About the Book Its thirty years from now. Were making progress, mitigating climate change, slowly but surely. But what about all the angry old people who cant let go? For young Americans a generation from now, climate change isnt controversial. Its just an overwhelming fact of life. And so are the great efforts to contain and mitigate it. Entire cities are being moved inland from the rising seas. Vast clean-energy projects are springing up everywhere. Disaster relief, the mitigation of floods and superstorms, has become a skill for which tens of millions of people are trained every year. The effort is global. It employs everyone who wants to work. Even when national politics oscillates back to right-wing leaders, the momentum is too great; these vast programs cannot be stopped in their tracks. But there are still those Americans, mostly elderly, who cling to their red baseball caps, their grievances, their huge vehicles, their anger. To their alternative news sources that reassure them that their resentment is right and pure and that climate change is just a giant scam. And theyre your grandfather, your uncle, your great-aunt. And theyre not going anywhere. And theyre armed to the teeth ... What do we do about people who cling to the belief that their own children are the enemy? When, in fact, theyre often the elders that we love?-- Book Synopsis Its thirty years from now. Were making progress, mitigating climate change, slowly but surely. But what about all the angry old people who cant let go? For young Americans a generation from now, climate change isnt controversial. Its just an overwhelming fact of life. And so are the great efforts to contain and mitigate it. Entire cities are being moved inland from the rising seas. Vast clean-energy projects are springing up everywhere. Disaster relief, the mitigation of floods and superstorms, has become a skill for which tens of millions of people are trained every year. The effort is global. It employs everyone who wants to work. Even when national politics oscillates back to right-wing leaders, the momentum is too great; these vast programs cannot be stopped in their tracks. But there are still those Americans, mostly elderly, who cling to their red baseball caps, their grievances, their huge vehicles, their anger. To their alternative news sources that reassure them that their resentment is right and pure and that climate change is just a giant scam. And theyre your grandfather, your uncle, your great-aunt. And theyre not going anywhere. And theyre armed to the teeth. The Lost Cause asks: What do we do about people who cling to the belief that their own children are the enemy? When, in fact, theyre often the elders that we love? Review Quotes Completely delightful...Neither utopian nor dystopian, it portrays life in SoCal in a future woven from our successes (Green New Deal!), failures (climate chaos anyway), and unresolved conflicts (old MAGA dudes). I loved it. -- Rebecca Solnit, author of Men Explain Things To Me and A Paradise Built In Hell This book looks like our future and feels like our present--its an unforgettable vision of what could be.--Kim Stanley Robinson Sometimes I think that Cory Doctorow is the last real optimist and idealist left in science fiction - Locus [ The Lost Cause ] tells a thought-provoking story, with a message of hope in a near-future that looks increasingly bleak.-- Library Journal , starred review About the Author Cory Doctorow is a regular contributor to the Guardian , Locus , and many other publications. He is a special consultant to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an MIT Media Lab Research Associate and a visiting professor of Computer Science at the Open University. His award-winning novel Little Brother and its sequel Homeland were New York Times bestsellers. His novella collection Radicalized was a CBC Best Fiction of 2019 selection. Born and raised in Canada, he lives in Los Angeles.