Interview: NOAA’s New Chief on Restoring Science to Climate Policy

Last December, when President-elect Obama named Jane Lubchenco to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the reaction among climate scientists was an almost audible sigh of relief. Much of what is known about the climate comes from research supported by NOAA. But the agency, tucked inside the Commerce Department, has long suffered from status problems, and during the Bush administration, NOAA staffers frequently complained that their findings were being ignored, or, worse still, suppressed. The appointment of Lubchenco — a marine biologist from Oregon State University — seemed to signal that the new administration planned, finally, to take NOAA’s work seriously. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, conducted by New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert, Lubchenco speaks about the science of climate change, the complexities of communicating it to the public and policy makers, and what she calls global warming’s “equally evil twin,” ocean acidification.
Click here to read the full interview.