Obama’s Research Challenge
Obama wants to invest in science and technology, but a divided Congress and looming budget cuts could make it difficult to keep his promises.
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With Economy Trumping Emissions, Obama Plans Climate Education Push
From Andrew Revkin’s Dot Earth blog at the New York Times: President Obama’s first long discussion of human-driven global warming in recent memory came near the end of a recent news conference. The president actually said quite a bit. Among other things, he offered a sobering reality check in the face of a big, and…
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Goals for Science in the Post-2015 Development Agenda
The UN Secretary-General’s high-level panel on life after the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) — the Post-2015 Development Agenda — held its second meeting in London at the beginning of November. It’s a reminder that the time has come for all of us to plan our futures in line with the proposed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),…
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BP to Plead Guilty to Felonies in Deepwater Horizon Spill
BP PLC has agreed to plead guilty to felony charges and pay $4.5 billion in penalties, including $1.26 billion in criminal fines, stemming from the Deepwater Horizon disaster that killed 11 workers in 2010 and unleashed the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history. The energy company will plead guilty to 11 felony counts of…
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Al Gore Calls on Barack Obama to ‘Act Boldly’ on Climate Change
Former vice-president and climate champion urges re-elected president to immediately begin pushing for a carbon tax
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Bill McKibben Proposes Fossil Energy Divestment Drive
The highly influential environment activist Bill McKibben is proposing a fossil energy divestment campaign, on the model of the international anti-apartheid dis-investment campaign that successfully brought pressure on South Africa’s white-only regime. McKibben was among the organizers who brought the planned Keystone pipeline to a standstill last year, and he has been the leading figure…
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A Match Made in Cyberspace: How Networks Nurture Science
With the growth of online science networks, geography and economics no longer dictate how research is undertaken or published. Just as matchmaking sites connect romance-seekers based on their relationship compatibility, new academic social networks are connecting scientists based on their professional research interests. These sites obviously lack the general appeal of Facebook, which topped one…
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Does Big Money Equal Better Science?
The search for the Higgs boson using the Large Hadron Collider at Cern has taken years of research and cost billions. It is a prime example of big money being spent on fundamental research into scientific principles, that critics say provides no answers to the problems the world faces today. In these austere times and…
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Obama Will Start 2nd Term With Unfinished Climate Business
President Obama has some unfinished business to attend to, and taking care of it will require help and support from corporate leaders across the country. When he ran for president in 2008, Obama made three big promises: end the Iraq War, extend health care coverage to all Americans, and take federal action to reduce the…
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Shaping the Future for Food Security
Climate change, population growth and competing demands for land and resources are putting great pressure on the world’s food systems. Smallholder farmers in the developing world, who produce much of the food for the poorest people, are threatened by devastating droughts and floods, food price spikes, and persistent poverty. Scientific advances have greatly alleviated hunger…