In his last state of the union address, President Bush glossed over the seriousness of some of the most pressing problems facing our country, and suggested they could be solved with something that’s been in short supply during his tenure. “Global climate change” got one brief mention, as something that the nation is committed to confronting with cleaner […]

Earlier this month, I wrote in Restoring FOIA about recently passed amendments to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) which were signed into law by President Bush on Dec. 31, 2007.  Supporters of the OPEN Government Act, including the Society for Environmental Journalists (SEJ), are hoping that these new FOIA requirements will bring easier and speedier access […]

Yesterday, the American Association for the Advancement of Science – the world’s largest general scientific society – announced its co-sponsorship of the Science Debate 2008 campaign (which we at The Pump Handle support, and blogged about here). In light of recent economic events, the press release announcing AAAS’s co-sponsorship focused on the link between science […]

Remember Julie MacDonald, the Department of Interior appointee with industry connections but no biology degree, who altered scientific field reports to minimize protections for endangered species? There are plenty of wildlife scientists who haven’t forgotten about her or about the larger problem of the Bush administration meddling with environmental science, and two dozen of them […]

by Susan F. Wood, PhD  We are excited to be starting up a new research project here at the Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy: Scientists in Government: An Examination of their Rights and Responsibilities in Civil Society.  The goal of this initiative is to provoke and shape the public discussion about the rights and responsibilities of […]

Tomorrow’s Science Friday radio program will feature a segment on the Science Debate 2008 campaign, which calls for the presidential candidates to devote a debate to science-related issues. You can listen live online from 2 – 4pm Eastern time, or check your local NPR station’s listings to see when the show airs. Here’s what we […]

Over at AlterNet, Grist’s David Roberts and Lisa Hymas have compiled a list of the top 15 environmental stories of 2007. Climate change is the dominant theme, with scientists and Al Gore sounding the alarm and politicians responding (not necessarily in a productive way — see the ethanol item). The list also includes stories we’ve […]

The Pump Handle will be on hiatus for the remainder of the year. We wish all of our readers and friends a healthy, peaceful 2008.

Susan Wood (see her past Pump Handle posts here) has an op-ed in today’s Boston Globe: “A public health system defeated at the hands of ideology.” She focuses on the Bush administration’s “failure to staff important health-related positions with qualified individuals willing to provide science-based advice” — a problem that’s particularly glaring when it comes to […]

By David Michaels, Susan Wood, and Liz Borkowski We’ve joined with our fellow scientists and citizens to call for presidential candidates to devote a debate to an issue we haven’t heard enough about in campaign appearances so far: science. The “Science Debate 2008” campaign is a nonpartisan effort that states: Given the many urgent scientific […]