Mark: Everything you think you know about the climate change debate is probably wrong. The fight didn't start with Al Gore or in the 2000s. It started in the 1980s, and the biggest surprise? Republicans were some of its earliest and most passionate champions. We had a solution, and we lost it. Michelle: Whoa, hold on. Republicans as climate champions? That sounds like a story from an alternate universe. Are you serious? Mark: Completely serious. And this incredible, and frankly infuriating, story is the subject of our discussion today, based on Nathaniel Rich's book, Losing Earth. Rich is a journalist who spent about 18 months digging into this, and his work was so groundbreaking it took up an entire issue of The New York Times Magazine before being expanded into this book. Michelle: Okay, 'infuriating' is a strong word, and you've definitely got my attention. Let's start there. What was this moment in the 1980s where we supposedly had it all figured out?

Mark: It begins in 1979 with a guy named Rafe Pomerance. He's not a scientist; he's a historian by training, working for an environmental group called Friends of the Earth. He's in his basement office, reading this incredibly dry government report on coal, when he stumbles across a single paragraph. Michelle: And what did it say? Mark: It basically said that the continued use of fossil fuels would lead to "recognizable and harmful" changes to the Earth's atmosphere within a few decades. And Pomerance is just floored. He considers himself well-informed, but he's never heard of this. He thinks, "This has to be the mother of all environmental problems." Michelle: I can imagine. It’s like finding a footnote that says, "By the way, the world is ending." So what does he do? Mark: He starts digging. He's a historian, so he treats it like a research project. His search leads him to a geophysicist named Gordon MacDonald, who was part of an elite, secretive group of scientists called the "Jasons." They had been commissioned by the government to study the long-term effects of CO2. Michelle: The Jasons? That sounds like a sci-fi movie. What did they find? Mark: Their report was terrifyingly specific. They predicted that doubling CO2 in the atmosphere would lead to a global temperature increase of 2 to 3 degrees Celsius. They forecasted widespread droughts, failing crops, and—this is the kicker—the potential for the West Antarctic ice sheet to melt, raising sea levels by five meters. Michelle: Five meters? That’s… catastrophic. That would wipe out coastal cities. And this was in the late 1970s? Mark: Exactly. The science was settled. So Pomerance, the activist, teams up with MacDonald, the scientist. They go on a roadshow in Washington, trying to warn people. They meet with the EPA, the National Security Council, the New York Times. They're basically screaming from the rooftops. Michelle: And were people listening? Or was it just seen as fringe alarmism? Mark: People were absolutely listening. This is the most stunning part of the story. In 1979, scientists from fifty countries met in Geneva and unanimously agreed that urgent action was needed. A few months later, the G-7 leaders, including President Jimmy Carter, signed a declaration to reduce carbon emissions. Michelle: Okay, so the scientific community and world leaders were on board. What about the political parties? That's where everything seems to fall apart today. Mark: That's the twist. There was bipartisan consensus. Rich digs up this incredible quote from 1981, from the acting head of Ronald Reagan's Council on Environmental Quality. He said, "There is for conservatives no more important an issue than the protection of the Earth." Top Republican senators were holding hearings and demanding action. Michelle: That is genuinely hard to believe from today's perspective. It sounds like a political fairytale. A global consensus, bipartisan support… why wasn't this a done deal? Why wasn't it front-page news every single day? Mark: That is the billion-dollar question, and it’s where the tragedy really begins. The consensus was real, the science was clear, and the political will was there. But so were the forces, both internal and external, that were about to dismantle the whole thing.

