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Glacial: The Inside Story of Climate Politics Kindle Edition
From mavericks to party standard-bearers, U.S. Senators, members of the House of Representatives, and presidential candidates have campaigned for four decades espousing their intentions to address the impacts of climate change.Glacial: The Inside Story of Climate Politics is the first Inside-the-Beltway account to lay bare the machinations of what went wrong in Washington—how and why our leaders failed to act on climate change as mounting scientific evidence underscored the urgency to do so. Glacial tells a story of behind-the-scenes infighting and power struggles that blocked or derailed federal legislative progress on climate change, even in times of bipartisanship and with polls showing most Americans favored action.The good news today is that public opinion is at its highest level of support for climate action, from corporate boardrooms embracing sustainability for business reasons to movements led by passionate younger generations who can't afford to stand mute because it is they who will inherit the worst environmental catastrophes. If the missed opportunities in Washington are instructive, the path to doing so is clear. Our elected officials must use their offices not solely for the power and prestige it bestows upon them personally, but for the public good—and they must do so while there is still time.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherTurner
- Publication dateAugust 6, 2024
- File size24.7 MB
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"Chelsea is a natural born storyteller who takes 60 years of complex climate policy history and distills it into a very engaging and meaningful read. In Glacial, she highlights both the unsung heroes of attempts to pass climate legislation and elevates a bipartisan cast of champions who might surprise you. You’ll be excited and intrigued about climate politics!” —Sara Beth Aubrey, founder of Elevate Ag & IN-CLIMATE
About the Author
Product details
- ASIN : B0CBQKTM46
- Publisher : Turner
- Accessibility : Learn more
- Publication date : August 6, 2024
- Edition : 1st
- Language : English
- File size : 24.7 MB
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Print length : 460 pages
- ISBN-13 : 978-1684429592
- Page Flip : Enabled
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,257,608 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #122 in Environmental Policy
- #193 in Climatology
- #445 in Environmental Science (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Chelsea Henderson is the author of Glacial: The Inside Story of Climate Politics. Based on scores of interviews with key players and research spanning the six decades since climate change was first elevated to a president’s attention as a global catastrophe in the making, Chelsea wrote GLACIAL inspired by those stakeholders who work year after year, decade after decade, to enact comprehensive climate change legislation.
With more than twenty-five years of experience striking bipartisan compromise on federal energy and environmental policy, Chelsea has worked on and off Capitol Hill with lawmakers, administration officials, and a broad array of stakeholders from the regulated community to environmentalists. She currently hosts the podcast the EcoRight Speaks and also freelance writes on the topics of clean energy and climate change.
A graduate of Boston University’s College of Liberal Arts (B.A.) and School of Education (M.Ed.), she hails from Maine and resides in Maryland, where she occasionally still feeds and gets visits from her two college-aged sons.
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Customers appreciate the book's length, with one describing it as a well-written exploration of climate policy. The book receives positive feedback for its balanced approach to climate policy history.
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Customers appreciate the book's length, with one describing it as a well-written exploration of climate politics, while another notes it's an easy-to-read history lesson.
"Henderson's "Glacial" is a well-written exploration of the long and often disappointing road to climate legislation...." Read more
"...book exceeded my expectations: it was so good to get an easy to read history lesson in how climate policy developed over the past 50 years...." Read more
"...Chelsea Henderson is a fantastic writer, I am looking forward to more books from her!" Read more
Customers appreciate the book's historical approach to climate policy.
"Great, well written history of climate change politics!" Read more
"Great balaced history of Climate Policy over past 50 years..." Read more
"Good book on bad Climate politics.. Public & politicians fooled by oil companies about the threat...." Read more
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on May 9, 2025Henderson's "Glacial" is a well-written exploration of the long and often disappointing road to climate legislation. The book reveals the sobering reality of how many opportunities were missed, leading up to the passage of the currently vulnerable Inflation Reduction Act. The inclusion of a mid-1960s report to the Johnson administration – one of the earliest of many warnings about climate change – is particularly insightful, as is the depiction of how bipartisan support for climate action eroded into partisan division. The book underscores the vital importance of Republican/conservative support for lasting progress.
