fire stein famous as one of the openly gay leading actors playing a gay man. >> you must have felt incredible pressure. >> i couldn't believe when it they asked me. >> the show's message of acceptance is still relevant today. first the "nightline 5." >> it's almost christmas. save big at jcpenney and wrap up your gift list with up to 70% off gold and silver jewelry and $149.95 fitbit. or $10 off with coupon. hurry in, don't miss out, jcpenney. keep it clean with the roomba robot vacuum. only roomba uses two multi-surface rubber brushes to clean all your floors and with patented dirt detect technology, roomba finds dirt throughout your home. if it's not from i-robot, it's not a good evening. thanks for joining us. we begin with a p micayifac soo. climate change could make the marshall islands uninhabitable. but its young population is refusing to let their beloved nation become swallowed in the sea without a fight. here's abc's gloria riviera. >> reporter: in these vast ocean waters -- >> the marshall islands, it's so isolated from the rest of the world. it's a beautiful place. >> reporter: from high above, the island of mejuro. it's hard to see there is a battle going on below. a fight for survival between man and nature. >> it's really life or death for us. >> reporter: the marshall islands, the front line of climate change. after hours of flying over dark blue pacific waters, through the clouds land appears, a mirage-like vision. a tiny nation of islands and atolls located halfway between hawaii and australia. we've traveled here to the marshall islands to see a nation on the brink of extinction. the most extreme predictions say as soon as 2030, sea level rise could make this place uninhabitable. we're on the made road, a two-lane highway. are we going to make it? yeah. it's really narrow here. from this road, just a matter of feet, water. the capital city of majuor is 300 feet wide in most places. this thin strip of land is home to over 27,000 people. this is your front yard? >> yeah. >> reporter: charlotte jack lives steps from the water's edge. only 16 years old -- >> water's getting worse. it has reached the sea wall. >> reporter: she has grown up with the fury of the ocean. you never really know when you could get a surge? >> no. one day it could be just like this, sunny, windy. just a perfect day. tomorrow it could be pouring rain and then water up high. >> reporter: charlotte, this used to be what? >> we have the laundry. this is where we do our dishes. it's beautiful when the sun sets right there. >> yeah. you're literally looking right at the sunset? >> doing dishes and looking at the view, yeah. >> you're not looking out a window, you're just looking out, wow. charlotte is part of what's called the last generation. over half of the country's population is under the age of 24. >> sometimes i think by the time i graduate and go get my education, try to come back and serve my island, there's no more island, there's no more nation, there's no more culture. i'm just there stuck on the mainland thinking, what could i have ton? >> reporter: earlier this fall united nations reports sounded the alarm about the dire consequences of global warming, stating that if the earth's temperature rises just half a degree more, there will be longer periods of drought, severe heat waves, more sea level rise. and the nation of the marshall islands has been one of the loudest voices on the world stage. >> we must take every opportunity we can to stay below 1.5-degree limit needed for our survival. >> reporter: the government was instrumental in drafting the paris agreement, a landmark measure to curb carbon emissions and combat climate change worldwide. >> when paris came to be, it is really our last hope. to galvanize the entire global community. to say, okay, enough is enough. >> reporter: it is this water that has destroyed this coastline. once many homes stood here. now most reduced to nothing but rubble. with remnants of lives once lived by people who thought they would be safe. they are working to protect themselves ahethf mother nature by building concrete sea walls. you can see right there the old sea wl tt blt a parts of theland. it's crumb iavuialls to help pr. the question is how much can it really do? the minister of the environment, david paul, takes us on the water to show the scope of the herculean task at hand. when you look at these sea walls, how much confidence does it give you that it will be safe? fingers crossed? we are near the smaller islands on the outer edge of majuro and the lagoon. if the sea level continues to rise, these will be among the first islands to go. we dock on the island of ineko. this is beautiful. wow. david, when you look all the way down that way and all the way down that way, it's just beaches. >> yeah, this used to be all land. and then all the way out it used to be beach. now the beach is expanding. sooner oorr:hi istine, ay one d lost forever. in local lore, the saying is, if you take away their land, their spirits go too. >> the land here is owned by families for hundreds of years. it's a really -- it's a feeling of wealth for most. >> reporter: