Harvard Society of Scientists Blog

The MIT Science Policy Initiative is arguably the most active
student-run science policy group in the Cambridge area. They run a
science policy boot camp, take trips to DC and work with other groups
in the area. Their email list is a must for keeping up with
internships, speaking events, and other opportunities. Sign up at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/sciencepolicy

http://web.mit.edu/spi/

Money In Medicine: Sin or Salvation?

Thursday, 4 March 2010 04:30 PM

Location: Starr Auditorium, Kennedy School

Thomas Stossel is the American Cancer Society Professor of Medicine at
Harvard Medical School. He will speak as part of the Harvard Center
for Ethics public lecture series.

http://www.ethics.harvard.edu/news-and-events/lectures-and-events

Resource of the Week:
Woods Institute Energy Seminar
http://woods.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/seminars.php?eventid=energy

The Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford hosts a world-class energy seminar that is freely available online. Speakers come from industry, government and academia to discuss all aspects of today’s energy landscape from carbon sequestration, to smart grid technologies. By now it is common knowledge that there is no silver bullet for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and getting off fossil fuels. Therefore, it is all the more important to be well informed about the many disparate technologies that must compose any successful energy policy. The Woods Institute Energy Seminar provides the in-depth information on energy technologies that is hard to come by elsewhere.  The seminar is available on YouTube or download it to your iPod via iTunes for your next plane ride.

YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=4EA1B67388976538

In particular, see this National Geographic video and corresponding Woods Energy Seminar on  Solar Thermal Power plants:
http://www.tsugino.com/talks.html
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=4EA1B67388976538

Running Out of Water: What’s the Problem, What’s the Solution?
Tuesday, November 3, 2009, 4:00p–6:00pm.
E51, Wong Auditorium, MIT

A flurry of recent press coverage has highlighted how access to clean water is  rapidly becoming a serious problem both in the developing world and in the American West. See for example this NY Times Magazine article, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/magazine/21water-t.html The Catherine N. Stratton Critical Issues Lecture brings together four MIT and Harvard professors who have worked on water issues around the world from the vantage of different disciplines. Expect a lively discussion.

http://events.mit.edu/event.html?id=11596379&date=2009/10/07

The World After Iraq and Afghanistan

Tuesday,  November 3, 2009, 4:30-6:00 p.m
Gundle Family Classroom, Littauer 230, Harvard Kennedy School.

Robert Kaplan is a fellow at the Center for a New American Security and the foreign correspondent for The Atlantic magazine.  If you don’t read the Atlantic you should. The Atlantic offers thoughtful and thorough articles about current events that provide more perspective than your typical media source. Robert Kaplan has been reporting for the Atlantic for over two decades and he has worked on assignment in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, and the United States. He has also written books on the Balkans, Asia and, most recently, on the American military in Iraq and Afghanistan.

http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/events/4156/world_after_iraq_and_afghanistan_with_robert_kaplan.html

In this segment we will highlight a different science or policy resource each week– starting with the blog ScienceInsider. The folks that brought you the journal Science have recently created a new science policy blog called ScienceInsider. Like most blogs, ScienceInsider is updated daily with short stories and lots of links. But unlike most blogs, ScienceInsider is well written by a professional staff and offers the same quality you would expect from Science magazine.  ScienceInsider is the place to go for short updates of general science policy interest.

http://blogs.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/

Free; REGISTRATION BY OCTOBER 23 REQUIRED

http://www.ucsusa.org/about/40th-anniversary-symposium.html

Lunch Provided

Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry Mario Molina joins former U.S.
Congressman John Porter and others at the UCS 40th Anniversary
Symposium exploring the civic responsibility of scientists. This free
day-long symposium  includes sessions on climate change, the future of
organic and sustainable agriculture, nuclear weapons and missile
defense.

In particular, “The Future of US Nuclear Weapons” session features two
outstanding nuclear weapons experts: geophysicist Raymond Jeanloz of
Berkeley and policy-expert Jeffrey Lewis of  New America Foundation.
Jeanloz is active at coordinating international arms control efforts
through the National Academy of Sciences and Jeffrey Lewis was
formerly director of the Managing the Atom Project at Harvard and runs
the highly recommended www.ArmsControlWonk.com blog.

Be sure to RSVP.

Besides general agreement on the need for both mitigation and adaptation in response to global warming, a more controversial approach has migrated from the science-fiction fringe into the main stream of public, political and scientific discussion. Climate engineering—intentionally manipulating Earth’s climate—is gaining currency as concerns over the implications of anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions mount. Many have come to see some form of engineered intervention as inevitable, if only to avert immediate climate catastrophe. But many others worry that such schemes simply divert attention from the pressing need to mitigate and adapt, by drastically reducing GHG emissions and planning for an uncertain climate future.
The desire to manipulate weather and climate is as old as humanity itself. New is the consensus realization that our very success as a technological species means that we do impact global climate, effectively engineering it by accident. Why then shouldn’t we choose to pursue this role with explicit intent—whether by removing GHGs from the atmosphere, limiting the net effect of solar heating, or both? The symposium will target this issue with a critical eye. Do we in fact possess the technological capability and scientific understanding to manipulate Earth’s climate with desirable or even foreseeable results? And what are the global political, social, legal and ethical implications of even trying?
Please join our acclaimed panel of expert scientists and thinkers for an invigorating day of rigorous discourse on a topic of pressing global importance.

Registration required:
http://web.mit.edu/esi/symposium2009.html

Description Six different Boston-based performers of international music and dance will join together to draw attention to the global climate crisis.

Featured artists include: Balkan and European music by members of the internationally acclaimed ensemble Libana; contemporary Indian classical dance with the Aparna Sindhoor Dance Theater; Japanese classical music for koto and shakuhachi with Ayakano Cathleen Read & Elizabeth Reian Bennett; Hindustani classical music with Warren Senders and The Raga Ensemble; middle-Eastern music with Beth Bahia Cohen, and traditional drumming and dance of Ghana with the Agbekor Drum and Dance Society.

Tickets are $20; $15 students/seniors. All proceeds will go to the environmental organization www.350.org.
Contact phone: 781-396-0734
http://www.350.org/it/node/3885

A regional tongue-in-cheek creative event
Gather en masse in downtown Boston’s Christopher Columbus Park, on the waterfront (Aquarium T stop) to participate in positive attention-getting and imagination-catching activities. The focus will be on the iconic image of sea level rise to draw attention to the threat of global climate change.

Travel from community events to the downtown location will be an important part of the day. Costumes, floats and theatrical events will draw attention to 350 and increase attendance. Participants in many morning 350 events will make their way independently (by foot, T, bicycle, roller-blades, canoe, and decorated vehicles) to downtown Boston.

http://www.350.org/fr/node/5998