cmooney
Posts by this author
March 8, 2007
I have laid all of this out before (um, I hope). But it may be helpful, once again, to explain--so that there's no misunderstanding--about how I handle comments to this blog.
First: Comments do not appear immediately. I go through and read each one and "approve" it. Virtually all comments are…
March 8, 2007
Andrew Revkin has the latest story:
The sample memorandums, described as to be used in writing travel requests, indicate that the employee seeking permission to travel "understands the administration's position on climate change, polar bears, and sea ice and will not be speaking on or responding to…
March 7, 2007
Earlier today, it looked like we were going to have a very intense cyclone off the northwestern coast of Australia. Now it looks worse: Cyclone George has turned south and is expected to strike the Pilbara region somewhere between Onslow and Port Hedland in the next 24 to 36 hours.
A lot now…
March 7, 2007
Yesterday, I blogged about the latest forecast of Atlantic seasonal hurricane activity. Tropical Storm Risk is predicting a pretty bad year.
Hurricane expert Jeff Masters, though, isn't quite as pessimistic. Looking at the sea-surface temperatures this year and comparing them to the SSTs in…
March 7, 2007
We had a great panel discussion last night. Except for the fact that the moderator confused me with the other Chris Mooney at the outset, I really got a lot out of it. One thing that I learned, however, troubled me.
On December 15, 2006, Vancouver's Stanley Park got hit by a powerful windstorm (…
March 6, 2007
Especially since El Nino went away (PDF), hurricane watchers have been worrying about what kind of season we'll see in the Atlantic later this year. El Nino has a well known tendency to suppress Atlantic storms, contributing to quieter years like 2006 (click image). But now, we're expected to see…
March 6, 2007
Perhaps only scientists could be such a bunch of media naifs that they would release a pivotally important report--one so significant that it only comes out once every five years--on a Friday.
But that and other failings, combined with well-known pathologies of the media itself, collectively helped…
March 5, 2007
This morning--or at least it will still be morning on the West Coast--I'll be appearing for an hour on the Bill Good show, the top-rated talk radio program in Vancouver. I'll be on with Ross Gelbspan, author of Boiling Point and The Heat is On, to discuss the role of the media in covering climate…
March 4, 2007
Last week I went to one of those fantastic D.C. parties hosted by Big Head Rob....this one for Village Voice gossip columnist Michael Musto. I was chatting with Washington Post blogger Emil Steiner--who's a cool guy incidentally--and didn't know that I was getting photographed...er, but here's the…
March 2, 2007
Tomorrow I catch a flight to one of Canada's great cities, and one which I have never before visited. My wonderful hosts are the DeSmogBlog and the University of British Columbia, and other than the fact that it's going to be cold and rainy, I'm absolutely psyched.
The occasion is the UBC's "…
March 2, 2007
There's a very interesting write-up of a talk fellow ScienceBlogger Matt Nisbet, of Framing Science, just gave at Illinois State. The write up comes from the student paper over there. Here's an excerpt:
Through a theory called "Framing," Nisbet displayed how the media can affect people's views on…
March 2, 2007
Sadly, this recent paper on global warming (PDF) from the Senate Republican Policy Committee, which is chaired by Kay Bailey Hutchison, demonstrates that too many in the GOP still refuse to cop to the scientific consensus in this area. Many aspects of the document's discussion are judicious and…
March 1, 2007
I just keep, er, distinguishing myself after talks. First it was with Prof. Steve Steve. Now, my DC neighbor, fellow science-writing English major, and fellow speaker in Chicago Jennifer Ouellette reports another infraction that took place following our recent event:
Chris' manly image suffered a…
March 1, 2007
As I noted yesterday, a very important paper (PDF) has just come out on hurricanes and global warming, by Jim Kossin of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies and his colleagues. The paper was published in Geophysical Research Letters. Here…
February 28, 2007
Storm World, my new book, has been "finished" for some time. But some forms of completion are more complete than others. For example, this week I've been getting the book's "galleys"--i.e., the not-quite-final version that goes out to media and various important folks--together. This involves…
February 27, 2007
Something very interesting has happened to Cyclone Gamede in the South Indian basin over the past day or so. Due to "competing steering influences" (as the Joint Typhoon Warning Center puts it), the storm hasn't moved much. Instead, it has remained perched off the coast of Madagascar, its…
February 27, 2007
He says global warming is "Satan's attempt to redirect the church's primary focus" towards environmentalism. He also says the "jury is still out" on the subject.
