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

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

The New York Times best-selling creator 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 actually kicked in, we could see parrots in the Antarctic. In 2010, when science deniers had regulate of the climate story, Senator James Inhofe and his circle of relatives built an igloo at 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 creator David Lipsky tells the astonishing story of how we moved from one extreme (the proper one) to the other.

With narrative sweep and a superb eye for character, Lipsky unfolds the dramatic narrative of the long, peculiar 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 the way 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 strange dance of science, money, and the American character.