Christopher Cole Mooney (born September 20, 1977) is an American journalist and author of four books including The Republican War on Science (2005). Mooney's writing focuses on subjects such as climate change denialism and creationism in public schools, and he has been described as "one of the few journalists in the country who specialize in the now dangerous intersection of science and politics." In 2020 he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for a series of articles on global warming published in The Washington Post. Early life and education Mooney was born in Mesa, Arizona, and grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana. Both of his parents were college English professors. He attended Isidore Newman School before entering Yale University, where he graduated with a B.A. in English in 1999. His interest in the natural sciences was strongly influenced by his grandfather Gerald A. Cole, a professor at Arizona State University and author of Textbook of Limnology, a noted book in the field. Mooney is the oldest of three siblings. Career Mooney helped establish Tapped, the group blog of American Prospect. Mooney continued his freelance work contributing to Slate, Salon.com, Reason, The Washington Monthly, the Utne Reader, Columbia Journalism Review, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe. Mooney maintained the column Doubt and About for the magazine Skeptical Inquirer, last contributing in 2006. Mooney started the blog The Intersection which ran on ScienceBlogs from 2006 to 2009, then at Discover Magazine until 2011, before moving to Science Progress in 2011. From 2007 until 2013 he contributed to DeSmogBlog, a blog that focuses on topics related to global warming. Mooney is presently a correspondent for The Climate Desk magazine and for Mother Jones. In October 2014 the Washington Post announced that Mooney would begin writing a new, environmentally focused blog for the paper. In 2017, he was selected as a recipient of the SEAL Environmental Journalism Award for his environmental coverage. In 2018, he was one of four writers selected as a repeat recipient of the SEAL Environmental Journalism Award. In 2005 Mooney's first book, The Republican War on Science, was released. The book explored the premise that the presidential administration of George W. Bush regularly distorted and/or suppressed scientific research to further its own political aims. The book became a New York Times Best Seller and landed Mooney interviews on popular television programs such as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report,