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Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle Over Global Warming Hardcover – Bargain Price, July 2, 2007

4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 26 ratings

One of the leading science journalists and commentators working today, Chris Mooney delves into a red-hot debate in meteorology: whether the increasing ferocity of hurricanes is connected to global warming. In the wake of Katrina, Mooney follows the careers of leading scientists on either side of the argument through the 2006 hurricane season, tracing how the media, special interests, politics, and the weather itself have skewed and amplified what was already a fraught scientific debate. As Mooney puts it: "Scientists, like hurricanes, do extraordinary things at high wind speeds."Mooney—a native of New Orleans—has written a fascinating and urgently compelling book that calls into question the great inconvenient truth of our day: Are we responsible for making hurricanes even bigger monsters than they already are?
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Having witnessed Katrina's devastation of his mother's New Orleans house, science writer Mooney (The Republican War on Science) became concerned that government policy still ignored worst-case scenarios in planning for the future, despite that unprecedented disaster. He set out to explore the question of whether global warming will strengthen or otherwise change hurricanes in general, even if it can't explain the absolute existence, attributes, or behavior of any single one of them. Since storm research's early 19th-century inception, Mooney found, there has been a split between those who believed the field should be rooted in the careful collection of data and observations (e.g., weathermen) and those who preferred theory-based deductions from the laws of physics (e.g., climatologists). Whirling around this longstanding antagonism is a mix of politics, personalities and the drama of these frightening storms. The urgency and difficulty of resolving the question of global warming's existence, and its relationship to storms, has only heated things up. Mooney turns this complicated stew into a page-turner, making the science accessible to the general reader, vividly portraying the scientists and relating new discoveries while scientists and politicians change sides—or stubbornly ignore new evidence. Mooney draws hope from some researchers' integration of both research methods and concludes that to be effective, scientists need to be clear communicators. (July)
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From Booklist

Mooney, whose The Republican War on Science (2005) offered a hard-hitting look at the political manipulation of scientific research, turns his attention to the hot topic of global warming. Does global warming cause increasingly vicious hurricanes? Is human arrogance and disregard for the environment responsible for Hurricane Katrina's devastation of New Orleans? Or is this whole idea a lot of hot air? Mooney looks carefully at all sides of the debate, weighing the evidence carefully, telling us not just what's being said but who's saying it and why. Of course, it's impossible to write a book like this without tackling the whole idea of global warming as myth, but Mooney doesn't get bogged down in the politics of that issue. He has different questions to answer: Are the increasingly intense hurricanes of recent years our fault, and if they are, what can we do to change the pattern before it's too late? His answers don't add to cheerful reading, but this is certainly one of the most thought-provoking and accessible accounts of climate change to appear since Katrina. Pitt, David

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00155GE8G
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; First Edition (July 2, 2007)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1510128735
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1510128736
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.4 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.24 x 6.35 x 1.41 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 26 ratings

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Chris Mooney
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Chris Mooney is a science and political journalist, blogger, podcaster, and experienced trainer of scientists in the art of communication. He is the author of four books, including the New York Times bestselling The Republican War on Science and most recently The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science and Reality (April 2012). He blogs for Science Progress, a website of the Center for American Progress and Center for American Progress Action Fund, and is a host of the Point of Inquiry podcast.

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4.8 out of 5 stars
26 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2007
    This is not Hollywood and it is not Talk Radio. Mooney has written a passionate book about how hurricane events unfolded in 2004 and 2005 in the Atlantic Basin, and how climate researchers reacted to the storm events, and to each other. Not all of it was pretty, but very much came to be overstated in both journalism and politics. Mooney gives us the drama without giving us the dirt.

    I am surprised by the moderate viewpoint. Since Mooney took the time to get to know William Gray, he has developed some appreciation for Gray's motivations and viewpoint, in my opinion. The result is a rare but real book that should be remembered, rather than a bestselling fabricated slant that is quickly disgarded.

    Besides being a testimony to the puzzling relationship between hurricane intensity and global warming, the book is a case study on how scientific communities resolve conflict. One has to appreciate the way scientists have to compete for slim research dollars. Sometimes there is more than one good way to go about good science, and so conclusions can differ. Then there are journalists that want to sell scientific research to an unsuspecting audience in the form of a story, and to do so the journalist must market it as being incredible, glamorous, and positive. In other words they spin the story. Finally, politicians use the journalists' story (the words that have already been spun) to benefit their own power struggle. In the end researchers get to stick with the ivory towers, the news media moguls get rich, and politicians go back to roost in power. The truth becomes the victim, suffering in poor perspectives, bad quotations, fantasy conflict, and everything else contained under the heading of yellow journalism.

