Ideas editor @time. Author of 1,001 VOICES ON CLIMATE CHANGE, @simonschuster. 📖 bit.ly/1001Voices
Articles by Devi Lockwood
Kansas City and Philadelphia opinion writers gear up for a Super Bowl showdown | Opinion
Hello, football fans, and welcome to the exciting weeks leading up to the Super Bowl! As we all get ready for the big game, many of us are busy prepping our game-day outfits, planning our food spreads, and carefully weighing invitations to multiple Super Bowl parties. But before we dive into the festivities, we (opinion editors at The Inquirer and the Kansas City Star) are preparing for a different kind of showdown: a battle of words and ideas.
16 opinions that caught your attention in 2024
At The Inquirer Opinion section, we specialize in arguments, essays, and election season endorsements that matter to Philadelphians. In the waning days of 2024, here are the opinions - written by us and by you - that caught readers' attention this year, measured by online page views in the Philadelphia metro area.
What Green Party and third-party voters in Pa. might tell us about the future of close elections
That sense of dread many Democratic voters felt the day after the election, when Donald Trump's second term was confirmed, is not at all unfamiliar to Lucy Duncan. "That feeling you are experiencing right now, that feeling of the world being turned upside down? The feeling that you and loved ones are facing imminent threats, that the walls are closing in? Feel that," said Lucy Duncan, 60, who lives in West Philadelphia. That feeling is part of a message Duncan hoped to send to Washington.
What Green Party and third-party voters in Pa. might tell us about the future of close elections | Opinion
That sense of dread many Democratic voters felt the day after the election, when Donald Trump’s second term was confirmed, is not at all unfamiliar to Lucy Duncan. “That feeling you are experiencing right now, that feeling of the world being turned upside down? The feeling that you and loved ones are facing imminent threats, that the walls are closing in? Feel that,” said Lucy Duncan, 60, who lives in West Philadelphia. That feeling is part of a message Duncan hoped to send to Washington.
What masculinity means in America
On election night at 9 p.m., I left The Philadelphia Inquirer newsroom as results were beginning to spill in, and walked across Center City to the Cherry Street Tavern, where the Philadelphia Young Republicans club was hosting an election watch party. MAGA hats ranging from the subtle (denim and leather) to the in-your-face (red, black, and gold) dotted the heads of those in the crowd. There was a sense — not unlike the Trump rally I reported from in 2020 — of comfort.
America, we have to talk about masculinity
On election night at 9 p.m., I left The Inquirer newsroom as results were beginning to spill in, and walked across Center City to the Cherry Street Tavern, where the Philadelphia Young Republicans club was hosting an election watch party. MAGA hats ranging from the subtle (denim and leather) to the in-your-face (red, black, and gold) dotted the heads of those in the crowd. There was a sense — not unlike the Trump rally I reported from in 2020 — of comfort.
After Election Day, democracy will depend on all of us
Time has been moving slowly for Linwood Holland. Daylight saving time didn’t help; he bemoans the extra hour that he’ll now have to wait to know the results of the 2024 election. This morning, he and his wife were first and second in line at their polling place in Philadelphia’s 35th Ward. In a city where Republicans are outnumbered by a margin of 7-1, Holland — a 64-year-old GOP ward leader in this overwhelmingly Democratic city — is a rarity.
On Election Day, poll workers will be in the spotlight
On Nov. 5, from 6:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., roughly 45,000 poll workers in Pennsylvania will staff more than 9,000 polling places. Their task is often thankless. When I’ve voted in the past, I rarely pay attention to what poll workers are doing, except to say a warm hello. I’ve been much more focused on my ballot and the consequences of election results than on the people who perform the essential work of making sure we can vote on Election Day.
1,428 years of wisdom
More people are living to 100 years old than ever before, thanks largely to medical advances, increased access to health care, and overall improvements to public health and quality of life. And as 109-year-old Caroline Merrill of Ardmore has shown, one also cannot underestimate the importance of having an occasional apple martini.
