Articles by David Roberts
David Roberts was a staff writer for Grist. You can follow him on Twitter, if you're into that sort of thing.
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Michael Crichton’s “State of Fear”
Remember when bestselling author Michael Crichton jumped into the global warming debate with both feet, releasing a book called State of Fear that cast environmentalists as ruthless loonies and climate change as a case of mass hysteria, and everybody was buzzing about it, and every publication on the planet published reviews of the book, and Crichton did the rounds on talk shows playing the martyr, and American pop culture was all a-twitter?
Back in December?
Yeah, well, we're ready to weigh in now. (We just wanted to get the last word!)
My review of the book is up, and so is a scientific debunking of the book from Gavin Schmidt of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. (It's a much-revised version of a piece he published over on the might-as-well-put-"indispensable"-in-the-name Indispensable RealClimate.org.)
More reflections below the jump.
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A review of the distorted plot and politics in Michael Crichton’s State of Fear
Michael Crichton's State of Fear is an attempt to meld serious politico-scientific critique with a modern techno-thriller. It's an ambitious undertaking, but to paraphrase Thomas Edison, success is 1 percent ambition and 99 percent not writing an awful book. Crichton's novel, alas, is unilluminating as a critique and unsatisfying as a thriller.
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Sustainable development saves lives
This is a pretty remarkable story:
Two years ago, drought-stricken farmers in a village on the southern coast of India walked into the Guinness Book of World Records by planting the highest number of saplings in a 24-hour period.
Lesson learned.On Dec. 26, as the killer tsunami struck down thousands of people and homes in Tamil Nadu state, the casuarina and eucalyptus trees which had been planted to appease the weather gods saved the lush green village of Naluvedapathy.
Of the nearly 8,000 people who died in the state, including 6,000 in one fishing village, only seven were from Naluvedapathy.
Authorities are now proudly showcasing the benefits of tree plantation in mitigating the impact of natural disasters, pointing to Naluvedapathy's example in an effort to encourage a coastal green belt.
