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14 September 2020
AGU demands NOAA appointment be rescinded
AGU urges revocation of David Legates’ appointment as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Observation and Prediction at NOAA.
9 July 2020
AGU supports international students
Despite the pandemic and health experts predicting the fall will bring an increase in the number of cases, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) announced its new rule on 6 July to require those who are studying in the U.S. on visas (F-1 and M-1) to be enrolled with in-person classes or risk deportation.
19 June 2018
100 Years of AGU: Our Building Legacy
By Janice Lachance, Executive Vice President of Strategic and Operational Excellence Editor’s Note: This blog post was originally shared on AGU’s building blog. While AGU will formally kick off our Centennial in December of this year, we are building excitement this week by sharing information on the many programs Centennial will touch during our 2019 celebration. AGU’s building renovation project is one of those. Our existing headquarters was built in …
8 May 2018
Brethren in Space: Two Geoscientists Aboard the International Space Station
By Michael Mischna, Secretary of the Planetary Sciences section and Deputy Chief Scientist of Solar System Exploration Directorate at JPL Science and discovery are, fundamentally, social activities. They have the greatest impact when conducted in the open with a free exchange of ideas. Even discoveries made in seclusion still need to be shared with the world. Archemides’ buoyant discovery in the privacy of his bathtub may have been the “Eureka” moment, …
23 April 2018
The EPA – Secret Science and Transparency
Today, AGU submitted a letter to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt in which we voiced a number of concerns about upcoming policy changes at the agency related to the transparency and accuracy of scientific information. (Read the full letter here.) Specifically, the letter calls out the problems with a proposed policy mandating that the EPA consider only publicly available scientific data and information when crafting rule-making. These proposed …
A Call to Arms: Geoscientists and Global Health
April 7, 2018 marked the 70th anniversary of World Health Day, and the first week of April was Public Health week in the U.S., which I celebrated with by releasing a report on the impacts of climate change on the present and future health of Hoosiers (i.e., people from the U.S. State of Indiana). From the global to the local, April was a good time to think about health in …
17 April 2018
March ’18 Council Meeting Wrap Up
Annie Tamalavage, a member of AGU’s Council Leadership Team and a graduate student in oceanography at Texas A&M University in Houston, provides a video overview of the AGU Council meeting in March 2018 in which addresses AGU’s upcoming Centennial celebration, the inaugural Voices for Science program, meetings, publications and more. You can get involved in Centennial NOW by telling the story of your science through the AGU Narratives project. In this webinar, learn …
19 March 2018
Lessons from the Tohoku-Oki Earthquake
Seven years ago on 11 March 2011, the magnitude 9.0 Tohoku-Oki earthquake ripped hundreds kilometers of fault northeast of the island of Honshu, spawning a 38-meter-high tsunami that devastated a 1000 km-long stretch of coastline that had been described in the 1700s by Bashō as the most beautiful in all Japan (Ehrlich, 2013). The meltdown of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor further exacerbated what would already have been an …
16 March 2018
AGU Endorses the 2018 March for Science
On 14 April, 2018, for the second time in as many years, the March for Science is occurring in communities across the globe. AGU is proud to again join as a formal sponsor of this worldwide event in support of science, and to offer direct support to AGU groups participating in local marches. Over the last year, our community has spoken out about many of the policies enacted and statements …
7 March 2018
In Celebration of National Groundwater Awareness Week
This week marks the 19thannual National Groundwater Awareness Week, established in 1999 by the non-profit National Groundwater Association to bring public awareness to the water “beneath our feet.” The themes of this year’s awareness are “Tend, Test and Treat,” referencing the need to recognize the value and potential vulnerability of groundwater, the necessity of monitoring groundwater – both its quality and quantity – and finally to use our science and …
1 March 2018
In Celebration of Women’s History Month: The Door is Open
This year, I decided to watch my carbon footprint so instead of driving to our off-the grid cabin for a long weekend, I took a bus. Bus connections are not perfect. So, the next thing I knew, I was standing in a museum looking at portraits of suffragettes and anti-suffragettes. The white dressed suffragettes stared straight at me holding their umbrellas with messages like “Come March with Us” and “Rain …
