1) Why Vladimir Putin has already lost this war
Less than a week into the invasion, the historian Yuval Noah Harari was trenchant about Vladimir Putin’s error in underestimating the Ukrainian people, declaring that “he may win all the battles but still lose the war”. As shocking images of Russian aggression were spreading fast on social media and news platforms the world over, Harari wrote: “Ukraine is a nation with more than a thousand years of history, and Kyiv was already a major metropolis when Moscow was not even a village.” His was a much-needed message of hope and strength at the beginning of a brutal war, and it was read and shared by Guardian readers in their droves. Pieces about the Ukraine war dominated our most-read list, in particular articles that exposed Russian demoralisation at Putin’s reckless gamble.
2) ‘The treeline is out of control’: how the climate crisis is turning the Arctic green
One of several climate-focused long reads we published in 2022, this time taking readers to northern Norway, where trees are rapidly taking over the tundra and threatening an ancient way of life that depends on snow and ice. It asks the questions: what happens when a culture is under threat, and how far will we go to protect it?
For a number of environment commentators, one of the big problems with tackling the climate emergency is the increasingly small amount of coverage in the British press about the crisis. The Guardian is committed to producing in-depth reports of the problems faced by communities around the world, and seeks to redress the balance with groundbreaking climate exclusives and our annual climate pledge.
3) Microplastics found in human blood for first time
Huge amounts of plastic waste are dumped in the environment and microplastics now contaminate the entire planet, from the summit of Mount Everest to the deepest oceans. People were already known to consume the tiny particles via food and water as well as breathing them in, but this shocking exclusive by our environment editor stopped readers in their tracks when it was published in March. Damian Carrington’s reporting confirmed that scientists had discovered microplastic pollution in human blood for the first time, detecting it in almost 80% of those tested and showing the particles can travel around the body, sometimes lodging in organs.
4) How to support abortion access in a post-Roe America
When the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in June, the right to abortion was suddenly no longer nationally protected, and the path was paved for many states to ban the procedure. In response to reader outrage, our Guardian US colleagues spoke to six leaders from the reproductive rights movement about ways to support continued abortion access. This included practical advice for women as well as guidance on the most helpful forms of activism and who to go to for support in your area, from a host of women who know this area better than any. Amid this seismic moment for women’s rights, we also covered the nationwide protests and published a host of background, op-eds, analysis and visual explainers to help readers make sense of it.
5) The invisible Ukrainian who walked 225km to safety from Mariupol
When Russian soldiers started going from house to house shooting people, 61-year-old Igor Pedin, a former ship’s cook, set off with his dog Zhu-Zhu to Zaporizhzhia, 225km from his home in Mariupol. His journey was the equivalent of walking by foot from London to Sheffield, or New York City to Albany, but through a war unseen in its scale in Europe since 1945 and towards the oncoming convoys of tanks, armoured vehicles and nervous trigger-happy Russian soldiers. Despite trying to keep as low a profile as possible on his trek, Pedin survived a number of face-to-face encounters with those very Russian soldiers, on a journey that feels miraculous and epic enough for cinema.
6) ‘Boris Johnson has vandalised the political architecture of Britain, Ireland and Europe’
This opinion piece, published in July, articulated readers’ frustration with UK politics after a series of Downing Street scandals and in the weeks leading up to Johnson’s resignation. Alongside searing commentary from stalwarts such as John Crace, Marina Hyde and Jonathan Freedland, this piece chimed with all those who felt Johnson had long outstayed his welcome at No 10. Fintan O’Toole quotes Mark Antony’s elegy for Julius Caesar in which “The evil that men do lives after them”, arguing that: “The harm that Johnson has inflicted will not be undone quickly – or by those who found it intolerable only when it threatened their own immediate interests.” Shortly after this piece was published, O’Toole’s prophecy came to pass, and the Conservative party voted in two prime ministers in quick succession.
7) Polar bears move into abandoned Arctic weather station – photo essay
Arguably an unlikely addition to the list, this piece proved essential for anyone in search of an antidote to the news cycle, capturing the imaginations of readers across the world. The photographer Dmitry Kokh discovered polar bears living in an abandoned weather station in Kolyuchin, in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug of the Russian Federation, while on a trip to Wrangel Island, a Unesco-recognised nature reserve that serves as a refuge to the animals. Kokh wrote that the area, often called a polar bear maternity ward, “is very inaccessible, which may be bad for tourists but is great for the animals”. The photos and story behind them were beautifully told and captivated readers for many months.
8) Your attention didn’t collapse. It was stolen
A groundbreaking feature by the writer and journalist Johann Hari perfectly articulating why social media and many other facets of modern life are destroying the ability of both young and older minds to concentrate. For this piece of work, Hari travels all over the world over the course of three years, from Miami to Moscow to Melbourne, interviewing the leading experts about focus. He learns there are 12 factors that have been proven to reduce people’s ability to pay attention, why they have risen in recent years, and how to undo their damage. What results is a rallying cry to reclaim our time, focus and mental health while we still can.
9) Stop drinking, keep reading, look after your hearing: a neurologist’s tips for fighting memory loss and Alzheimer’s
In this fascinating feature published in August, the columnist Gaby Hinsliff spoke to the brain expert Richard Restak and asked such questions as ‘When does forgetfulness become something more serious?’ and ‘How can we delay or even prevent that change?’ The article featured cutting-edge scientific research as well as carefully considered health improvement advice. One of the articles in a similar vein that many went on to read was ‘Global spread of autoimmune disease blamed on western diet’, by the Observer’s science editor, Robin McKie.
10) The super-rich ‘preppers’ planning to save themselves from the apocalypse
The film-maker and writer Douglas Rushkoff recalls the days he spent in the desert with a group of tech billionaires who are buying up luxurious bunkers and hiring military security to survive a societal collapse they helped create. He wrote: “They are obsessed with insulating themselves from the very real and present danger of climate change, rising sea levels, mass migrations, global pandemics, nativist panic and resource depletion. For them, the future of technology is about only one thing: escape from the rest of us.” But of course, like everything they do, their well-laid plans have unintended consequences.
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