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Zusammenfassung von Losing Earth

Name: Losing Earth
Rating: 4.4 (147 reviews)
Author: Nathaniel Rich

Nathaniel Rich

A Recent History

4.4 (147 Bewertungen)

23 Min.

Kurz zusammengefasst

"Losing Earth" by Nathaniel Rich is a historical account of the decade-long period from 1979 to 1989, during which the world lost its chance to stop climate change. The book offers insight on the political, economic and social factors that interfered with the negotiations towards a global climate treaty.

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What’s in it for me? A depressing look at missed opportunities.

Climate change is a scientific fact, one we’ve understood since the late 1970s. So, why, in the ensuing decades, have we done so little to slow its steady progress?

These blinks provide the infuriating answer and paint a vivid picture of the earliest push to combat climate change and how this effort was hobbled by big business. Based on in-depth research, they explain how a coordinated effort between politicians and the fossil fuel industry birthed modern climate denialism and put us on the path to an ecological crisis.

The tale told here is so shocking and so important that the New York Times Magazine devoted an entire issue to Nathaniel Rich’s original reporting. Now, this expanded and updated account provides even more insights about how we got here and where we’re headed.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

how hairspray renewed the environmental movement;
why headlines from 1979 still work today; and
who botched our chance to tackle climate change early on.

Scientists have demanded action on climate change for longer than you think.

The site: Geneva, Switzerland. Dozens of prominent scientists from all the world’s major powers have gathered for the first World Climate Conference. Their message is clear: industrial activity is drastically elevating the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. If humanity wants to avoid disaster, we need to act now.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? It could almost be a headline from this morning’s news. But this event didn’t happen yesterday or even last year. It happened in 1979.

The truth is, we’ve long understood the threat of man-made climate change. For decades, scientists have known of the causes, the disastrous effects, and how to avoid them. But, despite their efforts, we have failed to make the necessary changes.

The key message here is: Scientists have demanded action on climate change for longer than you think.

We can trace the modern push to stop climate change back to 1979. This was the year that Rafe Pomerance, an environmentalist working for Friends of the Earth, stumbled upon a startling report. It was put out by the Jasons, a scientific think tank led by geophysicist Gordon MacDonald.

The report claimed that human activity was on track to doubling the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It predicted that this change would set off a greenhouse effect, raising global temperatures and causing widespread ecological disruption. It was a nightmare scenario but based on solid arguments.

Alarmed, Pomerance contacted MacDonald. The two decided to use their connections in government to push for drastic change to avoid this fate. Over the next few months, they met with everyone they could in Washington. They talked with congressmen, the National Security Council, even senior staff of the president’s Office of Science and Technology Policy.

The response was reassuring. The officials seemed to take the threat seriously. By July, Jule Charney, a leading meteorologist, organized a conference of top scientific minds to address the issue. And at the conference, NASA scientist Jim Hansen presented detailed computer models confirming the predictions made by Pomerance and MacDonald.

The result of this collaboration was a final report, sometimes called The Charney Report, titled Carbon Dioxide and Climate: A Scientific Assessment. It synthesized all the known variables into a clear narrative: If nothing changed, the world’s average temperature would go up three degrees. The results would be disastrous.

Early climate change legislation was stymied by indifference and indecision.

October 1980. A diverse team of politicians, energy experts, and environmentalists meet at the Pink Palace, a gaudy resort in southern Florida. They’ve been assembled by Congress as part of the National Commission on Air Quality. Their task is to deliver concrete policy proposals for dealing with climate change.

It’s not an easy job. For three days, they debate the urgency, scope, and merit of various approaches to climate change. Some argue for forceful, decisive emergency action. Others call for a measured, mild response.

Activists used congressional hearings to make climate change a popular political issue.

The Pink Palace conference was dispiriting, but what happened next was even worse. Four days after the inconclusive meeting, Ronald Reagan was elected president. The new Commander-in-Chief was aggressively right wing, and his administration’s priority was shrinking the federal government, not the world’s climate footprint.

Once in office, Reagan deregulated the mining industry, increased coal production, and opened up more public lands for oil drilling. On top of this, he gutted the Department of Energy and appointed Anne Gorsuch, an extreme anti-environmentalist, to oversee the Department of the Interior.

The ozone crisis reinvigorated a waning climate change movement.

Back in 1979, when Pomerance and MacDonald first raised the alarm about the greenhouse effect, they had one major success. They convinced the Carter Administration to fund a comprehensive study on climate change. Now, in October 1983, the National Academy of Sciences was prepared to deliver their findings.

Unsurprisingly, the projections were grim. The Academy’s 500-page dissertation contained the same basic facts and dire warnings as the earlier Charney Report. Yet, when presenting the findings to the press, the Academy followed the Reagan Administration’s line: climate change was no real threat, and if it was, we could easily adapt.

In the mid-1980s, bipartisan, international climate action was a real possibility.

It’s 1985, and Pomerance is talking to Republican congressional staffer Curtis Moore about the need for urgent action on climate change. Moore listens and gives his honest advice. Carbon emissions may be a big problem, but without an attainable solution, no politician will take it on. Politicians don’t like failing.

A year earlier, this assessment would have been discouraging. However, with the successful fight against CFCs still fresh in the cultural zeitgeist, tackling carbon output doesn’t seem like such a losing proposition.

Mild climate-change action received strong pushback from the fossil fuel industry.

The 1980s ended with a flurry of activity. In June 1988, the hottest June in history, Hansen once again testified before Congress, forcefully stating that climate change was a real, present danger. The world needed to act immediately.

Four days later, his call was answered. Representatives from 46 countries gathered in Toronto for the World Conference on the Changing Atmosphere. After lengthy talks, the representatives adopted the first-ever international benchmarks for climate reduction. Taking a target suggested by Pomerance, the world’s industrialized powers tentatively agreed to reduce carbon emissions by 20 percent by the year 2005.

The United States government abandoned its duty to lead on climate action.

May 1989. Hansen is preparing to testify before Congress. Like so many times before, he sends his statements to the White House for approval. It’s usually a routine procedure, a formality that he must conduct as a representative of NASA. However, this time, it’s different.

His notes come back full of edits and mark-ups. The Office of Management and Budget wants major changes. They want him to call his findings mere “estimates,” to refer to his solid models as “unreliable,” and to suggest that the cause of climate change is “scientifically unknown.”

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Worum geht es in Losing Earth?

Losing Earth (2019) tells the story of climate change, both as a scientific fact and as a political conflict. This detailed piece of long-form reporting recounts the scientific community’s early push to raise the alarm about climate change and the coordinated effort the fossil fuel industry made to thwart those warnings.

Bestes Zitat aus Losing Earth

The balloon could be patched, the eggshell bandaged, the ceiling replastered. There was still time.

—Nathaniel Rich

Wer Losing Earth lesen sollte

Environmentalists eager to understand their enemy
Political moderates needing a dose of reality
Anyone concerned about the future of Earth

Über den Autor

Nathaniel Rich is an award-winning journalist and novelist. His nonfiction work has regularly appeared in the New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, and The New York Review of Books.

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