National Geographic Magazine - UK July 2018

CAROL GUZY, 62, has won four Pulitzer Prizes for photography—more than any other photojournalist. Among her peers she’s known as much for her big heart as for the images she makes in places as different as Iraq, Haiti, and New Orleans. We sent Guzy to cover Puerto Rico (above) after Hurricane Maria. I talked with her about that experience and storytelling. Susan Goldberg: I learned as a young reporter writing obituaries that everyone has a story… Carol Guzy: Yes! Everyone has a story, and it’s almost cathartic for people to tell it. But it’s their story—not my story—and it’s amazing to me that people have the courage to open up their lives to the camera. In nearly 40 years as a photographer, what changes have you seen? Now…

‘THE STRONGEST MOTIVATIONAL FACTOR FOR ATHLETES IS THE DESIRE TO CREATE HISTORIC LEGACIES AND BREAK RECORDS.’ At just over 26.2 miles, a marathon gives you plenty of time to think. Some call it the loneliness of the long-distance runner. Even though I’ve switched from long-distance track events to the marathon, I’ve never felt lonely while I’m running. That’s because as I train, my mind is constantly whirring. In the run-up to a marathon, I clock around 130 miles a week. During that time, I think about all of the hard grafting I’ve done over the years. I also remind myself of the goals I still want to achieve, and I think about my wonderful family. All of this motivates me enormously. Mental motivation is just one of the weapons that…

IF NOT FOR the 1906 eruption of Mount Vesuvius, the fourth Olympiad might have taken place in Rome, its originally scheduled location. The volcano destroyed large parts of Naples, and funds intended for the 1908 Olympics were diverted to rebuild the city. When Lord Desborough, an ardent British sportsman, learned of the upset plans, he proposed that the games be held in London instead. It was London’s first Olympics, and the first in which national teams competed for points and medals. It was also where the seemingly arbitrary distance of the marathon, 26 miles and 385 yards, was established. Although accounts differ, one popular explanation for the marathon’s odd length is that it resulted from accommodating the British royal family. Runners started in front of Windsor Castle, reportedly so that…

A LITTLE-KNOWN LEGACY of Russia’s tumultuous 20th century is a profusion of protected lands, some so remote and restricted that few Russians have ever set foot in them. In the final months before Nicholas II, the last tsar, was forced to abdicate in 1917, he created the country’s first zapovednik, or “strict nature reserve,” near Lake Baikal in Siberia. Nicholas was soon executed by Bolshevik revolutionaries. He never knew that his reserve had succeeded in saving the Barguzin sable, long prized by the imperial family for its fur, which was nicknamed “soft gold.” In the United States the first national parks had been conceived as “pleasuring grounds” for the people. Early Russian conservationists, such as Grigory Kozhevnikov, had different dreams. They wanted to keep Russia’s new reserves from its people,…

THIRTY YEARS AGO, the potentially disruptive impact of heat-trapping emissions from burning fossil fuels and rain forests became front-page news. It had taken a century of accumulating science, and a big shift in perceptions, for that to happen. Indeed, Svante Arrhenius, the pioneering Swedish scientist who in 1896 first estimated the scope of warming from widespread coal burning, mainly foresaw this as a boon, both in agricultural bounty and “more equable and better climates, especially as regards the colder regions of the Earth.” There were scattered news reports through the decades, including a remarkably clear 1956 article in the New York Times that conveyed how accumulating greenhouse gas emissions from energy production would lead to long-lasting environmental changes. In its closing the article foresaw what’s become the main impediment to…

To explain how the enormity of climate change affects our grasp of it, Rice University’s Tim Morton cites a scene from the Star Wars movie The Empire Strikes Back where the Millennium Falcon flies into a “cave” that’s actually a giant worm’s maw. Living with climate change is like that, he says: “Because the worm is ‘everywhere’ in your field of vision, you can’t really tell the difference between it and the asteroid you think you landed on. For a while, you can kid yourself that you’re not inside a gigantic worm—until it starts digesting you.”…