Burning Reefs, Busted Forecasts, and a Government That’s Ghosting the Climate

Marine scientist Ellen Prager and meteorologist Dave Jones expose the high cost of denial, data cuts, and delusions in a world that’s heating fast and listening slow.

This week on Three Degrees, we dove deep—literally and figuratively—into the oceans and atmosphere with meteorologist Dave Jones and marine scientist Dr. Ellen Prager, co-authors of Megalodons, Mermaids, and Climate Change. You might expect a lighthearted chat with a title like that, but what unfolded was an urgent, eye-opening conversation about the fragile state of our planet—and the avalanche of misinformation keeping people in the dark.

Dave, a former broadcast meteorologist in Washington, D.C., made a career out of translating science for the public. Now the founder of StormCenter Communications, he knows the stakes of poor communication. “When you’ve worked both in research and on television,” he told us, “you learn that the hardest part isn’t understanding the science—it’s helping other people understand why it matters to their lives.”

Ellen, who has spent her career studying and advocating for the health of our oceans, didn’t sugarcoat anything either. When asked about the push to open up deep-sea mining, she was blunt: “It’s the same pattern we saw with fossil fuels. We think we can extract resources without fully understanding the consequences. But we know deep-sea mining will destroy habitat, kill marine life—some of which we haven’t even discovered—and disrupt carbon and chemical cycles. We’re doing another experiment with the planet, and we don’t even know the rules.”

It’s hard to argue with that, especially as ocean temperatures climb and coral reefs suffer mass die-offs. “Corals can’t migrate,” Ellen reminded us. “They have a narrow temperature range, and when the water warms too quickly, they die. We’re already seeing biodiversity loss on a massive scale.”

Dave and Ellen wrote their new book as a response to a flood of questions they’ve fielded over the years—from the serious to the absurd. “People ask me all the time,” Dave said, “if they should pee on a jellyfish sting. The answer is no, not just because it’s gross, but because the change in chemistry can actually worsen the sting.”

But behind the humor is real frustration. Both guests expressed concern about the cuts to NOAA—the kind of institutional knowledge being lost, and what that means in the face of climate extremes. “NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration just lost six of their eight senior managers,” Dave said. “These are the people who lead the response during an oil spill. Who’s going to replace that experience? Who’s going to lead when disaster strikes?”

Ellen added that we won’t see the full cost of these cuts until it’s too late. “You can’t cut the data that feeds our forecasts, our fisheries, our ocean models—and expect no consequences. Eventually we’re going to miss something big, and we’ll look back and realize we were flying blind.”

We asked what scares them most. For Ellen, it’s sea level rise and the accelerating collapse of ecosystems. “We’ve never seen ice sheets melt like this,” she said. “Glaciologists are warning us: this could happen faster than anyone predicted. We’re in uncharted territory.”

Dave pointed to atmospheric changes and the public’s lagging understanding. “We’re already seeing storms intensify faster because of warmer sea surface temperatures. People keep thinking climate change is gradual—it’s not. It’s already supercharging our weather systems.”

The conversation wrapped on a sobering note. “People are still making decisions based on the past,” Dave warned. “They say, ‘it’s never flooded here,’ or ‘storms don’t hit this part of the coast.’ That kind of thinking is dangerous now. The past is no longer a reliable guide.”

This episode covers a lot—from NOAA budget cuts to coral reef canopy myths, from AI’s role in forecasting to the very real threat of public apathy. But through it all, Jones and Prager maintain a kind of gritty optimism: we can still act. We can still adapt. But only if we listen to science—and stop pretending we have more time than we do.

If you are interested in purchasing their new book, you can find it here: Megalodons, Mermaids and Climate Change

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