CENTER NEWS

Roger Pielke, Jr. Joins FiveThirtyEight

Center director Roger Pielke, Jr. joined ESPN’s FiveThirtyEight as a contributor writer where he writes about science, innovation and politics as well as sports governance. His articles include Disasters Cost More than Ever—But Not Because of Climate Change, When Picking a Bracket, It’s Easier to Be Accurate Than Skillful, and There’s Income Inequality in Golf, Too.

Center News

Roger Pielke, Jr. Featured on NBC’s News Special, Ann Curry Reports: Our Year of Extremes: Did Climate Change Just Hit Home?

Roger was featured in an NBC news special about extreme weather and climate change. View video here.

Center News

Roger Pielke, Jr. Discusses Whether Climate Change is Causing Extreme Weather on Colorado Public Radio

Colorado Matters host Ryan Warner discussed climate change and extreme weather events with CIRES’ Roger Pielke Jr. and NCAR’s Kevin Trenberth. Excerpt: “After big weather events, the question that often comes up is: “Is climate change responsible for this?” That question has popped up a lot in Colorado recently given massive floods and fires over the past year. In September 2013, devastating floods hit the Front Range and, less than a year ago, the Black Forest wildfire wiped out more than 500 homes near Colorado Springs. Colorado hasn’t been alone in its extreme weather misery: Hurricane Sandy ravaged the East Coast in 2012, blizzards and snowstorms tortured the Northeast in 2013 and the current severe drought in California means ski resorts haven’t opened and ranchers are selling off their herds. Are all these events just Mother Nature cycling through her natural mood swings? Or is it, as some scientists suggest, that the human influence on our climate is causing these weather catastrophes?" Read more and listen to audio here.

Center News

New Pilot Episode for Inside the Greenhouse

Max Boykoff’s collaborative project with Beth Osnes and Rebecca Safran at the University of Colorado, Inside the Greenhouse, has produced a pilot program - incorporating creative climate communications from student projects assembled in their partner courses. The centerpiece of this program draws on part two of the project, recording from an on-stage interview with a high-profile public figure who has been wrestling with questions regarding climate science, policy and the public. As part of this, guests to the live event visit onsite locations in the Boulder community as part of the stories in the program, and as part of the important dimension of outreach beyond campus (e.g. K-12 classrooms). The footage taken during these visits will also become part of the programs. View the program here.

Center News

New Faces at the Center

The Center continues to grow with the addition of several new members.

Katherine “Katie” Dickinson joined the Center as a Research Associate/Research Scientist. Katie is an environmental economist who studies how humans behave in the face of environmental risks. Her research topics have included sanitation behaviors in India, malaria-related decisionmaking in Tanzania, willingness to pay for mosquito control in Wisconsin and Florida, and homeowners’ wildfire mitigation choices in Colorado. Across these diverse topics, Katie has examined how people perceive different environmental risks and what costs and benefits people consider in deciding how to respond to those risks. She is particularly interested in how neighbors and social contacts influence a person’s own choices. Katie is excited about the prospect of working more closely with natural and physical scientists on projects that build an integrated understanding of the ways that human actions and environmental processes interact. A newly funded project on clean cookstoves and their air quality and health impacts in Ghana is a prime example of this kind of interdisciplinary research. Katie received Bachelor and Master of Science degrees from Stanford University, and a Ph.D. from Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment. She was a Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholar at the University of Wisconsin before joining NCAR in 2010 as a Postdoctoral Fellow with support from the Advanced Study Program and the Integrated Sciences Program.

CSTPR’s new undergraduate assistant is Torie Duke. Torie is pursuing a Bachelor’s Degree in Chemical and Biological Engineering from CU Boulder with a minor in Computer Science. She has worked with Engineers Without Borders on designing water catchment systems in Rwanda for three villages and is eager to learn more about the policies behind current environmental issues.

CSTPR welcomes Dan Zietlow, a Ph.D. candidate in Geophysics at CU Boulder, as our new writing intern. In this position Dan will utilize his blogging and photography skills to produce short articles and blogs and to participate in social media discussions in areas related to the Center’s research, education and outreach.

Welcome Katie, Torie and Dan!

Center News

AAAS Competition

Congratulations to the winners of the AAAS “Catalyzing Advocacy in Science and Engineering” Workshop Student Competition organized by the CIRES Center for Science and Technology Policy Research and supported by the CU Graduate School and Center for STEM Learning. Emily Pugach, a Ph.D. student in Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology, and Chris Schaefbauer, a Ph.D. student in Computer Science, both at CU-Boulder, were selected through a highly competitive process. They recently attended the AAAS workshop in Washington, DC, to learn about Congress, the federal budget process, and effective science communication. They also met with Members of Congress or congressional staff. Emily had the following to say about the experience:

“The workshop truly exceeded my expectations, and those of all the participants. As a graduate student who relies on federal dollars with little knowledge of the process and mechanisms by which these dollars are allocated, it was eye opening to learn more about these procedures and what I can do to advocate for my own research and that of the University. Truly I cannot say enough good things about the specific workshops, the people I met from AAAS, and the individuals we met within our congressmen’s offices. I sincerely hope AAAS makes the CASE workshop an annual event and that CU can continue to participate.”

Photo: Chris Schaefbauer, Jared Polis and Emily Pugach at the American Association for the Advancement of Science “Catalyzing Advocacy in Science and Engineering” Workshop.