Abrahm Lustgarten

Reporter

Photo of Abrahm Lustgarten

Abrahm Lustgarten writes about climate change and works frequently with The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic and PBS Frontline, among others. His forthcoming book, “On The Move,” explores how climate change is uprooting American lives and where people will go.

Lustgarten’s recent reporting focuses on global migration, demographic change and conflict in response to a warming climate. His 2022 investigation into how the International Monetary Fund and global finance institutions have kept Barbados and other climate-vulnerable nations paralyzed by high levels of debt led in part to the introduction of the Bridgetown Initiative, a global effort to reform climate finance for developing countries crafted by Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley. In 2020 Lustgarten’s three-story cover series on a great climate-driven migration, published in partnership with the Times Magazine, helped prompt President Joe Biden’s formation of a climate migration study group and research report in the run-up to the COP26 conference in Glasgow, Scotland.

Lustgarten’s other investigations include an examination of the global palm oil trade, the climate drivers of pandemics and BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill (which led to the Emmy-nominated “The Spill” with Frontline, a project he worked on). His 2015 series examining water scarcity in the American West, “Killing the Colorado,” was a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting, received the top journalism honor from the National Academies of Sciences and was also the basis of the 2016 Discovery Channel film “Killing the Colorado,” which Lustgarten co-produced. His early investigation into fracking, starting in 2008, exposed one of the oil industry’s most dangerous legacies — its ongoing threat to America’s drinking water. The work received the George Polk award for environmental reporting, the National Press Foundation award for best energy writing and a Sigma Delta Chi award; it was a finalist for the Goldsmith Prize.

Before joining ProPublica, Lustgarten was a staff writer at Fortune. He holds a master’s in journalism from Columbia University and a bachelor’s in anthropology from Cornell, and was a 2022 Emerson Collective Fellow at New America. He is the author of two books: “Run to Failure: BP and the Making of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster” and “China’s Great Train: Beijing’s Drive West and the Campaign to Remake Tibet.”

Climate Crisis Is on Track to Push One-Third of Humanity Out of Its Most Livable Environment

As conditions that best support life shift toward the poles, more than 600 million people are already living outside of a crucial “climate niche,” facing more extreme heat, rising food scarcity and higher death rates.

A Water War Is Brewing Over the Dwindling Colorado River

Diminished by climate change and overuse, the river can no longer provide the water states try to take from it.

Barbados Will Be Among the First to Receive Climate Money From New International Monetary Fund Resilience Trust

Under the program, the Caribbean nation is set to receive $183 million for climate-focused spending from a $45 billion trust set up by the IMF.

As Colorado River Dries, the U.S. Teeters on the Brink of Larger Water Crisis

The megadrought gripping the western states is only part of the problem. Alternative sources of water are also imperiled, and the nation’s food along with it.

Barbados Resists Climate Colonialism in an Effort to Survive the Costs of Global Warming

Across the Caribbean, soaring national debt is a hidden but decisive aspect of the climate crisis, hobbling countries’ ability to protect themselves from disaster. One island’s leader is fighting to find a way out.

There’s No Cheap Way to Deal With the Climate Crisis

Warming will bring enormous economic costs. Cutting emissions now will save money later.

40 Million People Rely on the Colorado River. It’s Drying Up Fast.

One of the country’s most important sources of fresh water is in peril, the latest victim of the accelerating climate crisis.

John Kerry, Biden’s Climate Czar, Talks About Saving the Planet

In the months before the election, Joe Biden’s most influential voice on the issue of our age shared his views on climate migration, open borders, the threat of nationalism, and the challenge posed by China.

The Big Thaw: How Russia Could Dominate a Warming World

Climate change is propelling enormous human migrations as it transforms global agriculture and remakes the world order — and no country stands to gain more than Russia.

Climate Change Will Make Parts of the U.S. Uninhabitable. Americans Are Still Moving There.

Instead of moving away from areas in climate crisis, Americans are flocking to them. As land in places like Phoenix, Houston and Miami becomes less habitable, the country’s migration patterns will be forced to change.

New Climate Maps Show a Transformed United States

According to new data analyzed by ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine, warming temperatures, rising seas and changing rainfall will profoundly reshape the way people have lived in North America for centuries.

Climate Change Will Force a New American Migration

Wildfires rage in the West. Hurricanes batter the East. Droughts and floods wreak damage throughout the nation. Life has become increasingly untenable in the hardest-hit areas, but if the people there move, where will everyone go?

¿A dónde se irán todos?

Con el apoyo del Pulitzer Center, ProPublica y The New York Times Magazine modelaron por primera vez las formas en que podrían desplazarse los refugiados climáticos para cruzar fronteras internacionales. Esto es lo que encontramos.

Where Will Everyone Go?

ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine, with support from the Pulitzer Center, have for the first time modeled how climate refugees might move across international borders. This is what we found.

About Our Climate Migration Model

How Climate Change Is Contributing to Skyrocketing Rates of Infectious Disease

A catastrophic loss in biodiversity, reckless destruction of wildland and warming temperatures have allowed disease to explode. Ignoring the connection between climate change and pandemics would be “dangerous delusion,” one scientist said.

Climate Change Won’t Stop for the Coronavirus Pandemic

The next several months could bring hurricanes, floods and fire, on top of the pandemic currently raging through the country. How do you shelter in place during an evacuation?

A Taste of the Climate Apocalypse to Come

PG&E’s rolling blackouts probably don’t eliminate fire risk, and they actually could make responding to fires harder. What they largely do is shift responsibility away from the company.

Proposed California Law Would Punish Companies for Failing to Limit Harm to the Planet’s Forests

The legislation could affect everything from what paper gets used in state offices to what gets served in California cafeterias.

Scientists Call for Drastic Drop in Emissions. U.S. Appears to Have Gone the Other Way.

A report by a private research company found that U.S. emissions, which amount to one-sixth of the planet's, didn't fall in 2018 but instead skyrocketed. The 3.4 percent jump for 2018, projected by the firm, would be second-largest surge in greenhouse gas emissions from the U.S. since Bill Clinton was president.

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