The Question of a Dying World – 044

Molly,

This recent sparring over authorship, while spirited, seems to me a matter for scholars with time to burn and ink to spill. In truth, it matters little to me who holds the pen if the words themselves live and move the minds of those who read them. The name at the top of the page fades quickly; it is the thought that endures.

But there is another matter weighing on me — one far more urgent than the provenance of a phrase. You spoke once, almost in passing, of a warming world, of seasons askew, of storms grown fierce and unpredictable. I cannot help but think of that summer we did not have, the year when the skies stayed dim and the earth refused to warm. We felt it in our bones, in our harvests, in the strange unease that crept into every conversation.

Tell me, what has become of the earth in your time? Is such a calamity now a rare misfortune, or has it become the common lot of humankind? Have the sciences found ways to restore the balance, or have we only deepened the wound? And if the latter, what are the stories the world tells itself to bear such knowledge?

—Polidori