I thought I would be so much better at eyeballing numbers

The Damascus rose has survived empire, crusade, and civil war. Now it faces a heating planet, and the question of who gets to claim it...

What the photographs alone could not fully show was the scale of what the rose is now up against. Syria sits at one of the sharpest edges of the climate crisis. Rainfall levels during the 2024-2025 season were about 60% below the annual average, while wheat production, down 40%, left a shortage equivalent to what would feed 16 million people for a year. The rose harvest followed the same trajectory. Where 270 hectares were cultivated with Damascus roses before 2011, only 120 remain planted today. Rose plants that should live 60 years now last 25, their lifespans shortened by heat and erratic rainfall.

The photos in this story are great

Long before a child has gained the ability to decode the written word, they have already learned plenty about the world visually. “I saw Quentin Blake talk about visual literacy, and he brilliantly illustrated this,” explains Ed Vere, creator of Waffles & Julius and an illustrator who has spent years working with teachers through his Power of Pictures programme. “He asked some children what ‘indignant’ meant. Of course, nobody knew. And then he quickly drew this indignant old lady, and every child exactly understood. It wasn’t just ‘angry’ or one of those black-and-white emotions. They all got the subtleties from his drawing.”

Interesting story about picture books