About two months ago The Tracker helped out with a climate change conference at Ohio State University for journalists. Also participating was a man named Berrien Moore III. He’s a mathematician with a resume jammed with proof of his savvy as a politically-astute science adviser to government agencies – NASA in particular. I have an instinctive rubric when I meet accomplished and persuasive technical people who are smart, buttoned-down, and socially sensitive. I tend to think “man, I wish he/she were science adviser to the White House.”
Plus Moore was listed as director of something new called Climate Central. But I didn’t really get what it is that Climate Central does. At Columbia Journalism Review‘s The Observatory that gap is nicely filled in a post by Curtis Brainard today. The place, it turns out, has a staff that includes news people cheek by jowl with scientists. One goal is to provide one-stop shopping for news outlets that want help covering climate issues. One is unsure how objective the place is (not that there is any evidence contrariwise and it proclaims itself to be nonpartisan). But it does seem to be a useful resource. Brainard uses it as an angle to say more about the recent, further shrinkage of the crowd covering climate, and science generally, for mainstream media.
-CP
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