By almost every objective indicator, the process of dramatic climate change grinds on. However, the optimists are currently making a big deal out of the notion that warming might top out between 2.5 and 3°C over pre-industrial levels, compared to earlier and much higher scenarios. And Bill Gates now assures us that it is poverty, not climate change, that is potentially catastrophic.

No one should be reassured!

When it comes to the environment, what people around the world need is reliable, fact-based information about how the places in which they live are actually changing. They need to be empowered with accessible science, and the voices and knowledge of those directly impacted by environmental change amplified in ways that could actually produce positive outcomes.

Thank God for something called Mongabay. Rhett Ayers Butler founded and built Mongabay as a global digital platform for high-quality journalism about the environment. He and they have deservedly won endless journalism awards. Far more importantly, Mongabay is practically the only reliable source for consistently objective reporting on conservation and the environment on a global basis.

Butler is a world-class conservationist and journalist. He is also one of the recipients of the 2025 Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize Winners. 

Listen as Rhett talks about the world as he reports on it….