12 February 2018
President Trump’s Proposed 2019 Budget Would Damage the Scientific Enterprise and the Nation
Today, President Trump unveiled his proposed budget for 2019. Included within this proposal are steep increases in defense spending and infrastructure, much of which comes at the expense of funding for the federal scientific agencies that provide the technical expertise to realize the President’s policy priorities. The NSF would be flat funded, receiving no increase in funding to support their pivotal, basic research 19.63% cuts to NOAA programs including coastal …
International Darwin Day: Back to the Future – The Continued Descent of Humans
Not many ideas in Western culture have generated as much enlightenment and simultaneous division as the concepts Charles Darwin outlined in On The Origin of Species and The Descent of Man. The idea that variation and natural selection drive evolution is the main reason people get flu shots every year or need ramped up antibiotics for recurring infections. Pretty simple stuff really. The division sometimes is revealed during discussions about …
20 January 2018
2018 Government Shutdown: The Second in Five Years
For the second time in five years, congressional and presidential impasses have resulted in a shutdown of the federal government. The repercussions of this shutdown destabilize scientific federal agencies that are essential to the nation’s economic stability, public health, and national security. The far-reaching costs of such a shutdown are very real. For example, in 2017 alone, the United States experienced 16 major weather and climate disaster events, resulting in …
3 January 2018
2017 in Review: A Look at the State of Science Policy and What’s to Come
As 2017 began with a new administration in Washington, D.C., there was evidence that we could expect to face serious challenges to science policy and the scientific enterprise; some have come to pass, and others have not. Throughout this tumultuous year, AGU has played a significant role both in addressing these far-reaching issues and supporting the scientists and allies wanting to use their voices to speak up for science. From …
5 December 2017
Exciting Section and Focus Group News: The American Geophysical Union announces new engagement pilots, simplified naming structure, and new GeoHealth section
As many of you may know, AGU has been working for the past several years to understand how our science structure could be expanded to better enable people to collaborate and connect to others with shared interests and goals. The Affiliation and Engagement Task Force investigated a wide variety of options that might better serve the needs of AGU today, and into the future, before recommending a new model to …
30 November 2017
22 Years of Solar and Heliospheric Observatory
By Bernhard Fleck (ESA SOHO Project Scientist, NASA/GSFC), Joseph Gurman (NASA SOHO Project Scientist, NASA/GSFC), David Sibeck (Past President, AGU Space Physics and Aeronomy Section, NASA/GSFC) The 2nd of December 2017 marks the 22nd launch anniversary of the European Space Agency (ESA) – NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). SOHO is the longest-lived heliophysics mission still operating and has provided a nearly continuous record of solar and heliospheric phenomena over …
16 November 2017
Defending U.S. Government Employed Earth and Space Scientists
Earth and space scientists work in key positions throughout the federal government. As civil servants, atmospheric scientists at NOAA, seismologists at the USGS, and hydrologists at the EPA– and frankly all other agency scientists – work to help fulfill their agencies’ missions and safeguard the health, economy, and security of all Americans. That’s why it’s so troubling to witness measures taken by some agencies to silence or even discredit federal …
14 November 2017
Thoughts from the Geoscience Alliance on National Native American Heritage Month
In November, the United States recognizes the significant contributions the first Americans have made to the establishment and growth of the U.S with National Native American Heritage Month. Writing this as members of the AGU and on behalf of the Geoscience Alliance, a national alliance to promote broadening participation of Native Americans in the geosciences, we wish to call attention of the scientific community to consider not only the past …
17 October 2017
The Great ShakeOut: In the Wake of the Great Fire and Great Flood
By Ross S. Stein, President of the AGU Tectonophysics Section, CEO of Temblor.net, and Adjunct Professor of Geophysics, Stanford University Fire and Rain Over the past week, those of us living in northern California, and perhaps people throughout the arid western U.S., have watched in horror as fires continue to sweep through the wine country, taking lives and livelihoods. As we watch fires burn, we have been asking ourselves “Am …
