Nancy Grimm welcomes attendees to the first ESA Millennium Conference. ESA’s first Millennium Conference kicked off today in Athens, GA. The meeting is bringing together ecologists and social scientists to engage in conversations about one of the most dramatic emerging challenges in ecology: that of clean water and water scarcity. While ecologists’ main expertise is in providing and maintaining adequate…
A critically endangered northern muriqui in Brazil. Photo by Carla B. Possamai, provided by K.B. Strier A study out today in Biology Letters shows that global warming will likely drive several species of primates closer to extinction by increasing the severity and frequency of El Niño and La Niña events (the El Niño Southern Oscillation, ENSO). Eric Post and graduate…
ESA’s Policy News for Oct. 23, written by ESA’s Policy Analyst Piper Corp, gives an in-depth look at the New York Times opinion piece written by John Kerry and Lindsey Graham meant to aid in the passage of a bipartisan climate bill in the Senate. Read more below, and read the Policy News in its entirety here. A joint New…
On Wednesday, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) sent a letter, signed by 18 scientific organizations including ESA, to each member of the Senate. The letter states the consensus views of the scientific community: that climate change is real, that it is mostly anthropogenic in source and that, if unchecked, it will create major threats to our…
A group called Economics for Equity and the Environment released a report today detailing their predicted costs for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. According to this article in the Washington Post, the cost could be as low as between one and three percent of the country’s GDP each year to reduce the levels of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere to…
An insightful (if decidedly partisan) op-ed by Paul Krugman in Friday’s New York Times focuses on the Waxman-Markey climate change bill that was approved in the House but has stalled – due in no small part due to the debate over health care reform – in the Senate. Krugman points out that there are two kinds of people opposed to…
This post was contributed by ESA’s Director of Public Affairs, Nadine Lymn. Tony Janetos, a panelist at today’s National Academies briefing. Today the National Research Council, a division of the National Academies, released a report that calls for a new biology initiative to tackle some of the nation’s most pressing challenges, including food and energy production, environmental degradation, and human…
ESA is a supporting partner of a really innovative and useful new project by the World Resources Institute: an online directory of scientists whose work relates to ecosystems services. This experts database is meant to be a resource for journalists, policymakers and businesspeople. The free directory enables users to search for experts around the world in a wide range of…
In this week’s Policy News, produced by ESA’s Policy Analyst Piper Corp: climate legislation delayed, acceleration of the process for Endangered Species listing, new Energy and Natural Resources bill in the House and the EU unveils environmental measure of GDP. Read the full Policy News here. Senate delays climate bill, raising questions about Copenhagen. Senate Democrats no longer plan to…
Here’s another one of those examples where the link between scientists and the public can break down, leading to conflicting or erroneous reports. As reported by the Nature blog The Great Beyond, when the Royal Society released a report on climate geoengineering earlier this week, reporters were scratching their heads about the take-home message from the report. The British coverage…
As fires cloak the San Gabriel Mountains in southern California, workers are attempting to carry out controlled burns along the perimeter of the fire. Firefighters battle part of the blaze in Glendale, CA. Photo courtesy Gina Ferazzi for the Los Angeles Times. These burns will reduce the amount of fuel around the current fire so that if the fire reaches…
Well, it’s just been a week full of videos, hasn’t it. For those interested in Sen. Tom Udall’s address to ESA at the recent annual meeting, below is a video of his Regional Policy Award acceptance speech. You can also read the full transcript of the address here.