cmooney | June 28, 2007There'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 Political Animal (which, just in case there are any science nerds here completely unfamilar with the political blogosphere, is also the homepage of the Washington Monthly).
* A lively discussion of the book is going on over at the website Climate Audit, which tends to be critical of much climate science…
cmooney | 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.
Jeff Masters and Margie Kieper are blogging about an unfolding scandcal concerning cyclone 03B (or Yemyin), which regenerated earlier this week in the Arabian Sea, intensified, and went on to strike Pakistan. The storm's floods left 250,000 homeless, and guess what: The Indian Meteorological…
sheril | June 28, 2007The Baobab in Messina ProefPlaas: I sat under a great baobab at dawn and shared with him stories of humanity since agriculture began. I spoke of our music, art, literature and the great discoveries and conflicts of modern times. He stood unmoved for a long while. Then laughed at me whispering, 'I've been watching your species for 2,500 years from this very spot. Tell me young one, with all your people rush to achieve, which of us will see the next millenium?' Unsure of the answer, I could only laugh as well.
[More pictures from South Africa after the jump]
The Giraffe at Nylsvlei wandered…
cmooney | June 27, 2007My 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 trip. Meanwhile, I am off to Maine early tomorrow morning to speak at this conference in Orono on Friday. After Sheril's pictures go up, blogging may be light til I return, or until Sheril gets back to somewhere with a computer hookup....
cmooney | June 27, 2007On 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 tool you can listen to the entire talk or scroll through the labeled sections and slides based on topic.
NYAS has allowed free access to this member content by way of the following link.
And so now I will again challenge those who criticized some of the original "framing science" ideas to engage with…
cmooney | June 26, 2007This 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 data day debate different down during early emanuel even first florida get global gray heat holland however hurri hurricane increase ing intensity know landsea later long major may media might models national new noaa now number ocean pacific paper people point…
sheril | June 26, 2007Humans are born naturally curious creatures. As youngsters, our world is mainly governed by what's within reach - or even better - fits in our mouths. For most of us, that changes as bigger folks start telling us to stop playing in the mud, eating crayons, and picking up beetles. We learn about cultural norms and social expectations. Sort of sad, isn't it?
I suspect many pursue the sciences for the very reason that here, it's not only okay, but encouraged to get dirty. No matter what the reason, it's a trajectory to lead a life less ordinary by seeking to understand how things came to be…
cmooney | June 26, 2007I 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.
cmooney | 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-sellers discrediting paranormal events in the most infamous haunted houses and graveyards around the world, he has no real proof of life--afterlife. But Enslin's phantom-free run of long and lonely nights is about to change forever when he checks into suite 1408 of the notorious Dolphin Hotel for his…
cmooney | 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 of time and divergent disciplines of science into a single, seamless coherent, and entertaining read -at times reminiscent of science writer Isaac Assimov's fabulous non-fiction/anecdotal approach -- that there's simply no way I could do it full justice here. You'll just have to either read the…
cmooney | 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 may soon reform. The warning says this:
RAPID FORMATION OF A TROPICAL CYCLONE IS POSSIBLE UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF HIGH OCEAN HEAT CONTENT, LOW VERTICAL WIND SHEAR AND HIGH DIVERGENCE ALOFT.
I'm afraid I'm gonna wake up tomorrow morning and this one is going to be much more intense and threatening a…
sheril | June 24, 2007I've arrived in South Africa. The Southern Cross is visible and the moon is spectacularly bright from where I sit. Seasons and skies are backwards here. On June 24, it's the start of winter and 6 hours into the future. Tonight finds me pondering whether I'm now upside down on this great continent. More likely, I was never right side up to begin with.
Over dinner our team discovered we're all birders. This countryside has a great deal to offer in that respect and I hope to see bee-eaters. We also discussed this [Though I'm too exhausted for details, well worth reading]. For now, I'm…
cmooney | 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 week?
Over the past half week, a tropical cyclone known only as 03B developed in the Bay of Bengal and quickly moved ashore over the Indian subcontinent before it could intensify much. Still, meteorology blogger Margie Keiper writes that the associated precipitation contributed to the deaths of…
cmooney | 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 today.
As this is one of my earliest live interviews on the subject, critical feedback is most welcome. In fact it will be of much help to me, since there will be many more such interviews, including an appearance on the Barometer Bob Show, a popular meteorology program broadcasting out of Florida…
sheril | June 22, 2007For a few years now, folks have been up in arms trying to come up with a universally accepted definition for Ecosystem Based Management - a goal about as realistic as an episode of Laguna Beach. At best, it's a theoretical approach, so instead of debating what it means, we should be asking how to implement strategies that incorporate the broad principles of this concept. At the '07 Society for Conservation Biology conference next month, I'll be speaking about just that - moving from theory to practice. Allow me to elaborate..
The green and blue planet where we live is a very complicated…
cmooney | 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 next? What topics at the science policy interface will all the talking heads be shouting about during the next presidency?
Nanotech?
Genetic engineering?
Something on nobody's radar?
To answer this question, I think we need to bring out the crystal balls--the long range forecasts. To me, the…
cmooney | June 21, 2007posted 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 South Africa where he's also a professor at the University of Pretoria.
I knew I liked Stuart from the moment I entered his office. While I had read many of his books and scientific papers, it's always upon encountering someone firsthand that you're able to get a sense of who they are. Walking in,…
cmooney | June 21, 2007Over 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'll reproduce here:
There is certainly evidence of global warming's impact on the intensity of the average hurricane. However, it is evidence that some contest based upon questions about the quality of the data. It would be fair to say there is no "consensus" about the evidence, but not at all fair…
cmooney | 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 pain being expressed in the comments to Tara's post. These are people who have had lousy experiences with reporters. You don't have to be a prima donna to come out of the journalistic process feeling queasy."
Sure, that's true. And I want to emphasize: Misquotation is bad bad bad, and that's why I…