Abrahm Lustgarten
I report on climate change and how people, companies and governments are adapting to it.
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I’m discreet and handle confidential communications and sources with extreme care.
What I Cover
I investigate the social and political consequences of our rapidly warming environment, focusing on how money and power influence policy. My reporting is science driven, and I embrace nuance and complexity, telling the stories that are most difficult to tell.
My Background
I have been reporting on environmental harm and the warming planet for ProPublica since its inception in 2008 and before that as a writer covering the global oil industry at Fortune. I’ve reported from around the world, including Iran, Russia, Indonesia and China. Throughout, my work has focused on the social and economic consequences of warming and the conflicting business interests that often drive them.
My most recent reporting has focused on global migration, finance and conflict associated with climate change. In 2024, I wrote about how climate pressures are driving far-right extremism and violence in the United States, especially around fears of immigration. In 2022, I investigated how the International Monetary Fund and global banks have paralyzed small climate-vulnerable nations with debt that makes it impossible for them to address their own climate risks. That work followed a three-part 2020 investigation into the potential displacement of billions of people and global climate-driven migration, both outside and inside the United States, which is also the subject of my third book, called “On The Move.”
This work — beginning with my early investigation into fracking in 2008 — has been recognized with honors, including a George Polk Award; a Scripps Howard Award; the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s communications award; and consecutive Whitman Bassow prizes from the Overseas Press Club. My 2015 series about water scarcity in the American West, “Killing the Colorado,” was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
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.
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.