A return to Teddy Roosevelt’s progressive tradition would help us to tackle the challenge of global warming

Like many Presidents and politicians before him, Barack Obama has pledged to deal with climate change, but domestic opposition and divisions over sovereignty during international negotiations have made his commitment a shallow one. Mark Lytle looks back to President Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressive tradition of over a century ago, whereby an interventionist government, given authority by science, was able to regulate towards sustainability. He argues that, in the face of populist denial of climate change, a return to the Progressive tradition may be what is now needed to address the challenges of climate change.