PositiveThe New York Review of BooksLosing Earth: A Recent History—a slightly expanded version of [Rich\'s] article—makes a strong case for the value of might-have-beens ... Losing Earth argues convincingly that during the 1980s, many people from various political backgrounds were willing to consider some sort of action on climate change. But it is an overstatement to say, as Rich does in his introduction, that we had an \'excellent chance\' of solving the problem in the 1980s, and that the \'conditions for success were so favorable that they have the quality of a fable\' ... What is clear from Rich’s story, and what remains relevant today, is that many of those who were concerned about climate change gave up before they even got started ... Like David Wallace-Wells in The Uninhabitable Earth, Rich does not hesitate to define the stakes ... If we don’t fix it, then, the Earth will be uninhabitable for future generations. And that prospect has profound consequences for us.
