Science holds the greatest benefit for society when its process is open, its methods are transparent, and its outputs are accessible. The U.S. government has stepped up over the past decade to help make research accessible to the public with minimal cost or delay, but the scientific enterprise faces new challenges that call for a fresh and ambitious set of open science policy proposals. For example, scientific professions remain closed off to many important and unique voices and contributions, a rapidly growing literature is putting understanding out of reach, and misaligned incentives continue to slow key fields.
While some reforms remain in the hands of individual scientists and institutions, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has declared 2023 as the Year of Open Science and reaffirmed that federal science agencies have a vital role to play in promoting innovative and inclusive open science policy. To meet this moment, the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) is partnering with the Center for Open Science and the Wilson Center to source ideas that can chart a course for the next decade of U.S. government action. To achieve and sustain a scientific enterprise that is truly open, we need your help.
What We’re Looking For
Ideas for federal open science policy that are innovative, specific, and feasible. While there is much work to be done outside of government, we are looking specifically for federal initiatives or policies, rather than those targeted towards universities or private scientific institutions. Your proposals can target one of our primary focus areas below, or can cover another topic within a broad conception of open science.
- Enhancing the transparency, accessibility, reproducibility, and rigor of scientific research
- Building a more inclusive and diverse scientific enterprise
- Facilitating participation and co-creation between scientists and society
- Encouraging non-traditional scientific contributions and career paths
- Enabling clear, rigorous, and up-to-date communication of knowledge
- Supporting the development and sustainability of open source innovations
How It Works
- You submit an idea on our website by October 23 that matches one or more of the focus areas above or makes a short case for its relevance. Submissions should include a clear plan of action in their policy recommendations.
- Authors with promising ideas will be invited to work with our team to develop their ideas into policy recommendations, to be published as part of an Open Science Policy package.
- A selection of authors will get the chance to present their proposals to open science leaders and decision makers in person at a Winter 2023 / Spring 2024 convening.
Ultimately, FAS will synthesize recommendations with contributors and collaboratively provide inputs to the policy leaders working with and within the White House, Congress, and federal agencies on promoting open science innovation and inclusion.
Have more questions? Check out the FAQ at the bottom of our website or get in touch with our team at fas@fas.org.
Day: September 29, 2023
Experts identify best practices for negotiating and drafting community benefits agreements
From the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law:
Today, the Sabin Center has published a best practices guide for negotiating and drafting Community Benefits Agreements (CBAs), as well as a database of 50 example CBAs from climate-related projects and other types of infrastructure.
For background, CBAs are legally binding contracts between developers and host municipalities or community groups that aim to mitigate the local impacts of large projects. These agreements can provide substantial benefits to, and avoid significant harm to, local communities as well as developers. A typical CBA provides local communities with a combination of monetary benefits (e.g., direct payments) and non-monetary benefits (e.g., environmental stewardship commitments), in exchange for increased community support and increased certainty in the approval process, thus avoiding protracted opposition.
In the new best practices guide, Expert Insights on Best Practices for Community Benefits Agreements, the Sabin Center outlines 35 recommendations for developers and host communities when negotiating and drafting CBAs. These recommendations are the product of extensive interviews with a panel of lawyers and other experts from across the United States who have collectively negotiated dozens of CBAs and similar agreements. Thus, they reflect lessons learned through experience. While the guide specifically aims to assist developers and host communities who are negotiating CBAs in the context of direct air capture hubs and carbon-dioxide pipelines in the United States, the recommendations should be applicable to other types of climate infrastructure, too.
The guide’s 35 recommendations are divided into three categories: (A) best practices for developers negotiating CBAs; (B) best practices for host communities negotiating CBAs; and (C) best practices for drafting CBAs, as well as key terms to include in CBAs. The last section of the guide cites examples from the Sabin Center’s new CBA database as models for certain types of provisions. If you have examples of additional CBAs that can be added to the database, please contact Matthew Eisenson at matthew.eisenson@law.columbia.edu.
In Shawnee National Forest, a debate swirls around how to best protect trees amid climate change and wildfires
Read the full story in the Chicago Tribune.
The Shawnee National Forest in southern Illinois is a mosaic of towering trees, lush wetlands and commanding rock formations that are the native habitat for a wealth of plants and animals, including 19 species of oaks.
The forest is also a microcosm of an emergent national debate about how North America should manage public lands as wildfires burn through Canada, Hawaii and Louisiana. Climate change is catalyzing extreme weather events and drying ecosystems, making forests increasingly vulnerable.
“It’s impossible to take our hands all the way off. We’ve caused this climate change. We’ve introduced invasive species. We’ve put out historic wildfires. We’ve carved up the forest with roads. So, our influence on our forests is inescapable now,” said Chris Evans, a forest research specialist at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
But the U.S. Forest Service and environmentalists have opposing philosophies about how to tend to the Shawnee and other forests in the face of the climate crisis.
Michigan Legislature tackles ambitious climate legislation. How far will it go?
Read the full story at Great Lakes Now.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer released the MI Healthy Climate Plan last year. Now the state legislature is trying to take those goals and turn them into law.
Lawmakers are going for extensive changes. Both the Senate and the House are exploring climate packages that include setting a carbon-free energy standard, reducing energy waste, and directing the state Public Service Commission to prioritize certain goals when overseeing utilities, like clean energy, reliability and affordability.
There are also attempts to increase access to solar power and expand electric vehicle charging stations, among other things. But how far supporters will get is still up in the air, especially given that Michigan has struggled to create a unified climate policy over the years.
