APS April Meeting 2019
Volume 64, Number 3
Saturday–Tuesday, April 13–16, 2019;
Denver, Colorado
Saturday, April 13, 2019
8:30AM - 9:06AM
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A01.00001: Disruptive Energy Futures
Invited Speaker:
Amory Bloch Lovins
Almost everything we thought we knew about energy is ripe for transformation—rich in risk and opportunity. Both oil and natural-gas owners have more unsellable than unburnable hydrocarbons; they’re more at risk from market competition than from climate regulation. Electricity suppliers too face a swarm of disruptors that will transform their businesses beyond recognition as the electricity and auto industries merge to eat the oil industry, as insurgents challenge incumbents in all three sectors, and as integrative design yields increasing returns to investments in radical energy efficiency. Artfully assembled, the many moving parts can deliver a secure, resilient, climate-stabilizing energy future, using available technologies, cheaper than business-as-usual. Its challenges are no longer in technology or economics but in implementation—especially in moving policy laggards from protecting the old system to enabling the new. |
Saturday, April 13, 2019
9:06AM - 9:42AM
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A01.00002: Trump in Context: History of Science Advice in the White House
Invited Speaker:
Kirstin RW Matthews
Science advice within the White House dates back to World War II, but the current organization, led by the Office of Science and Technology (OSTP) was more recently developed. OSTP is charged with giving and overseeing science and technology advice to the president and coordinating activities within the executive branch. The director is more informally known as the president’s science advisor and has often also served as an assistant to the president. OSTP was created during the Ford administration as a result of President Nixon dissolving the Office of Science and Technology (OST), a predecessor to OSTP, at the start of his second term. Additional advice to the president has also come from the President’s Council of Advisor on Science and Technology (PCAST). PCAST is a collection of highly respected experts in science and technology from the private sector. PCAST was created in President G.H.W. Bush’s administration to give the president additional outside advice, although similar bodies having been operating in some form since World War II. This presentation will review the history of these two bodies—OSTP and PCAST—and the president’s science advisor who oversee both. In addition, the talk will analyze the current state of the federal science advisory system and recent policymaking activities during the Trump administration, including an outlook for the future role of scientists in the White House and federal science agencies. |
Saturday, April 13, 2019
9:42AM - 10:18AM
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A01.00003: Physics and Social Media
Invited Speaker:
Katie Mack
In today’s increasingly connected world, there are endless opportunities for scientists to interact online. Increasing our visibility and engagement can have powerful effects on how we carry out our work as well as on how non-physicists see scientists and their own relationships to science and the research community. I will discuss how social media can allow physicists to be more engaged with the public, journalists, science communicators, government, and each other, and what potential benefits and pitfalls we need to be aware of when sharing our lives and science online.
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