Climate breakdown is accelerating. Millions march in their cities demanding their governments take action. Floods, fires and hurricanes are ravaging communities all over the world, and the call for action has never been stronger or more urgent. 

Climate has become a polarizing debate about beliefs and identity as much as about science. Leaders have begun to seize on climate change to advance ideologically rooted positions. Many take the side of climate skeptics to win votes. Big industries have undermined public discourse by funneling millions into groups denying climate change, threatening decades of research and climate consensus. 

Meanwhile, we watch as forest fires ravage Australia and climate change denialism dominates the social media, as quick-spreading and uncontrollable as the flames themselves.

In 2019, more than 40,000 fires swept through the Amazon rainforest, which absorbs two million tons of CO2 per year. The fires filled many of Brazil’s cities with acrid smoke. Yet the country is presided over by Jair Bolsonaro, a president who called his government’s scientific research on the Amazon “lies.”