How I Got Started in Climate Journalism

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In 2000, the New York Times magazine called him up and said, do you want to write about the comeback of the coal industry? And he was a little thought bubble in his head. I had no idea that there was any coal in America,. Much less that we burned it at that time. Half of our electricity came from it. That journey into the cold country was really transformative for me. You know, Al Gore once told me that everybody who cares about climate and energy has an oh shit moment. For me, that was my ohshit moment.

Jeff Goodell is a climate change writer for Rolling Stone and the author of seven books. His new book is The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet.

“I would not have said this even five years ago, but I have really come to see this now as a crime story. This is a kind of looting of the atmosphere of the earth, siphoning off resources and grossly profiting off of that at the expense of many other people—billions of people—on this planet. And I understand that’s a big thing to say, but I think it’s just pretty obviously true. … I don’t mean that personally that each one of them personally is a criminal. We are all complicit in this.”

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