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Fools for Fossil Fuels: A History of Climate Change Inaction

Fools for Fossil Fuels: A History of Climate Change Inaction

In the 1980s, we had the opportunity to reverse climate change. Why didn’t we?

Innovation Hub

April 26, 201931m 55s

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Show Notes

Just about 40 years ago, a secret group of elite scientists, known as the Jasons, sounded the death knell for climate change. They had consulted a computer model that predicted the destabilizing effects of a warming earth - from droughts, to rising sea levels, to geopolitical conflicts. Their warnings reached the ears of politicians, and, ultimately, during his 1988 presidential campaign, George H. W. Bush pledged to solve the problem. But then the story shifted, and climate change was not addressed. Nathaniel Rich, a writer at large for the New York Times and author of Losing Earth: A Recent History, walks us through what happened, and explains how a non-partisan issue became deeply split along party lines.