Union of Concerned Scientists Essay ⋆ Environment Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) is an independent nonprofit alliance of more than 100,000 concerned citizens and scientists advocating environmentally sound solutions to society’s problems. The UCS was founded in 1969 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) by faculty and students protesting the misuse of science and technology. They put forth a Faculty Statement, the genesis of UCS, calling for greater emphasis on the application of scientific research to environmental and social problems, rather than military programs. The UCS now augments rigorous scientific analysis with citizen advocacy in order to build a safer, healthier environment.

The UCS’s first report, ABM ABC, criticized President Nixon’s proposed antiballistic missile (ABM) system. This opposition was part of a broad national movement that helped build public support for the ABM treaty, signed by the United States and Soviet Union in 1972. Similarly, the UCS mobilized opposition in the scientific community to President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) popularly known as Star Wars. This stance culminated with more than 700 members of the National Academy of Sciences, including 57 Nobel laureates, signing UCS’s Appeal to Ban Space Weapons. Most recently, the UCS’s Countermeasures report, which demonstrated that the proposed national missile defense system could be defeated by missiles equipped with simple countermeasures, forced President Clinton to abandon the system.

After failures in government tests of emergency core-cooling systems at nuclear power plants, the UCS provided the principal technical expertise at national hearings, sparking the first public concern over nuclear power safety. In 1977, the UCS publication The Risks of Nuclear Power Reactors played a key role in the government’s ultimate repudiation of its own faulty Reactor Safety Study. The UCS proposed alternatives to nuclear power and fossil fuels with their study Energy Strategies: Toward a Solar Future, starting the UCS’s ongoing efforts to promote safe, renewable energy supplies for the United States.

In part, the UCS support of renewable energy stems from concerns over climate destabilization due to emissions from fossil-fuel combustion. More than 1,500 international senior scientists, including 105 science Nobel laureates, signed the UCS-sponsored World Scientists’ Call for Action at the Kyoto Climate Summit. This document, as well as other UCS work with policymakers and scientists, set the stage for the Kyoto Protocol.

Many environmental trends such as climate change have caused the world’s scientists to become “concerned.” This is clear in the World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity, which presented an unprecedented appeal from the world’s leading scientists regarding the destruction of the earth’s natural resources. It concludes:

We the undersigned, senior members of the world’s scientific community, hereby warn all humanity of what lies ahead. A great change in our stewardship of the earth and the life on it, is required, if vast human misery is to be avoided and our global home on this planet is not to be irretrievably mutilated.

The UCS has also tackled the public and environmental safety issues behind antibiotics in livestock feed and genetically engineered crops. In 2004, the union received a good deal of attention from the mass media by publishing a report titled Scientific Integrity in Policymaking, which criticized the George W. Bush administration for altering reports by the Enivironmental Protection Agency on global warming and West Virginia strip mining and for choosing members of scientific advisory panels based on their political views rather than scientific experience.

The UCS has become a powerful voice for change in U.S. policy. Its core groups of scientists and engineers collaborate with colleagues across the country to conduct technical studies on environmental topics. UCS experts work with citizens to disseminate their findings to influence local and national policy. In addition, the UCS Online Action Network gives citizens the means to stay informed on issues and help shape policy by expressing their views to government and corporate decision makers.

The UCS strives for a future that is free from the threats of global warming and nuclear war, and a planet that supports a rich diversity of life. Sound science guides its efforts to secure changes in government policy, corporate practices, and consumer choices that will protect and improve the health of our environment globally, nationally, and in communities throughout the United States.

Bibliography:

Henry W. Kendall, A Distant Light: Scientists and Public Policy (American Institute of Physics, 1999);
Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS): Citizens and Scientists for Environmental Solutions, www.ucsusa.org