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Three Reasons why The Pentagon Must Address Climate Change as a National Security Threat

Shana Udvardy, Climate Resilience Analyst

December 5, 2019 9:38 AM EDT

This morning, Pentagon officials will testify during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on “Strategic Threats, Ongoing Challenges, and National Defense Strategy Implementation.” It has been reported that the hearing will likely focus on how the current Pentagon officials are Implementing the National Defense Strategy, a policy document that is a clear departure from previous administrations in many ways, not least in its omission of climate change as a national security threat. Read more >

EPA Science Advisors Fail to Reach Consensus on Particulate Pollution Standards

Gretchen Goldman, Research Director, Center for Science and Democracy

December 5, 2019 9:01 AM EDT

This week I’m at the EPA Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) meeting in North Carolina and an expected but disappointing outcome has just occurred: The committee has failed to reach consensus recommendations for the EPA head on the particulate matter (PM) standards, thus putting the nail in the coffin on any hope of official and robust scientific advice reaching the Administrator’s desk. This is unprecedented. It is a big deal for EPA, for the courts, and for the nation’s health. Read more >

Mike Olliver

Expanding Professional Development Opportunities for Scientists Beyond the Lab

Lida Beninson, Senior Program Officer, and Tess Doezema, Doctoral Candidate in the Human and Social Dimensions of Science and Technology UCS Science Network, UCS

December 4, 2019 11:02 AM EDT

We live in an age where the world and its population seem fragile and vulnerable, yet at the same time, full of radical potential. Millions of people face life-threatening opioid addiction, the global climate continues to worsen, voting infrastructure has been compromised, and the security of our health and financial data has been undermined. On the plus side, alternative energy technologies are becoming cheaper and more widely adopted, our understanding of gravitational waves is unfolding, quantum computing is becoming a reality, and nearly every country in the world has agreed to achieve a set of ambitious sustainability goals. A thread connecting all of these issues, good and bad, is science policy. Read more >

Mike Olliver

KTRK via AP

Communities Face Harm When the EPA Dismantles Chemical Safety Protections

Anita Desikan, Research Analyst

December 4, 2019 9:59 AM EDT

If chemical facilities are regularly catching on fire or exploding in your neighborhood – like the recent TPC Group plant chemical fire near Houston that dangerously blazed during the Thanksgiving holiday – you would want the government to do something about it. You would want to know what is going on in these facilities. You would want to know what actions are being taken to prevent another catastrophe. And you would want to know that the lives of you, your family, friends and neighbors are being protected by the government through science-based rules and regulations.

[ Blog ] Union of Concerned Scientists

Three Reasons why The Pentagon Must Address Climate Change as a National Security Threat