jack is an american expat who's spend decades advocating for the rights of the marshallese. >> what the u.s. did out here was horrendous. there's no other way to describe it. >> reporter: during the cold war, the united states used the bikini atoll as a strategic military position and a testing ground for nuclear weapons. >> zero seconds and the unbelievable explosion detonated! >> the one weapon that did most of the damage to the northern marshall islands was the bravo shot. that was 1,000 times greater than the weapons that were used on hiroshima and nagasaki. >> 1,000 times? >> reporter: nuclear fallout from that bomb, so wide, ash rained down on the outer atolls. for years the residents there have suffered from birth defects and high rates of cancer. they had to be evacuated from their homes. >> it would be a long time before the area of the test could be called safe enough for any kind of life to resume there. >> reporter: today, more than 50 years later, their land is still contaminated by radiation. describe for me the sacrifice the people here have made for the u.s. >> well, they've sacrificed both land and health. >> reporter: as a small reparation for their suffering, the marshallese are allowed to live and work in the united states without a visa. over one-third of the population has already left, seeking opportunity on the mainland. soon the more than 70,000 left behind may have no other choice. just last year, president trump would deliver another crushing blow to the islands with this announcement. >> the united states will withdraw from the paris accord. >> the united states government let us down. it's like life and death for us. it really is a death sentence, right? so to speak. >> reporter: it's the united states that carries one of the largest carbon footprints. but it's some of the smallest nations that are most affected by their giant neighbor s to th north. are people here day to day, are they aware of the threat from climate change? >> for us it's really a daily reality. we are seeing our shoreline being eroded. we are experiencing longer drought, more frequent. it is quite challenging to try to cope with it. >> reporter: as the sea continues to rise, it's beginning to threaten their fresh water. and will soon kill all plants and trees. who's next? >> you know -- >> what are we going to see? >> i will say this. we may go first, but -- you're next. >> your fight is not just for the marshall islands, fair to say? >> no, it's for the rest of the world. it's for the rest of human doctor. >> reporter: despite the bleak outlook the marshallese are not ready to give up just yet. >> i'm going to be the last to leave, floating on a dkayak, turning the lights out when everything's gone. >> he has three yep layings to protect. how much hope do you have she'll be able to stay and live and raise a family here on the marshall islands? >> truthfully? >> truthfully. >> you hear a lot of people talking about, we're going to have all these new emission control things in by 2050. and i'm like, i don't even know if we have till 2030. when it becomes other people's backyard, not just ours, i hope is that maybe they'll actually start trying did do things. >> reporter: it's clear this is a battle the marshallese cannot win alone. if you could make one plea about what it's like to live here with global warming, what would it be? >> come help us. >> come help you? >> come help us. we need help. ♪ ♪ country road take me home >> reporter: help for the future generations growing up in a land nearly lost. ♪ i belong west virginia >> reporter: their home, the place where they belong. >> our thanks to gloria and her dogged producer, jasmine brown, who earned support from the international women's media foundation for this story through the howard g. buffet fund for women journalists. up next, reigniting the torch. a barrier-breaking show returns to broadway. y. this is amazing. with moderate to severe ulcerative colitis, are you okay? 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(singing) our holidays don't all look the same. and maybe that's what makes us great. make the dream yours. ikea. actors carrying "the torchsong trilogy" in their trimmed-down version of harvey fierstein's groundbreaking play about tolerance and homophobia. abc's geo benitez on the revival hoping to have the same impact as the original. >> what's it like to be a homosexual? >> you do ask the easy ones, don't you? what's it like being a heterosexual? i don't know, i'm just a person. i'm a person who sees the world in the opposite light than you do. >> reporter: that was barbara walters and harvey fierstein on the set of his seminal play "torchsong trilogy." >> with a face like this i've got nothing to worry about. i can always drive a cab. >> reporter: the groundbreaking drama about an openly gay man living in new york city. he was among the first openly gay leading actors on broadway. >> the first openly gay. >> yeah, but isn't that ridiculous that i'm getting all this attention because i'm the first openly gay? >> reporter: now 33 years later, it's back on broadway. >> come see "torchsong." come