The Parrot and the Igloo: Climate and the Science of Denial

by David Lipsky

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Bestselling author and journalist David Lipsky takes readers on a wild trip through the long progression of climate denialism, attempting to answer the question: “What the heck happened here?!” As entertaining as it is hair-raising, rife with absurdity, The Parrot & the Igloo, proves the value of knowing when, where, why and how the goal-posts got moved.

A New York Times Editors' Choice • A New Yorker and Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2023 • A Goodreads Most Anticipated Book of 2023 • A USA Today Must-Read Summer Book • A Next Big Idea Must-Read Book • A Library Journal What To Read In 2023 Book

The New York Times best-selling author explores how “anti-science” became so virulent in American life—through a history of climate denial and its consequences.

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, best-selling author David Lipsky tells the astonishing story of how we moved from one extreme (the correct one) to the other.

With narrative sweep and a superb eye for character, Lipsky unfolds the dramatic narrative of the long, strange march of climate science. 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393866704
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	07/11/2023
Pages:	496
Sales rank:	150,833
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 8.80(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

David Lipsky is a recipient of the National Magazine Award and the GLAAD Media Award. His books Absolutely American and Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself were New York Times bestsellers. He teaches at New York University and lives in New York City.

Editorial Reviews

★ 11/14/2022

Humor accompanies horrific truths in this vital look at the rise of climate change denial. With dry wit and novelistic flair, National Magazine Award winner Lipsky (Absolutely American) chronicles how harnessing electricity changed the world, then charts growing public awareness of electricity and fossil fuels’ contributions to climate change. After covering the innovations of Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, and George Westinghouse, Lipsky fast-forwards to describe how the climate became a political issue, from concerns over air pollution to the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency to the 2006 Al Gore documentary An Inconvenient Truth. The most revelatory section illuminates corporate disinformation campaigns as Lipsky points out how climate denialism borrowed tactics that the tobacco industry used to push back on science linking smoking with lung cancer, notably the strategy of rebuking scientific consensus by calling for more research. Lipsky adopts an offbeat style (“Arrange all farewells and balloons no later than 2069,” he deadpans about a biologist’s tongue-in-cheek prediction of apocalypse), and his perspective on how diverse cultural and political forces have contributed to inaction on climate change is sobering and incisive. Buoyed by thorough historical research, this is a first-rate entry in the field of climate denial studies. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

"How global warming happened and how deniers have stalled action is too serious a story not to be treated satirically. In a witty, often immersive, always stylish text, David Lipsky exposes and skewers the movers, shakers, and shills behind our climate crisis. Even if you know the plot, you’ll read the story afresh."

Stephen Pyne

"The award-winning journalist and author David Lipsky has written a readable, compelling book about climate science and its deniers….Lively and accessible, but built atop meticulous research.…I would recommend it even for topic experts. [In] my own case, I have helped sell supercomputers to climate modelers, am a member of the American Geophysical Union, studied climate science for two decades, and know personally quite a few of the climate scientists included in his book. Yet I still learned new information.…Fascinating.…He tells the story in a compelling, informative, and illuminating way."

John Mashey

"[An] unflinching look at this vital topic…It's a whirlwind tour, and Lipsky pulls it off…The beauty of this book is that it could expose a new audience to the crimes committed in the name of continued profit. So many climate books are preaching to the choir."

Undark - John Schwarz

"A fresh, infuriating epic using the cultural, technological and political roots of why climate disasters are so routinely dismissed….Lipsky, the journalist whose travels with David Foster Wallace became the film ‘The End of the Tour’ (he was played by Jesse Eisenberg), chews off a lot, ambitiously going as far back as the inventors who created industry. Then he relays through character sketches and turning points a history that reframes why the difficulty in explaining climate science to the public eventually became the bad-faith campaigns of the charlatans and self-interests who benefited from doing nothing. He writes entertainingly, with a snap that makes no bones: He wants this story as absorbing and approachable as a Netflix binge. Our future, he argues, depends on it."

Chicago Tribune - Christopher Borrelli

"A comic entertainment.…Rife with current pop culture references, from Disney’s Frozen to equating the severity of an ozone hole to a Christopher Nolan special effect, Lipsky makes reading about a potentially pending apocalypse fun. Wait…Is that possible? Unequivocally, yes.…With the emergence of this Pynchonesque tragicomedy of world population proportions, Lipsky firmly stands on his own."

New Pages - Nick Agelis

"David Lipsky spins top-flight climate literature into cliffhanger entertainment…Lipsky’s book is a project of maximum ambition. He retells the entire climate story, from the dawn of electricity to the dire straits of our present day [and] makes it page turning and appropriately infuriating. He says it up front: He wants this to be like a Netflix series, bingeable…The Parrot and the Igloo is a thriller of deceptions, side deals and close calls…What are the magic words? We have the facts and the wildfires to prove them. But climate communication—how to make those facts penetrate hearts and minds—seems always a losing battle. The denialists have always had sexier language, and they pay handsomely for it. Lipsky, with his cinematic account, has a good chance to grab back some of that ground."

