Please join the Belfer Center Environment and Natural Resources Program and the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy for a lively conversation with Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann and Washington Post political cartoonist Tom Toles on Wed, February 14 from 4:15 p.m. to 5:45 p.m. in Starr Auditorium, Belfer Building. Moderated by Cristine Russell, the event is cosponsored by the Center for Public Leadership and the student Sustainability, Energy & Environment PIC.
Mann and Toles' novel collaborative book, "The Madhouse Effect: How Climate Change Denial is Threatening Our Planet, Destroying Our Politics, & Driving Us Crazy," discusses how climate change deniers maintain their stance despite overwhelming scientific evidence of human-caused climate change. Both Mann and Toles have long been committed to communicating with the public about climate change denial and the need to take action to combat climate change. Their book provides readers with strategies for combatting arguments that refuse to accept scientific evidence.
Speaker Biographies:
Tom Toles is the editorial cartoonist for The Post and writes the Tom Toles blog. He joined the newspaper in 2002, after 19 years as the cartoonist for the Buffalo News and nine years with the Buffalo Courier-Express. He has also produced a syndicated comic strip, "Curious Avenue," and a syndicated panel, "Randolph Itch, 2 a.m." His cartoons are collected in six books, and he is the author of a children's book, "My School Is Worse Than Yours." While at The Post, Toles has received the 2011 Herblock Award, the National Headliners Award, The Week magazine's "cartoonist of the year" award, the Overseas Press Club Thomas Nast Award, the National Cartoonist Society's "cartoonist of the year" award, the John Fischetti Award, and the H.L. Mencken Free Press Award. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1990.
Dr. Michael E. Mann is Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science at Penn State, with joint appointments in the Department of Geosciences and the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute (EESI). He is also director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center (ESSC). Dr. Mann received his undergraduate degree in Physics and Applied Math from the University of California at Berkeley, an M.S. degree in Physics from Yale University, and a Ph.D. in Geology and Geophysics from Yale University. His research involves the use of theoretical models and observational data to better understand Earth's climate system.
Dr. Mann was a Lead Author on the Observed Climate Variability and Change chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Scientific Assessment Report in 2001 and was organizing committee chair for the National Academy of Sciences Frontiers of Science in 2003. He has received a number of honors and awards including NOAA's outstanding publication award in 2002 and selection by Scientific American as one of the fifty leading visionaries in science and technology in 2002. He contributed, with other IPCC authors, to the award of the 2007 Nobel peace Prize. He was awarded the Hans Oeschger Medal of the European Geosciences Union in 2012 and was awarded the National Conservation Achievement Award for science by the National Wildlife Federation in 2013. In 2014, he was named Highly Cited Researcher by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) and received the Friend of the Planet Award from the National Center for Science Education. He received the Stephen H. Schneider Award for Outstanding Climate Science Communication from Climate One in 2017. He is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is also a co-founder of the award-winning science website RealClimate.org.
Dr. Mann is author of more than 200 peer-reviewed and edited publications, and has published three books including Dire Predictions: Understanding Climate Change, The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines, and most recently, The Madhouse Effect with Washington Post editorial cartoonist Tom Toles.
