cmooney | February 7, 2007Click here, and go to around minute 2:14:45. Then watch for about 15 minutes. I think it's quite a display, and a strong suggestion that the new Congress is really going to get serious on the climate issue, as well as the science integrity issue.
P.S.: Make sure to watch also the bit around minute 2:27:00 where it's observed that OSTP didn't show up for the hearing....
cmooney | February 7, 2007Well, I just got back from the Hill, where I attended the Senate Commerce Committee's hearing on Climate Change Research and Scientific Integrity. You are supposed to be able to get a Webcast of the hearing from the link above, but I haven't gotten it to work yet. [UPDATE: Now it works, click here, go to around minute 2:14:45.]
The hearing ended on a very strong note, as Senator John Kerry essentially eviscerated a hapless representative of the Bush administration, acting Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) chairman Bill Brennan [pictured at left]. With Kerry terming the administration's…
cmooney | February 7, 2007
Jonathan Adler, a specialist in environmental law at Case Western who contributes to the Volokh Conspiracy blog, has written a lengthy and thorough, if pretty critical, review of The Republican War on Science for the journal Regulation.
I am here posting a reply to Adler's review, but first, a few comments about why I'm doing this. When the book first came, out there were so many reviews I couldn't even begin to tackle or process them all. Meanwhile, some negative reviews were so nasty, misrepresentative, and lacking in substance that I didn't want to dignify them with any response…
cmooney | February 6, 2007
Looks like, as Seed's Washington correspondent, I'm going to be spending a lot of time on the Hill this week. Look what we've got coming up:
1. Senate Commerce Committee: Climate Change Research and Scientific Integrity, Wednesday, February 7, 10 am. Looks like we'll be hearing not only from whistleblower Rick Piltz this time, but also from Thomas Knutson of NOAA-GFDL, who has charged that he had press interview requests turned down on the subject of hurricanes and global warming (on which he's an expert).
2. House Science Committee: The State of Climate Change Science 2007, Thursday,…
cmooney | February 6, 2007Okay, explain to me again why there's no "Republican war on science" when 84 percent of a sample of congressional Republicans polled by National Journal questioned anthropogenic global warming, whereas 95 percent of congressional Democrats affirmed it....
Meanwhile, if you want to know how such a divide is possible, look no farther than the conservative media echo chamber that continues to feature James Inhofe and make his stance appear credible.
cmooney | February 6, 2007
I'm told that some of the strongest reactions to our article have not been published...more on that at the end.
First, since Sunday's piece in the L.A. Times generated quite a lot of blog commentary, let me provide a brief (and necessarily incomplete) rundown--and have a little fun with it by doing a list of "bests":
1. Best Title: This goes to John Quiggin, whose reaction was entitled "Science Wars: The Battle of the Five Armies." (Geeks will get the reference.) Upshot of the post: Our op-ed signals a "realignment of forces" in which "previously discordant defenders of science" are now "…
cmooney | February 5, 2007
Following the incredible recent destruction from tornadoes in Florida, it seems appropriate to do a brief post about whether there's any significant global warming-tornado relationship, or at least, any relationship that we can confidently discuss at this point in time. I particularly want to address this topic because it's one where, sadly, my own intellectual allies have left themselves vulnerable.
In An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore threw in the 2004 U.S. tornado season in his laundry list of phenomena apparently related to climate change: "Also in 2004, the all-time record for tornadoes in…
cmooney | February 5, 2007From one of the press briefings:
But no administration in American history, and none on the face of the Earth, has been more aggressive in trying to do sound science on [global warming] than this administration.
Those of us who know what "sound science" actually means couldn't agree more.
P.S.: Matt Nisbet has a fascinating post about why the IPCC report has failed to gain significant mass media coverage.
cmooney | February 5, 2007
There's a picture of a very unshaven yours truly, hanging out in my favorite coffee shop (Tryst), in the latest issue of Washingtonian. The magazine dropped by one day to see who was working at Tryst, and thus I wound up in the story. If anyone gets a copy of this mag and can scan it (p. 10), definitely send, as I'd like to post the picture and clipping. Here's what it says:
"Writer Chris Mooney, 29, mentioned Tryst in the acknowledgements of his 2005 bestseller, The Republican War on Science: 'I must also thank all of the Tryst servers whose steady stream of coffee facilitated the writing…
cmooney | February 5, 2007Tim Lambert blogs about my recent op-ed with Alan Sokal, and notes that Norman Levitt--co-author of Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science, another key contribution to the old "science wars"--also seems more concerned today about rightwing abuses than left wing attacks. As Levitt put it in an e-mail to Lambert: "The book was written in 1992-93, at the beginning of the Clinton administration, when Creationism in any form was pretty quiescent, and before most of the Republican bludgeoning of science that Mooney addresses had really begun." Levitt adds that today's…
cmooney | February 4, 2007Folks: Today I have a joint Los Angeles Times op-ed with New York University physicist Alan Sokal, of "Sokal hoax" fame, about the left, the right, and the misuse of science. The piece can be read here.
