What the ‘New York Times’ Climate Blockbuster Missed

A warming climate strongly suggests the answer is yes. But we had a chance to fix it, Nathaniel Rich argues in “Losing Earth,” his epic New York Times Magazine feature released on Wednesday.

A protester outside Trump Tower in Manhattan, New York, on March 28, 2017.

Rich argues that when climate change first entered the American political imagination some 40 years ago, politicians in the United States were keen to confront the problem head-on. Obviously, they did no such thing.

Rich narrates the period that led up to that failure from 1979 through 1989 through the trajectories of climate scientist James Hansen and environmental lobbyist Rafe Pomerance, who went to great lengths to convince politicians and the public that the threat of global warming needed to be acted upon immediately to prevent civilizational collapse. Al Gore, then a young congressman, features prominently, too.

Read The Nation story by Kate Aronoff - “What the ‘New York Times’ Climate Blockbuster Missed.”