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Losing Earth: The Decade We Could Have Stopped Climate Change

Author: Nathaniel Rich

Picador, London , 2019, pp. 256

Rich, an essayist and contributor to the New York Times Magazine, focuses on the period 1979 - 1990 and the role of the US, which in 1979 emitted more carbon dioxide per head than any other industrialized country and had the political leverage to bring about international change. He charts efforts by environmentalists and scientists to make climate change a global political issue, and the roles of Presidents Jimmy Carter and George H. Bush (who argued for action on climate change in 1988, but, influenced by his sceptical chief scientist and internal pressure, failed to deliver on his promise).