Before It's Gone: Stories from the Front Lines of Climate Change in Small-Town America

Summary

In the vein of This Changes Everything and Saving Us, a character-driven and shocking up-close look at the way climate change is affecting America, right now, and a call to action to protect the people and places we stand to lose if nothing is done to preserve our planet.

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.