Abrahm Lustgarten is an American investigative reporter, author, filmmaker and public speaker specializing in human adaptation to climate change, and an educator training journalists in cross-disciplinary communication about the climate crisis. He writes on staff for ProPublica and has worked with the New York Times Magazine.
Lustgarten was a staff writer at Fortune. He holds a masterâÂÂs in journalism from Columbia University and a bachelorâÂÂs in anthropology from Cornell, and was a 2022 Emerson Collective Fellow at New America. He is the author of two previous books: âÂÂRun to Failure: BP and the Making of the Deepwater Horizon Disasterâ and âÂÂChinaâÂÂs Great Train: BeijingâÂÂs Drive West and the Campaign to Remake Tibet.âÂÂ
LustgartenâÂÂs investigations include an examination of the global palm oil trade, the climate drivers of pandemics and BPâÂÂs Deepwater Horizon oil spill (which led to the Emmy-nominated âÂÂThe Spillâ with Frontline, a project he worked on). His 2015 series examining water scarcity in the American West, âÂÂKilling the Colorado,â 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 âÂÂKilling the Colorado,â which Lustgarten co-produced. His early investigation into fracking, starting in 2008, exposed one of the oil industryâÂÂs most dangerous legacies â its ongoing threat to AmericaâÂÂs 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.
LustgartenâÂÂs 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 LustgartenâÂÂs three-story cover series on a great climate-driven migration, published in partnership with the Times Magazine, helped prompt President Joe BidenâÂÂs formation of a climate migration study group and research report in the run-up to the COP26 conference in Glasgow, Scotland. That work became the focus of his new book, "On The Move; The Overheating Earth and the Uprooting of America."