From CBS News national correspondent Jonathan Vigliotti, a “vivid” (Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize–winning author) and “stunning” (Booklist) character-driven call to action on our climate, told through the stories of the pioneering Americans working to persevere as leadership inaction risks the very survival of our heartland and hometowns.
Discussion of the climate crisis has always suffered from a problem of abstraction. Data points and warnings of an overheated future struggle to break through the noise of everyday life. Deniers often portray climate solutions as inconvenient, expensive, and unnecessary. And many politicians, cloistered by status and focused always on their next election, do not yet see climate as a winning issue in the short run, so they don’t take any action at all. But climate change, and its devastating consequences, has kept apace whether we want to pay attention or not.
CBS News national correspondent Jonathan Vigliotti has seen that crisis unfold for himself, spending nearly two decades reporting across the United States (and the world) documenting the people, communities, landmarks, and traditions we’ve already surrendered. Vigliotti shares with urgency and personal touch the story of an America on the brink.
Before It’s Gone traces Vigliotti’s travels across the country, taking him to the frontlines of climate disaster and revealing the genuine impacts of climate change that countless Americans have already been forced to confront. From massive forest fires in California to hurricanes in Louisiana, receding coastlines in Massachusetts and devastated fisheries in Alaska, we learn that warnings of a future impacted by climate are no more; the climate catastrophe is already here.
This is the story of America, and Americans, on the edge, and a powerful argument that radical action on climate change with a respect for its people and traditions is not only possible, but also the only way to preserve what we love.
“As a CBS News correspondent, Jonathan Vigliotti has rushed into fires, floods, and war zones. In Before It’s Gone, he shares what he’s learned from covering the disasters climate change is creating. Like so much of the best reporting, his account is at once vivid and terrifying.”
—Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Under a White Sky and The Sixth Extinction
“Before It’s Gone is an account of a TV journalist on the climate beat that reads like it was written by Indiana Jones on Red Bull. Jonathan Vigliotti climbs redwoods, braves wildfires, chases storms, and interviews war refugees in a globe-hopping narrative that captures both the human drama of climate crisis and the challenges a broadcast journalist faces bringing this story to the world in real time.”
—Jeff Goodell, New York Times bestselling author of The Heat Will Kill You First
“A stunning call to action to save ourselves and all life on the planet.”
—Booklist
“CBS News correspondent Vigliotti debuts with a vivid report... the prose is transportive, and […] stirring portraits ground the climate science. Disquieting and thoroughly reported, this unsettles.”
—Publishers Weekly