Zoë Schlanger

"This is not a book lacking in ambition. Lipsky wants to tell the whole, sprawling, messy tale of climate change: how modern technology made it all happen, how scientists figured it out, and how a network of hustlers and hucksters distracted the public from the threat before our eyes. In the end he pulls it off, delivering a propulsive read that has the snap of a screenplay. Lipsky is a major talent…It’s the velvety texture of well-tailored prose that makes this book a climate must-read…My only quibble with this fantastic book…is that it ends too soon."

Sierra Magazine - Jason Mark

"There may be no such thing as a definitive look at the climate crisis, but Lipsky tries to cover what ‘a reasonably well-informed person might have been expected to know’…Lipsky masterfully recounts it with tempered outrage and a winking, wry wit."

Bloomberg News - Eric Roston

"Ingenious and hilarious…Climate change and climate denial have shared the stage in a gripping tragicomic drama for nearly four decades. In The Parrot and the Igloo David Lipsky brings that drama irresistibly to life in a narrative guaranteed to have readers alternately laughing at the headlong rush of human stupidity and cupidity and screaming helplessly into the void…Lipsky’s dizzying no-brakes account of the progression to climate consensus—and of the dogged deniers-for-hire who have attacked it with relentless, reckless abandon—proves engaging and enraging in equal measure."

New York Journal of Books - Steve Nathans-Kelly

"Go beyond thrillers and take a chilling look at climate…Lipsky offers a history of climate science—and with it, climate denial—starring a large cast of swindlers, zealots, politicians and hucksters to get to the heart of virulent anti-science ideologies in America."

USA Today - Barbara VanDenburgh

"A comprehensive history of climate denialism."

ABC News

"I’ve got to thank bestselling author David Lipsky for pulling off a nifty trick in his latest book—making me laugh while reading about the potential end of human life on this planet…The Parrot and the Igloo gives readers the confidence that we can get through this treatise on such a somber subject as climate change…There’s so much more to this book than a focus on the hideous history of climate-change denialism and the vile people who still traffic in it today…Lipsky connects all the dashes and dots [and] makes it easier to understand…As fascinating as the destination of denialism is, the author’s stops along the way are equally enthralling."

Washington Independent Review of Books - Christopher Lancette

"What is the lure of anti-science rhetoric and climate change denial? That’s the question at the heart of David Lipsky’s The Parrot and the Igloo…Lipsky profiles not only the experts who sounded the alarm on the climate crisis but also those who lied about the science and misled the public. The book explores themes of ecological disinformation and greed through the stories of an incredible cast of characters."

Toronto Life

"Where can a person living on a melting planet turn, at least before the spaceship fleet is ready, for enlightenment? I’d start, and finish, with David Lipsky’s brilliant epic The Parrot and the Igloo, which I devoured in a single, feverish, page-turning sitting, a perspective-altering dream, a story told in language as sharp and clear as the spring air we knew before all the carbon was released.… You will stare out the same windows when you've finished, but nothing will look the same."

Rich Cohen

"One of the best books I’ve read in a decade…This is an extraordinary work…The book is so important, I want so many people to read it. Not just because it’s important, but because it’s so damned entertaining. Because this book is written with love. With love for the reader, with love for humanity, with a huge understanding gaze, a huge nod to the fact that we are in this together…I promise you this book is worth it. David Lipsky has delivered on the promise of his brilliance in this book."

The Moment - Brian Koppelman

"What is incredible about David Lipsky's book, and why you all have to read it: one fear that I had, as a historian—I was worried that these climate-deniers weren't going to pay for it in history. And this book nails them. When you read it, there's no escaping a legacy of idiocy from these people. And charlatanism. And lying. And being corporate captives—it's a bunch of buffoons who gave birth to the climate denial movement…And the book keeps it so people will realize that we used to have such bad-faith citizens and politicians, who were willing to go that Build the Igloo route."

Douglas Brinkley

"As a scientist we believe that the data on climate impacts is clear. The Parrot and the Igloo shows us with poignant clarity how money, politics and greed have built walls around the status quo to protect their vested interests while the rest of humanity fights for the global future. Thank you, David Lipsky, for exposing the truth and in so doing a path forward to common sense action. Now it is up to us to act."

David Wegner

"Lipsky offers a history of climate science—and with it, climate denial—starring a large cast of swindlers, zealots, politicians and hucksters to get to the heart of virulent anti-science ideologies in America."

