Award-winning investigative journalist Lee van der Voo reports on Juliana v. the United States. Combining unparalleled access to the plaintiffs and reporting on the natural disasters that form an urgent backdrop to the story, van der Voo shares a timely and important story about the environment, the law, and the new generation of activists. In 2015, a group of kids sued the federal government over climate change. Their case has the potential to be the civil rights trial of our century, but it hasn't happened yet. Instead, both the Obama and Trump Administrations have deployed legal tactics to stymie the case, leaving our nation's courts in a tangle. In As the World Burns, Lee van der Voo tells the plaintiffs' story. Readers are introduced to 16-year-old Jayden Foytlin, whose Louisiana home has already flooded twice during her short lifetime, and to 21-year-old Jacob Lebel, whose Oregon farm is threatened by the planned path of a natural gas pipeline with dubious benefit. No matter their circumstances, all of the plaintiffs are fighting to prove that the government continues to knowingly destroy and endanger the climate system. Timely, important, and urgent, As the World Burns reveals the human side of the climate crisis, the dire effects of decades of inaction, and the potential pitfalls of tackling our environmental issues in the courts.
