We are in a golden age of climate journalism, with many young writers brilliantly chronicling the story that has come to dominate their lifetimes. And as the Biden Administration seeks environmental experts to advise on policy, the climate movement has put an increased number of Indigenous people in the lead to figure out how to address the biggest challenges of climate change. Call them the Standing Rock generation.
Julian Brave NoiseCat stands where the currents of climate journalism, advocacy and policy meet. His writing on the environment crackles with reported stories and historical context. But his work at the think tank Data for Progress is heavy on numbers, the kind that inform the Administration’s emerging plans for trillions in green infrastructure spending. And all of it draws on his own history—not as a marginalized outsider, but as the feet-firmly-planted descendant of the people who inhabited this continent for millennia. The climate crisis will be at the center of our public life for the foreseeable future, and NoiseCat—no question—will continue to work from the center of that center.
McKibben is an author and an environmentalist