Break Through

Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger triggered a firestorm with the publication of Break Through, contending that the politics that dealt with acid rain and smog can’t deal with global warming.The nations that ratified the Kyoto protocol have seen their greenhouse gas emissions go up, not down. And the destruction of tropical rain forests, a key driver of global warming, has accelerated.What today’s ecological crises demand, say the authors, is not that we constrain human power but rather unleash it.We must go beyond interest group environmentalism and liberalism to create a politics focused as much on uncommon greatness as on the common good. “To win,Nordhaus and Shellenberger persuasively argue, environmentalists must stop congratulating themselves for their own willingness to confront inconvenient truths and must focus on building a politics of shared hope rather than relying on a politics of fear” (New York Times Book Review). Break Through is the first step in a new progressive movement that will influence the political debate for years to come.