Rivers in crisis, literary provocations: how culture and climate collide this week

The world’s rivers are dying. That is not hyperbole, but the sober conclusion of a new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which finds that waterways from the Amazon to the Yangtze are under unprecedented strain. In the UK, where the Thames has been reduced to a trickle in recent summers, the crisis feels distant—until it doesn’t. This week, as the Guardian launches Our Rivers, a year-long investigation into the state of global waterways, the scale of the emergency comes into focus. Rivers are not just ecological lifelines; they are cultural symbols, economic arteries, and, increasingly, political battlegrounds. Their decline is not a future threat but a present reality, and the question is no longer whether we can save them, but how.

The novelist rewriting the Beatles—and history

Michel Bussi’s Code Yesterday has landed like a Molotov cocktail in the fragile entente between France and the UK. The French thriller writer’s latest novel posits a radical theory: every Beatles song was written not by Lennon and McCartney, but by a woman—of French descent. Bussi, best known for his crime fiction, frames the premise as an act of literary revenge. “I wanted to give women what they’ve been denied,” he told The Guardian. “A place in history.”

The timing is provocative. Just weeks after the Bayeux Tapestry’s loan to the UK was hailed as a symbol of renewed Franco-British friendship, Bussi’s book threatens to reopen old wounds. The novel’s central character, Yvonne, is a fictional composite—a stand-in for the countless women whose contributions to art, science, and culture have been erased. Bussi is unapologetic. “It’s not about the Beatles,” he said. “It’s about the stories we choose to tell.”

The reaction in the UK has been predictably mixed. Some critics have dismissed the book as a gimmick, while others see it as a necessary corrective to a male-dominated canon. What’s undeniable is its resonance in a year when cultural narratives are being fiercely contested. From the Emmys to the Booker Prize, the question of who gets to tell stories—and whose stories get told—has never been more urgent.

A Palestinian student’s Kafkaesque ordeal

Mahmoud Khalil’s No Land to Stand On is not just a memoir; it is a indictment of the US immigration system. Khalil, a Palestinian student at Columbia University, was detained by ICE in March 2025 and held in a Louisiana detention center for over a year. His crime? Being a green card holder deemed a threat to US foreign policy under a McCarthy-era legal provision.

Khalil’s account is a masterclass in quiet fury. He writes of the absurdity of his situation: a student with no criminal record, snatched from his home in the middle of the night, transferred across state lines, and left to rot in a facility where basic human dignity is a luxury. The book’s power lies in its restraint. There are no grandstanding passages, no melodrama—just the slow, grinding horror of bureaucratic cruelty.

The timing of Khalil’s release, in June 2024, coincided with a broader reckoning over US immigration policy. His case became a rallying cry for activists, who saw in it a microcosm of the system’s failures. But No Land to Stand On is more than a political document. It is a testament to the resilience of those who refuse to be erased, even when the state tries its hardest to make them disappear.

Rivers: the invisible crisis

The WMO’s report is a wake-up call. Rivers, which cover just 0.49% of the Earth’s surface, support 40% of global fish species and provide drinking water for billions. Yet they are under siege. Climate change, over-extraction, pollution, and dam construction have pushed many to the brink. The Nile, the Mekong, the Colorado—none are immune.

In the UK, the crisis is less visible but no less real. The Thames, once a bustling commercial artery, now runs dry in parts during summer months. The Environment Agency has warned that England could face water shortages within 25 years if current trends continue. Yet public awareness remains low. Rivers are out of sight, out of mind—until they flood, or vanish.

The Guardian’s Our Rivers project aims to change that. Over the next year, it will examine the ecological, cultural, and political dimensions of the crisis, from the Amazon’s vanishing tribes to the Yangtze’s disappearing dolphins. The message is clear: rivers are not just water. They are history, culture, and life itself. And they are running out of time.

What it means for the UK

For British readers, these stories may feel distant—literary provocations, far-off environmental crises. But they are not. The Thames is not the Nile, but it is still a river under threat. The UK’s water infrastructure is aging, its policies fragmented. Meanwhile, the cultural battles playing out in France and the US are echoed here. Who gets to tell stories? Whose voices are heard? And what happens when the natural world we take for granted begins to disappear?

The answers will shape the next decade. Rivers, like novels, are stories we tell ourselves about who we are. And right now, those stories are in danger of drying up.