Stopping the “Aporkalypse,” Remembering Paul Farmer, and Reviewing “Legacy”

Editors' Note

As droughts, floods and extreme temperatures become more common, more international resources are going toward mitigating climate-fueled disasters and preventing them from harming human lives. Yet, those increased investments in climate resiliency are still lagging well behind vulnerable countries' needs.

Our first group of authors, led by Kelechi Julian Uzor, consultant for Gavi, highlights three lessons that global health institutions have to offer the Green Climate Fund on using co-financing to leverage and stretch global financial instruments and domestic resources to meet the most critical climate needs.

We then turn to the "aporkalypse": journalist Carrie Arnold's description of how an epidemic of African swine fever, with porcine fatality rates of near 100%
, is decimating Borneo's iconic bearded pig population. If that outbreak isn't stemmed, many of the island's non-Muslim residents could "turn to wild animals as a replacement protein source," she warns.

Next, our colleague Allison Krugman reviews Legacy by Dr. Uché Blackstock. The book chronicles Blackstock's journey to becoming
the first Black woman faculty member at the New York University School of Medicine. Krugman says the book serves as "an urgent reminder of the work we have to do" to combat systemic racism and white supremacy, especially in the medical profession.

Arthur Kleinman, professor of medical anthropology at Harvard, then reflects on the life and legacy of his friend and Partners In Health cofounder, Paul Farmer, two years after his death. The lesson of that legacy, Kleinman writes, is not for each of us "
to become Paul Farmer; it is for each of us to find our own selves as healers at some point along the astonishing trajectory that he set out."

Wrapping up our content for the week, Ahmet Bekisoglu, at the German Council on Foreign Relations, looks at how Turkish airstrikes are contributing to the humanitarian crisis in Rojava
(Syrian Kurdistan).

Until next week!—Thomas J. Bollyky, Founding Editor, and Caroline Kantis, Associate Editor