10 things I learned from centenarians in the Philadelphia area
Travel is memorable and always worth it At the end of our lives, it’s the trips we’ll treasure. After Catharine Koenig, 103, lost her “dear hub,” she joined a memorable, monthlong group trip in China. Edna Wooden, 104, told me her favorite memories are traveling in England, Spain, China, Japan, Germany, and South America.
Centenarians from the Philly area share their wisdom and secrets to longevity
More people are living to 100 years old than ever before, thanks largely to medical advances, increased access to health care, and overall improvements to public health and quality of life. And as 109-year-old Caroline Merrill of Ardmore has shown, one also cannot underestimate the importance of having an occasional apple martini.
Age is not a destination
Life is not a series of accomplishments or failures, threaded togetherlike beads on a string. It is eating fresh tomatoes from a garden, juice trailing down the elbow. It is sitting before an elder with the intention of listening deeply. It is making eye contact with people we love, and the joy of deep breaths and the little moments between. Not all of us will reach 100 years old, but there are ways we can make our lives more positive, healthier, and have stronger relationships.
Ask Philly-area centenarians what they've learned in 100 years
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An epic presidential debate demands an epic playlist. Here’s ours.
If you watched last night’s presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, you probably anticipated some memorable moments. But perhaps you didn’t expect to be “in conversation“ with the debate, talking back when each candidate offered up an opinion you hated, or loved.
The Queer Internet
LGBTQI groups found rare freedoms online, but this year, many were shut by censors. It feels like slowly being sanded down, said one member.
In a small wedding by a Denver lake, I found the true meaning of celebrating LGBTQ Pride Original
DENVER — Amarilis Marte and Mariangy Delgado Gutiérrez didn’t leave their native Venezuela and spend three months traveling about 5,000 miles to the United States because they were pursuing a “dream.” They yearned for something both more practical and more basic. The practical? “I didn’t come here for an American dream,” Mariangy told me in an interview last week.
The eclipse brought us together. We can’t wait 20 years to feel that way again.
LAKE WAPPAPELLO, MO. — Before I was shaken awake by darkness, I was just one of a swarm, a crowd of humans walking down a hill from the parking lot to the lake’s edge. We had driven for hours through the rural wilderness to get here, past fields growing crops I cannot name and through roads so remote they don’t have names, just letters of the alphabet. The traffic thickened near the state park’s gate. The procession to the path of totality felt like the tailgate before a big game.
10 opinions that caught your attention in 2023 Original
At The Inquirer Opinion section, we specialize in arguments, essays, and election season endorsements that matter to Philadelphians. As 2023 comes to a close, here are the 10 opinions that most caught readers’ attention this year, measured by online page views in the Philadelphia metro area. 1. A stranger helped a woman deliver her baby on a North Philly street. After that, he kept helping. | Jenice Armstrong On Jan.
Over 1,000 Dead From Devastating Earthquake in Morocco
This is a developing story. Check back for updates… The strongest earthquake to hit the country of Morocco in more than 120 years has left over 800 people dead and many thousands more trapped, missing, or injured.
Losing this World Cup doesn’t make the U.S. women’s national team a failure
Earlier this month in Melbourne, Australia, the U.S. women’s national soccerteam lost to Sweden in penalty kicks, sealing their elimination from the World Cup. Two-time World Cup winners Tobin Heath and Christen Press, both sidelined with injuries, described the team’s early exit from the World Cup, respectively, as “traumatic” and “a nightmare.” Yes, the U.S. women had their earliest major tournament exit ever, but that loss doesn’t take away from all that the national team has achieved.
Depths of ocean, despair
I, like many, have been glued to live coverage of the Titan implosion, ever since the submarine vessel, with five people aboard — who had paid $250,000 each for the chance to glimpse the Titanic shipwreck from a single 20-inch diameter window — lost contact with its surface ship an hour and 45 minutes into its dive on Sunday. As the news cycle inched towards what was very likely a burial at sea, I dwelled on the slow-motion movement of the catastrophe.
My mom climbed on Everest. After the Titan submarine deaths, I think of the families who are left behind.
The Titanic, a mass grave site, is now host to five more souls.
It’s Superb Owl Sunday, and we’re singing the praises of Pennsylvania’s bird life
All right, fellow bird fans. There’s a big game this weekend featuring the Birds, sure. We’re wearing green and rooting for Jalen Hurts and Autumn Lockwood — the first Black woman coaching in the Super Bowl — and we’re dipping chips in dip. But how much do you know about the other types of birds? Yes, I’m talking about literal feathers, beaks, eggs, the whole nine (or given Sunday’s game, should we say 100) yards. Birds endure. They adapt. There are so many reasons to love them.
As whales wash ashore in N.J., development fears find a convenient resting place
The humpback was huge, more than 32 feet long, and not moving. Waves crashed into the whale’s body as it lay on the taupe-colored sands of Brigantine Beach, New Jersey. The tongue was enlarged. Greg Fuller could see the creature’s outstretched and lifeless tail, and felt something like guilt wash over him. He left his dog in the truck, took out his phone, and filmed the whale’s massive frame in the rising tide.
Ivan Provorov refused to wear Flyers’ Pride Night jerseys because of his religion. He’s getting Christianity all wrong.
On Tuesday, Flyers defenseman Ivan Provorov refused to wear a rainbow warmup jersey during the team’s LGBTQ Pride Night game against the Anaheim Ducks. He was the only player to do so.
7 opinions that caught your attention in 2022
At The Inquirer Opinion section, arguments are what we do. As 2022 nears its end, here are the seven opinions that most caught your attention in the last year, measured by online page views. On Oct. 25, the two candidates to represent Pennsylvania in the U.S. Senate — Republican Mehmet Oz and Democrat John Fetterman — faced off in Harrisburg for the first and last time.
After a shooting at an LGBTQ club in Colorado, I’m rethinking what safe spaces mean
On Saturday night, a 22-year-old man entered an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs and used a long rifle to kill five people before he was tackled to the ground by patrons. Twenty-five others were injured. When I heard the news, I felt nauseated. I thought about a recent night I spent with a date at Tavern on Camac in the Gayborhood. We chose the spot specifically because we would be able to talk, but also be surrounded by some semblance of community.
Wawa is closing two Center City locations. Here’s what former workers told me.
After working at more thanhalf a dozen Wawa stores over the course of 18 years, John Deary says one memory stands out vividly: the fights. “A lot of fights,” said Deary, who’s 35 and put away his nametag with the flying goose for good recently in order to pursue a career in comedy. “I’ve witnessed two guys fight and one bash the other’s head into the donation box at the cash register, breaking it and spilling blood and change everywhere.
A resplendent night sky
As a stargazer, I know that I’ve been very fortunate. I’ve seen Orion hanging upside down above a strip of sand in one of the outer islands of Tuvalu in the South Pacific. I’ve watched the rippling curtain of the northern lights from a rooftop in Tromsø, Norway.I have traveled to 20 countries on six continents to document stories about water resources and climate change, yet some of the best star-watching I’ve seen is right here in our backyard at Cherry Springs State Park.
4 students and a librarian on why book bans are taking hold in Pa.
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1,001 Voices on Climate Change
Author Devi Lockwood Publisher S&S/Simon Element Publication Date 2022-06-21 Section New Titles - Paperback / Environment / Sustainablity Type New Format Paperback ISBN 9781982146733 Join journalist Devi Lockwood on this “monumental achievement” (Richard Moor, bestselling author of On Trails) as she bikes around the world collecting personal stories about how flood, fire, drought, and rising seas are changing communities. It’s official: apocalyptic climate predictions finally came true.
5 trans women in Pa. on the problems facing their community
In the LGBTQ community, trans people — especially trans women — are all too often the most marginalized. Books containing trans characters are banned in several Pennsylvania schools. The state Senate approved a proposal to ban trans girls from competing in school sports that align with their gender identity. Many trans Pennsylvanians are housing insecure. In the most dire cases, transphobia can become a matter of life or death.
A Russian American and a Ukrainian American in Philadelphia discuss the war
On February 24, Russia invaded the border into its neighboring country Ukraine — the biggest military mobilization in Europe since World War II. To date, thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been killed in the conflict. Another 13 million Ukrainians are displaced. Philadelphia is home to both Russian and Ukrainian diaspora communities; Pennsylvania is home to the fourth-largest population of Russian Americans and the third-largest population of Ukrainian Americans in the country.
Virtual Event: Devi Lockwood
presenting 1,001 Voices on Climate Change: Everyday Stories of Flood, Fire, Drought, and Displacement from Around the World in conversation with MARIA TATAR Date Nov 15 Monday November 15, 2021 7:00 PM ET Location Join our online event (or pre-register) via the link in the event description.
Staying sustainable in the winter without freezing
Welcome to Temp Check, Mic’s new climate advice column. The news about climate change can be extremely overwhelming, we know, so we enlisted Devi Lockwood, author of 1,001 Voices on Climate Change: Everyday Stories of Flood, Fire, Drought, and Displacement from Around the World, to help. She’ll be part ethicist, part knowledgeable friend, here to guide you as we all try our best to prevent a climate apocalypse. Read on for this week’s advice, and then submit your questions to tempcheck@mic.com.
1,001 Voices on Climate Change: Everyday Stories of Flood, Fire, Drought, and Displacement from Around the World
Description Join journalist Devi Lockwood as she bikes around the world collecting personal stories about how flood, fire, drought, and rising seas are changing communities. It's official: 2020 will be remembered as the year when apocalyptic climate predictions finally came true. Catastrophic wildfires, relentless hurricanes, melting permafrost, and coastal flooding have given us a taste of what some communities have already been living with for far too long.
Bearing Witness: Why I Biked Around the Country to Humanize Climate Change
MISSISSIPPI In August 2013, I rode my bicycle 800 miles down the Mississippi River Trail from Memphis, Tennessee, to Venice, Louisiana, where the river meets the Gulf of Mexico. I traveled with an Olympus LS-14 digital voice recorder, my bicycle, and enough peanut butter and tortillas to make emergency meals for days. Along the way I collected stories from the people I met. At times, I wore my cardboard sign around my neck and walked around small Southern towns with my voice recorder in hand.
“We do not feel safe”: A Kabul-based crisis alert app struggles to protect its own employees
Ehtesab, a Kabul-based startup, emerged out of a personal security-related incident that Sara Wahedi, a former Afghan government employee, experienced in May 2018. After witnessing a suicide bomb attack firsthand, Wahedi rushed home, where she could see militants roaming the streets from her balcony. The city was put on lockdown for 12 hours and left without electricity. No one, Wahedi said, knew when the electricity would be restored or when roads would be cleared.
Ideas | “Afghan women are capable of everything”: The country’s all-girls robotics team discuss an uncertain future
The Afghan Dreamers all-girls robotics team was supposed to embody a new vision of Afghanistan. The team was made up of teenagers who grew up in the post-Taliban era, and had access to cell phones, TV, and the Internet. The group, founded in 2017 by Roya Mahboob, Afghanistan’s first female tech CEO, was based in Afghanistan’s third largest city, Herat, and built a reputation for itself of being vibrant and resourceful. The Afghan Dreamers competed internationally, and won.
'1,001 Voices on Climate Change' Explores the Human Side of Climate Crisis
Seven years ago, I walked out the front door with a cardboard sign around my neck that said “tell me a story about water” on one side and “tell me a story about climate change” on the other. My goal was to humanize an issue often discussed in terms of numbers: millimeters of sea level rise or degrees of temperature change. I didn’t know exactly what I was doing at the time, but it felt right. When possible, I traveled by bicycle and by boat.
