Photonics for a Better World

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has issued a bold call for action related to climate change . With the publication of a report on the subject entitled “What We Know,” the organization delivers an assessment of current climate science and impacts that emphasizes the need to understand and recognize possible high-risk scenarios. But the organization ups the ante. CEO Alan Leshner, in a letter to members 14 May, says that it’s not enough to simply issue another report. Leshner’s letter says it’s time to “change the conversation from whether the earth is warming to just how we are going to work together to alter the course our planet is on.” He calls on scientists to work together to alert the United States and the world to “severe outcomes that could occur through inaction or continued resistance to change.” The report cites polls in which a large minority of Americans still think there is significant disagreement among scientists about whether glob...

In the face of recent comments by lawmakers and others in the public eye suggesting that accepting scientific evidence is akin to the decision to believe in a particular religion or political dogma, NPR commentator Adam Frank has suggested a clarifying solution. Congress, he said in a Cosmos & Culture post on 11 December , should consider making a pledge to science -- not to wholesale acceptance of all published research, but simply to “uphold the integrity of basic scientific research and take no actions to undermine the broadest public education in empirically verifiable scientific truths."  Volunteers from SPIE are among hundreds of scientists and engineers who visit Congressional offices every year to stress the contributions of STEM research to society and the economy. His underlying point that science and technology are “the engines of our economic competitiveness” echoes the words of leaders of 120 science, engineering, and STEM education organizat...

Two polar bears on an iceberg. ©Eric Lefranc/Solent After droughts, floods, and a “superstorm” this year, people everywhere are talking about the weather. Some people taking the long-term view are urging us all to not only talk but to think much more deeply -- and even to do something -- about climate change.  "Something extraordinary is going on in the world,” noted New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof as Hurricane Sandy began to dissipate. In a column headlined, “ Will climate get some respect now? ” Kristof recalled the amazement of Eskimos in Alaska toward the changes they were seeing: "from melting permafrost to robins (for which their Inupiat language has no word), and even a (shivering) porcupine." Across the Atlantic, Fiona Harvey wrote last week in The Guardian under the headline “ Climate change 'likely to be more severe than some models predict' ” that the latest climate models predict higher temperature rises along with m...