interview

Billie Karel, advocate for pesticide alternatives, answers Grist’s questions

Billie Karel, Pesticide Education Project (PESTed). What work do you do? I am program coordinator at the Pesticide Education Project (PESTed). What does your organization do? We advocate for alternatives to toxic pesticides in North Carolina and empower people to make sound decisions about their health and environment. We do this through popular education, organizing […]

An interview on planning for climate change

An interview I recently did has been published in the newsletter of Caisse des Depots, a state-owned financial institution that performs public-interest missions on behalf of the French government. Also quoted in the interview is Patrick Criqui, Director of the Energy and Environmental Policy Department of the Grenoble LEPII. You can get the full newsletter here (PDF). It's all about the problems posed by the long timescale climate change operates on, and is definitely worth reading.

Here is the interview:

Maisie Ganzler of an eco-friendly catering company answers Grist’s questions

Maisie Ganzler. What work do you do? I’m director of communications and strategic initiatives for Bon Appétit Management Company. How does it relate to the environment? Bon Appétit is an onsite restaurant company committed to socially responsible practices. Our café and catering services feed about 200,000 people every day in corporations, colleges and universities, and […]

E.O. Wilson chats about his new book on the intersection of science and religion

E.O. Wilson. Photo: Jim Harrison In 1967, E.O. Wilson coauthored the book that founded island biogeography, a new field of scientific study. He could have retired then with a distinguished record. Instead, in the ensuing four decades, he’s gone on to discover hundreds of new species, generate major advances in entomology, win the National Medal […]

An interview with environmental scientist and evangelical leader Calvin DeWitt

No one has worked longer at the intersection of environmental science, evangelical ethics, and practical activism than Calvin DeWitt. Calvin DeWitt. A respected scientist with advanced degrees in biology and zoology, DeWitt spent over 25 years as director of the Au Sable Institute of Environmental Studies, where he worked to help college students learn the […]

Cheri Sugal, defender of a Mexican rainforest, answers Grist’s questions

Cheri Sugal. What work do you do? I am the executive director of Friends of Calakmul. What does your organization do? Our organization protects land in the threatened rainforest of southern Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, in the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve. We sign lease agreements with local landowner groups, called ejidos. In exchange for an annual payment, […]

Jonathan Rosenthal, fair-trade fruit purveyor, answers questions

Jonathan Rosenthal. What work do you do? I am the top banana at Oké USA, a new fair-trade fruit company owned by farmers, fair-trade organizations, and nonprofits. What does your organization do? Oké USA is a new model of fair trade that links farmers, fair-trade organizations, and eaters. Farmers get a fair price, a fair […]

An interview with J. Matthew Sleeth, evangelical environmentalist and author

In 2000, a wealthy hospital chief of staff and evangelical Christian named J. Matthew Sleeth looked around at the life he’d built — suburban neighborhood, huge house, two cars, lots and lots of stuff — and decided it failed to properly honor God. J. Matthew Sleeth: listen to the heart.In what he describes as a […]

Plain speaking from an expert

To a layperson, the world of climatology can be an intimidatingly foreign land. Denizens of this world -- scientists -- speak a daunting, often-impenetrable blend of acronyms (AGW, IPCC, WPAC, ENSO), Latinisms (anomalies, coterminous, precipitation deficits), and math (confidence limits, regression-based, boundary knots).

Besides the sheer complexity of global climate systems, the dreariness of this jargon may be one of the big reasons the general public has been slow to awaken to the seriousness of the threat of global warming. In fact, a conference on climate change organized by Yale last year called for "training scientists to speak in language that is understandable to different audiences."

One scientist who needs no such training is Bill Patzert, an oceanographer and meteorologist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., an institution closely linked to NASA. In the world of science, Patzert is known for his work matching TOPEX satellite weather data to the actual behavior of the Pacific Ocean and its weather systems, especially El Nino and its less-well-known counterpart La Nina. In the media world, he is a go-to guy for comments on weather patterns for the L.A. Times, the San Diego Union-Tribune, and CBS News, in part because he has a sense of humor.

Patzert, who has briskly guided my reporting on climate questions for years, generously agreed to an extended email interview for Grist. Since he has become known for his work with the media, and even won medals for his outreach efforts, I thought I'd begin with a question about why the rhetoric of climatology is so turgid and difficult. His answer was more than I bargained for: