Scorched

Boiling Point: people in a changing climate

(Wits University Press, 2008)

When you tug on a single thing in nature, conservationist John Muir said, you find it attached to the rest of the world. Nowhere is this more evident than in the climate crisis, where tugging on a thread of our shared atmosphere somewhere on the planet causes the fabric of local weather patterns to unravel half a world away.

In Boiling Point, Leonie Joubert embarks on a journey into the lives of some South Africans affected by this phenomenon, people who contribute little to the pollution responsible for global warming, but are most vulnerable to its fallout: a rooibos tea farmer in the Northern Cape, a traditional fisherman in Lambert’s Bay, a farmer in the Free State’s maize belt, a political refugee in Pietermaritzburg and a sangoma in Limpopo mining country.

 

 HIGHLIGHTS:

The Red Tea Tales: Hendrik Hesselman, rooibos tea farmer from Nieuwoudtville, in the Northern Cape.

 

 

 

A Little Bit of Nothing: the traditional fishermen of Lamberts Bay.

 

 

 

Waiting for the Rains: Pat and Albert Whitfield, maize farmers from Viljoenskroon in South Africa’s breadbasket province, the Free State.

 

 

The Muti Queen: Selina Thotse, sangoma from Ga-Selala in Limpopo Province

 

 

 

 

Forces of Nature: Bongiwe Mkize, a forgotten refugee on the outskirts of Pietermaritzburg in Kwa-Zulu Natal.