Before It's Gone

Talk about climate change often stays abstract. Data points and warnings about a hotter future struggle to compete with everyday life, deniers present solutions as inconvenient, expensive and unnecessary, and many politicians, focused on their next election, take no action at all. Meanwhile the consequences keep arriving.

CBS News national correspondent Jonathan Vigliotti has spent nearly two decades reporting across the United States and abroad, documenting the people, communities, landmarks and traditions already lost. Before It's Gone follows his travels to the front lines of climate disaster. He visits massive wildfires in California, hurricanes in Louisiana, receding coastlines in Massachusetts and devastated fisheries in Alaska. Through the people he meets, he shows that the climate catastrophe is already here and that many Americans have had to face it.

The book is a character-driven, up-close account in the vein of This Changes Everything and Saving Us. It is also a call to action, arguing that radical action on climate, carried out with respect for the people and traditions affected, is possible and is the only way to preserve what we love.