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Public Affairs Office, August-October 19, 2015, ESA Governing Board Report

2016; Ecological Society of America; Volume: 97; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1002/bes2.1204

2327-6096

Alison Mize,

Climate Change Communication and Perception

The Rapid Response Team luncheon speaker, Beth Strommen, director of Baltimore's Office of Sustainability, was very well received by the an audience of over 50, some of whom collaborate with her such as those associated with the Baltimore LTER. The Public Affairs Committee selected Senator Ben Cardin as the Regional Policy Award winner. Rene Cohen accepted the award on his behalf at the Opening Plenary. Terence Houston and Alison Mize convened a policy communications training workshop at the ESA 2015 annual meeting attended by nearly two dozen ESA members. The Public Affairs Committee hosted a Graduate Student Policy Award breakfast bringing former winners together with students interested in applying for 2016. Many past winners voiced the positive impact the award is having on their career path. Mize and Houston attended a Policy Section field trip to Washington DC the last day of the meeting with over 50 people attending. Senator Cardin's office hosted a Capitol tour that included a session with Hill and Congressional Research staffers. Next, the group headed to the Botanical Gardens to hear AAAS fellows talk about their current placements in federal agencies. The day was rounded off with a visit to the AAAS office where a career panel shared insight into policy careers. Mize served at the career panel. Ann Bartuska, ESA President 2002, spoke to the group at an evening reception. Liza Lester promoted the meeting with the media and issued press releases prior to the Annual Meeting. She also staffed the press room for the duration of the meeting with almost 30 journalists and public information officers in attendance. Many journalists use the meeting as fodder for future stories, so there will be articles rolling out in the coming months attributed to the meeting. Annual Meeting photos are posted to Flickr. The social media and Twitter feed, in particular, were lively, with over 10,000 tweets or retweets using the #ESA100 hashtag. There have been a fair number of members who have posted to their blogs about the meeting. President Obama's birthday address to the society has reached 21,667 people on Facebook and been shared 223 times! It was also heavily shared through Twitter, with a boost from some White House staffers. Watch it (or read the transcript) on ESA's Vimeo channel. David Inouye's Nature editorial has also been popular. August 25, “Ecologists embrace their urban side” Daniel Cressey, Nature (print feature) August 25, “Minnesota bog study turns up the heat on peat” Alexandra Witze, Nature (print feature) August 20, “What fairy circles teach us about science” Sarah Zielinski, Science News August 18, “Fourteen percent of U.S. coastline is covered in concrete” Gabriel Popkin, Science Magazine (ScienceShot) August 18, “Frogs mount speedy defence against pesticide threat” Natasha Gilbert, Nature August 14, NSF BIO Assistant Director visits Ecological Society of America Centennial Meeting Jim Olds, National Science Foundation (NSF Blog) August 13, “U.S. candidate to run IPCC says rich nations must help steer the world away from coal” Gayathri Vaidyanathan, ClimateWire August 12, “Light pollution may disrupt firefly sex” Susan Milius, Science News August 12, “Cougars may provide a net benefit to humans” Sarah Zielinski, Science News August 11, “U.S. Public, Republicans Included, Seen Warmer on Climate Action” Alex Nussbaum, Bloomberg (wire story reprinted in Kansas City Star) August 10, “Study: Droughts, heat will kill more forests than expected” KTVZ.com (Central Oregon TV news) August 7, “The next century of ecology” (editorial) David Inouye, Science Magazine Houston and Mize attended a Coalition for National Science Funding meeting with Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee staff concerning the America COMPETES reauthorization. Mize also attended two events: the Arctic Transformation: Understanding Arctic Research and the Vital Role of science, Co-organized by the Senate Arctic Caucus and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and a Seasonal Weather and Forecasting for Agriculture, Energy, and Fisheries Congressional briefing. Houston represented ESA at the 2015 USGS Coalition reception, which honored Reps. Tom Cole (R-OK) and Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR). Mize participated in the Climate Science Working Group meetings. Mize attended the House Science, Space and Technology Subcommittee on Research and Technology, and Subcommittee and Oversight a joint hearing examining the National Science Foundation's (NSF) National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON). She also observed the BIO Advisory Committee meeting held at the National Science Foundation. At both events, the ESA Presidents’ dear colleague letter regarding the NEON descope was mentioned. The ESA Presidents’ letter is posted on the Ecotone blog and was shared on social media sites. Alison Mize designed an ESA poster for Immediate Past-president David Inouye to display at the