News Updates

NASA just postponed the launch of a massive rocket designed to carry humans back to the moon, an endeavor that many observers see as expensive and misguided. Count Amitai Etzioni in this camp. In Issues, he argues that the US government should instead redirect NASA funding for space missions to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to greatly boost study of Earth’s oceans. Exploring deep space, he writes, can be better done with advanced robots. Oceans are nearby, and they hold potential solutions for an array of national concerns, including climate change, energy and mineral needs, food supplies, and hurricane threats.

California now plans to ban sales of new gasoline-fueled cars by 2035. Since many other states often follow California’s lead, a New York Times report says this “groundbreaking move” could accelerate the nation’s transition toward electric vehicles. But as John D. Graham, Keith B. Belton, and Suri Xia write in Issues, US automakers and battery builders are far from ready to meet greatly expanded demand for EVs—and tellingly are far behind Chinese competitors. To help, the authors offer a detailed policy blueprint to strengthen US production of electric vehicles and make buying and driving EVs more appealing to consumers.

The new Inflation Reduction Act, intended in part to combat climate change, includes significant help for the US nuclear energy industry. Among its provisions, the act makes some nuclear power plants eligible for new tax credits and supports R&D on a type of uranium fuel needed for planned next-generation reactors. Still, the nuclear industry faces larger challenges, Jessica Lovering and Suzanne Hobbs Baker argue in Issues. To gain broad public support, the authors write, the industry must significantly change how it operates, embracing “not just new technological pathways, but also a more democratic, inclusive approach to how it does business.”

Spurred by fires threating ancient groves of sequoias in the Sierra Nevada, debate is flaring on the value of using controlled burns to reduce fire dangers in the nation’s forests. In Issues, Jerry F. Franklin and James K. Agee describe a variety of factors, such as forest type and natural fire patterns, that should be considered in deciding when, where, and how controlled burns are appropriate. More broadly, they argue, the nation needs a national fire policy that is based on science and covers every aspect of fire control: managing fuels within forests and landscapes; fire suppression; and, ultimately, salvage and restoration treatments after wildfire.

Africa’s national wildlife parks are threatened by climate change, large infrastructure developments such as oil drilling, and the spread of urban populations. Conservationists are struggling to keep up, the AP reports. In Issues, David Western offers guidance drawn from years of work in African parks and wildlife protection. One key, he writes, is that “past command-and-control conservation has placed itself at odds with the very communities it ultimately depends on for success.” Instead, the focus should shift “from central regulation and enforcement and toward greater emphasis on local collaboration based on fairness, opportunity, and responsibility.”

With long-lasting plastics made from petrochemicals now considered a leading environmental threat, a range of companies are investing heavily in producing “bioplastics” from sustainable and biodegradable natural materials, the AP reports. Students are also joining the action, as Issues recounts. Through the Biodesign Challenge, a nonprofit competition and education program, a student team at the Pratt Institute has developed a way to turn food scraps into ecofriendly plastic casings for electronics products, while another team at the College for Creative Studies has learned to convert various crop wastes into biodegradable packaging for consumer products.

As evidenced by the recent record-breaking rains in eastern Kentucky, many parts of the United States are facing more frequent and more intense downpours fueled in part by climate change, the Washington Post reports. Much of the nation’s infrastructure is increasingly outmatched. In Issues, Thaddeus Miller, Mikhail Chester, and Tischa A. Muñoz-Erickson examine some of the underlying social, ecological, technical, and institutional issues that are setting infrastructure up for failure. And they explore emerging innovations that policymakers, engineers, and managers can tap to design, build, and maintain more resilient infrastructure for the future.