Posts tagged with ‘environment’
What a highly influential recent paper on mountaintop removal mining shows about how scientists can change policy by getting their message (and timing!) right.
The relationship between population and environmental sustainability is complex, and understanding the fraught history of debates on the issue is critical for scientists and advocates.
A “plan B” focused on planetary control through geoengineering might turn out to be nothing but a mistaken notion.
There are compelling scientific arguments both for and against geoengineering our climate via ocean fertilization. But even if our best science indicates that ocean fertilization will succeed, there are clear ethical reasons to rule it out, as it can never meet with the scrutiny that most of us take to be emblematic of justified, right action.
The Integrated Risk Information System is an Environmental Protection Agency database of information on the human health effects of exposure to environmental contaminants. Before getting cataloged in the system, a contaminant must go through the IRIS process, a set of steps to evaluate the substance that include EPA review, interagency science consultation, and external peer [...]
New research investigating the impact of climate change on western wildfires presents a bleak picture. CAP Senior Fellow Tom Kenworthy covers the latest science in an American Progress column this week, explaining the problematic feedback cycle: higher temperatures from global warming increase the risks of wildfires, and increased fires release more carbon dioxide into the [...]
The short newsbreak available at the moment seems like a small portion of a longer forthcoming feature, but the wire focused on the OSTP director’s comments on geoengineering:
John Holdren told The Associated Press in his first interview since being confirmed last month that the idea of geoengineering the climate is being discussed. One such extreme [...]
Signing the Omnibus Public Land Management Act is only the first step in addressing the diverse and vexing challenges facing our 700 million-acre public land estate—the approximately one-third of our nation’s landscape owned in common by all Americans.
The titanic issues that surround the prospect of modifying the planet, currently off the radar for most Americans, could come up in a very big way in the relatively near future. We need leaders to start talking to the public before that happens.
We’re announcing this in conjunction with the American Meteorological Society:
For Immediate Release – January 14, 2009
Author Chris Mooney Honored by American Meteorological Society
Chris Mooney, author of Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle over Global Warming, has won the 2009 Louis J. Battan Author’s Award by the American Meteorological Society, the nation’s leading professional society [...]
Here’s a look back at the most popular features we ran in the past year. Some of them dealt with major controversies over political interference with science at the Environmental Protection Agency, the teaching of creationism, and access to reproductive health services. Others tackled challenges of a networked world, or considered how policy can better harness the talents of a burgeoning scientific workforce.
President-elect Obama’s pick for White House science adviser, John Holdren, has received numerous barbs from critics of progressive climate policy. Unfortunately, the attacks are a distraction from the real problems facing the planet.
Scientists are now worried about is the degree to which carbon sinks could shrink, or carbon sources could grow, in response to the rapid increase in anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
Open access publishing is great, but what if you can’t capture your research in words? Over at the Chronicle’s Wired Campus blog, Jeffery Young reports that in order to expand the reach and accessibility of their historical elections mapping project, digital historians at the University of Richmond moved their data from an in-house system to two platforms familiar to many web surfers: Google Maps and Google Earth.
Science projects dangers to people and their well-being, including severe natural disasters, the spread of disease, loss of coastal communities, and declining crop and fish yields.
In a surprising move last week, the Environmental Protection Agency sided with science, environmentalists, and America’s children. It has been 30 years since the United States saw a reduction in lead emissions standards, but on October 15, EPA reduced the limits from 1.5 micrograms per cubic meter to 0.15. Here’s a timeline of lead regulation in the United States over the past 100 years.
Because plants and soils act as major carbon sinks, any reduction in their ability to draw down and store CO2 could have dramatic consequences for the climate. As things stand, ecosystems are already struggling to keep up with the meteoric growth in emissions over the past few decades.
Climate modelers work with the data they have and play a role in understanding the complexities of the Earth’s environments. But to adapt to future climate changes, we have to invest in their predictive tools.
Abrupt climate changes happen. To better understand these potential threats to humanity, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Biological and Environmental Research recently launched the Investigation of the Magnitudes and Probabilities of Abrupt Climate Transitions program.
A U.S. district court reminds the Park Service that the agency ignored its own scientific assessment of snowmobiling’s threats to wildlife, air quality, and natural quiet in Yellowstone National Park.
This afternoon, the Senate Environment and Public Works committee will hold a hearing examining the Bush administration’s environmental record. Our Center for American Progress colleagues took a hard look at the president’s legacy on this issue earlier this year. Their conclusion? “Seven Years of Failure: Bush gets an F for the Earth.” While the interactive timeline they prepared only runs through May 2008, you still get a pretty clear picture.
