Environmental lawyer and activist Lowell E. Baier has been involved in many of the environmental battles of the past 50 years, going back to the passage of the landmark Endangered Species Act (ESA), a bipartisan law passed by Congress and signed by President Richard Nixon more than 50 years ago. In this book, he looks back at a lifetime of environmental advocacy and tackles one of the leading challenges of today, the unprecedented decline in species due to climate change. Baier argues that as global temperatures rise and already worrisome extinction trends accelerate, we should be utilizing the ESA, which functions like an emergency room for the planet. Drawing from his extensive experience as a negotiator and activist, Baier argues that the ESA is flexible enough to ameliorate the biodiversity crisis while still respecting landowners, states, and industries.