The Bridge: Connecting Science and Policy

May 6, 2014

The Climate Conversation Needs Your Voice

By Lexi Shultz, Director of Public Affairs at the American Geophysical Union Today, the White House released the U.S. Global Change Research Program’s (USGCRP) third National Climate Assessment (NCA). This report, coming in at 1,300 pages and written by more than 300 authors (many of whom are American Geophysical Union members) is an impressive accounting of the many current and future effects of climate change across the country. The NCA …

April 23, 2014

Keep calm, carry on and prepare

Written by John Schelling, Washington State Emergency Management The invitation to contribute my perspective on tsunami risk reduction efforts to “The Bridge” arrived on my tablet as I sat in the Snohomish County Emergency Operations Center (EOC) in Everett, Washington. There I was—working as part of the response and recovery effort to a major landslide (the Oso landslide, which occurred at 10:37 a.m. on March 22)–and presented with the question, …

March 21, 2014

The President’s Budget Request: A Mixed Bag for Science

The President’s budget request for Fiscal Year 2015 (FY15) is a mixed bag for science. According to the White House, the FY15 budget request strives to build on the progress made by Congress with the recent omnibus passage, while continuing to cut the deficit in a balanced way. For Earth and space science, the proposed budget contains both good and bad news.

February 26, 2014

March Madness

The most recent budget showdown has just barely faded over the horizon. The president and Congress can finally talk about something that doesn’t involve the contentious issue of doling out funding for the government to stay open and operating. We can finally get back to focusing on setting policy – or can we?

February 21, 2014

Aaaannndddd We’re Back!

Between the Arctic conditions and what felt like hurricane-force winds, Chicago was not the most enjoyable place to be in February. But did we let that dampen our spirits while attending the AAAS Annual Meeting? Absolutely not.

February 12, 2014

AGU @ AAAS

Every year, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) draws thousands of individuals from across the globe to their annual meeting. This year, the event will be held in the Windy City this Thursday, 13 February through Monday, 17 February. The temperature forecast looks to be in the teens. Brrrr.

February 10, 2014

Citizen-Scientists Find a Receptive Climate in Congress

Residing in a state that is about as blue as they come, I had reservations that participating in AGU’s Climate Science Day to visit offices of my Massachusetts congressional delegation would involve little more than preaching to the choir. Although that was mostly true, the staffers we met did sincerely seem to appreciate the visit. Still more rewarding for me, I was paired with a New Hampshire scientist and got to tag along on his visits to a mixed delegation. Well, it is mixed in terms of political parties, but, curiously, all four of NH’s senators and representatives are women. What’s that got to do with climate change science?

January 24, 2014

The Biggest Surprise

The safe confines of my coffee shop and flashing terminal screen became the mainstay during my doctoral studies at Purdue University. As a computational modeler you spend days buried under lines of code trying to find a bug that you think exists somewhere between line 200 and 1000. I loved every minute of it, especially the times when you had a breakthrough, which could be as simple as watching the climate model produce output without crashing. I walked away from this world in August to head to Capitol Hill as a Congressional Science Fellow sponsored by the American Geophysical Union.

January 17, 2014

Climate Science Legal Defense Fund: Protecting the Scientific Endeavor

So you are having a great time at the AGU Fall Meeting. You are meeting science colleagues from around the world, you are seeing cutting edge research presented in the scientific program, and you are enjoying the sights and sounds of beautiful San Francisco. Then you check your email and the blood drains from your face. Your institution’s legal counsel explains that a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request has …