    I'm not a skeptic, but the million dollar quotation comes from skeptic Chris Landsea, which elucidates dire reality with precision:

    "They don't even have building codes in some of the unincorporated areas of Texas and Louisiana. So, much less getting ready for any potential scary changes [due to] global warming, we're not prepared for hurricanes as they are today."
    13 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on March 1, 2008
    Chris Mooney presents a fascinating inside look into the politics and personalities behind hurricane science and scientists. With the possibility that global warming can increase the destructive power of hurricanes, a formerly non-controversial topic became highly politicized in a short amount of time. Predictably, scientists were in two basic camps: one believed global warming makes hurricanes worse, and one believed that global warming (which may not be occurring) does not make hurricanes worse.

    Although Mooney keeps the pace moving along, by the time you finish this book, you may know more about hurricanes than you bargained for. At times, the book is almost too detailed for its own good, but if you know at least a little basic meteorology, you should be able to handle all the atmospheric science thrown into the book. Good book on a fascinating subject.
    4 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on March 15, 2016
    Great!
  • Reviewed in the United States on March 15, 2012
    Storm World is basically a history of hurricane science, starting with the 1800s but focusing most on the years 2004-2006, when the author met with leading experts in the field and attended all of the major research conferences. This was a unique period for the hurricane research community, as a combination of major US hurricane landfalls and new research linking global warming to increasing hurricane activity threw the hurricane researchers directly into the national spotlight.

    The major strength of Storm World is the accuracy in which Mooney presents the science behind the hurricane/climate debate and most importantly, the importance and impact of each piece of science on a broader scale. Often books about science topics are grossly oversimplified or written from an outsider's perspective. Mooney is so immersed that could easily be mistaken for a hurricane researcher in the field. It is clear that Mooney has carefully read all of the relevant scientific research and most importantly, he successfully contextualizes the important findings and conclusions from the results and correctly places them in the framework of the hurricane research paradigm. Generally, Mooney lets the involved scientists speak for themselves until the conclusion, where he gives recommendations for how scientists and policymakers should be acting in light of the available knowledge.

    An important theme is the implication of a lack of scientific consensus. Bill Gray (the empiricist) and Kerry Emanuel (the theorist) represent two opposing viewpoints about the relation of increased hurricane activity to global warming. When the 2005 hurricane season threw their debate into the spotlight, the normally internal squabbling between the two camps boiled over into a political firestorm that brought national attention to this often bitter dispute. Many shortcomings of the hurricane research community were exposed in the process. Science is often considered to be slow and objective, with an emphasis on peer reviewed journal articles. Mooney shows how in reality, the personalities and background of the scientific researchers relate to the perspective of that particular viewpoint, which in turn adds a subjective influence to the final research results. While communicating with colleagues is still important, it is essential for scientists to understand how to work with the media and disseminate their conclusions to policymakers and to the general public. Mooney mentions that blogs have gained acceptance as a way of accomplishing this goal.

    Mooney criticizes Dr. Gray for stubbornly clinging to his disdain for numerical modeling, but the issue of projecting future hurricane numbers and intensity remains largely unsettled. The final conclusions offer advice on making policy decisions in light of this lack of scientific consensus. Mooney falls in the middle of the two sides, as he notes that the hurricanes are almost certainly related to climate, but the nature and extent of the relationship is still unclear. However, when considering policy and planning for future storms, it is necessary to prepare for the possibility of stronger storms. Scientists will always be disputing some issue related to the topic; it's a necessary part of the scientific method. But instead of emphasizing the points of contention, society must focus on the areas of agreement and calculate the risk accordingly. Scientists are obligated to help, not hinder that process.

    Mooney's interpretation of the hurricane/climate debate will not become easily outdated. Even though the science continues to advance, the debate hasn't gone away and Storm World presents advice for scientists of all disciplines. As Atlantic hurricane activity has quieted down over the past few years, the story has fallen out of the spotlight while the US remains vulnerable to major hurricane strikes. Inevitably, a new hurricane will bring these issues back into the spotlight, and hopefully the scientific community will be better prepared for the next media invasion.

    Note: I am a graduate student in meteorology (specializing in satellite remote sensing of hurricanes) and I work with Dr. Hugh Willoughby who was accurately quoted several times in this book.
    3 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • C. Riordon
    4.0 out of 5 stars A Glimpse Inside the Academic World of Climate Science
    Reviewed in Canada on April 29, 2011
    A fascinating read about the debate over a fairly narrow spectrum of climate science research. Read and observe academic sparring over climate models, data analysis, and predictions for the future frequency and intensity of hurricanes. Well researched and objectively presented, this book shows just how difficult some areas of climate research can be where systemic complexity renders analysis an extremely arduous task, and why some recent information was simply too complex to adequately analyze without the modern and rapid computers recently available.

    This book truly helps illustrate why climate "skeptics" are so successful in diffusing confusion among those who are not actively involved in climate science research, by leading us through some of the academic battles that raged for a time over one of the less well-settled areas of climate science, and how it is possible for politics to trump science in niches where doubt can be created. Kudos to Mr. Mooney for another very fine book.