cmooney
Posts by this author
July 15, 2007
Much ink is starting to get spilt about Storm World. Arguably the book's best review yet appears in the LA Times today by Thomas Hayden. Although not without criticism, Hayden ends the review like this:
Science is a messy business, more a matter of hard work, blind alleys and lucky guesses than a…
July 14, 2007
Sheril has already posted a recent picture of us featuring me in my trusty black Banana Republic shirt, comfortably toting a beer. It's the same shirt I've been wearing pretty much every night on my book tour, since I haven't had any luggage and, therefore, any other options.
This sartorial detail…
July 12, 2007
I want to thank Sheril for the last post. I've literally been so slammed on the road I haven't been able to write anything. Indeed, I don't even have any clothes to wear; I didn't get to pack for the tour due to travel upheaval. (Hence my appearance in a T-shirt with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now.)…
July 10, 2007
As I write this I'm stranded in Chicago, where I and many other people suffered travel upheaval yesterday due to severe thunderstorms in the area. But presumably at some point today I will get to New York, in time for the official Storm World book tour to kick off tomorrow with an appearance on…
July 6, 2007
If arguments within the hurricane community were the Star Wars series, then the battle over the relationship between hurricanes and global warming would be Episode I: A New Strife.
Meanwhile, the extraordinary fight that has erupted of late at the National Hurricane Center--pitting now 23 of the…
July 6, 2007
My second post on this subject is now up at Huffington Post. Check it out.
The first post, published yesterday, is here. Read together, in order, I think they make for a pretty comprehensive essay on the subject at around 2,000 words in length.
I want to emphasize that I couldn't have written any…
July 6, 2007
Soon I'll be putting up my second HuffingtonPost entry on "Why Global Warming Tipped." (For the first entry, which has gotten 50 comments at last glance, see here.) In the meantime, though, I'd like to republish the fascinating figures that I used at HuffingtonPost, both of which arise from Nisbet'…
July 5, 2007
So: Scienceblogs interviewed me. How cool is that?
I say stuff like this:
What's your greatest habitual annoyance?The slow middle elevator in my building.
What's your most marked characteristic?
I'm a recovering workaholic.
What's your fatal flaw?
Aging.
What would you like to be?
A professional…
July 4, 2007
I've barely even met newly installed National Hurricane Center director Bill Proenza. I shook his hand at the National Hurricane Conference last April in New Orleans, and at the American Meteorological Society meeting last January in San Antonio, I asked him a question about hurricanes and global…
July 4, 2007
The Bush administration climate "policy" is a sham and an embarrassment. The number of abuses against science--and of power--that we've seen on this topic over the past six years is overwhelming.
Sometimes, though, one choice quote can capture it all far better than a laundry list of well-…
July 3, 2007
The latest issue of Wired features The Transformers on the cover. And all I can say is, why did Hollywood wait so long to make this movie? Don't they know what I put my parents through when I was six years old and trying to keep pace with friends who'd collected more of these nifty bots than me?…
July 2, 2007
Jeff Masters has just posted his outlook on the meteorological factors that should determine hurricane activity over the next two weeks. It's great reading, especially for weather wonks. Masters sees a roughly 70 percent chance of a named storm in the next two weeks, as wind shear is expected to…
July 1, 2007
The infamous "Thingamabobbercane" off the coast of Oregon last November.
I'm excited to say that my book is reviewed today in the Sunday Times Book Review, available online here. I think it would be fair to call the review itself lukewarm (not quite warm enough for storm formation, let's say). The…
June 30, 2007
UPDATE JUNE 30: So. I've finished reading The Assault on Reason. I must say, it's not what I expected. My ultimate takeaway feeling is that this is a very powerful book, whatever flaws it may have. But that's getting close to giving away my review, which I'm still in the process of writing....so in…
June 28, 2007
There's some more new stuff on the book front:
* Andrew Freedman did a very thoughtful review of Storm World over at the Weather Channel website Forecast Earth.
