▽ velous debut, the 2000 Love & Basket-
ball, she has made only two features,
The Secret Life of Bees (2008) and Be-
yond the Lights (2014). Although she’s
been busy working in television, the
movies may need her more: she brings
an intimate touch even to large-scale
projects like this one. Though it features
all manner of gunplay—plus the use of
assorted antique weaponry—The Old
Guard never feels assaultive.
It doesn’t hurt that Prince-
Bythewood’s cast is tops. Theron’s lanky,
boots-and-jeans grandeur suits the
movie perfectly; she’s fully in tune with
its willowy grace. If you think you’re not
an action-movie or comic-book-movie
person, this one could change your mind.
The Old Guard feels fresh, even as it hon-
ors the best traditions of its genre. It’s the
action movie we didn’t know we wanted.
Old guard, meet vanguard.

THE OLD GUARD streams on Netflix

NETFLIX

beginning July 10

98 Time July 20/July 27, 2020

TimeOff Reviews

Congressman Lewis
MOVIES
Still stirring up
Good Trouble
Democratic Congressman
John Lewis is both a revered
civil rights hero and a politician △
who knows that compromise Milioti and Samberg: staying afloat, whatever it takes
is sometimes key to achieving
MOVIES
difficult goals—two identities
that don’t always dovetail Love becomes a habit in Palm Springs
neatly. Yet, as director Dawn
Porter shows in her stirring, The besT comedies ofTen come going great. But Nyles is stuck in an infi-
joyous documentary John with a whisper of melancholy, an ac- nite time loop, which means he’ll repeat
Lewis: Good Trouble, Lewis knowledgment that so much in life is a the same day over and over. In some
never loses sight of the
leap of faith. Palm Springs, directed by ways, it’s fun—he can rework that one
essential struggle: “One of my
Max Barbakow, starts off, seemingly, as day however he wants. But there’s also
greatest fears,” he says in the
film, “is one day we wake up one of those unruly and unhinged esca- despair in knowing that he can never
and our democracy is gone.” pades in which characters do anything move forward, and that becomes Sarah’s
Lewis advocates the they want just to show how groovy and burden too, when she becomes stuck in
importance of getting into iconoclastic they are: Andy the time loop with him.
“necessary trouble,” of Samberg, channeling the The rest of Palm Springs
speaking up even when those perfect mix of goofiness ‘To me, it’s like shows how Sarah and Nyles
in power would prefer that you and gravitas, plays Nyles, the perfect try to break out of that
keep silent. Good Trouble— the type of guy who wears wedding.’ loop and find their way to
which was executive-produced a Hawaiian shirt and shorts each other. If you detect a
ANDY SAMBERG, in
by TIME Studios, along with to a formal wedding, as if Variety, on being inspired
metaphor—you’re right.
CNN Films and AGC Studios— the rules set by the Man by the marriage scene in Yet the movie is so light on
traces Lewis’ story from his don’t apply to him. He em- Star Wars: Attack its feet that it never feels
youth in rural Alabama, to his barrasses his girlfriend, of the Clones forced or didactic, even
role as a leader in dangerous bridesmaid Misty (Mer- when it asks us to confront
civil rights protests, to his edith Hagner). And he flirts piercing truths about love
G O O D T R O U B L E : M A G N O L I A P I C T U R E S ; PA L M S P R I N G S : H U L U

long career in the U.S. House shamelessly with the maid of honor, and the elusive meaning of happiness.
of Representatives. Porter
Sarah (Cristin Milioti, in a performance “What if we get sick of each other?”
also gives us a sense of the
that’s at once serrated and tender), a Sarah asks Nyles plaintively, in the face
man who, as a kid, longed to
be a minister and practiced
dark-eyed beauty who’s clearly perched of a leap she’s not prepared to make.
his preaching skills to a flock on the edge—she keeps refilling her “We’re already sick of each other,” he
of chickens. Even then, he wineglass, even if drinking only esca- says, in the voice of a man who’s already
had what it took to hold an lates her jittery unhappiness. a goner. “It’s the best.” That’s the story
audience. —S.Z. When Nyles tries to get Sarah to talk of, and the messy glory of, love.
to him, she pushes him away with the —sTephanie zacharek
JOHN LEWIS: GOOD TROUBLE tiny-pitchfork animosity of a cartoon
is available to stream devil. But he wears her down, and the PALM SPRINGS streams on Hulu
on various platforms two sneak off; everything seems to be beginning July 10

