Today was the big day, as I noted on FB.
Working with the crew at the Diane Rehm Show, which broadcasts nationally on NPR, I’ve begun helping write scripts which include the introduction to the show, the transition into the book/guest and all the questions Diane asks. (Sadly Diane was out today, but the interview went extremely smooth)
Yes, that means that Diane Rehm READS NONE of the books…It is people like me who do the leg work, legwork I seem to enjoy.
Before taking on today’s assignment, I was a huge fan of Freakonomics, which is a book by economist Stephen Levitt and NYT editor Steven Dubner, that tries to come up with reasonable answers to life’s difficult questions, often by employing counter intuitive theories on how to get to the answers. By using economic theories in relation to human behavior, the authors ask question like“Why do crack dealers live with their mothers?”
In their new book, Superfreakonomics, they ask questions such as “Why suicide bombers should buy life insurance” and compare the similarities between Chicago prostitutes and department store Santa’s…Zany questions with even zanier answers.
When I first started this assignment, the producer gave me a choice of books to choose from, where I would read them and then script all the material. I saw Superfreakonomics and jumped at the opportunity. Their first book sold over 4 million copies and was translated into 34 different languages- spending over 2 years on the NYT best sellers list…These guys are influential and have made their mark on pop-economics, not to mention that I read their blog on a daily basis.
It turns out that one of the chapters deals with global warming, or in this case global cooling, and with interviews with world renowned futurists, scientists and engineers, the authors talk about ways to geo-engineer global cooling. The authors raise the question of whether or not we should be as worried as people like Al Gore are about global warming and the global consequences (but not in a typical denier fasion)
Even SUPER ECONOMIST Greg Mankiw is weighing in on the debate!!
Levitt and Dubner don’t simply live outside “the box,” they work on shattering “the box,” and in this one chapter dealing with climate, they created a real controversy. Before the book was even released, well known scientists and academics were jumping down Levitt and Dubner’s throats, and based on the early press the book was receiving, I had to make last minute changes to the interview. The producer actually arranged for a Nobel laureate in the field of climate science to come on the show to debate the authors, and he did with a marginal level of success, but the authors love to pose questions and were not out to promote pro-pollutionist ideas, so the extreme criticisms, dealing with only one chapter, seemed over the top.
They admit global warming is real, and that humans have something to do with the change, but looked at the problem through an economic standpoint and not an environmentalist lens.
I went to the studio early and got to talk with the authors for about twenty minutes and got to sit in on the interivew. I had them sign my free copy of the book and instead of simply getting their signatures, I asked Stephen Levitt to draw me a supply and demand graph (he laughed) . X variable being “Every time Paul Krugman (Nobel laureate leftist NYT editorialist) publicly trashes the book” Versus the Y variable “The number of books sold”…..Seeing how the book is now NUMBER 5 on Amazon, his supply curve accurately matches reality (He did just recieve the national award going to best economist under the age of 40)
I asked Levitt if all press is good press…He then smiled and begrudgingly said…. yes.
