Communicating the Earth Observatory: Author Kevin Krajick
Jesse Reimink: Welcome to Planet Geo, the podcast where we talk about our amazing planet, how it works, and why it matters to you.
Hey, all this week we are excited to release a part of our interview with science journalist and author extraordinaire Kevin Krajick. Kevin is a senior editor for Science News Communications at the Columbia Climate School. He's a author of State of the Planet. His work has been featured across a wide range of publications, including National Geographic, Newsweek, the New Yorker. The Smithsonian Magazine, he's the winner of multiple awards for excellence in science journalism, and he's also the author of the book called Baron Lands, an Epic Search for Diamonds in North American Arctic. And that's what we're gonna talk about next week. This week we talked to Kevin about science communication generally in the university setting, especially at the Columbia Climate School, which is a preeminent climate research. I. Before we get to Kevin though, a quick reminder about our conversational textbook called Camp Geo that we just launched recently. You can learn all the basics of geoscience, just like Chris and I teach it in our college level classes in a structured and we think fun way with the key images you really need to learn all of these basic. But kind of complicated topics. The link is the first thing you'll see in your show notes, and it's completely free to use if you like Camp Geo, please just share it with people that you think might also like it.
As usual, you can support us in several different ways. You can visit the Support us page on our website, which is also a link in the show notes. You can leave us a rating and review on your podcast app and please share Planet Geo or Camp Geo with your friends. Enjoy Kevin Cra. All right.
Chris Bolhuis: All
Jesse Reimink: Kevin, welcome to Planet.
Kevin Krajick: Delighted to be here. I'm glad to meet you guys. We have some things in common, I think.
Jesse Reimink: Yeah, we're totally excited. So you've written a book that I love, uh, about diamond mining in Northern Canada where I did my research. Well actually Diamond Prospecting. But this book is a great exploration of searching for diamonds in the sort of modern world.
Chris Bolhuis: And, and it is an incredible story, um, which we're gonna get into that and a little bit, Jesse, you need to calm
Jesse Reimink: I know I'm getting worked up here. I'm too excited.
Chris Bolhuis: I wanna, Yeah, I wanna go into a little bit of more of the background though, Kevin, before we get into your book, The Barren Lands. first of all, what is the Columbia Climate School and what's your role? I don't think a lot of people have heard about this specific thing.
Kevin Krajick: Yeah, Columbia has always been a leader in, in climate science. starting in the 1950s, people there were figuring out how did natural climate slings work, Uh, the most obvious one being the waxing and the waning of ice ages, which is tied to planetary motions. Basically, later on, they started looking into unnatural climate swings. It was a Columbia scientist who first used the, the term global warming in a scientific paper. Uh, that was in the 1970s. And, and people have ever since been developing in all sorts of directions, various aspects of climate science. More recently, the mega drought in in the Southwest that's going on now, not just the southwest, but the west in general was predicted 20 years ago there, and, you know, they sort of figured out the physics and, and the, the past climate swings that indicated this was gonna happen. again, and indeed here we are. so it's a place that has a lot of seminal research., now they've started moving into more climate education in the last couple years. my role there, is basically the nexus with the, with the press. if there's a big study coming out, I'll write up the press release. And that's important because a lot of scientist writers now just rip off the press release and rewrite the headline, which is, uh, too bad. But they're not paid enough to do anything more. Uh, so I had to do a good job with the press release cuz that's gonna be the basis.
Jesse Reimink: is that how, how, um, you know, I'm one of the researchers who every once in a blue moon I have research that is worthy of a press release. It hasn't happened often my career, but I know for a fact I'm not good at writing for the public. And people in your role are extremely good at it. So how do you find that interaction with , the researchers who can't really communicate it very well and, and, you know, the, the public or the press who are interested in very well communicated studies, I guess, or summaries of studies? it seems to me that your job is hard. , I guess is what I'm saying.
Kevin Krajick: but it's fun. Um, well, first of all, you gotta figure out like, what are you gonna write about? Because there's, there's a couple of studies or, or maybe more coming out every week just from Columbia. . So most of them don't make the grade you want to know that they have some dues value that the public \ is gonna wanna hear about this, should hear about this. It's something that changes the paradigm. How do we understand one phenomenon or another? if it has some really interesting backstory or weird characters or a locale where you can take photographs and create wonderful images, that's a plus. So all those, all those things kind of feed into it.
Chris Bolhuis: do you get to pick the stories that, that you do? Or does somebody tell you, Hey, follow up on this.