* Next week, I am going to be guest blogging about the book--about global warming and related issues, really--over at Kevin Drum's…
June 28, 2007
Cyclone 03B (or Yemyin) making landfall in Pakistan on Tuesday. Note the well defined structure, including a cloud filled central eye region.
When do international politics interfere with protecting vulnerable people from hurricanes? Possibly when India has to provide storm warnings for Pakistan.…
June 27, 2007
My recent Harper's piece, on how to fix the mess Bush made of science policy, is now readable for free here.
And the cool website Treehugger.com just interviewed me about Storm World and Speaking Science 2.0. You can read the inteview here.
Coming tomorrow: More great pictures from Sheril's Africa…
June 27, 2007
On June 4, more than 120 people turned out for the Mooney/Nisbet Speaking Science 2.0 talk at the New York Academy of Sciences. The talk is now part of their online content, including an E-briefing summary along with the powerpoint slides synchronized with audio of our presentation. With this…
June 26, 2007
This is pretty cool--there is a concordance of Storm World available on the Amazon.com page for the book. These are the top 100 words:
2004 2005 2006 activity air another atlantic atmosphere basin between called came cane category center central change charney climate cyclones…
June 26, 2007
I just posted over at Huffington post--I'm not the first to pile on, but I thought it important to contribute to the utter dismantling of this truly clueless op-ed that ran in the Washington Post yesterday by Emily Yoffe. You can read my piece (with the same title as this post) here.
June 25, 2007
Pardon me while I breathe some fire for a minute. You see, I was looking for a good movie to go see over the weekend and instead ran across this obnoxious one: 1408. The plot:
"Renowned horror novelist Mike Enslin believes only in what he can see with his own two eyes. But after a string of best-…
June 25, 2007
Darksyde, over at Daily Kos, has been a really great supporter over the years. I can't thank him enough for this recent, very appreciative review of Storm World, which includes this paragraph (I'm not worthy):
"The book manages to pull together so many stories and personalities from across decades…
June 24, 2007
Infrared Arabian Sea image, June 25, courtesy of the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
As I suspected, this doesn't look good. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center has just put out an advisory on the remants of 03B, warning that the cyclone…
June 24, 2007
Sea surface temperatures in the North Indian tropical cyclone basin as of June 22, courtesy of Accuweather.
Is a repeat of Cyclone Gonu--now estimated to have caused $ 6 billion in damage to Oman and Iran (actually much less than worst case scenarios would have predicted)--possible in the coming…
June 23, 2007
One of my first interviews about the new book can now be heard online by clicking here (MPG). I recently spoke with Bob McDonald of the CBC's Quirks and Quarks about the science, politics, and policy implications of the hurricane-global warming debate, and the roughly 12 minute segment just aired…
June 22, 2007
This is a very open ended post. I'm interested in a little futurism--and some feedback from all of you.
Let's postulate, shall we, that the next president does in some sense "resolve" our two current hottest science policy controversies--stem cells and global warming.
Then, the question is, what's…
June 21, 2007
posted by Sheril R. Kirshenbaum
Around the corner from my lab at Duke is a bright sun room - which also happens to be the office of the Extraordinary Professor Stuart Pimm. Now mind you, I don't use Extraordinary loosely, it's quite literally his title at the Conservation Ecology Research Unit in…
June 21, 2007
Over at Real Climate, my necessarily cautious words about the relationship between hurricanes and global warming were being taken in the comments section as a suggestion that there's no "evidence" that anything is happening. I had to chime in with a longish comment setting things straight, which I'…
June 20, 2007
Well, this has become quite a hot topic, hasn't it? Carl Zimmer thinks I'm too sanguine about this sometimes troubled (although other times quite healthy) relationship between the media and scientists. As he puts it:
"I think, first off, that Chris is a bit off-base. He's not feeling the genuine…
June 20, 2007
posted by Sheril R. Kirshenbaum
We all know music is powerful. It moves and motivates us. Makes us feel something. The latest issue of Vanity Fair features Bono as guest editor and draws attention to AIDS, genocide, and poverty in Africa. Folks at the magazine seem to be getting accustomed to…