The Parrot and the Igloo
Climate and the Science of Denial
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Narrated by:
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Mike Chamberlain
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By:
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David Lipsky
About this listen
In 1956, the New York Times prophesied that once global warming really kicked in, we could see parrots in the Antarctic. In 2010, when science deniers had control of the climate story, Senator James Inhofe and his family built an igloo on the Washington Mall and plunked a sign on top: AL GORE'S NEW HOME: HONK IF YOU LOVE CLIMATE CHANGE. In The Parrot and the Igloo, bestselling author David Lipsky tells the astonishing story of how we moved from one extreme (the correct one) to the other.
The story begins with a tale of three inventors—Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, and Nikola Tesla—who made our technological world, not knowing what they had set into motion. Then there are the scientists who sounded the alarm once they identified carbon dioxide as the culprit of our warming planet. And we meet the hucksters, zealots, and crackpots who lied about that science and misled the public in ever more outrageous ways. Lipsky masterfully traces the evolution of climate denial, exposing how it grew out of early efforts to build a network of untruth about products like aspirin and cigarettes.
Featuring an indelible cast of heroes and villains, mavericks and swindlers, The Parrot and the Igloo delivers a real-life tragicomedy—one that captures the extraordinary dance of science, money, and the American character.
©2023 David Lipsky (P)2023 HighBridge, a division of Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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Great job, Jon!
- By Montana on 12-10-20
By: Jon Tester
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Rick Mercer Final Report
- By: Rick Mercer
- Narrated by: Rick Mercer
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Rick Mercer can always be relied on to provoke a strong reaction - but what he said one fall day in 2017 truly shocked Canada. In a rant posted on social media, the great Canadian satirist announced loud and clear that the 15th season of the Rick Mercer Report - the nation's best-watched and best-loved comedy show - would be the last. This volume brings together never-before-published rants from the last five seasons of the show, plus a selection of the very best rants from earlier years.
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Mercer Hits It Out Of The Ballpark
- By Wade Lancaster on 11-11-19
By: Rick Mercer
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Sellout
- How Washington Gave Away America's Technological Soul, and One Man's Fight to Bring It Home
- By: Victoria Bruce
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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American technological prowess used to be unrivaled. But because of globalization, and with the blessing of the US government, once proprietary materials, components, and technologies are increasingly commercialized outside the United States. Nowhere is this more dangerous than in China's monopoly of rare earth elements - materials that are essential for nearly all modern consumer goods, gadgets, and weapons systems.
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Uncovering unsung heroes of modern America
- By Ben DeNardo on 08-24-17
By: Victoria Bruce
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Beautiful Country Burn Again
- Democracy, Rebellion, and Revolution
- By: Ben Fountain
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 14 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Beautiful Country Burn Again narrates a shocking year in American politics, moving from the early days of the Iowa Caucus to the crystalizing moments of the Democratic and Republican national conventions, and culminating in the aftershocks of the weeks following election night. Along the way, Fountain probes deeply into history, illuminating the forces and watershed moments of the past that mirror and precipitated the present, from the hollowed-out notion of the American Dream, to Richard Nixon’s Southern strategy, to the cult of celebrity that gave rise to Donald Trump.
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Must read
- By Gerald Moore on 11-01-18
By: Ben Fountain
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The Hypomanic Edge
- The Link Between (A Little) Craziness and (A Lot of) Success in America
- By: John D. Gartner
- Narrated by: Stephen R. Thorne
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Bringing his audacious and persuasive thesis to life, Gartner offers case histories of some famous Americans who represent this phenomenon of hypomania. These are the real stories you never learned in school about some of those men who made America: Columbus, who discovered the continent, thought he was the messiah. John Winthrop, who settled and defined it, believed Americans were God's new chosen people. Alexander Hamilton, the indispensable founder who envisioned America's economic future, self-destructed because of pride and impulsive behavior.
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Keep striving for greatness
- By Tina on 03-06-20
By: John D. Gartner
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The Front Runner (All the Truth Is Out Movie Tie-In)
- The Week Politics Went Tabloid
- By: Matt Bai
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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In May 1987, Colorado Senator Gary Hart seemed a lock for the party’s presidential nomination and led George H. W. Bush by double digits in the polls. Then, in one tumultuous week, rumors of marital infidelity and a newspaper’s stakeout of Hart’s home resulted in a media frenzy the likes of which had never been seen. Through the spellbindingly reported story of the senator’s fall from grace, Matt Bai, Yahoo News columnist and former chief political correspondent for The New York Times Magazine, reveals the Hart affair to be far more than one man’s tragedy.
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Excellent writing and performance
- By S. on 12-06-14
By: Matt Bai
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Rachel Maddow
- A Biography
- By: Lisa Rogak
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 5 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Rachel Maddow has beaten the odds in a way that's novel in today's America: She uses her brain. In a world of banal and opinionated soundbites, she regularly crushes Sean Hannity's ratings thanks to her deeply researched reports. And in our highly polarized world, Maddow amiably engages the staunchest conservatives, while never hesitating to expose their light-on-facts defenses.
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Absolute Pablum.
- By mj on 02-03-20
By: Lisa Rogak
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Targeted
- The Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower's Inside Story of How Big Data, Trump, and Facebook Broke Democracy and How It Can Happen Again
- By: Brittany Kaiser
- Narrated by: Brittany Kaiser
- Length: 13 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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In this explosive memoir, a political consultant and technology whistleblower reveals the disturbing truth about the multi-billion-dollar data industry, revealing to the public how companies are getting richer using our personal information and exposing how Cambridge Analytica exploited weaknesses in privacy laws to help elect Donald Trump - and how this could easily happen again in the 2020 presidential election.