Kevin Krajick: Um, I've fortunately left. I better not say this. Well, I'll say it anyway. I've pretty much left alone to, to figure out, although I do no, my colleagues and I also discuss, some people may have a different take on a story than I do, and maybe somebody else will wanna run with the story. . But usually the people will come to me and, you know, uh, let me know this, this study is coming up. Uh, but the other thing that, that we do is, um, at least in my job, I'll go out in the field with scientists and, and take pictures while they're doing field work. And they're all over the world. Uh, they're, every continent, every ocean. and so there's there's a lot of opportunity for pictorial storytelling.
Chris Bolhuis: I saw that in a lot of the recent articles that you've written, which are fascinated, and I want to get to those later on today. But, and that was one of the questions that I wrote down for, for me to ask you. You actually go with them. You, you spend the day or the weeks with them while they're doing their research and you kind of document it, don't you,
Kevin Krajick: Yeah. And it's just a fantastic way to see the world and, and, and bond with the scientists
Jesse Reimink: It sounds like a, a dream job, really. I mean, that, that's really, really cool. I think there's, um, so I was a little bit. Well, I needed some clarity here. So the Columbia Climate School is the affiliation with Lamont Doherty Earth Institute. Are those similar institutes or is there a hierarchy there? I saw you worked with colleagues who I know who work at lamont and you've written up science articles that, that they've worked on. But what's the relationship between the Climate school, the State of the Planet articles that you've written, and then the Lamont Doherty School of Earth Science, I think is what it's
Kevin Krajick: Lamont Earth Observatory. . So yeah, so it gets a little tangled in academic, um, things. But, , basically, um, there was, and still is this thing called the Earth Institute at Columbia, which was a, an umbrella over a whole bunch of different research centers. The main one being Lamont Doherty. a couple years ago they founded the climate school to sort of be the umbrella and expand Columbia's research into climate studies, into the arts and architecture and all sorts of other fields. and there are a lot more students now. Uh, so it's a little confusing. There are several layers of, of academic terms, , but right now the overarching institution is the climate school , and it's a little bit of a misnomer because we do a whole lot of other stuff, especially Lamont does basic geology, atmospherics, oceanography, not all of it connected to, um, to climate.
Chris Bolhuis: So is state of the planet then the journal for the Columbia Climate School. Is that the structure of
Kevin Krajick: That's right. If your listeners want to, um, check out State of the planet. I don't remember the exact address, but just Google, State of the Planet, Columbia, and you'll come to it. And that's our news site. And it's very, well, and widely read.
Chris Bolhuis: And it is very well organized.
Jesse Reimink: Yeah, it is. it's very cool. I'd not visited it, uh, frequently before. Um, but yeah, it's an excellent site, so yeah. Go there
Kevin Krajick: I'll, I'll tell, I'll tell, uh, our editor that.
Chris Bolhuis: yeah,
I just love the way it's organized. It's, it's, uh, classified according, and like you said, they've expanded to a lot of different areas. It's not just earth sciences, it's not just climate. It's kind of all over the place. But the topic organization is, it's perfect actually. so Kevin, I want, can you please before we jump into the BA lands, how much you've focused on a lot of the earth sciences and, and climate sciences. How much geology have you assimilated over the years?
Kevin Krajick: Uh, well, uh, I never actually took a class in geology or any other thing like that. Uh, the first geology story I did, I bought the Geology 1 0 1 book. I think it was the Frank Press, Understanding Earth and, uh, read every chapter. I took the, the quiz at the end went cover to cover.
Jesse Reimink: how'd you do on the quiz?
Kevin Krajick: I probably not that great, but I mean, now I understand the, the difference between a, a rock and a mineral. and, uh, the first oceanography story, I bought the oceanography 1 0 1 book and did the same thing and so on. And the other thing is that, you know, when you're, a journalist, um, out in the field or talking to a scientist on the phone, you're getting tutored by the greatest minds in their field. And most of these people are really overjoyed to talk about their work. It's not like they're trying to offend you of they're, they're trying to explain. So I've had a very good education, I think probably much better than I would have if I had taken those courses in college or even graduate school.
Jesse Reimink: Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, I, you could tell from the, the writing and especially from the barren lands. Chris, if, if you'll let me off the leash and I can talk about the Barron Lands now. Um,
Chris Bolhuis: Yeah. I think we can go,
Jesse Reimink: Okay. All alright, good. Thanks for listening. And again, don't forget to support us by sharing Planet Geo with your friends. Tune in next week for a full discussion of Kevin CRA's new book, barren lands, and epic search for diamonds in the North American Arctic. It's a great read in the link is in the show notes. Take care.
