Policy — Page 45

Last week at the Ecological Society of America’s (ESA) 95th Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh, scientists presented research on the foraging behavior of bushbabies, the effects of RoundUp herbicide on amphibians, the benefits of microbial communities inside the human body and the global issues surrounding invasive species, pollution, global warming, elevated nitrogen and hypoxia, among others. Here is just some of the research from ESA’s annual meeting.

Here are some highlights from the final ESA Policy News by Piper Corp, ESA’s outgoing Science Policy Analyst. Thanks, Piper, for keeping EcoTone readers informed about policy for the last couple of years and for your many other insightful posts. We will miss you! Read the full Policy News here.

Last night the Ecological Society of America’s 95th Annual Meeting was off to a rousing start as an audience of over 500 applauded Mayor John Fetterman of Braddock, Pennsylvania, this year’s winner of ESA’s Regional Policy Award.  The award recognizes a regional policymaker who uses ecological science to help inform policy decisions.  Since 2005, Mayor Fetterman has used innovative approaches—including encouraging…

Here are some highlights from the latest ESA Policy News by ESA’s Science Policy Analyst, Piper Corp.

Here are some highlights from the latest ESA Policy News by ESA’s Science Policy Analyst, Piper Corp.

In a congressional briefing yesterday on “Hurricanes and Oil: Managing Risk Now,” Rowan Douglas, Managing Director of the Willis Research Network’s (Willis Re) Global Analytics Division, was unable to see the screen his fellow panelists were using for their presentations. He did, however, have a perfect view of the audience. During one particular presentation, he witnessed everyone’s “eyes getting as big as saucers,” as he put it.

It seems the only certainty amidst the Gulf of Mexico environmental disaster is that nothing is certain. From the amount of oil continually pouring from the seafloor to British Petroleum’s use of chemical dispersants, this crisis has been anything but straightforward. As evasive, and at times downright misleading, as BP has been, the environmental impacts of this disaster are far from allusive. Just take a look at the photos on the Public Broadcasting Service’s News Hour site to get a sense of urgency surrounding this crisis.

Earlier this month at the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Scientific Symposium at Louisiana State University (LSU), scientists emphasized the importance and urgency of consulting with researchers during the remediation of the Gulf of Mexico disaster. The meeting pulled together more than 200 attendees, including officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Representatives from around 90 countries approved the formation of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, Nature and Scientific American collaborated on a survey to analyze the public’s interest in science and the history of the tomato’s taxonomy in the United States is reviewed. Here are some stories in ecology from the second week in June.

This post contributed by ESA Science Policy Analyst Piper Corp. It isn’t surprising that climate legislation is stalling in Congress. In tough economic times, an emissions cap—like any other major investment—is a tough sell at best, requiring US households and industry to swallow added costs in the short-term for projected savings down the road. What’s more, the current symptoms of…

Here are some highlights from the latest ESA Policy News by ESA’s Science Policy Analyst, Piper Corp.

More than 150 scientists are meeting today with federal officials at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge to discuss and coordinate the federal response to the Deep Horizon oil leak. The one-day meeting, hosted by the Consortium for Ocean Leadership and sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Environmental Protection Agency and the United States Coast Guard, is being “led by non-Federal scientists to discuss the urgent issues involved with both short-term response actions for the spill and long-term monitoring of the environmental and human health impacts,” according to an Ocean Leadership press release.