- Reviewed in the United States on November 4, 2024This book describes that US leadership consistently fails to act on rising CO2 levels due to 1) concerns the science of climate change is credible , 2) concerns other large countries will not act to mitigate CO2 while the US initiates restraining measures and 3) mitigation efforts like a energy tax or carbon tax will adversely affect the national economy and harm jobs, growth and competitive standing. Years and years go by until the inflation reduction act is passed.
- Reviewed in the United States on August 23, 2024As Citizens Climate Lobby volunteer, I had heard a lot about Chelsea and her contributions. This book exceeded my expectations: it was so good to get an easy to read history lesson in how climate policy developed over the past 50 years. It wasn't just about Al Gore, so many Presidents and their advisors played such a big role. Often it seems one step forward, two steps backwards, but good things did happen under Republican and Democratic administrations alike. During this election year, not much may happen in terms of legislation, but there is so much awareness of needed action that I am hopeful. Great job Chelsea.
- Reviewed in the United States on December 8, 2024Interesting information oil companies using public ignorance to derail efforts at fighting Global Heating.
- Reviewed in the United States on August 8, 2024It’s not often a book about climate change can be called a page turner. Everyone should read this book. It’s a true eye opener on how we have and are still failing this place we call home, this Earth. Chelsea Henderson is a fantastic writer, I am looking forward to more books from her!
- Reviewed in the United States on August 6, 2024Great, well written history of climate change politics!
- Reviewed in the United States on June 29, 2025This book recounts the history of the politics around climate change starting with the LBJ administration and ending with the Biden administration. LBJ was the first commander in chief to warn his fellow Americans of a steady increase in carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels. The author, Chelsea Henderson is a leader in the Eco-Right movement, basically Republicans for the Environment. Some well-known names in this movement are former secretary of state James Baker (under H.W. Bush), and the former secretary of state under Ronald Reagan, the late George Shultz, Bob Ingliss former Republican Congressman from South Carolina, the founders of RepublicEN, the Republican congressman Carlos Curbelo who founded the Climate Solutions Caucus in Congress together with Ted Deutch, Republican Utah Senator John Curtis, and George Mankiw a notable conservative economist.
It may come as a surprise to some that once upon a time the environment was not a divisive left versus right issue. Nixon signed into law the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act of 1972, the Endangered Species Act, and founded the Environmental Protection Agency. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher led the ratification of the Montreal Protocol in 1987 – 1989 to phase out the global use of CFCs due to their detrimental effect on the ozone layer. As a result, emissions of ozone-depleting gases have fallen by 99 percent, and it saves an estimated 2 million lives from skin cancer every year. This was one of Ronald Reagans greatest successes and yet it has been mocked by some subsequent Republican Presidents.
The book also talks about the history of acid rain and our fight against that. Margaret Thatcher, a chemist, was very concerned about the greenhouse effect, or global warming, and so was George H.W. Bush and Reagan to some degree. Unfortunately, the words climate change has grown to be deeply polarizing due to decades long disinformation campaigns funded by fossil fuel companies and far right think tanks and talk show hosts. Another factoid that might surprise readers is that in 1957, scientists working for Humble Oil, later known as ExxonMobil, sounded the alarm on the greenhouse effect / global warming caused by burning fossil fuels. However, the executive leadership decided to deride the type of work its own scientists had done. The same thing happened on later occasions and Exxon funneled a lot of money into anti-climate change think tanks.