meet the family. >> reporter: in this dressing room, michael yurie is getting ready for the stage. >> i try to stand up 45 minutes before curtain. >> reporter: taking on the role fierstein made famous. you must have felt incredible pressure. >> i couldn't believe when it they asked me. >> reporter: yuri became famous as mark st. james on abc's "ugly betty." >> everything i could find out about victoria hartley. >> i am an entertainer. or what's left of one. >> reporter: fierstein was involved in picking yuri to take on his iconic role. which earned him two tonys in 1983, making fierstein the first person to win the tony for best play and best actor. >> i love you all. >> reporter: the show was adapted into a feature-length film starring matthew broderick. >> you were terrific. you know, i hope you don't mind me saying so but i think i prefer you in men's clothes. fierstein's play was the first to feature anunpoll jetly gay storyline at a time the gay community was virtually invisible. >> a few years ago, i wouldn't have been able to do an interview like this, probably, and even put it on the air. it would have been, this is not the subject one talks about. >> you could have done it. you would have had to fight your censors and all that. you could have done and it you should have done it. you know i am not the first gay star of a broadway show. you know i'm not the first gay writer of a broadway show. it is such a ridiculous position. >> barbara had control of how that was edited. she could have made herself look good and made me look like crap. she didn't. >> reporter: the play centers around the romantic life of a gay man who longed for love and a family. >> we've been lying in bed together over an hour, in and out of each other's arms, and you get to make a pass at me. >> that's not love, that's good taste. >> make no mistake, he's a flawed individual. but he says things to the people he loves that are extremely courageous. >> reporter: but the trauma revolves around the complicated relationship between urie's character and his mother, who struggles to accept his sexuality. >> you have not said a sentence since i got here without the ward gay in it. >> this is who i am! >> no, no, no. >> the audience reaction now is so much more open. when the mother and arnold get into what they get into, there's audible gasps. every performance. >> no, what's crazy is after all these years i thought i lived my life for you. >> they can't believe these people are saying this stuff to each other. people were so frightened back then, they just sunk into their seats. >> the thing that's striking to me over the course of doing this play, one, how many people saw it back in the day. and it changed their lives. but more than that, i've had people write to me and say, i saw this play in cleveland, or wherever, and arnold was the first gay man i ever met. >> reporter: one person whose life forever changed by "torchsong" is ritchie jackson, now a producer for the show's revival. >> one day my mother came home from spending the day in the city. i was 17 years old. she took me to this theater to see harvey fierstein in "torchsong trilogy." she wanted to use it as a spark to start a conversation with me. she wanted me to see a life that could be possible for me. >> reporter: for jackson, this play and the lgbtq rights it stands for are just as relevant now. >> our rights are under assault. my generation fought and got us this far. now it's time, as they see our rights eroding, the young people have to know who the warriors were. and arnold is a perfect example of that. >> reporter: for both fierstein and jackson, passing the torch to michael urie and the next generation of broadway actors is part of the play's importance. >> what loss did you have? you fooled around with am boy. where does that come to compare to a marriage of 35 years? >> you think it doesn't? >> oh, come on, come on. arnold, you're not talking to one of your pals. >> i lost someone i loved very much. >> the role is his now. i gave to it him. he will direct this someday. he'll direct a production someday. 30 years from now. and he will give it to someone else. >> reporter: the significance of the role is not lost on urie, and he hopes his revival can make just as much of an impact. >> when you're lgbtq and you're born into your birth family, chances are they are not also lgbtq. you have to find a chosen family. if you can't find a chosen family, you have to figure it out some other way. it's much easier now than when the play originally toured. but this is a play that you can take your mother to, and you can watch this together. >> are you getting shorter? >> no, i'm sitting down. >> reporter: for "nightline," i'm geo benitez in new york. >> michael urie is taking "torchsong" on a national tour next fall. up next, macaulay culkin left home alone again, and left to his own devices. that grandpa's nose i can'is performing "flight of the bumblebee?" ♪ no, you goof. i can't believe how easy it was to save hundreds of dollars on my car insurance with geico. nice. i know, right? 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