National Geographic Magazine - UK November 2023

AS I WRITE, it’s a few weeks since both the United States and the European Union confirmed the hottest average global temperature ever recorded. Intense and unusual heat waves (86°F in Buenos Aires during Argentina’s winter), along with fires, storms, and other extreme weather events, seemed to make 2023 the year that climate change became more palpable for many people. Of course, climate change is more complicated than things simply getting hotter, but the overall warming of the Earth is perhaps the most direct consequence of the carbon dioxide we have released into the atmosphere since the 19th century. What to do about this problem is the subject of this month’s cover story, in which writer Sam Howe Verhovek and photographer Davide Monteleone take a closer look at carbon removal…

Hans-Jürgen and Heidi Koch Based in Germany on the Baltic Sea, the couple collaborate on nature imagery that they call “life-form photography,” which often includes a sociological or scientific component. Their award-winning work has been featured in dozens of exhibitions and in publications such as Stern and Le Figaro. Page 8 Luis Alberto Urrea Urrea is a Pulitzer Prize finalist and Guggenheim Fellow who has written 19 books, including the national bestseller Good Night, Irene. Born in Tijuana to a Mexican father and an American mother, he is often known as a border writer. But, he says, “I am more interested in bridges.” Page 108 Natasha Daly A staff editor for National Geographic, Daly is drawn to societal trends that shape our perceptions and treatment of animals. For the June…

Bertie Gregory During his childhood in England, Gregory was teased for being “totally obsessed with the natural world,” he says. That enthusiasm, combined with his photography and filmmaking skills, has earned him a BAFTA for cinematography and the Best Presenter Award at the 2019 Jackson Wild film festival. His series Animals Up Close With Bertie Gregory, now streaming on Disney+ and Hulu, takes viewers in front of and behind the camera, as well as on land and underwater, for rarely seen wildlife behaviors. An Explorer since 2015, he has spent several years tracking pack ice killer whales in Antarctica, the subject of his feature story in this month’s issue. Page 100 Davide Monteleone Originally from Italy, Monteleone is a visual artist and researcher who focuses on themes of geopolitics, data,…

LOOKING AT THE EARTH FROM EVERY POSSIBLE ANGLE…

IN 1860 CHARLES DARWIN wrote, “The sight of a feather in a peacock’s tail, whenever I gaze at it, makes me sick!” The plumes were so extravagant, he surmised, they could be a hindrance to survival. Darwin’s frustration with their seemingly inexplicable elegance eventually led him to the idea of sexual selection. Although this form of natural selection—driven by the preference of one sex for certain characteristics in individuals of the other sex—is well understood today, a peacock’s feather can still hold mystery for its viewers, says Heidi Koch. She and her husband, Hans-Jürgen, have spent the past few years photographing feathers in all their glorious detail. The German couple has trained their lenses on the natural world for more than three decades, but they don’t consider themselves nature photographers.…

ILLUMINATING THE MYSTERIES—AND WONDERS—ALL AROUND US EVERY DAY IN NOVEMBER 2018 a young American missionary swam from a fishing boat to a remote beach in the Indian Ocean and was killed by Indigenous islanders wielding bows and arrows. News of that fatal encounter on North Sentinel Island—a small patch of land in the Andaman archipelago—fascinated people around the world. Most were unaware such a place existed in our time: an island whose hunter-gatherer inhabitants still live in near-total isolation. The self-assured evangelist, 26-year-old John Allen Chau, had aimed to convert the Native people of a place he felt might be “Satan’s last stronghold.” Yet his brief visit bestowed another, distinctly 21st-century, kind of glory: Within a few days, unbeknownst to the islanders, the fact of their existence went viral. In…