USA Today

08/01/2022

A National Magazine Award—winning, New York Times best-selling author, Lipsky explains how antiscience sentiment became so strong in the United States by focusing on climate change denial. He lays bare the science of climate change, understood decades ago, then shows how fake news about products like aspirin created the tools for denier ideas to take hold.

Library Journal

★ 2022-11-02
An exploration of the history of climate change denial.

In this simultaneously captivating and disturbing book, Lipsky, a professor at NYU and National Magazine Award winner, explores the history of climate change—and those who deny that it is largely human-made—over the past 70 years. The author begins by sharing stories of the inventors who sparked the technological advances that, without their knowledge, triggered the climate problems we face today, primarily Edison, Westinghouse, and Tesla. Lipsky then moves on to the scientists who identified carbon dioxide as the culprit and brought the problem to the world’s attention. Of course, climate change is not a new concept—“by the mid-fifties, the science was already well understood”—but early predictions were a “gross underestimate” of the situation, particularly because fossil fuel use grew more quickly than anticipated. Lipsky also lays out how denial and lies related to climate change are as strong as ever. In the 1950s and ’60s, the New York Timesran dozens of articles about climate change, but by the late 1980s, climate change “would seem an idea hatched by environmentalists.” The author paints a clear, damning portrait of leaders in the energy sector who have repeatedly failed to take responsibility for the effects of their actions, even seeding doubt and deception where possible. Furthermore, politicians on both sides of the aisle have pushed their own agendas, focused on problems they felt were more pressing, and never taken concrete action to mitigate the destructive effects of climate change. “The climate doesn’t care about politics, or experts, or warnings, and isn’t even aware there are people,” writes Lipsky. “We have our days and lists and hours, our schedules and emergencies; but the climate keeps its own time.” As of 2021, notes the author, 19 of the 20 hottest years on record have occurred since 2000.

An important book that will leave your head shaking.

Kirkus Reviews

"Exposing climate science deniers took its toll on Lipsky.… ‘There’s something about reading people who are lying that makes you suspicious and argumentative company.’ You’ll have a similar reaction reading Lipsky’s book. In selling their souls for fame and fortune, deniers have sowed doubt, eroded trust in science and cost us time we don't have in the fight to keep our only home from baking, burning and flooding."

Hamilton Spectator - Jay Robb

"It can be hard, sometimes, to keep in mind the distinction between weather—what’s it doing outside today?— and climate: What do statistical models suggest it’s likely to be doing decades from now? That confusion plays into the hands of oil companies and others who have long used pleasant days (weather) to downplay the threat of global warming (climate), as if a diseased patient can’t feel perfectly good some of the time. So David Lipsky’s new book, The Parrot and the Igloo, is a useful corrective; all the more so since Lipsky is a journalist rather than a climate scientist, whose aim is to gather the known facts about climate change and denialism into a compelling narrative that’s easy to grasp."

New York Times - Gregory Cowles

"David Lipsky’s topic in The Parrot and the Igloo—his preoccupation, his obsession—is climate change. On page after page, in chapter after chapter, he sets out how the warming world came to know, and actually has known for decades, that the planet is on fire, that the implications are dire, that the timetable to fight climate change is finite.… An excellent, approachable primer on the science of global warming [and] a dizzying account of how long we have known so much about an issue that means so much."

Boston Globe - David Shribman

"An achievement—it’s an amazing read."

Chris Jansing

"Enticing and eminently readable.… An offbeat history of climate science and politics."

Yale Climate Connections - Michael Svoboda

"[A] history of the idea that human actions are warming the world to cataclysmic effect.… The awareness of human-induced warming dawns in 1896 and resurfaces periodically throughout the twentieth century—in 1956, the Times imagined an Arctic so hot that it was home to tropical birds, a landscape that gives Lipsky’s book its title.… A consensus finally arrives with the release of the fourth I.P.C.C. assessment, in 2007, but this triumph becomes an anticlimax when governments prove unwilling to regulate fossil fuels."

The New Yorker

"David Lipsky’s The Parrot and the Igloo is so playful and sharp—one of my favorites of the year."

Heatmap - Jeva Lange

"Lipsky, award-winning author of books about West Point and a road trip with David Foster Wallace, brings his wide-angle lens to bear on global warming in The Parrot and the Igloo. It’s about not just the science of climate change but also the self-interested deniers constantly working to undermine it—‘more research is needed’ is a central strategy—and inflicting long-term damage in the process. Lipsky strives to make the book as readable as possible [and] his deep research and outrage continually shine through."

Los Angeles Times - Stuart Miller

"A huge accomplishment."

Concavity Show - Matt Bucher

"Well-researched and captivatingly written, it’s a must-read."

Prime Women - Sandy Dominy

"[An] unflinching look at this vital topic.… It’s a whirlwind tour, and Lipsky pulls it off.… The beauty of this book is that it could expose a new audience to the crimes committed in the name of continued profit; so many climate books are preach to the choir."

