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Losing Earth
- A Recent History
- Narrated by: Matt Godfrey
- Length: 5 hrs and 17 mins
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Publisher's summary
"This is an important, infuriating, enlightening, engaging, and engrossing audiobook...Anyone wishing to learn how the world has gotten to the point of almost inevitable climate disaster will be well served by listening to Godfrey's measured but emphatic reading." — AudioFile Magazine
By 1979, we knew nearly everything we understand today about climate change—including how to stop it. Over the next decade, a handful of scientists, politicians, and strategists, led by two unlikely heroes, risked their careers in a desperate, escalating campaign to convince the world to act before it was too late. Losing Earth is their story, and ours.
The New York Times Magazine devoted an entire issue to Nathaniel Rich’s groundbreaking chronicle of that decade, which became an instant journalistic phenomenon—the subject of news coverage, editorials, and conversations all over the world. In its emphasis on the lives of the people who grappled with the great existential threat of our age, it made vivid the moral dimensions of our shared plight.
Now expanded into book form, Losing Earth tells the human story of climate change in even richer, more intimate terms. It reveals, in previously unreported detail, the birth of climate denialism and the genesis of the fossil fuel industry’s coordinated effort to thwart climate policy through misinformation propaganda and political influence. The audiobook carries the story into the present day, wrestling with the long shadow of our past failures and asking crucial questions about how we make sense of our past, our future, and ourselves.
Like John Hersey’s Hiroshima and Jonathan Schell’s The Fate of the Earth, Losing Earth is the rarest of achievements: a riveting work of dramatic history that articulates a moral framework for understanding how we got here, and how we must go forward.
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Critic reviews
"An eloquent science history, and an urgent eleventh-hour call to save what can be saved." —Barbara Kiser, Nature
“How to explain the mess we’re in? Nathaniel Rich recounts how a crucial decade was squandered. Losing Earth is an important contribution to the record of our heedless age.” —Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction
“This deeply researched, deeply felt book is an essential addition to the canon of climate change literature. Others have documented where we are, and speculated about where we might be headed, but the story of how we got here is perhaps the most important one to be told, because it is both a cautionary tale and an unfinished one. Reading this book, I could not help but imagine my children one day reading a future edition, which will include the story of my generation's response to what we knew." —Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
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- By: Michael Hiltzik
- Narrated by: Bob Saouer
- Length: 14 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Since the 1930s, the scale of scientific endeavors has grown exponentially. The birth of Big Science can be traced to Berkeley, California, nearly nine decades ago, when a resourceful young scientist pondered his new invention and declared, "I'm going to be famous!" Ernest Orlando Lawrence's cyclotron would revolutionize nuclear physics, but that was only the beginning of its impact.This is the incredible story of how one invention changed the world and of the man principally responsible for it all. Michael Hiltzik tells the riveting full story here for the first time.
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An informative and thought-provoking book
- By Jean on 08-23-15
By: Michael Hiltzik
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Private Empire
- ExxonMobil and American Power
- By: Steve Coll
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 24 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Steve Coll investigates the largest and most powerful private corporation in the United States, revealing the true extent of its power. ExxonMobil’s annual revenues are larger than the economic activity in the great majority of countries. In many of the countries where it conducts business, ExxonMobil’s sway over politics and security is greater than that of the United States embassy. In Washington, ExxonMobil spends more money lobbying Congress and the White House than almost any other corporation. Yet despite its outsized influence, it is a black box.
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Please no more accents!
- By Zak on 07-24-12
By: Steve Coll
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Churchill's Bomb
- How the United States Overtook Britain in the First Nuclear Arms Race
- By: Graham Farmelo
- Narrated by: Clive Chafer
- Length: 14 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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As award-winning biographer and science writer Graham Farmelo describes in Churchill's Bomb, the British set out to investigate the possibility of building nuclear weapons before their American colleagues. But when scientists in Britain first discovered a way to build an atomic bomb, Prime Minister Winston Churchill did not make the most of his country's lead and was slow to realize the bomb's strategic implications.
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Loved it!! This was great.
- By MAC24211 on 09-08-21
By: Graham Farmelo
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The Oil Kings
- How the U.S., Iran, and Saudi Arabia Changed the Balance of Power in the Middle East
- By: Andrew Scott Cooper
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 19 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Struggling with a recession... European nations at risk of defaulting on their loans... A possible global financial crisis. It happened before, in the 1970s. The Oil Kings is the story of how oil came to dominate U.S. domestic and international affairs. Brilliantly reported and filled with astonishing details about some of the key figures of the time, this is the history of an era that we thought we knew, an era whose momentous reverberations still influence events at home and abroad today.
