The New York Times Magazine has just published a magisterial story by Nathanial Rich about the beginings of the climate crisis, who knew back then, and why nothing of any real substance has been done since the late 1980’s. Well worth a read.
From the epilogue:
Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, Calif., has a habit of asking new graduate students to name the largest fundamental breakthrough in climate physics since 1979. It’s a trick question. There has been no breakthrough.
The title is from a poem by Stephen Vincent Benet: Nightmare with Angels.