Lawrence MacDonald is a writer, policy communications expert, and Boomer climate activist. After graduating from the University of California at Santa Barbara, he studied Chinese in Taiwan and worked as a journalist for 15 years in Hong Kong, Beijing, Seoul and Manila. Returning to the United States in the early 1990s, he worked as a communications officer at the World Bank and as vice president for communications at two Washington, DC, based think tanks, the Center for Global Development, and the World Resources Institute. During this time he became increasingly active in the U.S. climate movement, being arrested three times in civil disobedience actions to draw attention to the climate emergency. 

He and his wife live in Arlington, Virginia and have two grown children who are also active in the climate movement.