50 climate leaders driving fresh solutions to our planet’s biggest problems
Read the full story at Grist.
The 2023 Grist 50 Fixers are driving change in policy, in fashion, in tech, and in our food systems. They’re creating climate-centric comedy and music. They’re accelerating the clean energy transition. They’re leading — and winning — David-and-Goliath-esque battles against big industry. And none of them are going it alone. Collectively, their work shows what a vibrant, diverse climate movement looks like, and how everyone has a place in it. These are just tiny glimpses into their stories.
Why the United States undercounts climate-driven deaths
Read the full story at Grist.
Every week between May and October, the Maricopa County Department of Public Health in Arizona releases a heat morbidity report. The most recent report said that 180 people have succumbed to heat-associated illness in the county this year so far. But everyone agrees that number is off.
If previous years are any indication, the true number of heat-related deaths in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, is much higher: At the end of last summer, the county revised its initial reports upwards by a factor of five, ultimately reporting a sobering 425 heat-related deaths in total.
This lag plagues not just heat-related mortality reporting, but climate-related death data in general. It’s hard to get a full picture of the true number of mortalities connected to a given disaster in real-time. The full death toll often isn’t revealed until weeks, months, even years after the event occurs. And an unknown fraction of deaths often slide by undetected, never making it onto local and federal mortality spreadsheets at all. For example, a recent retrospective study found the number of people who died from exposure to hurricanes and tropical cyclones in the U.S. in the years between 1988 to 2019 was 13 times higher than the federal government’s official estimates.
That study and others like it indicate that the U.S. is gravely underestimating the health impacts of climate change. “The system of death surveillance wasn’t designed for a climate-changed world,” said Robbie Parks, who coauthored the study on hurricane-related mortalities and works as a researcher at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.
Cool pavement covers this LA neighborhood. Does it make a difference?
Read the full story at Smart Cities Dive.
The first community-wide cool pavement experiment is unfolding in the north Los Angeles neighborhood of Pacoima — and preliminary results are promising, according to the city and its partners on the project.
What’s the most sustainable way to mine the largest known lithium deposit in the world?
Read the full story at Popular Science.
At first glance, the McDermitt Caldera might feel like the edge of the Earth. This oblong maze of rocky vales straddles the arid Nevada-Oregon borderlands, in one of the least densely populated parts of North America.
But the future of the modern world depends on the future of places like the McDermitt Caldera, which has the potential to be the largest known source of lithium on the planet. Where today’s world runs on hydrocarbons, tomorrow’s may very well rely on the element for an expanding offering of lithium-ion batteries. The flaky silver metal is a necessity for these batteries that we already use, and which we’ll likely use in far greater numbers to support mobile phones, electric cars, and large electric grids.
Which is why it matters a ton where we get our lithium from. A new study, published in the journal Science Advancestoday, suggests that McDermitt Caldera contains even more lithium than previously thought and outlines how the yet-to-be-discovered stores could be extracted. But these results are unlikely to ease the criticisms about the environmental costs of mining the substance.
Giving old plastics new life
Read the full story from Northwestern University.
Polyurethane plastics are ubiquitous, used everywhere from mattresses to shoes. But once these products are no longer wanted, these materials litter landfills and oceans across the world.
Now, a group of researchers at Northwestern University has developed a new recycling method for polyurethane foams, one of the most common types of plastic, that uses nontoxic, greener catalysts, as described in a paper published Aug. 27 in the journal Macromolecules.
Cities are depaving for a cooler future
Read the full story from Nexus Media News.
Asphalt contributes to the urban heat island effect and makes places more prone to flooding. Planners are rethinking its place in cities.
New test chamber created to find better ways to keep people cool
Read the full story from Washington State University.
A shipping container that can test passive cooling systems could help researchers and builders find carbon-free ways to keep people cool in extreme temperatures. Researchers created the 60 square-foot chamber to test passive systems that use wind towers along with water evaporation instead of electricity to cool spaces.
New platform could boost development of carbon-capturing batteries
Read the full story from the University of Surrey.
Efficient and cheap batteries that can also capture harmful emissions could be right around the corner, thanks to a new system that speeds up the development of catalysts for lithium-CO2 (Li-CO2) batteries.
New federal money is the start of an effort to make Great Lakes coasts more resilient
Read the full story at Bridge Michigan.
The Great Lakes region is getting about $2.8 million for coastal conservation, restoration of wetlands, and making the coastline more resilient to the changes caused by climate disruption.
Northeast Recycling Council Fall 2023 Conference: A Resourceful Future for Sustainable Materials Management
November 1–2 | Hotel Providence | Providence, Rhode Island
More information and to register
The Fall 2023 Conference will convene individuals across the material management value chain to discuss innovative strategies for sustainable materials management, foster collaboration among stakeholders, and promote circular economy practices.
View the agenda and register on the conference website.
Opportunity for chemicals and fuels from carbon dioxide: Researchers assess roadblocks for industrial deployment of CO2 electrolysis
Read the full story from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Zero-emission energy systems have a gigaton-sized challenge: Waste carbon dioxide (CO2) will continue to flow into the atmosphere as long as steel, cement, and chemical plants exist. These and related industries are hard to decarbonize, but with upcoming technologies, waste CO2 could potentially be captured and converted into petrochemical products and fuels. In a perspective published in Joule titled Barriers and opportunities for the deployment of CO2 electrolysis in net-zero emissions energy systems, the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and collaborating authors holistically review the status of CO2 electrolysis technology and its potential to reduce carbon emissions in future energy systems.
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