We risk losing what makes the world’s oceans a valuable natural resource: their rich biodiversity. It’s time to get the concept on the cultural radar.
Climate change is driving average temperatures upward, and the unmistakable long-term trend is toward a warmer, drier West. Firefighting alone can’t contend with growing fire danger; investment in strategic fuel reduction is the key.
Federal legislation that would enhance the Environmental Protection Agency’s role in protecting our most valuable resource advances to the Senate.
The Bush Administration has proposed new rules that allow federal agencies to assess on their own threats to endangered species, side-stepping scientific review of environmental impacts for regulatory decisions. Here’s what some experts have been saying in the mainstream media and blogosphere over the past few days about the proposed rule change.
Two new reports highlight impacts on western trout streams and propose constructive steps to take in response.
Don’t look now, but we’re peering down yet another possible threat to Americans’ ability to drive their cars in a way that they can remotely afford—an active Atlantic hurricane season.
The old Office of Technology Assessment had answers to Pennsylvania’s shad problem today. That’s only one reason why efforts to revive the congressional office are gaining traction.
Ramping up computing power for climate modeling can help researchers better understand and predict meteorological phenomena around the world, answer policy questions about the impact of climate change, and save lives from natural catastrophes.
“The future is likely to be very similar to the past, regardless of who the President is,” said Dr. John Marburger, the President’s science advisor at the AAAS S&T Policy Forum last Thursday. He was talking about funding, but let’s hope things are very different for scientific integrity under the next administration.
Part 3 of coverage of Tuesday’s House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on the Renewable Fuel Standard, with the perspectives of witnesses on biofuel production and rising food prices.
Part 2 of a break down of Tuesday’s House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on the Renewable Fuel Standards, with a look at what witnesses had to say about the economic and environmental concerns.
Tuesday’s House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing pitted environmentalists, corn producers, oil refiners, grocery manufacturers, and renewable fuel advocates against one another in a contentious debate over the future of the Renewable Fuel Standard.
Science Progress tries to make sense of it all. First up, what’s right with the RFS and ways to make it better.
Death tolls continue to rise, a product of poverty, poor infrastructure, and a negligent government. Better forecasting for the North Indian region would be a start for protecting citizens from future cyclones. Democracy in Burma probably wouldn’t hurt, either.
The Environmental Protection Agency continued its fall from grace at a Senate hearing earlier this week that investigated political meddling with the Agency’s toxic chemical policies. But in the midst of a rain of criticism, there were suggestions of future policy that could better allow the EPA to protect citizens from hazardous materials.
We desperately need to adapt our coastal infrastructure to climate change.
Progressive thinking takes a new turn in western water management, as states across the region, in cooperation with federal agencies, act to fix damaged rivers, lakes, and wetlands.
On Wednesday, the House Committee on Science and Technology’s Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight held the first of what could be more hearings on the CDC’s failure to protect public health when it released a scientifically flawed report on formaldehyde levels in post-Katrina FEMA trailers, understating the health risk of extended exposure to the gas.
The Bush administration appeals court ruling on mercury pollution; the EPA faces congressional subpoena in wrangle over emissions regulations; Greenwire profiles CDC whistleblower; Tech companies call for increased H-1B visa cap; Al Gore launches new climate awareness campaign.
The LA Times has several recent stories on the latest Los Angeles green energy initiatives and contention over a proposed cap-and-trade system for California emissions.
A House Select committee hearing examines whether the government should protect polar bears before or after making a decision to allow oil drilling in their habitat.
Bush exemption for Navy sonar use; farmer loses to Monsanto; SLAC loses to budget; Japan hikes budget for stem cell research; Supreme Court opening arguments for patent case.
Greenland glaciers melting faster than previously thought; new money to fight African Sleeping Sickness; do plastic drinking bottles leech harmful chemicals?
The Water Resources Development Act of 1986 grants the governors of the eight Great Lakes states the power to veto plans to divert water outside the Great Lakes Basin. But with drought conditions in the Southwest and Southeast showing no signs of abatement, talk of moving water to dry areas of the country has the lake states scrambling to better protect their resources.
The National Research Council of the National Academies convened a symposium Wednesday to explore approaches among “Future Directions in Research at the Intersection of the Physical and Life Sciences.” The intersections up for discussion ranged across the research spectrum: from synthetic biology to geoengineering to bioterrorism.
The Minnesota legislature recently approved funding for biomonitoring research, which will track environmental contaminants found in the tissue of children and adult volunteers. In related news, the EPA eased reporting requirements for companies that dump toxic chemicals into the environment.