Opinion | What Does It Mean for a Whole Nation to Become Uninhabitable? (Published 2021)
Guest Essay Aug. 13, 2021 Igloolik, Canada.Credit...Devi Lockwood Send any friend a story As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share. By Devi Lockwood Ms. Lockwood is the ideas editor at the website Rest of World and the author of the forthcoming book “1,001 Voices on Climate Change,” from which this essay is adapted.
Tech for disabled people is booming. So where’s the funding?
Erick Ponce works in a government communications department in northern Ecuador. The 26-year-old happens to be deaf — a disability he has had since childhood. Communicating fluidly with his non-signing colleagues at work, and in public spaces like the supermarket, has been a lifelong challenge. In 2017, Ponce became one of the first users of an experimental app called SpeakLiz, developed by an Ecuadorian startup called Talov.
What working from home looks like around the world
In 2020, life changed. Lockdown measures and stay-at-home orders prompted companies around the world to abruptly close their offices and shift to remote working. While it might seem as if most people spent the past year staring at a Zoom screen, perfecting the ideal at-home lunch, or finding a quiet place to take phone calls, no two work-from-home situations are exactly alike. In Mexico, a ranchera singer transitioned from performing at parties to recording serenades in her living room.
Year of the pandemic
The remote-working revolution has just begun As work from home becomes a permanent option, tech employees no longer need to live in Silicon Valley — or even the U.S.
Like numbers? We got you.
Nine of the 14 countries where schools remain mostly closed are in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF). Nearly 100 million students in the region are affected by continued school closings. Panama kept schools closed the longest, followed by El Salvador. Try out our new infinity stats stack — a collection of the most fascinating, weird, and important numbers from around the (rest of) world.
Like numbers? We got you.
There have been more than 500,000 total confirmed coronavirus cases in the Philippines since the start of the pandemic. The country is set to receive vaccines through the Covax program, but the initial amount will be enough to vaccinate just 56,000 out of 1.7 million health workers. 13 March 2021 NPR Try out our new infinity stats stack — a collection of the most fascinating, weird, and important numbers from around the (rest of) world.
Nigeria can’t decide what to do about the rise and rise of crypto
KC Nwakalor/Bloomberg/Getty Images When the Central Bank of Nigeria sent out a circular on February 5 warning the public about the dangers and risks of cryptocurrencies, it stirred local banks and the fintech community into a frenzy. In one stroke, the central bank seemed to have barred financial institutions from dealing in or enabling crypto transactions. “It’s a crazy one,” said Lightson Ogwor, a 25-year-old graphic designer based in Enugu, a city in Nigeria’s southeast.
Why it’s so hard for a hospital in Tanzania to fix broken incubators
At Arusha Lutheran Medical Centre in northern Tanzania, there are six neonatal incubators sitting in a storage container, unused. The models, which are anywhere from 15 to 30 years old, have a range of problems. Some need spare parts that are impossible to find. Others have broken probes and sensors or software so old that manufacturers no longer support it.
Like numbers? We got you.
Yangon Door2Door employs 300 bicycle couriers who typically deliver 2,000 daily orders in Yangon, Mandalay, and Bagan. But thanks to the military junta’s disruption of the internet, courier incomes are down by half. The company previously offered nearly 24-hour service, but curfews mean last order is at 6 p.m. $1B The market cap of Egyptian e-payment company Fawry Egypt’s first unicorn offers over 250 electronic payment services across 300 cities, including ATMs, mobile wallets, and vendor kiosks.
Like numbers? We got you.
3G mobile internet has been available to Cubans since 2018, but data packages are pricey. Most people access mobile internet from the country’s 1,100 public Wi-Fi locations. According to state telecommunications monopoly ETECSA, just 189,000 people have access to home internet service. Try out our new infinity stats stack — a collection of the most fascinating, weird, and important numbers from around the (rest of) world.
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