100 Time July 20/July 27, 2020

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TimeOff Reviews
BOOKS

The end of the

world, again
By Alicia Elliott

“i pad around my house in The morning,

turning on faucets and lights to assure myself that
the apocalypse is still self-contained over a thou-
sand miles away at my mother’s doorstep.” This line
in Kelli Jo Ford’s innovative debut novel Crooked
Hallelujah comes in the book’s final section, un-
assumingly titled “Near Future.” Up to this point,
the book is a powerful, carefully observed family
drama following the lives of four Cherokee women
after members of their own family force them from
the Holiness Church around which they’ve been
taught to structure their lives and self-worth.
Then comes that casual mention of the
apocalypse.
At any other time in recent history, a late turn
in genre from literary to apocalyptic fiction might
seem preposterous. But now, in a moment when
we’re reckoning with not only a global pandemic
but also centuries of anti-Black racism and pain
brought to the surface, it feels true. The end of
the world we’re all currently experiencing doesn’t
look the way it has in so many books, movies and
TV shows. There are no zombies or aliens; no all-
knowing, wisecracking white men who step up △
and save the day. There is only us: terrified, trau- Ford, a citizen of the whether through early missionaries who believed
matized and galvanized, yet still having to endure Cherokee Nation of being Indigenous was synonymous with being a
the mundanity of daily life as though everything is Oklahoma, makes devil-worshipping heretic, or through government-
fine. There is only us: trying to push aside the pain her debut with a mandated, church-run Indian boarding schools that
and fear of our pasts long enough to focus on the genre-bending novel separated Indigenous children from their families,
pain and fear that is our present. then stripped them of their language and culture.
Ford, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Okla- The Cherokee women of Crooked Hallelujah have
homa, offers a novel in short stories, allowing her had their Cherokee language and culture stripped
to move with ease through perspectives, history from them too—casualties of other apocalypses
and time. Each heartbreaking chapter slowly adds their community has had to survive.
to the reader’s understanding of these women and That doesn’t make them any less Indigenous.
their increasingly difficult lives. Their experiences of intergenerational trauma,
It’s the content of those lives that sets Ford’s poverty, violence, self-loathing, religion and forced
novel apart. Granny, Lula, Justine and Reney are assimilation are well known to the Indigenous
fictional Cherokee women, yes—but, like real people for whom Ford so clearly and lovingly
Indigenous women, they have been deeply af- wrote this book. As are their experiences of self-
fected by colonization and assimilation. Read- discovery, love, joy and, ultimately, release. “Like a
ers who are looking for a literary version of an big old baby, I hurt for the little girl I was and won-
Edward S. Curtis painting will be disappointed; der who she could have been without the Bible,
Crooked Hallelujah isn’t an opportunity for non- without sickness, without so much by-God loss,”
Cherokee readers to get an inside look at Cherokee Justine says at one point, speaking not only to the
culture. Which is entirely the point. experiences of Indigenous people but perhaps to
all of us. “But without the things that make us who
IndIgenous people have always been more than we are,” she continues, “we’re nothing, I reckon.”
the stereotypes American letters have written us to
be. In Ford’s world, as in ours, Christianity has been Elliott is the author of the forthcoming essay
forced on Indigenous communities for centuries— collection A Mind Spread Out on the Ground
102 Time July 20/July 27, 2020
 200
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 END NOT E

Swift change is possible

By Oliver Jeffers
WE HAVE OFTEN BEEN PLACATED WITH THE NO- threat makes it feel impossible to do anything about
tion that real change takes time. But this is only true it. It reminds me of a scene in Austin Powers where
where apathy is its main resistance. Change can we see a hapless guard, rooted to the spot, scream-
come suddenly too. ing in horror at the approach of a large steamroller
Western society saw change occur at breakneck that will surely flatten him, only for the camera to
speed in the 1950s, when we went from the ration- pan back to reveal it is hundreds of feet away, mov-
ing of World War II to such disposable affluence ing at a snail’s pace. The steamroller will arrive. Will
that planned obsolescence was openly celebrated: we be standing in the same spot?
buy it cheap, buy it new, keep up with the Joneses. It
was the decade that plastic really entered the cycle SOMEONE WHO CAN “turn on a dime” can navi-
of humanity. And though we now know it perme- gate nimbly in tight restrictions. If that’s not what’s
ates everything on our been happening since
planet as a poison, it is March 2020, I don’t
still being produced at know what is. Consider
alarming rates. how much has changed,
But the biggest how quickly the planet,
change of the 1950s was given a brief rest, began
that collective selfish- to recover.
ness fell upon us. People To become distracted
spent money, and votes, now would be folly, and
on whatever ticked the it will be our children
“What’s in it for me?” who bear the brunt of
box. Since then, we have the steamroller. What,
lived an accelerated life then, can we, as the vil-
of excess, and now we lage it takes to raise
are realizing the party them, do to help prepare
is over. The hangover is these kids for the unfin-
setting in, and we have ished task at hand?
been handed the bill. Holding up our
And yet an astound- hands and painting the
ing number of people are still pretending that the △ extent of the problem with total transparency is a
way humans have behaved has nothing to do with An oil painting good first step. We can encourage them by example
how the climate has shifted. Why do we do or care from Jeffers’ to make the sacrifices that have until now proved
so little? Why are we so willing to hand such a dam- series of works too difficult for ourselves—cutting ourselves off
aged planet to our children? showing how from fossil fuels, redistributing wealth, returning
PA I N T I N G : O L I V E R J E F F E R S ; J E F F E R S : I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y A L E X F I N E F O R T I M E

In his seminal 1960s book Operating Manual we need to start our waste to the earth as food rather than as poison.
for Spaceship Earth, R. Buckminster Fuller posits truly quantifying We should also shut up and listen to them rather
that if we treated our planet as a mechanical ve- the global than feeding them our broken stories. Most im-
environment
hicle, we would treat it much differently than we portant, we should shift our thinking from “me” to
do. As car owners, we know that if the oil runs low, “we.” Whatever threats loom over us in the future,
we change it; if the tires run flat, we inflate them; if be they rising seas or global pandemics, one thing is
the gas runs low, we top it off. But we have not been certain: they will affect us all.
looking after this vehicle upon which we are all rid- There is an old Irish saying: “There are none so
ing. Indeed, we are too distracted arguing over what blind as those who will not see.” For the first time
to play on the radio to notice the smoke coming from in a while, the blindfold is coming off, and we are
the engine. turning on a dime.
We are vaguely terrified by a dystopian future
where freshwater is scarce and the earth is mostly Jeffers is an artist and the author of the upcoming chil-
arid. But it feels like the next generation’s problem. dren’s book What We’ll Build: Plans for Our Together
The long-looming, slow-approaching nature of the Future
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