updates
cmooney | March 10, 2007
The new issue of the mag is out, with a very provocative cover, as you can plainly see. I've got a piece in there with five recommendations for Democrats as they set out to restore scientific integrity to our government.
On Thursday, at a panel discussion held at the American Association for the Advancement of Science building--where I shared the stage with Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.), former House Science Committee chief of staff David Goldston, and Federation of American Scientists president Henry Kelly--I also laid out a number of these suggestions in some detail. The basic gist was that…
cmooney | March 8, 2007
So: Searchles has created an awesome new widget that I'm sure is going to catch on like wildfire. It has allowed me to create a web "channel" where all of my various YouTube and Google videos can be shown on one screen. When new videos come online, I can also change the order in which they appear on my channel, so the freshest one is always playing first.
So: Feel free to press play to watch, and the forward and back arrows to change videos. Meanwhile, the "Menu" button lets you see what you're choosing. Isn't this cool?
P.S.: Note that apparently the window above will not look right unless…
cmooney | March 8, 2007I 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 approved, although sometimes, especially when I'm traveling or when it's overnight or over the weekend, there can be a significant delay before a comment is published.
Second: Not all comments are published. While I always try to err on the side of more discussion rather than less, comments may not be…
cmooney | March 5, 2007This 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 change (and whatever else comes up in the conversation). We go on the air at 11 am PT, which of course is 2 pm ET....you can listen by clicking the "Listen Live" link found on this website, and feel free to post any comments about the show here.
UPDATE: One of the callers to this show quoted…
cmooney | March 4, 2007Last 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 picture, which is up at Wonkette, and in which I am caught in the act of giving Emil my business card:
cmooney | 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 "Celebrate Research Week," and I'll be participating in two events, both of which are described in detail after the jump:
The State of the Media on Climate ChangeTuesday, March 6, 20076:00PM - 8:00PMUBC Robson Square Theatre - 800 Robson St.
UBC's School of Journalism and the DeSmogBlog.com host a…
cmooney | March 1, 2007I 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 serious blow, however, when he bellied up to the bar after the reading. The event was held at The Hopleaf Bar, touted as one of the best beer bars in the country, with a "beer menu" that runs many pages and features fine fermentables from all over the world. So the bartender might be forgiven for…
cmooney | February 28, 2007Storm 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 finding typos, changing little things, tidying up various outstanding details, etc. It's been more labor intensive than I thought, and now I'm behind. So, I won't blog again until the galleys are done...hopefully it won't take too long.
P.S.: Meanwhile, a major study has just hit that has large…
cmooney | February 27, 2007Last 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. That was back when I was a young, wet-behind-the-ears political reporter. Even then, though, I was oddly fascinated by Tierney's techno-progressive optimism about science and technology. We called the piece "Libertarian Rhapsody," which I still think is a great title.
Meanwhile, over the…
cmooney | February 25, 2007Many 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 with him. Only, I really wasn't up for the challenge. You can see for yourself how it turned out:
No Miller Lite wisecracks, if you folks can help it...
P.S.: Speaking of speaking events, the talk in Chicago last week at the Bookslut.com reading series went very well. I also enjoyed meeting my…
cmooney | 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:
7:30pmHopleaf Bar5148 North Clark Street, Second Floor
I have actually prepared the trial version of a new talk for this event. You see, while I've given a few preview talks about Storm World in recent months, I haven't actually spoken about the "war on science" since last November, around the time of the election. But a lot has changed since then--most noticeably, the Congress. So I…
cmooney | February 12, 2007
Dear Friends: I've been having a massively fun time blogging like hell these past few weeks. It feels like old times. However, I now have to go (kicking and screaming) back to work for a bit, to put finishing touches on Storm World. The idea is to be at least mostly done with various editing minutiae before I ship off to San Francisco on Thursday.
So, I'm declaring blog hiatus for a brief few days, much as I hate doing it...but I'll be back soon. I hope to blog from San Francisco and Chicago, actually, if I can. Wish me luck....
cmooney | February 11, 2007
So: I am hitting the road again this Thursday for about a week. The first stop: the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in San Francisco, where I won't be working on anything in particular, but just taking in the talks and talking to the people. If you're going to be there, leave a comment or send me an email; maybe there will be a chance to say hi.
Coming back across the country after the AAAS meeting, I'll be stopping in the middle along the way. Turns out that on February 21, I'll be participating in the Bookslut.com reading series in Chicago, along with two…
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 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 | January 27, 2007
In essence, it went like this: Getting to and from Ithaca was a !!%$^# nightmare.
But once I got there, the talk went extremely well.
I won't bother you with all the details about how my flight to Ithaca from LaGuardia, and my back-up flight to Syracuse, were both canceled. About how I then decided to rent a car and drive the 234 miles between New York City and the Cornell Campus. About how I met a vicious snow storm/flurry along I-81 N somewhere in the Poconos between Scranton and Binghamton that forced me off the road--I couldn't see two inches in front of me. About how I then found a…
cmooney | January 17, 2007Well, guess I'm going to go see the Alamo after all. Planes are grounded due to this insane winter ice storm. Apparently whenever the American Meteorological Society meets, bad weather follows. I wish someone had told me this in advance.
More blogging today in a bit...
P.S.: Jeff Masters has more on the crazy weather here...
cmooney | January 9, 2007
The new December/January issue of Seed is now out [it has been out for weeks now, where have you been? - ed] and I wanted to draw attention to a piece that I have in there. The article isn't online and so can't be linked yet, but it's a profile of NASA's James Hansen, who I had the pleasure of meeting with last October. A lot has been, and will continue to be, written about Hansen; knowing this, I wanted to see if I could actually say something new. I'm not sure if I succeeded, but here's the upshot: I argue that Hansen has "shattered some long-held convictions in the scientific community,…
cmooney | January 9, 2007I've finally figured it out: This blog will be reborn circa Monday, January 15th, in San Antonio, TX, where I will be taking in the American Meteorological Society annual meeting, and focusing on the hurricane/global warming content presented there. There will be a whole series of talks focused on Climate Change Manifested by Changes in Weather, a both fascinating and fraught subject area. It's a perfect opportunity for me to finally start seriously blogging about the subject matter of my new book, after numerous fits and starts over the past year.
See this panel in particular:
4:30 PM1.…
cmooney | December 29, 2006Dear Readers: This blog has been sleepy for quite some time now, hosting only occasional updates on whatever the hell it is I'm doing at a particular time. That has been a very direct function of workload: I have had to crash like never before in my life to complete Storm World; such crashing has made me more than a little bit crazy (just ask anyone I've spent any time with lately); and the blog simply had to be set aside so that I could deal with...stuff.
Things will be looking up soon, however--hopefully in very early to mid January. Matters are complicated, though, by the fact that even as…