Personally, I think Falwell should have stuck with bashing Teletubbies, blaming gays and feminists for 9/11, and saying that the…
February 27, 2007
Last week, when I was hanging out at the AAAS meeting in San Francisco, I ran into someone I hadn't seen in a long time: New York Times columnist John Tierney. Tierney isn't someone who I know particularly well, but I did write a long profile of him many years ago for The American Prospect magazine…
February 26, 2007
I have just contributed an item to the website Gather.com about Bush's (or to be more precise, his administration's) lying on the subject of global warming. Twenty comments have flown in so far. Feel free to head on over there and discuss...I may need backup. Heh.
February 26, 2007
On Friday I noted that Vice-President Cheney apparently still does not accept the scientific consensus on global warming. True, Cheney concedes that humans might be contributing to the problem. But that's not the mainstream scientific view at this point. Rather, the latest IPCC report expressed…
February 26, 2007
Casey Luskin has now dug into my past and found some secularist credentials from my college days. Apparently he views this as some sort of smoking gun. As he puts it: "Chris Mooney provides a yet another example of the fact that many (though certainly not all, of course) leading Darwinist activists…
February 25, 2007
Many visitors to this blog will already know who Professor Steve-Steve is. For those who don't, go here.
In any event, it's kinda ancient history now...but last October, when I was in North Carolina giving a few talks, I actually had the opportunity to meet Steve-Steve and, well, share a few drinks…
February 24, 2007
Hurricanes can vary dramatically in size, and it's my understanding that there is not any meaningful correlation between storm size and storm strength. For instance, last week's Category 4 Cyclone Favio, which caused serious damage to Mozambique, was a relatively small storm, as can be seen in this…
February 23, 2007
One of the most devastating tropical cyclones of 2004 was Cyclone Gafilo, pictured at left, which struck northern Madagascar at full Category 5 intensity, causing destruction that left hundreds of thousands homeless. And while it's too soon to say yet what will happen, this year's G storm in the…
February 23, 2007
Recently the White House assured us that president Bush has "consistently acknowledged climate change is occurring and humans are contributing to the problem." But perhaps it all depends on what the meaning of "contributing" is. After all, here's Dick Cheney:
I think there's an emerging consensus…
February 23, 2007
This from Reuters AlertNet:
On Thursday, the cyclone Favio demolished large parts of the southern coast in the province of Inhambane. Winds reportedly hit 240 km/h as the storm tore through the tourist town of Vilanculos heading north past outlying villages, destroying schools, hospitals and the…
February 22, 2007
As Cyclone Favio makes landfall in an already flooded Mozambique--striking the provinces of Inhambane and Sofala as a Category 3--I am prompted to reflect a bit on what the South Indian cyclone season of 2006-2007 has shown us so far.
There have now been three storms that we can classify as…
February 21, 2007
First, the good news: Favio has weakened back down to Category 3 as it approaches landfall in Mozambique. Certainly no one is out of the woods yet; but there no longer seems much chance of a Category 4 landfall in the next 24-36 hours. That's the good news.
However, as we get into the peak time…
February 21, 2007
As mentioned before, tonight I'll be participating in the Bookslut.com reading series here in Chicago, along with two distinguished science writers, Deborah Blum and Jennifer Ouellette. Here are the details:
7:30pm
Hopleaf Bar
5148 North Clark Street, Second Floor
I have actually prepared the…
February 20, 2007
Click here or here for the high resolution version of this NASA graphic.
Meanwhile, here's a pic from Meteo France with a much broader view of the South Indian basin, showing both Favio as well as another potential cyclone forming closer to Diego Garcia....
UPDATE: According to the latest…