Write an essay summarizing the history of climate change science, politics, and policy in the American context. Questions to consider: How did the scientific understanding of the problem of global warming/climate change evolve in the post-WWII period? Who were the key individuals who brought concern about the long-term threat of global warming to the U.S. government? What events did they set in motion? When and how did opposition coalesce to question scientific certainty about global warming? Who was behind this opposition? How did the debate over climate change reflect the growing polarization in American society over environmentalism? What policies did they bring about, or fail to bring about? Is climate change related to the larger “ecological crisis” identified by many environmentalists in the 1960s and 1970s, or is it a unique and unprecedented environmental problem in American history?