European Ecological Federation meeting in Rome. ESA cosigned a letter to Senate Appropriations Chairman Thad Cochran and Vice Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski thanking them for their support of federal employee attendance at science conferences as well as a thank you letter to Sens. Brian Schatz (D-HI) and Chris Coons (D-DE) for offering an amendment granting federal agencies increased flexibility in revising federal travel policies. Together with 2,500 national, state, and local organizations, ESA signed a letter to Members of Congress requesting that they work to replace sequestration cuts to nondefense discretionary spending programs with a more balanced approach to deficit reduction. ESA cosigned a letter to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation to offer input on the reauthorization of the America COMPETES Act. Joining with other nonprofit scientific societies as well as publishers, ESA cosigned a letter expressing concern with S. 779, the Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act, which would place new mandates on the release of federally funded research. The letter expresses support for an Office of Science and Technology Policy memorandum that provides federal agencies with more flexibility in carrying out public access policies. Along with a dozen ecological societies, ESA issued a joint statement requesting that the countries meeting at this year's United Nations climate conference in Paris take decisive steps to deter the effects of global climate change. ESA cosigned a letter requesting that the Elementary Secondary and Education Act reauthorization maintain the 21st Century Community Learning Center (21st CCLC) initiative as a separate federal funding stream. Joining 13 other scientific societies, ESA cosigned a letter expressing their appreciation for the introduction of H.Res. 424, a nonbinding resolution that affirms humans are contributing to climate change. The resolution also calls upon the U.S. House of Representatives to take steps to mitigate the environmental impacts of climate change. ESA announced new 2015–2016 President Monica Turner with a press release by Mize and photo posts on Tumblr, Ecotone, Flickr, and other social media. ESA's Science Office published Issues in Ecology No. 19, “Investing in Citizen Science can improve natural resource management and environmental protection.” ESA announced the new report in a press release, written by Lester, timed to coincide with a Sep 30 memorandum from Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) John Holdren to the heads of executive departments and agencies, mandating that all federal agencies build capacity for citizen science within the next 180 days. The memo was released in conjunction with a 4-h Citizen Science Forum webcast live from the White House and OSTP's launch of the Federal Citizen Science and Crowdsourcing Toolkit, in which Issues No. 19 and the Aug 2012 Citizen Science Special Issue of Frontiers are included as resources. Lester's press release for the September issue of ESA Frontiers highlighted research and review articles on reviving extinct Mediterranean forests, urban land-sparing, and ocean noise pollution. Stott et al.'s land-sparing article got plentiful social media attention and stories in Gizmodo, Next City, and Arch Daily, among other web magazines. Nowacek et al.'s call for regulations on marine noise garnered attention from Nature, Scientific American, Pacific Standard and several trade journals. (Both articles received additional publicity from the authors’ home institutions, with cooperation from ESA Public Affairs). Arizona Public Media did a radio story on “forests worldwide vulnerable to drought,” addressing Craig et al.'s centennial paper in Ecosphere. Science Magazine mentioned a letter in support of NEON from 16 ESA Presidents in a feature story on NEON's recent troubles, “NEON: Ecology's megaproblem.” Lana Straub cited a 2012 ESA Frontiers review in an article for Earth Island Journal, “After the Frack: Hydraulic Fracturing's Intense Thirst.” A popular Shark Week story from Ferretti et al. in ESA Frontiers grabbed some follow-up attention with a nice story in Surfing Magazine. The Ferretti article is becoming a go-to backgrounder for news stories on shark bite. Science writer Gabe Popkin's feature story “A twisted path to equation-free prediction,” which originated in discussion with George Sugihara's students at the Annual Meeting in Baltimore appeared in Quanta Magazine on October 13. Lester provided experts for a Smithsonian Magazine story on “The race to save the world's great trees by cloning them,” by Alison Gillespie. Frank Davis (Vice President, University of California, Santa Barbara), Bruce Byers (Bruce Byers Consulting), Alexis Erwin, (Environmental Advisor, USAID Bureau for Africa), Sarah Anderson (student co-rep, Washington State University), and Kellen Marshall (student co-rep, University of Illinois). Scott Collins (Vice President, University of New Mexico), Faith Kerns (California Institute of water Resources), and Paul Ringold (Environmental Protection Agency) concluded their terms on the committee in August. Alison Mize (Director of Public Affairs), Terence Houston (Science Policy Analyst), and Liza Lester (Communications Officer).