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Great story, but ignores the economic side
- By Walter on 04-15-12
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Hoover
- An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times
- By: Kenneth Whyte
- Narrated by: Richard Ferrone
- Length: 27 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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The definitive biography of Herbert Hoover, one of the most remarkable Americans of the 20th century - a revisionist account that will forever change the way Americans understand the man, his presidency, and his battle against the Great Depression. A poor orphan who built a fortune, a great humanitarian, a president elected in a landslide and then routed in the next election, arguably the father of both New Deal liberalism and modern conservatism - Herbert Hoover is also one of our least understood presidents.
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What a fascinating story!
- By Dan Ryan on 11-18-17
By: Kenneth Whyte
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Chernobyl
- The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe
- By: Serhii Plokhy
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 14 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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On the morning of April 26, 1986, Europe witnessed the worst nuclear disaster in history: the explosion of a reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Soviet Ukraine. Dozens died of radiation poisoning, fallout contaminated half the continent, and thousands fell ill. In Chernobyl, Serhii Plokhy draws on new sources to tell the dramatic stories of the firefighters, scientists, and soldiers who heroically extinguished the nuclear inferno. He lays bare the flaws of the Soviet nuclear industry....
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Companions to Each Other
- By Tim on 06-04-19
By: Serhii Plokhy
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Reagan at Reykjavik
- Forty-Eight Hours That Ended the Cold War
- By: Ken Adelman
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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A dramatic account of the historic 1986 Reagan-Gorbachev summit in Iceland - the turning point in the Cold War - by Ken Adelman, Reagan's arms control director and a key player in that weekend's world-changing events. In October 1986, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev met for a forty-eight-hour summit in Reykjavik, Iceland. Planned as a short gathering to outline future talks, the meeting quickly turned to major international issues, including SDI ("Star Wars") and the possibility of eliminating all nuclear weapons.
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Outstanding Tribute
- By MOV on 11-17-23
By: Ken Adelman
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Reagan
- The Life
- By: H. W. Brands
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 31 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Ronald Reagan today is a conservative icon, celebrated for transforming the American domestic agenda and playing a crucial part in ending communism in the Soviet Union. In his masterful new biography, H. W. Brands argues that Reagan, along with FDR, was the most consequential president of the 20th century. Reagan took office at a time when the public sector, after a half century of New Deal liberalism, was widely perceived as bloated and inefficient, an impediment to personal liberty.
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Very little about Reagan
- By Jack Merritt on 07-30-15
By: H. W. Brands
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Fukushima: The Story of a Nuclear Disaster
- By: Susan Stranahan, David Lochbaum, The Union of Concerned Scientists, and others
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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On March 11, 2011, an earthquake large enough to knock the earth from its axis sent a massive tsunami speeding toward the Japanese coast and the aging and vulnerable Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power reactors. Over the following weeks, the world watched in horror as a natural disaster became a man-made catastrophe: fail-safes failed, cooling systems shut down, nuclear rods melted.
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Internal workings of the NRC
- By Eduards J. Vucins on 05-11-14
By: Susan Stranahan, and others
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The Crusader
- Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism
- By: Paul Kengor
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 13 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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God and Ronald Reagan made presidential historian Paul Kengor's name as one of the premier chroniclers of the life and career of the 40th president. With The Crusader, Kengor returns with the one book about Reagan that has not been written: the story of his lifelong crusade against communism and of his dogged and ultimately triumphant effort to overthrow the Soviet Union.
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Whether you like Reagan or not....
- By Daryl on 10-20-13
By: Paul Kengor
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The Dead Hand
- The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy
- By: David E. Hoffman
- Narrated by: Bob Walter
- Length: 20 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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The Dead Hand is the suspense-filled story of the people who sought to brake the speeding locomotive of the arms race, then rushed to secure the nuclear and biological weapons left behind by the collapse of the Soviet Union—a dangerous legacy that haunts us even today.The Cold War was an epoch of massive overkill.
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Eye opening
- By Brian on 11-16-10
By: David E. Hoffman
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American Moonshot
- John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race
- By: Douglas Brinkley
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 17 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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As the 50th anniversary of the first lunar landing approaches, the award-winning historian and perennial New York Times best-selling author takes a fresh look at the space program, President John F. Kennedy’s inspiring challenge, and America’s race to the moon.
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This narrator sounds like a frikkin robot! 👎👎👎
- By Timothy Anderson on 04-04-19
By: Douglas Brinkley
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Admiral Hyman Rickover
- Engineer of Power (The Jewish Lives Series)
- By: Marc Wortman
- Narrated by: Paul Bellantoni
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Admiral Hyman George Rickover (1899-1986) remains an almost mythical figure in the United States Navy. A brilliant engineer with a ferocious will and combative personality, he oversaw the invention of the world’s first practical nuclear power reactor. In this exciting biography, historian Marc Wortman explores the constant conflict Rickover faced and provoked, tracing how he revolutionized the navy and Cold War strategy.
