94 Items

embers light up a hillside behind the Bidwell Bar Bridge as the Bear Fire burns in Oroville, Calif.

AP/Noah Berger, File

Analysis & Opinions - Scientific American

The Next Administration Must Get Science and Technology Policy Right

    Authors:
  • Susan Eisenhower
  • Wanda Austin
  • Ryan Costello
  • Margaret Hamburg
  • Eric Lander
  • Arati Prabhakar
  • Kathy Sullivan
  • Deborah Wince-Smith
| Sep. 22, 2020

John P. Holdren and coauthors argue that the next presidential administration must renew its commitment to investing in science and technology regardless of who wins in November. The United States is facing a great host of challenges that underscore the urgent need for renewed investment in the science and technology enterprise and the rapid application of new scientific knowledge and advanced technology to solve complex problems.

man wearing a shirt promoting TikTok

AP/Ng Han Guan

Analysis & Opinions - Project Syndicate

The Other Global Power Shift

| Aug. 06, 2020

Joseph Nye writes that the world is increasingly obsessed with the ongoing power struggle between the United States and China. But the technology-driven shift of power away from states to transnational actors and global forces brings a new and unfamiliar complexity to global affairs.

Fever check table

Wikimedia CC/.Bonnielou2013

Analysis & Opinions - Foreign Policy

How the Coronavirus Pandemic Will Permanently Expand Government Powers

    Authors:
  • James Crabtree
  • Robert D. Kaplan
  • Robert Muggah
  • Kumi Naidoo
  • Shannon K. O'Neil
  • Adam Posen
  • Kenneth Roth
  • Alexandra Wrage
| May 16, 2020

Stephen Walt and Bruce Schneier are two of the ten leading global thinkers that Foreign Policy invited to each give their take on an expansion of government powers as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

Analysis & Opinions - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

The Postponement of the NPT Review Conference. Antagonisms, Conflicts and Nuclear Risks after the Pandemic

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has published a document from the Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs concerning nuclear problems and tensions in the time of COVID-19. The document has been co-signed by a large number of Pugwash colleagues and personalities.

Antwerp, Belgium Industrial Plant

AP Photo/Virginia Mayo

Analysis & Opinions

The Sunset of an Industrial Plant and the Global Decommissioning Challenge

| Sep. 24, 2019

After many years of productive service, industrial plants reach the end of their useful life and must be dismantled. This complex and costly process, know as decommissioning (commissioning refers to the beginning of a plant useful life), is a confluence of economic, environmental, physical, and regulatory challenges.

new MBTA Orange Line car produced by CRRC

Wikimedia CC/Edward Order

Analysis & Opinions - CNN

The Real Threat from China Isn't 'Spy Trains'

| Sep. 21, 2019

Bruce Schneier  explains that there is no escaping the technology of inevitable surveillance. Consumers have little choice but to rely on the companies that build their computers and write their software, whether in  smartphones,  5G wireless infrastructure, or subway cars.  China is more likely to try to get data from the U.S. communications infrastructure like the United States does rather than try to produce a subway car outfitted with surveillance apparatus.

A worker refurbishes a lamp post in Beijing blanketed by heavy smog

AP

Analysis & Opinions - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Ideology Trumps Science

| Mar. 31, 2017

"President Donald Trump's executive actions of earlier this week, which attempt to undermine progress made under President Barack Obama to combat the menace of human-caused climate change, are yet another example of the new administration's propensity to let blind ideology "trump" clear-eyed science and good sense."

Copies of Trump's budget

AP

Analysis & Opinions - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Comment on Trump Budget Numbers Released Thursday, March 16, 2017

| Mar. 16, 2017

If this budget or anything close to it were enacted into law, the result would be a severe setback for international relations and America's standing in the world; for clean air and water for Americans: for progress in conquering cancer, influenza, and Alzheimer's; for the fight against human-caused climate change; for U.S. leadership in science and technology; for culture and the arts; and, yes, for American business, which depends on government services far more heavily than is generally recognized.  It can only be hoped that this misguided budget will be resoundingly rejected by Congress on a bipartisan basis.

John P. Holdren, Ph.D.

Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy, Harvard Kennedy School of Government

Senior Advisor to the President, The Woods Hole Research Center

Formerly President Obama’s Science Advisor and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (January 2009 – January 2017)

Wheat Plantation in northern Sudan, 26 November 2014.

Creative Commons

Analysis & Opinions - Breakthrough

Revolution in Africa

| December 16, 2016

"Sustaining African agricultural transformation will require national policy approaches which emphasize the need to transition toward sustainable agriculture. More specifically, they will need to pursue strategies that allow for the integration of precision agriculture in existing farming methods. Such policies could focus on six key elements: biological diversity; ecology and emerging technologies; infrastructure; research and training; entrepreneurship and regional trade; and improved governance of agricultural innovation."

President Barack Obama gets direction from his science advisor John P. Holdren during an event on the South Lawn of the White House to explore the stars with middle school students.

Reuters

- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center Newsletter

Spotlight on John P. Holdren

| Fall/Winter 2016-2017

As assistant to the president for science and technology, director of the White House Office for Science and Technology Policy, and co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), Holdren has worked closely with Obama to reinvigorate America’s scientific capabilities on a range of policy fronts, from climate change and renewable energy to health care and nanotechnology.