Climate and Insurance.org | takefive with Chris Mooney

Chris Mooney is Washington correspondent for Seed magazine, senior correspondent for The American Prospect, and author of the bestselling book, The Republican War on Science, dubbed "a landmark in contemporary political reporting" by Salon.com. His second book, Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle Over Global Warming, has just been published by Harcourt Books.

Chris has contributed to a wide variety of other publications, including Wired, Science, Harper's, New Scientist, Slate, Salon, Mother Jones, Legal Affairs, Reason, The American Scholar, The New Republic, The Washington Monthly, Columbia Journalism Review, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and The Boston Globe. In addition, Chris's blog, "The Intersection," was a recipient of Scientific American's 2005 Science and Technology web award, which noted that "science is lucky to have such a staunch ally in acclaimed journalist Chris Mooney."

Chris speaks regularly at academic meetings, bookstores, university campuses, including Harvard Medical School, MIT, Yale, Princeton, Rockefeller University, and Duke University Medical Center. He has also spoken at major venues such as the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco and Town Hall Seattle. In 2007, he was the opening plenary speaker at the World Conference of Science Journalists in Melbourne, Australia.

Chris has also been featured regularly by the national media. He has appeared on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart; CSPAN's Book TV; NPR’s Fresh Air With Terry Gross and Science Friday.

Takefive:
One reviewer has described your new book, “Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle Over Global Warming,” as a “balanced look at the history and current state of climate and weather science and the attendant politics – including sometimes brutal scientific infighting.” Would you say this reviewer succinctly captured what you set out to do in writing your book?

Chris Mooney:
To some extent, yes. I wanted to tell a story that provided a chance to explore some of the knottiest questions at the interface between science and politics. Questions like, how should politicians approach and use scientific information, which is often characterized by high levels of uncertainty? And what’s the role of the media, and of scientists themselves, in translating their complex knowledge into a form that policymakers can use?

The fraught and sometimes even nasty argument over the relationship between hurricanes and global warming provided a perfect opportunity to dig into these questions. Here’s a scientific issue that’s undeniably important, and yet also laden with much uncertainty; indeed, scientists are deeply divided over it, fighting over it.

Meanwhile, our coastlines are extremely vulnerable to deadly hurricanes, so the stakes couldn’t be higher. In this context, how do we get past mere conflict and scientific uncertainty and into the realm of productive policy action? It’s a question that fascinates me—and one that’s extraordinarily important for society to come to grips with.

Takefive:
Much of your book focuses on the evolution of climate and weather science in the U.S. and the scientific infighting that sometimes has occurred, most recently and notably between Dr. William Gray of Colorado State University, who is skeptical of a hurricane-climate link, and MIT professor Kerry Emanuel, who, along with others, subscribe to the notion that increasing hurricane activity in the Atlantic basin may be due in part to an increase in CO2 emissions. Can you provide us with some “insider” insights into these two scientists?

Chris Mooney:
Well, both are heroes and leaders of their field—and yet they couldn’t be more different. Bill Gray is loud, outspoken, something of a wise guy. Kerry Emanuel is cautious, nuanced, a bit reserved.

And just as there’s a divide in how they come across personally, so there’s a divide as well in how they do science: Gray built his career around studying the data, the observations, on hurricanes, using sources ranging from balloon-borne measuring devices to instrumented aircraft flights into hurricanes.

Emanuel, in contrast, is the master theoretician, the guy who wrote the equations that tell us how hurricanes get their power from the ocean and turn that power into massive waves and powerful winds.

Takefive:
In reading your book, one gets the impression it is, in some ways, an indictment of the news media for trying to draw a definitive hurricane-climate link, especially in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Do you believe the news media, as a whole, has performed a disservice to the public in reporting on a possible hurricane-climate link?

Chris Mooney:
It’s all a question of nuance, really. It was impossible for the media not to talk about hurricanes and global warming following Katrina and scientific research linking climate change to stronger storms. The press would have been foolish to ignore the subject. However, was it always treated with the appropriate sophistication? No.

One problem was some pundits going to extremes—either incautiously linking global warming to single events like Katrina, or, on the other hand, entirely dismissing any significant hurricane-climate linkage in general. Neither stance was in any way defensible. Meanwhile, the press all too often played the scientific story as one of conflict, a framing that tended to divert attention away from productive policy options—like, say, better protecting our coastlines.

Takefive:
In your concluding chapter, you mention how scientists briefly put aside their differences in July 2006 and signed a statement noting the “ever-growing concentration of population and wealth in vulnerable coastal regions.” You observe that “they (the scientists) deserve our applause for trying to translate their knowledge into meaningful action and for managing to converge on this critical matter despite the ongoing uncertainty in the hurricane-climate debate.” Do you see the scientists coming back to this statement or issuing similar warnings in the future?

Chris Mooney:
I’d hope so. Consensus statements by groups of scientists—especially those who otherwise disagree—can be very powerful. They get attention. And they help policymakers and the public better grasp the non-scientific implications of scientific research.

That said, I’m not sure the statement is going to have to be revisited any time soon: Last I checked, our coasts remain dangerously overpopulated. We’re still sitting ducks. The scientists were right about that in July of 2006 and will, I expect, remain so for quite some time. And I would expect them to continue to harp upon this problem of coastal vulnerability, which will be there whether or not hurricanes are changing as a result of global warming—and in fact, which should also worsen due to rising sea levels.

Takefive:
Finally, while your book focused on the scientific community, your final paragraph mentions how, in 2006, Munich Re called for “a process of fundamental rethinking…in the evaluation of hurricane risks.” You called this a heartening development that should be embraced more broadly. Can you elaborate on what you meant by this statement?

Chris Mooney:
Absolutely. The hurricane-climate debate does not, at the present venture, give us definitive answers. Scientists are only beginning to study all the different ways in which global warming can and will change hurricanes.

However, we already know enough to know that in the context of long-term planning for how to cope with hurricanes, global warming is going to be an important factor and, likely, one that serves to amplify our vulnerability. Rising seas, if nothing else, would make us more exposed, and there’s little doubt that global warming is causing those.

In this context, it’s irresponsible to pronounce definitively upon what the future will bring. We can’t know for certain. But it’s also irresponsible not to put global warming into the equation when you try to prepare for that in many ways cloudy future. It seems to me that’s precisely what Munich Re is doing, and so much the better.