Time - USA (2022-05-23)

(Antfer) #1

4 TIME May 23/May 30, 2022


The world to come


AT TIME, OUR EYES ARE ON THE RISING STARS
poised to shape the future. We i rst joined
forces with Rolex in 2014 to launch Next Gen-
eration Leaders, our series elevating young peo-
ple from across i elds and around the globe who
are working to build a better world. This edi-
tion includes, for example, beauty entrepreneur
Deepica Mutyala, who is creating better cosmet-
ics for people of color and just partnered with
Mattel to launch the i rst ever South Asian CEO
Barbie doll; Nigerian Afrobeats star CKay; and
Bolor-Erdene Battsengel, the youngest member
of Mongolia’s Cabinet, who is revolutionizing
public services for the digital age.
Our international cover
features one of these
leaders, Olga Rudenko, the
enterprising 33-year-old
editor in chief of the Kyiv
Independent, a startup
that has quickly become
the world’s primary source
for reliable English-
language journalism on
the war in Ukraine. As
we were preparing to
go to press, the Pulitzer
Prize Board awarded a
special citation to the
“journalists of Ukraine for
their courage, endurance,
and commitment to truthful reporting during
Vladimir Putin’s ruthless invasion of their
country and his propaganda war in Russia.”
The Independent—founded in November by
journalists who left their previous employer
after a scandal over editorial integrity—is a
remarkable example of the bravery it takes to
keep reporting on a brutal conl ict that hits so
close to home. TIME contributor Lisa Abend has
been speaking with Rudenko since the i rst week
of the Russian invasion, and we are thrilled to be
able to bring the story of this enterprising editor
and her colleagues to you.

Going to extremes
Leadership of the kind displayed by these young
people will be necessary to combat so many of
the world’s crises, not least the consequences
of climate change. In more than two decades at
TIME, Aryn Baker’s reporting has taken her all
over the globe, from war zones across the Mid-
dle East to Liberia during the Ebola outbreak.
In 2019, as the world marked what was then
the second warmest year on record, she wrote

Edward Felsenthal,
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF & CEO
@EFELSENTHAL

from Jacobabad, Pakistan, about what it’s like to
live in one of the hottest cities in the world. But
one thing she had never aspired to do was visit
the Arctic or Antarctica. “I like trees, and I hate
the cold,” says Baker, who these days is based in
Rome as TIME’s senior international climate and
environmental correspondent. “To be honest I
was never really interested in going to the poles.”
That changed in early 2020 when she was
invited on a Greenpeace- sponsored research
expedition to assess penguin populations on
the Antarctic Peninsula. After spending three
weeks among the glaciers, and in the company
of climate scientists and ornithologists, she was
hooked. As scientists began to predict an ice-
free Arctic summer as soon as the mid-2030s,
the other end of the earth began to call as well.
Last summer, the U.S.
Coast Guard cutter Healy
(one of only two U.S.
Coast Guard icebreakers)
was planning a rare tran-
sit through the Arctic,
and she asked to embed
for part of the journey.
The result is her story in
this issue about the i ght
over the top of the world,
as erosion and melting
permafrost threaten ca-
tastrophe for Indigenous
communities and places
like the U.S., Russia, the
E.U., and China (which
considers itself a “near Arctic” nation) ramp up
their claims on a region that until now held little
strategic interest.
“The poles regulate our climate, our weather
patterns, and even our maritime food supply,”
writes Baker in an opening essay about her trav-
els. “And they are warming faster than anywhere
else on earth, with untold consequences for
those who live at the planet’s more accommodat-
ing latitudes.”
Also in this issue is senior correspondent
Justin Worland’s rel ection on a new i lm, Black
Gold, produced by TIME Studios and Darren
Aronofsky’s Protozoa Pictures. It’s a gripping
documentary about the devastating environ-
mental impact of Big Oil, and a global conspiracy
that changed the world forever. We hope you’ll
tune in: the i lm debuts in theaters nationwide
on May 11, and on Paramount+ on May 17.

The poles


are warming


faster than


anywhere


else on earth,


with untold


consequences


FROM THE EDITOR



Baker at Quinton Point, Anvers Island, in
Antarctica, on Feb. 6, 2020

COURTESY ARYN BAKER
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