New Awareness of Global Warming

Scientists who believe we are on the road to an earthly hell of global warming — and that is the vast majority of scientists these days — are desperate to find a way to whack America with the two-by-four that will really wake it up to the danger they see. It's been tough, with a minority band of skeptics feeding a natural readiness to doubt.

But the warning megaphone is growing. Al Gore's movie has been a surprise box office hit. New books are making the melting, baking, collapsing face of a changing planet vivid. NASA's chief weather scientist James Hansen has been at the center of the battle he calls an epic race against time.

Hear a conversation with Hansen on global warming and the fight to win the public mind.

Guests:

James Hansen, Director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Adjunct Professor at Columbia University's Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences.

Elizabeth Kolbert, Staff Writer at The New Yorker and author of "Field Notes from a Catastrophe."

Chris Gardner, film reporter for Variety Magazine.