Need For Actions to Reduce and Adapt

America's Climate Choices, a series of congressionally-mandated studies, emphasizes why the U.S. should act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and develop a national strategy to adapt to the inevitable impacts of climate change. Available to read online or purchase PDF or print copies:

• Advancing the Science of Climate Change


• Limiting the Magnitude of Climate Change


• Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change


• Informing an Effective Response to Climate Change

Watch video, America's Climate Choices Series

Just in ... Haleakala FEIS

Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope on the proposed ATST within the Haleakala High Altitude Observatory (HO) site on Maui was prepared by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The purpose of the project "would be to help scientists understand the solar magnetic activities and variability that drive space weather and the hazards it creates for astronauts and air travelers, and for communications to and from satellites."

Back in May, "Haleakala called best site for telescope" headlined an article in the Star Bulletin that reported NSF had studied 70 sites around the world, including Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, and selected Haleakala as "the only site that satisfies the goals of the world's largest optical solar telescope."

TD194.5 N32 2009
FEIS (pdf, 4 vols.)

See also NSF's ATST environmental compliance website with links to related documents

Climate decisions

National Academies created the Panel on Strategies and Methods for Climate Related Decision Support "to provide a framework and a set of strategies and methods for organizing and evaluating decision support activities related to climate change." In evaluating the growing need for climate-related decision support, the Panel offers:

Both conceptually and practically, people and organizations will have to adjust what may be life-long assumptions to meet the potential consequences of climate change. How and where should bridges be built? What zoning rules may need to be changed? How can targets for reduced carbon emissions be met? These and myriad other questions will need to be answered in the coming years and decades.

The published study "drawing on evidence from past efforts to organize science for improved decision making, develops guidance for government agencies and other institutions that will provide or use information for coping with climate change."

Informing Decisions in a Changing Climate, National Academies Press (available online as an Open Text Document)
2009, 200 pages

Two more for the new year

Two new year studies addressed revealing controversies in the US culture wars. The New York Times (NYT) reports of two economists' conference paper (pdf, 63pp) to this year's annual meeting of the American Economic Association. According to NYT, Professor Gordon Dahl of the University of California, San Diego, and Stefano DellaVigna, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, find

that violent films prevent violent crime by attracting would-be assailants and keeping them cloistered in darkened, alcohol-free environs.

Their paper suggests killing time at a movie is not spent in more violent behavior or tendencies.

"Economics is about choice," Professor Dahl said. "What would these people have done if they had not chosen to go and see a movie?...on days with a high audience for violent movies, violent crime is lower."

NYT quotes Melissa Henson, senior director of programs at the Parents Television Council, "The study's premise strikes me as somewhat goofy."


In 1999 the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) published a report (OpenBook, 48pp) which, according to the NAS website,

states unequivocally that creationism has no place in any science curriculum at any grade level.

However nine years later, NYT reported earlier this week that the NAS Committee on Revising Science and Creationism new book is meant to further defend and explain

the fundamental methods of science, document the overwhelming evidence in support of biological evolution, and evaluate the alternative perspectives offered by advocates of various kinds of creationism, including "intelligent design."

Including statements from biologists and members of the clergy, the report is intended for students, school boards, legislators, policy makers, and leaders of the community.

...science and religion should be viewed as different ways of understanding the world rather than as frameworks that are in conflict with each other and that the evidence for evolution can be fully compatible with religious faith.

Science, Evolution, and Creationism
(2008, OpenBook, 88pp)

Plugged into science

The National Academies offers a weekly series of podcasts "focusing on a wide range of critical issues in science, engineering, and medicine." Begun in early March 2007, the many podcast topics include:

• None of Your Business: Privacy in the Information Age (Fri, 14 Sep 2007)
• Critical Issues in Transportation (Fri, 31 Aug 2007)
• Uninsured in America (Fri, 6 Jul 2007)
• Progress in Preventing Childhood Obesity: How Do We Measure Up? (Wed, 6 Jun 2007)
• Tech Tally: Approaches to Assessing Technological Literacy (Fri, 23 Mar 2007)
• Engaging Schools (Fri, 16 Mar 2007)

The shows are ten minutes in length and, like all podcasts, may be donwloaded and played on one's computer or loaded onto an MP3 player for playback on the go. The National Academies also provides a subscription link for automatic download.

The Sounds of Science Podcast - key findings and important recommendations made by The National Academies.