Narrator: Imagine a moment in history when the world stood on the precipice of solving the climate crisis. It’s November 1989 in a Dutch seaside town called Noordwijk. Environmental ministers from nearly seventy countries are gathered, ready to sign a binding global treaty to freeze and then reduce carbon emissions. The science is settled, public concern is at an all-time high, and a framework for action is on the table. Yet, in the final hours, the deal collapses, sabotaged by a handful of powerful nations, chief among them the United States. The single greatest opportunity to prevent the climate catastrophe we now face was lost. How did we get so close, only to fail so spectacularly?

In his gripping historical account, Losing Earth, author Nathaniel Rich provides the definitive answer. He argues that the climate crisis was not an inevitability born of ignorance, but a conscious choice made during a single, critical decade. The book chronicles the ten-year period from 1979 to 1989, revealing the tragic story of a small group of scientists and political operatives who understood the danger, saw the solution, and nearly saved the world.

Narrator: The story of the fight against climate change didn't begin in a high-tech lab, but in a windowless basement office in Washington D.C. In the spring of 1979, a young environmental lobbyist named Rafe Pomerance was sifting through a dense, bureaucratic government report on coal. Pomerance was not a scientist; he was a history major. But one paragraph stopped him cold. It stated that the continued use of fossil fuels would lead to "recognizable and harmful" changes to the Earth's atmosphere within a few decades. He was stunned. In all his years of environmental advocacy, he had never heard of the "greenhouse effect."

This single paragraph launched a personal crusade. Pomerance sought out Gordon MacDonald, a brilliant geophysicist and member of an elite group of government science advisors known as the Jasons. MacDonald confirmed Pomerance’s worst fears. The science wasn't new; it had been understood for decades. MacDonald explained that humanity was conducting a "vast geophysical experiment" by pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, with potentially catastrophic results. He laid out a future of rising temperatures, widespread drought, and melting ice caps that could raise sea levels by several meters. Convinced of the urgency, the unlikely duo of a lobbyist and a scientist began a campaign to educate anyone who would listen, from EPA officials to White House advisors, armed with the terrifying knowledge that humanity was on a path to destroying its own habitat.

Narrator: Pomerance and MacDonald's warnings set off a chain reaction. Frank Press, President Carter’s science advisor, commissioned the National Academy of Sciences to verify the threat. He assembled a small group of top-tier climatologists led by Jule Charney, the father of modern meteorology. In the summer of 1979, this group, which included a young NASA scientist named James Hansen, concluded that the predictions were not just plausible, but almost certain. Their findings, known as the Charney Report, stated with chilling confidence that a doubling of CO2 would lead to a global temperature increase of three degrees Celsius, plus or minus one and a half degrees. There were no dissenters. The scientific consensus was established.

Yet, this scientific certainty did not translate into political action. The election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 brought in an administration deeply skeptical of environmental regulation. While the science was clear, the political will was fractured. A major 1983 report from the National Academy of Sciences, titled "Changing Climate," perfectly captured this disconnect. While its pages detailed apocalyptic scenarios, its public summary, heavily influenced by its pro-market chairman, advised "caution, not panic." It argued that future generations, being wealthier, would be better equipped to deal with the problem. This message gave politicians the cover they needed to delay, effectively kicking the can down a road that was rapidly running out.

Narrator: In the mid-1980s, a different atmospheric crisis offered a glimmer of hope. In 1985, scientists discovered a massive hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica, confirming fears that chemicals called CFCs were destroying the protective shield that blocks harmful ultraviolet radiation. The threat was tangible and terrifying—an invisible hole in the sky promising a future of skin cancer and ecological collapse. The public response was immediate and forceful.

This crisis provided a powerful model for action. Unlike the abstract, slow-moving threat of climate change, the ozone hole was a clear and present danger. This led to the 1987 Montreal Protocol, a landmark international treaty that swiftly phased out CFCs. It was a stunning success, proving that the world could unite to solve a global environmental threat. For climate advocates like Rafe Pomerance, it was a blueprint. They believed that if they could frame the climate crisis with the same urgency and clarity, they could achieve a similar result. The success of the Montreal Protocol created a wave of optimism that a global climate treaty was not just possible, but inevitable.

Narrator: The summer of 1988 felt like a warning from the planet itself. A suffocating heatwave and devastating drought gripped the United States. The Mississippi River ran so low that shipping traffic halted. Wildfires raged across Yellowstone, and farmers watched their crops wither in the fields. The abstract threat of global warming suddenly felt terrifyingly real. It was in this super-heated atmosphere that James Hansen was called to testify before a Senate committee.

Hansen, now the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, decided it was time to stop hedging. On June 23, 1988, in a sweltering hearing room, he delivered the testimony that would change the conversation forever. He stated that he was "99 percent confident" that the warming trend was not a natural variation. "The greenhouse effect," he declared, "has been detected, and it is changing our climate now." It was a bombshell. No longer a future problem, climate change was here. The story was front-page news across the world. Public concern skyrocketed, and for the first time, there was immense political pressure to act. The momentum seemed unstoppable, leading presidential candidate George H.W. Bush to promise he would combat the greenhouse effect with the "White House effect."

Narrator: The momentum of 1988 carried into the new Bush administration, but it soon collided with a wall of internal opposition and industry influence. While EPA Administrator William Reilly, a respected environmentalist, pushed for a binding international treaty, he was relentlessly undermined by White House Chief of Staff John Sununu. A former engineer, Sununu was deeply skeptical of the climate models and believed any action would cripple the American economy. He personally edited Hansen’s future testimony to inject doubt and systematically blocked any U.S. commitment to emission targets.

At the same time, the fossil fuel industry, which had initially engaged with the science, launched a counter-offensive. The American Petroleum Institute and companies like Exxon began funding a campaign to emphasize scientific uncertainty and lobby against regulation. They argued that the science was too unsettled to justify what they called "draconian" economic measures. This combination of internal political sabotage and external industry pressure proved fatal. At the crucial Noordwijk conference in November 1989, Sununu’s position won. The U.S. delegation, with support from the UK and Japan, vetoed any language committing to specific emission targets. The world’s best chance was lost.

Narrator: The single most important takeaway from Losing Earth is that our current climate predicament is the result of a failure of political will, not a lack of knowledge. Between 1979 and 1989, the scientific community, the public, and even many political leaders understood the problem and saw the path forward. But at the moment of truth, short-term economic anxiety and political cowardice won out over long-term planetary survival.

The book leaves us with a haunting legacy. Since that failed conference in 1989, humanity has emitted more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than in all of history combined. We are living in the world that a handful of scientists and activists tried desperately to prevent. Their story is not just a history lesson; it is a stark reminder that knowing the truth is not enough. The ultimate challenge is, and always has been, finding the collective courage to act on it.