Undark - John Schwartz

"It is a book that should be read by just about everyone.… Sure, many of us have been angry about the collective failure to act on the facts of climate change for years, even for decades, but in The Parrot and the Igloo Lipsky lays bare the inner workings of the long-running countercurrent to common sense. Here a talented writer has painstakingly brought together facts, timelines, and personalities to portray a greater whole. And he has done so in a way that can only leave readers seething, wrathful, and ready for action."

E: The Environmental Magazine - Bill Streever

"Deep and detailed.… Lipsky’s energetic, often irreverent narrative makes it all intensely readable, although infuriating.… The Parrot and the Igloo arrives in a world on fire and perhaps, just perhaps, finally waking up to its peril."

Open Letters Review - Steve Donoghue

"The best nonfiction book I’ve read in decades. And the best book of its kind I’ve ever read."

Darin Strauss

"David Lipsky tells the story of how climate-change denial went mainstream.… Lipsky makes thinking about the planet’s impending doom not just palatable but entertaining."

Air Mail - Jensen Davis

"Essential."

Rolling Stone

"Award-winning author Lipsky takes the reader on a journey through the evolution of climate change denial.… [T]his can be considered the historical record to date."

Booklist

"[A] history of the idea that human actions are warming the world to cataclysmic effect.… The awareness of human-induced warming dawns in 1896 and resurfaces periodically throughout the twentieth century—in 1956, the Times imagined an Arctic so hot that it was home to tropical birds, a landscape that gives Lipsky’s book its title.… A consensus finally arrives with the release of the fourth I.P.C.C. assessment, in 2007, but this triumph becomes an anticlimax when governments prove unwilling to regulate fossil fuels."

The New Yorker

Lipsky’s brilliant epic The Parrot and the Igloo…[is] a perspective-altering dream, a story told in language as sharp and clear as the spring air we knew before all the carbon was released.”

author of Sweet and Low Rich Cohen

The best nonfiction book I’ve read in decades. And the best book of its kind I’ve ever read.”

author of Half a Life Darin Strauss

06/10/2024

Lipsky (Absolutely American) charts the history of global warming, from Edison's taming of electricity through Westinghouse and Tesla to today's climate crisis. In 1956, scientists demonstrated that global warming was happening and warned that the consequences could be catastrophic if conditions remained unchecked. Carbon emissions were identified as the main problem. Scientists presented evidence to political leaders, waiting for remedial policies to be implemented. Big corporations had other ideas. Their scientists created a story that insidiously cast doubt on the concept of global warming. Opportunities to mitigate the effects of human activity on climate were repeatedly ignored, questioned, or set aside altogether. Even when the warming trend became obvious, and catastrophic weather events became commonplace, leaders in the U.S. did nothing and even reversed previous legislation addressing the problems. Narrator Mike Chamberlain enhances Lipsky's extensively researched work with his animated, conversational style. He is especially effective when conveying the punchiness of Lipsky's prose. VERDICT A thorough history outlining how deniers cast doubt on global warming and the U.S. government's repeated failures to take action. Readers and listeners of Kate Aronoff's Overheated will want to snap this story up.—Joanna M. Burkhardt

Library Journal - Audio

Mike Chamberlain's believable tone and unhurried pace make him a great choice to narrate this audiobook subtitled "Climate and the Science of Denial." He animates the author's controlled irony and subtly brings out the frustration that runs through Lipsky's discussion. This is a long story of facts versus falsehoods and the climate-change deniers who have benefitted from both the hired guns and playbook of Big Tobacco. These are the folks who still pit themselves against the scientists who reveal the unyielding truths of melting glaciers, warming temperatures, and catastrophic weather events, including wildfires. In a painstakingly researched yet witty text, Lipsky bags the culprits. Chamberlain's careful narration of Lipsky's punchy prose makes this enjoyable, informative listening despite the dire nature of the topic. A.D.M. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

AUGUST 2023 - AudioFile

Mike Chamberlain's believable tone and unhurried pace make him a great choice to narrate this audiobook subtitled "Climate and the Science of Denial." He animates the author's controlled irony and subtly brings out the frustration that runs through Lipsky's discussion. This is a long story of facts versus falsehoods and the climate-change deniers who have benefitted from both the hired guns and playbook of Big Tobacco. These are the folks who still pit themselves against the scientists who reveal the unyielding truths of melting glaciers, warming temperatures, and catastrophic weather events, including wildfires. In a painstakingly researched yet witty text, Lipsky bags the culprits. Chamberlain's careful narration of Lipsky's punchy prose makes this enjoyable, informative listening despite the dire nature of the topic. A.D.M. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

AUGUST 2023 - AudioFile