The Energy/Climate Complex
Every issue explores cutting-edge developments in technology, medicine, education, climate change, and much more. Articles provide in-depth analyses of science and technology’s impact on public policy, the economy, and society—bringing today’s best minds to bear on tomorrow’s most critical topics.
Editor's Journal
Washington’s Media Maze
Policy analysis should not be merely an academic exercise. The goal is to inform and influence public policy, and therefore it has to reach the movers and shakers and the decisionmakers. That… Read More
From the Hill
From the Hill – Spring 2011
Obama proposes essentially flat 2012 R&D budget On February 14, the Obama administration proposed a fiscal year (FY) 2012 R&D budget of $147.9 billion, a $772 million or 0.5% increase from FY… Read More
Perspectives
Medical Devices: Lost in Regulation
The implanted medical device industry was founded in the United States and has been a major economic success and the source of numerous life-saving and life-improving technologies. In the 1950s and 1960s,… Read MoreJohn F. Kennedy’s Space Legacy and Its Lessons for Today
Fifty years ago, on May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy, only four months in office, proposed before a joint session of Congress that “this nation should commit itself to achieving the… Read More
Features
Archives – Spring 2011
ROBERT HUFF, Stack Suite #8, Acrylic, oil, pencil, and gold leaf on paper, 29 × 67 inches, 1994. Collection of the National Academy of Sciences. Stack Suite #8 This work by… Read MoreAn Energy Agenda for the New Congress
At the beginning of this new Congress, it is already becoming clear that energy policy will have a major place on the agenda. Part of that is because the president made clear… Read MoreThe Smart Grid: Separating Perception from Reality
There is a widespread expectation in the United States and around the world today that the smart grid is the next big thing, a disruptive technology poised to transform the electric power… Read MoreIs Climate Change a National Security Issue?
Around the planet there is growing momentum to define climate change as a security issue and hence as an agenda-topping problem that deserves significant attention and resources. In December 2010, for example,… Read MoreNew Voices, New Approaches: Drowning in Data
I was at the most undignified moment of moving into my new office—barefoot and on tiptoes on my desk, arranging books on a high shelf—when one of my fellow professors at the… Read MoreEnergy in Three Dimensions
The United States has been unable to develop any coherent energy program that can last past changes in the control of our federal executive or Congress. The latest failure was the Waxman-Markey… Read More
Real Numbers
Why Don’t U.S. Women Live Longer?
Over the past 25 years, female life expectancy at older ages has been rising in the United States at a slower pace than has been achieved in many other high-income countries, such… Read More
Book Reviews
Climate Politics
Energy and innovation were major themes in the 2011 State of the Union Address. Barack Obama called for investment in “clean energy technology” to “create countless new jobs for our people.” The… Read More
Greening the Built Environment
There was a stunted debate in Washington and the country in 2009 about climate change that ended the way many debates do these days: with a hung jury and no action. Yet… Read More