Michael Shellenberger

Ted Nordhaus

Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger triggered a firestorm with the publication of Break Through, contending that the politics that dealt with acid rain and smog can’t deal with global warming.The nations that ratified the Kyoto protocol have seen their greenhouse gas emissions go up, not down. And the destruction of tropical rain forests, a key driver of global warming, has accelerated.What today’s ecological crises demand, say the authors, is not that we constrain human power but rather unleash it.We must go beyond interest group environmentalism and liberalism to create a politics focused as much on uncommon greatness as on the common good. “To win,Nordhaus and Shellenberger persuasively argue, environmentalists must stop congratulating themselves for their own willingness to confront inconvenient truths and must focus on building a politics of shared hope rather than relying on a politics of fear” (New York Times Book Review). Break Through is the first step in a new progressive movement that will influence the political debate for years to come.

Why We Can't Leave Saving the Planet to Environmentalists

Break Through

Daniel Sarewitz

Jason Lloyd

Alex Trembath

There is a robust and growing demand for a more pragmatic approach to the climate challenge. The Rightful Place of Science: Climate Pragmatism brings together powerful ideas for meeting this demand. The starting point of this new approach is a commitment to human dignity and the potential for innovation to drive economic prosperity and protect the lives and livelihoods of billions of people. Driven by pragmatic and inclusive political strategies, this new framework builds on earlier work to focus on energy access, energy innovation, and climate adaptation.

Climate Pragmatism

The Rightful Place of Science

Postenvironmentalism and the Anthropocene

Love Your Monsters

Two of Time magazine’s “Heroes of the Environment” reject the status quo of liberal politics and offer a bold vision for addressing climate change. Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus triggered a firestorm of controversy with their self-published essay “The Death of Environmentalism,” which argued that the existing model of environmentalism cannot adequately address global warming and that a new politics needs to take its place. In this follow-up to their essay, the authors give an expansive and eloquent manifesto for political change. American values have changed dramatically since the environmental movement’s greatest victories in the 1960s. And while global warming presents exponentially greater challenges than any past pollution problem, environmentalists continue to employ the same tired and ineffective tactics. Making the case for abandoning old categories (nature versus the market; left versus right), the authors articulate a new pragmatism that has already found champions in prominent figures such as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Seeing a connection between the failures of environmentalism and the failures of the entire left-leaning political agenda, the authors point the way toward an aspirational politics that will resonate with modern American values and be capable of tackling our most pressing challenges. “To win, Nordhaus and Shellenberger persuasively argue, environmentalists must stop congratulating themselves for their own willingness to confront inconvenient truths and must focus on building a politics of shared hope rather than relying on a politics of fear.” —The New York Times

Ted Nordhaus

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