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Heavy on Kaiser, Light on Cambridge Analytica’s Data Operations
- By Morgan H Hoban on 11-05-19
By: Brittany Kaiser
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Age of Ambition
- Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China
- By: Evan Osnos
- Narrated by: Evan Osnos, George Backman
- Length: 16 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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As the Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, Evan Osnos was on the ground in China for years, witness to profound political, economic, and cultural upheaval. In Age of Ambition, he describes the greatest collision taking place in that country: the clash between the rise of the individual and the Communist Party’s struggle to retain control.
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Come back when you have a warrant!
- By Neuron on 11-06-15
By: Evan Osnos
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The Fifties
- By: David Halberstam
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 34 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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The Fifties is a sweeping social, political, economic, and cultural history of the 10 years that Halberstam regards as seminal in determining what our nation is today. Halberstam offers portraits of not only the titans of the age: Eisenhower, Dulles, Oppenheimer, MacArthur, Hoover, and Nixon; but also of Harley Earl, who put fins on cars; Dick and Mac McDonald and Ray Kroc, who mass-produced the American hamburger; Kemmons Wilson, who placed his Holiday Inns along the nation's roadsides; and more.
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one of the very best
- By Chester Chellman on 09-25-18
By: David Halberstam
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Dutch
- A Memoir of Ronald Reagan
- By: Edmund Morris
- Narrated by: Edmund Morris
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Abridged
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This book, the only biography ever authorized by a sitting President - yet written with complete interpretive freedom - is as revolutionary in method as it is formidable in scholarship. When Ronald Reagan moved into the White House in 1981, one of his first literary guests was Edmund Morris, the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of Theodore Roosevelt. Morris developed a fascination for the genial yet inscrutable President and, after Reagan's landslide reelection in 1984, put aside the second volume of his life of Roosevelt to become an observing eye and ear at the White House.
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Painful
- By john on 02-06-13
By: Edmund Morris
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Shortest Way Home
- One Mayor's Challenge and a Model for America's Future
- By: Pete Buttigieg
- Narrated by: Pete Buttigieg
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Once described by The Washington Post as "the most interesting mayor you've never heard of", Pete Buttigieg, the 36-year-old Democratic mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has improbably emerged as one of the nation's most visionary politicians. First elected in 2011, Buttigieg left a successful business career to move back to his hometown, previously tagged by Newsweek as a "dying city", and transformed it into a shining model of urban reinvention.
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Reveals a Person Wise & Experienced & Literate
- By dbbks3 on 03-17-19
By: Pete Buttigieg
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Strange Angel
- The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons
- By: George Pendle
- Narrated by: James Langton
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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The Los Angeles Times headline screamed: Rocket Scientist Killed in Pasadena Explosion. The man known as Jack Parsons, a maverick rocketeer who helped transform a derided sci-fi plotline into actuality, was at first mourned as a scientific prodigy. But reporters soon uncovered a more shocking story: Parsons had been a devotee of the city’s occult scene.
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Finally on Audible!
- By Jason N on 05-16-19
By: George Pendle
What listeners say about The Parrot and the Igloo
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Cowgirl 7
- 10-22-23
Great info, but overly drawn out
Loved the arc of the book and appreciated the depth of research. Found myself eager for it to be over as it is several hours linger than necessary to convey the information
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- Anonymous User
- 08-12-23
Climate Science
An excellent account of climate denial and the myriad of characters that have led us to our current crisis. Well told with fun and interesting insights.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Steven Hassan PhD
- 09-07-23
Incredibly Well Researched and well written
As an expert in undue influence, this book connected a lot of dots for me at the deliberate disinformation campaigns waged using co-opted scientists as well as corrupt politicians and media spokespeople. I have been well acquainted with Frank Luntz who, in my opinion, bears a huge responsibility for the climate disasters we are experiencing daily globally. Shame on him! Shame on Singer! Shame on the Moonies who were hugely influential for many decades promoting science denial about human climate change. We must do better. Watch Al Gore’s recent TED talk. How can the US government give subsidies to the oil industry? How can we allow chaos agents destroy faith in science? And experts? We need to end corruption by a recent wring of values- starting with planetary survival!
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- Watch Hill
- 08-13-23
Depressing
Professional liars lying for money and fame have been part of the American fabric of public debate for a long time. It’s sad and an indictment of our selves. We get the government we deserve.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 07-24-23
Depressing Reality
Fascinating historical research and account of how we got to the status quo of 2023. Most of the world has spent its time keeping sand firmly packed around its ostrich brains. I felt a kindred connection when Lipsky confessed he was an angry person while writing most of this book. Reading it should be an obligation but it is not a pleasant experience. The stupidity is gut wrenching. I feel the need to rush out in search of evidence that could restore my faith in humanity. Not sure that is even possible at this point. I’m afraid that nothing short of a global catastrophe will bring our heads out of the sand.
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- Ida Knutsen Namur
- 09-10-23
critically important topic - flawed delivery
While I learned a lot from this book, I think it would have made a better documentary. Storyline kept jumping around and the 3 parts had some repetition. It also needed some serious editing. While the trope-y language was mildly irritating, the several incorrect versions of what NOAA actually stands for was a deal breaker for me. The only reason it is not two stars is because the topic is so important.
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