The Very Good and Very Bad News on Climate
7/10/20261 hr 25 min
Already this summer, there have been huge wildfires in the Southwest and Great Plains and an extraordinary heat wave in Europe, as the world stares down the barrel of a powerful El Niño. Climate change is accelerating, and yet climate politics right now is in disarray.
But something else is happening, too. Advances in clean energy technology mean it is now possible to build a world of energy abundance that was the stuff of dreams just a few years ago. That means a new kind of climate politics is possible — one that doesn’t just talk about sacrifice and disaster prevention but also can present decarbonization as a path to somewhere better, where everyone has more, not less.
Bill McKibben is one of the best people at articulating that vision. He’s a founder of the climate action groups 350.org and Third Act, and he’s been at the vanguard of the climate movement for decades. His 1989 book, “The End of Nature,” is considered the first book on global warming written for a general audience. His latest book, published last year, is “Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization.”
Mentioned:
“Global Electricity Review 2026” by Ember
The End of Nature by Bill McKibben
“The New Right’s Very Old Vision of Men,” The Ezra Klein Show with Helen Lewis
“We’re All Living in the ‘Mirror World’ Now,” The Ezra Klein Show with Naomi Klein
Book Recommendations:
The Glorians by Terry Tempest Williams
The Beginning Comes After the End by Rebecca Solnit
The Carbon Wave by Leah C. Stokes
Brought to You By by Amy Westervelt
End Times Fascism by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.
You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html
This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris and Julie Beer. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Johnny Simon. Our recording engineer is Johnny Simon. Cinematography by Kyle Kelley and Marina King. Video editing by Brandon Belk-Yee, Dani Dillon and Julian Hackney. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin and Emma Kehlbeck. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser.
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsMichael Sullivan0:00
Hi, it's Michael Sullivan from Wirecutter, the product recommendation service from The New York Times. And today, we're in the kitchen testing canned tomatoes. We're tasting for sweetness, acidity, definitely the color, the texture. These tomatoes, they're pretty velvety. Like, they break apart easily with a spoon. The guides that we write are living, breathing things. It's a piece of fruit in a can, so it's gonna change every year. At Wirecutter, we do the work so you don't have to. For independent product reviews and recommendations for the real world, come visit us at nytimes.com/wirecutter.
Ezra Klein· Host0:30
[instrumental music] Here's the good news. Green energy is getting better and cheaper faster than we had ever dared hope. This next sentence was unimaginable even a few years ago. The energy think tank Ember found in April that all, all of the new electricity demand around the world in twenty twenty-five was met with green power. That is wild. But here is the bad news. Climate change is accelerating. We're discovering new ways that the climate system is more fragile, more sensitive to emissions than we previously thought.