As the evidence that carbon dioxide was causing the greenhouse effect (or global warming or climate change) became increasingly indisputable in the 1990’s the fossil fuel industry and far right think tanks, and conservative talk show hosts, started to push back on the science very hard, by spreading misinformation, insulting and attacking scientists, environmentalists, and politicians taking a stand they did not like. Koch industries, the American Petroleum Institute and the Global Climate Coalition (GCC), which contrary to what the name seems to imply, opposed climate action, teamed up to fight climate action. However, it was not only people on the right doing this. Democrat politicians from coal districts also opposed measures on global warming. Clinton and Gore tried make progress on the issue, but it became politically unworkable. The book explains what happened during the Contract with America episode, the Kyoto protocol, etc.
However, the issue of climate change was not purely a right versus left. Some Republican leaders such as Senator John McCain and Mitt Romney championed climate action (perhaps on and off and on again) and the George W. Bush administration contained both pro-fossil advocates such as Dick Cheney and those favoring action on climate change such as Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, Condoleezza Rice, Christine Todd Whitman, and Colin Powell.
Later during the Obama administration there was a climate change bill that was very close to passing, the Waxman-Markey bill. The bill passed the house but when it was going to be voted on in the Senate, Barbara Boxer (democrat) used her role as a committee chairman to change it and take it so far left that it became unpassable. She wasn’t against climate action, on the contrary, but she thought it would work. I can add that the Tea Party, which had started out to oppose the national debt, but later focused on the culture war and opposed climate action made climate action more difficult. Well, it did not help that the oil and gas industry spent 175 million dollars lobbying against the bill in less than a year whilst environmental advocates spent only 22.4 million dollars lobbying for it, despite that being a record effort for environmental advocates.
The end of the book focuses on the Biden administration and the Clean Energy Tax Credits in the Inflation Reduction Act. This part of the book reads like a thriller because it was held up by one man, Joe Manchin, the Democrat Senator from West Virginia, who was pressured from all sides and kept changing his mind, until he finally decided to support it. As of very recently, a few days ago, those Tax Credits have been reversed. The history of action on climate change marches on.
By reading this book you will learn about a lot of people and their stories, politicians and scientists, who became embroiled in the climate change issue, for or against, George E. Brown, Dr. Roger Revelle, Dr. James Hansen, Katherine Hayhoe, Al Gore, Joe Lieberman, Rafe Pomerance, Speth, Shimberg, Senator John Chafee, John McCain, Mathew Stembridge, Rick Boucher, John Warner, Alex Bozmoski, Bob Ingliss, Lindsey Graham, John Sununu, Rahm Emmanuel, Congressman Joe Barton, Dick Cheney, Tom DeLay, Scott Pruitt, Lee Iacocca, Senator Inhofe, Rush Limbaugh, Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell, Myron Ebell, and many others. You will also learn about terms that relates to the American form of Democracy, the filibuster, budget reconciliation, appropriation, the parliamentarian, the various senate and house committees and caucuses, how bills are created and passed, an Omnibus bill, etc.
If you are interested in political history, the history of climate change politics, and the stories of the people involved, then this book is for you. The author explains all the terms used and it is not a complicated book. The book reads like a journey through political history, and you will learn thousands of facts and anecdotes. If you are a somewhat older reader, like me, you will be reminded of the events from the past and you will recognize people, and what they said, and the chaos, and the complexities, and all the hoopla, and you will think to yourself, what a crazy world politics is. I also think that the book gives you a perspective of where the politics have been and where it might be going. Despite the many setbacks in the past, this book will give you reason for optimism. The younger generation both on the left and the right are more willing to accept the science and are more willing to embrace action on climate. Well, I guess it is their future. The world is moving forward, and it is decarbonizing, no matter what we do. Overall, I think the book is entertaining and fascinating and I highly recommend it.
- Reviewed in the United States on November 12, 2024Solving a seemingly intractable problem like climate change has never been easy, but the stakes have never been higher. Understanding the history of how we got here is the best way for informed citizens, activists, and political pundits to shape the future they want to see for future generations. Henderson is a gifted storyteller with decades of experience in the climate policy space. She brings these gifts to bear in this fascinating read that will make you angry enough to get up and vote your conscience. Highly recommend for anyone interested in history, climate policy, and the intersection of the two.