On Friday, October 2nd, lecturer in the Geosciences Department, Alex Apostos, spoke at the weekly Log Lunch about mixing science and policy. His objective of the presentation was to provide a sense of what it is like to be a scientist working in policy.
Apostos has moved between both the policy and academic worlds. He has been everything from a lecturer at top colleges to working as the Climate change advisor for Bureau for Africa. One of the positions Apotsos expanded on was his work with Democratic Senator from Montana, Jon Tester. Jon Tester was very interested in protecting the environment of his beautiful state. However, he was representing a chiefly Republican state. With that, Tester also had very little scientific background. This is where Alex Apostos comes in. He served as an Energy and Environment Advisor. In this position, Apostos’ primary responsibility was to support the senator. He informed Tester about environmental policy and described pros and cons of actions for and against the environment. Apostos’ goal was to relax the senator, allowing him to focus less on the facts and more about building relationships and policies.
After politics, Apostos began working with USAID and worked as the Climate Change Advisor for the Bureau of Africa. He shared with the room about his work in Sahel, which is an area below West Africa. It is hot and dry, and the population there depends very heavily on rainfall. Unfortunately, climate change predictions state that it will only get hotter, and precipitation will begin to decrease. The people there need new information and new ways to find water. Apostos worked to organize meteorological scientists for the area, and they began working on trends and rainwater schedules for future decades. They have started to check for seasonal changes and have helped coordinate what to plant depending on how rainy a season is, and what to save if there is no rain.
The general ideas Apostos learned throughout his time in both politics and academia are:
1. Policy and politics are very different, and the way in which science engages them is very different. Policy is looking for a good outcome. Politics are not. They know the answer already.
2. Perceptions Matter: The way that people perceive each other stops them from making progress.
3. Environmental Scientists are impartial observers. Environmentalists care. There needs to be an emphasis on advocating, and unless people care, there can be no fight to save our environment.
4. Although many times they conflict, science and policy need each other to succeed.
And finally: “Do not catch the tail of a tiger, but if you must, do it seriously!” If you want to do something, grab hold with all of your strength. If you do not hold tight, it will turn around and bite you.
We must approach climate change this way to avoid it “biting” us in the future.
-Caroline Beckmann, ’17
Megamenu Social