Major news outlets have been reporting since yesterday afternoon that Steven Chu is President-elect Obama’s choice to head the Department of Energy. Chu currently directs the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he has led a drive to develop clean and renewable sources of energy to combat global climate change. If confirmed, he would be the first Nobel laureate in the cabinet to go into the job with a medal in hand.
Looking for a way to decrease your college’s or universities’ carbon footprint? Rather than purchasing carbon offsets from businesses with unproven track records, schools can instead look to their own backyards. The students at Oberlin College have cut out the middle man and guaranteed their carbon offset efforts are effective by investing directly in their community.
SCIENCE, CULTURED
There’s much for scientists to like about Barack Obama’s plans for science policy—but will he make it a priority, and what about the money?
CLIMATE
In the general absence of defined heat island policies, more environmental construction enables heat island mitigation, but often as a byproduct. A look at how urban areas bake and how green building technologies can cool them.
The Earth Policy Institute offers a rosy update on the booming wind and solar industries in every corner of the country. To get a real sense of the intense grow in these sectors, words alone don’t really do the job.
Writing at the Switchboard blog, Nathanael Green is pleased with the conclusions of 23 scientists who co-authored the Policy Forum in Friday’s issue of Science, “Sustainable Biofuels Redux.” And just today, the Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that tomorrow they will release a new plan for accelerating the development of the sustainable biofuels industry.
The National Academies have just offered a report detailing the most critical presidential science appointments in the executive branch and ways to streamline the process of getting new hires into their posts. Their first recommendation, however, is to hire the top science adviser at the level of assistant to the president.
Here’s a roundup of some of the science and technology policy events happening around Washington D.C. from September 15 to September 19.
Federal dollars and leadership drive energy innovation in the United States. That was true in 1942, when Enrico Fermi’s team of physicists and engineers created the world’s first sustained nuclear reaction, and it is true today. One of the many things that U.S. government must do to move the economy towards a low-carbon future is to support research and development in energy technologies.
Science and tech commentary from around the web: climate change health impacts, the bioethics of voting technology, evolution teaching tools, the wind in NYC, the Clean Air Interstate Rule, scivee.tv, and Green Chemistry in CA.
Corporations typically underestimate their carbon footprints by an average of 75 percent, according to a new study from Carnegie Mellon researchers. One of the major blind spots is in calculating the total greenhouse gas emissions from myriad supply chain inputs, as opposed to the direct emissions involved in primary operations.
ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT
The President and Congress can’t craft sound energy policy when the EIA mis-predicts oil prices by a factor of two.
ENERGY
While everybody is talking about energy these days, they’re not necessarily talking about the scientific opportunity so much as the business one. The moment is right for researchers to take up—with a sense of unshaking mission and purpose—the grand cause of a generation.
The Senate is slated to try once again to extend tax credits for solar and wind energy production. Without these tax credits, renewable energy industries will suffer.
ENERGY
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.
Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC) told the attendees as a conference on scientific integrity that the “vigilant protection of the integrity of science” cannot relax after the November elections. But we need to be more vigilant about the science that informs national energy policy now.
CLIMATE
Carbon fuels evolutionary systems and climate change—and the story of this element cuts across a wide swath of scientific fields, underscoring much of the research that’s changing the way we think about everyday life.
President Bush, along with members of Congress, is calling for offshore drilling as a remedy for high gas prices. But their arguments are simply the latest instance of federal policymaking that willfully ignores scientific evidence.
CLIMATE
Why the economic side of the global warming debate needs a more balanced ledger.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration released new numbers this week on U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from energy sources, and it turns out that our surprising 1.3 percent emissions decrease in 2006 was, indeed, a fluke caused by a milder winter and summer.
Science Progress and American Progress's Doing What Works project teamed up to produce a set of policy proposals that the Obama administration and Congress can adopt to reinvest in the building blocks of American science, innovation, and economic competitiveness. Read the overview of the five reports.
Science Progress proceeds from the propositions that scientific inquiry is among the finest expressions of human excellence, that it is a crucial source of human flourishing, a critical engine of economic growth, and must be dedicated to the common good. Scientific inquiry entails global responsibilities. It should lead to a more equitable, safer, and healthier future for all of humankind.