What's significant about this, I think, is that Sokal is very well known for his criticisms of left-wing attacks on science, particularly those coming from the academic left, during the 1990s. I, meanwhile, am known for my criticisms of right-wing attacks on science, particularly those coming from the Republican Party and its base. But now, the two of us have come together and pointed out who…
cmooney | February 3, 2007
Thanks to the Navy Research Lab for the image. Dora is a weak Cat 4, 115 knots according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, and expected to weaken by the next advisory. It is certainly no Hurricane/Typhoon Ioke. Still, for those keeping stats on global Cat 4s and 5s--myself included--it now joins the list....
cmooney | February 3, 2007
The final book, which will be out in July, is entitled Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Nerd that I am, I already pre-ordered mine on Amazon.com. So did about a zillion other people so the book is number one over there right now. Anyway, check it out if you are one of the many hapless addicts. And feel free to use the comments to speculate on which character is going to die this time....
P.S.: Thanks also to those of you who have already pre-ordered Storm World. Alas, so far we're not quite rivaling Harry Potter sales....but among ordinary mortals of the publishing world we're doing…
cmooney | February 2, 2007
An impressive satellite picture, no? The storm has jumped up in intensity far more than expected; it's now at 110 knots. Still no immediate threat to land, though.
cmooney | February 2, 2007From the White House's statement on the new IPCC report:
"This Summary for Policymakers captures and summarizes the current state of climate science research and will serve as a valuable source of information for policymakers," said Dr. Sharon Hays, the leader of the U.S. delegation at the meeting and Associate Director/Deputy Director for Science at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. "It reflects the sizeable and robust body of knowledge regarding the physical science of climate change, including the finding that the Earth is warming and that human activities have very…
cmooney | February 2, 2007
Following the back-and-forth on this subject yesterday, there's much more to say today now that the IPCC Summary for Policymakers (PDF) is actually out. (My apologies, incidentally, for not posting earlier--I've had a cold and tried sleeping in to deal with it; then when I woke up the Internet was down.....)
First of all, the SPM doesn't say precisely what we had been led to think it would say yesterday. The difference is significant enough that Roger Pielke, Jr., for one, no longer thinks what it does say will be very controversial. I'm not quite so sure about that....but, let's see what…
cmooney | February 1, 2007
Guess you can watch it yourself. His remarks about The Republican War on Science are very complimentary.
cmooney | February 1, 2007
I've just updated my public talks page, and am psyched to announce that I'm truly going international this year. Already there are two events scheduled in Vancouver, and I'm taking part in a plenary session on "Biasing Scientific Information" at the World Conference of Science Journalists, this April in Melbourne, Australia. While down under, I'll also be doing a talk in Sydney. Upcoming U.S. stops will include Chicago and Maine.
I'm very excited that the calendar is filling up, because I very much want to do more traveling and speaking this year--all the more so since I have resolved not to…
cmooney | February 1, 2007
As Roger Pielke, Jr., has already noted, word has it that the new IPCC report will say that hurricanes have measurably intensified due to global warming. Roger warns that, if true, this will cause huge controversy. I would go even further and say that if true--and that's still a huge caveat at this point--this will be the most controversial part of the report.
However, it's important to pay attention to the alleged details. According to the same media scoop (by the AP's Seth Borenstein), the IPCC's language will merely say that it's "more likely than not" that changes to hurricanes have…
cmooney | February 1, 2007Naomi Oreskes has an op-ed in the Post this morning on this subject, in anticipation of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report release tomorrow. I went over a lot of this ground in researching the new book, and there's one detail I can never get over. John Tyndall discovered what we now think of as the greenhouse effect at pretty much the same time that Darwin published On the Origin of Species. In other words, the theoretical understanding of the behavior of greenhouse gases goes back just as far as the theory of evolution by natural selection.
That's really something, when you think about it.