Hello again, I'm Robin Alney.

The world is changing before our eyes, but politics is making it harder to prepare for the future.

Not least among the challenges is propaganda about the reality of climate change.

Last month, the New York Times devoted an entire issue of its Sunday magazine

to one reporter, Nathaniel Rich. He wrote that the world missed the chance to slow global warming

in the 1980s. He demonstrated that governments and the major oil companies accepted the science

as the decade began. They even predicted inevitable consequences.

But 10 years later, faced with the costs of regulation and technical change, the energy industry

began a disinformation campaign. And those politicians who opposed regulations were eager to

embrace climate change denial. In an interview with me, Rich went beyond

what he reported in the Times magazine. I don't think there's any doubt that in the future,

and probably the very near future, that the actions of the Republican Party and oil and gas

industry during this period will be considered crimes against humanity.

Rich told me the energy industry has backed away,

at least to some extent, but for politicians,

especially President Trump and the GOP,

climate change denial is alive and well.

Meantime, we're all seeing those consequences

predicted almost 40 years ago,

the melting of ice sheets, the rising of ocean levels,

and this year's massive outbreak of firestorms all over the world.

In this country, the burning forests are polluting the cities.

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