As Rich’s 2018 New York Times Magazine article reported, in 1979 we knew everything about climate change we know now: what caused it, why it was happening, and how to stop it. Yet we didn’t stop it—and now it may be too late. Detailing the genesis of climate denialism and tracing the efforts of the oil, coal, and gas industries to thwart reductions in the use of fossil fuels, Rich notes that we came close to instituting binding agreements that could have lessened our carbon dependence, but we failed to. Rich, the author of novels including King Zeno and Odds Against Tomorrow, here undertakes a harrowing and clear-eyed assessment of human nature reminiscent of classics like Hersey’s Hiroshima and Schell’s The Fate of the Earth. Rich will be in conversation with Rafe Pomerance, renowned environmentalist and Chairman of the climate-change network Arctic 21.