Michelle: So what happened? If everyone agreed, how did we end up here, decades later, in a much worse position? Mark: It wasn't one single event, but a series of critical failures. Rich's book reads like a political thriller, and you can pinpoint the exact moments where the momentum died. The first major blow came from inside the White House. Michelle: Under Reagan? Mark: Surprisingly, no. The most damage was done under his successor, George H.W. Bush. Bush had campaigned on a promise to fight the greenhouse effect with the "White House effect." His EPA chief, William Reilly, was a dedicated environmentalist. Things looked promising. Michelle: But? There's always a 'but'. Mark: The 'but' was a man named John Sununu. He was Bush's Chief of Staff, a former engineer, and a deep science skeptic. He didn't believe the climate models and was convinced that any action would destroy the American economy. And he had the President's ear. Michelle: So one powerful person can just… stop everything? Mark: In this case, yes. The climax of this part of the story happens in 1989 at a conference in Noordwijk, in the Netherlands. Representatives from over 60 countries were gathered to sign a binding treaty to freeze and then reduce CO2 emissions. It was meant to be the moment, the global solution. Michelle: I'm almost afraid to ask what happened. Mark: Sununu got wind of it. He personally called the US delegation and ordered them to block the treaty. He had them water down the language from a firm commitment to a vague statement that "many" countries supported the idea. With the US backing out, other countries like the UK and Japan followed. The deal collapsed. Rafe Pomerance, the activist who started it all, was there. He described it as a total failure. Michelle: That is just devastating. To be that close, and have one person's ideology derail the entire planet's future. It’s enraging. Mark: It is. And while Sununu was sabotaging the politics, another front in this war was just opening up. This one was about public opinion. Michelle: You mean the fossil fuel industry. Mark: Precisely. Rich documents how Exxon, for example, had its own cutting-edge climate research program in the early 80s. Their own scientists confirmed the severity of the problem. But by the end of the decade, they made a strategic pivot. Michelle: From research to… what? Mark: To a campaign of deliberate misinformation. An Exxon executive, Duane LeVine, gave a presentation to the board in 1989. He advised them to "emphasize the uncertainty" in climate science. The goal was no longer to understand the problem, but to create the public perception of a debate. Michelle: Even though, within the scientific community, there was no real debate. Mark: Correct. They started funding a handful of skeptical scientists to appear in the media. They formed front groups like the Global Climate Coalition to lobby against regulations. Between 2000 and 2016 alone, the industry spent over two billion dollars on these efforts. They manufactured the controversy that we are still living with today. Michelle: This is where some critics say Rich's book is too gentle, framing it as a tragedy instead of a crime. When you hear about Exxon's strategy and Sununu's sabotage, it sounds less like a 'missed opportunity' and more like a deliberate, calculated act of harm. Is that a fair critique? Mark: I think it's a very fair question, and Rich seems to grapple with it himself. The book is written in a very measured, almost novelistic style, which some activists found wasn't angry enough. But Rich's argument, I think, is that calling it a crime simplifies it. It wasn't just a few villains. It was a systemic failure of human nature—our inability to act on a threat that's slow, invisible, and far away. The villains just exploited that weakness masterfully.

Michelle: So you have this perfect storm. Political sabotage from the top, and a manufactured public debate from the bottom. Mark: Exactly. On one hand, you have a few powerful individuals like Sununu with the authority to slam the brakes on policy. On the other, you have the fossil fuel industry starting a multi-billion dollar, decades-long campaign to muddy the waters. The tragedy is that for a brief, shining moment in the 1980s, neither of those forces was strong enough to stop the momentum. We just… hesitated. And in that hesitation, the window closed. Michelle: It's a story about systems, but it's also about individual choices. The choice of a few people like Rafe Pomerance and James Hansen to sound the alarm, and the choice of a few others to silence it. It makes you wonder what moments we're living through right now that we'll look back on in 30 years with the same profound regret. Mark: That's the core of it. And that's the power of Rich's book. It’s not just history; it’s a moral blueprint for understanding the present. The book ends by noting that since that failed conference in Noordwijk in 1989, humanity has emitted more CO2 into the atmosphere than in all of human history before it. Michelle: Wow. That single fact puts everything in perspective. It’s a story of failure, but it also feels like a profound call to responsibility. We can't say we didn't know. We've known for a very, very long time. Mark: We have. And the book forces you to ask: knowing what we know now, what choices will we make? We'd love to hear what our listeners think. Does this story make you feel more hopeful or more enraged? Find us on our social channels and let us know. Michelle: This is Aibrary, signing off.