Esoterica

UN Climate Experts to the World: We’re Already Fucked

There is no question that record heatwaves in North America and southern Europe, which sparked wildfires that destroyed thousands of homes and burnt through millions of acres of forests, are worrying. But according to the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or IPCC report released Monday morning there is a far worse dilemma on the horizon: the Arctic is melting three times faster than anyone thought—their first update since 2013. “It’s just guaranteed that it’s going to get worse,” Linda Mearns, a senior climate scientist at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research who co-authored the report said at its release. “I don’t see any area that is safe ... Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.”

The 3,949-page IPCC report, which directly points a finger at humans for not heeding ample warnings over the climate change, says there is no more time to waste and, in fact, it might already be too late to save low-lying areas now threatened by rising seas. “We’ve known for decades that the world is warming, but this report tells us that recent changes in the climate are widespread, rapid, and intensifying—unprecedented in thousands of years,” Ko Barrett, IPCC vice chair said ahead of the report’s release. “The bottom line is that unless there are immediate, rapid, and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting warming to 1.5 degrees C—or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit—will be beyond reach.”

The authors create five scenarios—essentially all bad—based on how even if world leaders start adhering to the 2015 Paris climate agreement things won’t get better, calling the current situation a “code red for humanity.”

Esoterica

Meet the Makers of Motherpeace Tarot, the Feminist Deck That Inspired Dior’s Resort Collection

A skeleton, huddled in a fetal position, encircled by a molting snake decorates the opening look of Maria Grazia Chiuri’s Dior Resort collection. Picked out in colorful threads at Dior’s Paris ateliers, the original image was drawn almost 40 years ago—it’s the Death card in the Motherpeace feminist tarot deck. An unlikely, inauspicious image for a fashion show, even one set in the wilds of the Santa Monica Mountains? Not according to Karen Vogel, who cocreated Motherpeace Tarot with Vicki Noble in the late ’70s. In fact, Chiuri’s choice of the Death card is downright uncanny. “It’s not necessarily about physical death,” says Vogel. “[It’s about] the beauty of the shedding of the skin that a snake does, that we can transform our lives. It’s about transformation and renewal that’s really beneficial.” An apter visual metaphor for Chiuri, who has set off on her own at Dior after working alongside Pierpaolo Piccioli for nearly three decades, is hard to conjure.

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Christian Dior himself knew from magic. He was a devotee of the tarot and is said to have had his cards read before each of his fashion shows. But the decks he used would have been distinctly different from Motherpeace with its strong female archetypes, more than half of whom are of color. Noble and Vogel researched the goddess-based cultures of indigenous peoples around the world to make their illustrations. “We put women back into history,” says Noble. They also made their deck round, changing not so much the structure of the tarot, but the form. Since they self-published in 1981 and hand-collated the first 5,000 decks, they’ve sold upwards of 300,000, but Motherpeace has remained fairly esoteric. Noble chalks that up to the usual resistance to feminist work, especially matriarchal feminism (which posits a pre-patriarchal gynocratic age marked by peace, not war). “We knew lots of women at Ms. Magazine who had cards in their desks, but the cards were never featured in the magazine because they’re offbeat.”

Nearly four decades later, the culture just might be catching up to Motherpeace. Beyond Chiuri and Dior, Vogel says she’s noticed a renewed interest in the deck. “Separately but related, I’ve been hearing people using the word patriarchy, when it used to be fringe terminology,” she says. “And there’s a renewed sense that it’s okay to be a feminist, for sure.” We just might be able to chalk that up to President Trump.