The Madhouse Effect

Different Backgrounds, Joint TakeAs co-authors, each of us two has experience on the front lines of the battle to communicate the risks of climate change to the public.

I am an editorial cartoonist and I have been exposing the hypocrisy of climate change denying politicians and fossil fuel industry front groups and advocates for years on the pages of the Washington Post.

I have felt that the media in general has done a poor job in explaining the subject and its critical nature of its importance. My response has been to keep the subject front and center for readers, and to point out in my artwork both the challenge and the obstacles.

My co-author Michael Mann is a climate scientist who has been on the front lines of the battle. In the late 1990s, Michael published the iconic “Hockey Stick curve which has now become both a symbol of the reality and threat of climate change and an object of attack by climate change deniers.

The Madhouse Effect represents an effort by both of us to draw upon our very different backgrounds and perspectives and to jointly provide readers with a unique take on the issue of climate change.