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| Tuesday, July 03, 2007 |
Green Scientist: Drew Shindell
From our July/August 2007 issue. This article is part of our larger package, the AJL Green List.
 These are heady times for a climate researcher. Behind the critical acclaim of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth and interest in restrictions on carbon emissions at June’s G8 Summit in Germany, are scientists like Drew Shindell.
Shindell, who works at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, uses climate models to analyze historical and present-day weather patterns. He also projects possible changes in future climate conditions, which, of course, has fueled an explosion in public concern over how we may be harming our environment.
Shindell began doing environmental research during his days as a doctoral student at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, where he earned a Ph.D. in 1995. At the time, a group of students were studying ozone depletion over Antarctica and he got hooked. “It was socially relevant and it contributed to making the world a better place,” he says. “It was really tangible.”
From there, Shindell moved easily into studying climate change. Today, he describes huge advances in satellite, computer, and data technology. “The wealth of data is fantastic,” he explains, pointing out how scientists who analyze tree rings or drill holes in ice coolers now understand what the earth’s climate was like a million years ago.
While he declines to be labeled an activist or advocate for the environment, Shindell, who has testified on environmental issues before Congress, is not shy about criticizing the current administration’s foot-dragging on environmental policy issues.
Shindell, who grew up in a Conservative Jewish home in California, says he is “not terribly religious.” And yet, he says his work stems from a principled position he takes on the obligation of scientists to share their findings with the public, especially when their research reveals potential dangers. “The same way that medical research, if you discover something dangerous, it would be immoral to sit on it,” he says, “I think we have a moral obligation to go out there and say these are obvious implications of this science.”
This article is part of our larger package, the AJL Green List.
-- Text by E.B. Solomont / Photo by Chaim Jaskoll
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