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Rickover - No Compromises
- By Brustar on 07-18-22
By: Marc Wortman
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Reagan's Secret War
- The Untold Story of His Fight to Save the World from Nuclear Disaster
- By: Martin Anderson, Annelise Anderson
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 11 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Martin and Annelise Anderson drew upon their access to more than eight million classified documents housed within the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California. What emerges from this treasure trove of material is evidence that Reagan intended from his first days in office to bring down the Soviet Union, that he considered eliminating nuclear weapons his paramount objective, and that he was the principal architect of the policies that brought the Soviets to the nuclear-arms negotiating table.
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IMPORTANT HISTORICAL INFORMATION
- By Byron on 06-19-12
By: Martin Anderson, and others
What listeners say about Losing Earth
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Steve B
- 09-07-19
Great book!
This book is really good. I enjoyed listening to it. I listened to it all in one sitting.
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2 people found this helpful
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- M. Ahern
- 05-24-19
Timely and important history of Climate Change
losing Earth: recent history is a timely book for all to read particularly those who are skeptical of whether there is consensus that the globe is warming in the climate is changing rapidly. has an environmental scientist in the air pollution feel for over 20 years whose responsibilities in part was to analyze and question the emerging consensus on behalf of a state environmental agency In order to develop balanced state level environmental policy, I can attest that the summarized history of the players and information in this book is largely accurate. This book also, in my professional judgment, accurately lays out the near term future of the effects of Climate change and shifts in attitude by the public on this critical existential threat to humans.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Steve
- 06-15-19
Inspiring!!!!
It lays out in succinct detail where we are and how we got here. The final chapter is a sobering and inspiring call to action, an action that we can all embrace and practice. The most compelling book I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Corbin
- 02-06-20
One of the best I've read about climate change
I had no idea how important understanding the history of this subject was. A main point is that for a long time, there were no "skeptics," and some of the main people studying the issue were oil companies.
What the science revealed several decades ago was correct; and the people involved at the time knew that it was correct. Now we are experiencing firsthand their predictions coming true.
Highly recommended.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Keith Alan Cole
- 10-30-20
A must listen!
the best audio book I ever listened to. the content is most important, the story is riveting, and the narration was the absolute best. thank you!
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- Climate Warrior
- 07-24-20
Earth is not lost, but if we don’t learn these lessons from past policy struggles, it will be...
Losing Earth chronicles the process by which an agreement on limiting CO2 emissions almost came to pass, but was de-railed by various interests at the last minute. This book helps one understand the playing field around various IPCC meetings and even the history of how the world’s scientists came to recognize that CO2 was an issue. Hopefully, from this timeline of a past failure, we can learn from the mistakes and make sure the next chance is not lost, because it may be our last opportunity to stave off even more catastrophic damage.
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- R. Christensen
- 04-14-19
Amazing look at our delusions regarding climate change
This book is a good and comprehensive reminder that we have known about the effects of petroleum combustion on our environment and society since at least the 1950, that we knew with high confidence in the 1970s about the climate events that happen with increasing frequency today, and that politicians in the 1980 - particularly an engineer who had a deeply obscured sense of his own bloated expertise on computer modeling and climate - had the opportunity to slow global warming and did nothing to stop it. I’m walking away from this book with renewed commitment to making changes to my own daily footprint, and to writing and calling my legislators to encourage action on the Green New Deal.
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3 people found this helpful
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- erikkayep
- 06-03-19
Quick but powerful
Enjoyed listening to the book- stunned by much of the history. Ending was very powerful.
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2 people found this helpful
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- RC Davis
- 05-26-22
An account of our checkered environmental past
This is a hard history to walk back through for anyone serious about our planet's current environmental challenges. The people in power both politically and in industry knew the extent of the problem we were facing from fossil fuel emissions and instead chose to perpetuate the status quo. Profit ahead of people.
Rich does a great job of exposing this history in a clear and concise way. It ends on a positive note with an optimistic eye to the future. I only hope that we all wake up in time to save the only planet we have.
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- Shaun Morrell
- 07-15-23
Not lost yet
For such a dark and cynical topic, this was a surprisingly engaging and compelling listen. I was shocked to learn that global warming was a fairly bipartisan and undisputed issue for a time. The book offers a glimmer of hope that we can mitigate this disaster, but it requires overcoming strong political and corporate resistance. Our best weapons as individuals are to educate ourselves, vote with climate in mind, and talk with our friends, family, and neighbors about the urgency of the problem.
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