WELCOME

Where there’s a will... In the 1980s and ‘90s, hunger and famine felt like a very present issue. Even if some of the musical converts and celebrity-helps-save-Africa TV programmes from those days now seem a bit naff (at best), they did ensure that almost everyone knew how widespread starvation was and understood it as a defining issue of the times. Things feel different today, perhaps because so many other global problems now crowd the news cycle. Maybe this is why I was surprised to discover that after a decades-long decline, the number of people facing imminent starvation in the world has been rising since 2017. In this month’s dossier Mark Rowe explores this issue in detail (page 16). It makes for frustrating reading, particularly as the problem is not whether we can produce enough food (we can) but whether we have the political will to distribute it fairly.

Political will, or the lack thereof, can impact so many aspects of people’s lives. As we discover on page 32, in our exploration of the ‘geography of sexuality’, many people in the LGBTQ community feel let down by politics for all sorts of reasons. In many Western cities some of this discontent has been directed in recent years at the failure to protect historic venues that hold huge importance to so many people. Nevertheless there is a positive side to this story. It didn’t take long to unearth the fact that whatever happens – however expensive city rents become, or however intolerant wider society might be – LGBTQ people will always find a way to collectivise, gather and celebrate, just as they always have. Katie Burton Editor

CONTRIBUTORS

‘Virtual travel is part magic carpet ride, part hologram, as imagined by a digital genie,’ says Hadani Ditmars. At work on a new travelogue of Iraq, she was forced to enter the world of virtual travel to complete her research (page 48). There were pros and cons. ‘It’s kind of like journeying to Narnia via your smart phone rather than your wardrobe, but it can never replace the actual taste of that longed for Turkish Delight.’

‘Progress in decarbonising heat in the UK has been shockingly slow. So it was exciting to hear about plans to use heat naturally occurring in the water in disused mines,’ says environmental journalist Catherine Early who took a closer look at this opportunity (page 26). ‘Not only could this provide a constant supply of clean heat, it could also bring economic benefits to parts of the UK that suffered when the mines closed.’

‘I have always enjoyed long rail journeys, and had been looking for a reason to travel on the California Zephyr across the American West for some time. Attending a writers’ workshop in rural Wyoming provided the excuse,’ says journalist John Gilbey (page 41). Long distance passenger services in the USA could be looking at a resurgence under the Biden administration’s proposed infrastructure investment plan.

Geographical

GEOGRAPHICAL

July 2020 Volume 92 Issue 07 Publisher Graeme Gourlay

Editor Katie Burton Design Gordon Beckett Staff writer Jacob Dykes Subeditor Geordie Torr Operations director Simon Simmons Sales and marketing director Chloe Smith

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MAY 2021 . 5