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Political Scene often encourages readers’ involvement in addressing specific
policy issues, from funding for K-12 earth science education to support for
a federal research program. A few months ago it went even further, suggesting
(gasp!) that geoscientists consider running for elected office. Perhaps your
reaction to these exhortations was much like mine: agreeing wholeheartedly,
outraged that such obviously important programs were under attack, but never
actually getting around to writing my elected representatives and sharing my
views. Instead, fading into the crowd, I relied on the geoscience “community”
to fight the good fight.
Unfortunately, communities don’t do anything; individuals within them do.
And so by failing to act, I lost another opportunity to demonstrate the relevance
of geoscience in today’s world.
Thankfully leaders in the geoscience community are bearing the standard. They
come from different walks of life: academia, industry and government. They serve
in professional geoscience societies, with geological surveys, or for the National
Academies. Working a year on Capitol Hill as a Congressional Science Fellow,
I have witnessed their leadership first-hand.
But these pioneers cannot work alone. A much broader involvement by geoscientists
is needed. Influencing a policy means demonstrating its importance to an elected
official’s constituents. As constituents ourselves, geoscientists are uniquely
qualified to make this connection. Being a standard-bearer does not require
testifying as an expert witness before Congress. Rather, it can mean providing
leadership on issues where your expertise is relevant, nationally or within
your local community. Few communities suffer from excessive leadership, and
as standard-bearers we can have tremendous impact.
“Making an impact” and “showing the relevance of geoscience”
are vague concepts. If we are to effect change, we need to act on specific issues
or events. Obviously, countless issues that require solutions face society and
the geoscience community. On any particular issue it is easy to slip into an
“us versus them” mentality, but to be successful, a more useful approach
is to be educational rather than confrontational.
The issue of data collection and storage illustrates this point. Scattered across
the United States are numerous core repositories containing drill cores and
cuttings from thousands of oil and gas wells. These repositories preserve unique
records of the subsurface, but companies no longer wish to maintain them. Preserving
these collections can provide tremendous educational and research opportunities.
These cores can be reevaluated using new techniques and form the basis of student
research. But preservation comes at a price. The value should be obvious to
a geologist, but to a non-geologist these cores are just a bunch of rocks. Maintaining
this valuable resource requires an extensive educational effort to demonstrate
the benefits of preserving these cores.
Another critical challenge is preserving earth science education in primary
and secondary school curricula. Increasingly, states are implementing policies
that favor biology, chemistry and physics over earth science education in high
school. Biology and chemistry are seen, with good reason, as particularly relevant
to society. However, if a student is not exposed to earth science in high school,
the chances of that student pursuing it in college are slim. Incredibly, the
State of Texas, despite the petroleum sector’s historical and ongoing importance
to its economy, has adopted such a measure for its science curriculum (Geotimes,
March 2002). Surely this problem demands the involvement of geoscientists.
Involvement can take many forms. Letter writing is a common and effective tool.
Letters should be brief and focused, and directed to the appropriate official,
whether that official is the school board chairman, a Congressman or the president.
Meet your elected official’s staff, and offer to serve as a resource to
them. Become a Congressional Science Fellow, an experience I highly recommend,
and take an inside look at the process. The truly daring should identify an
opportunity to serve in elected office.
Embarking on a journey through the political landscape will be easiest for those
who leave cynicism behind. Many view politics as one partisan fight after another,
in which the nation’s interests receive short shrift with politicians and
parties beholden to special interests. Obviously, we have a civic duty to be
vigilant, and hold our elected officials responsible for their actions. But
I believe the Founding Fathers understood that this process would be often scrappy,
at times unsavory, and that they designed it accordingly. As Sir Winston Churchill
aptly said, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all
the others.”
Despite frustration at the seemingly glacial pace of an endless debate within
our government’s system, consider the more efficient but frightening alternative:
government that changes course on a whim every election cycle. Democracy works
because of debate, and relies on special interests to inform the process, highlighting
both strengths and weaknesses of any proposed solution. Progress is only possible
when an issue is debated vigorously.
Of course, not every bill that becomes law achieves everything its sponsor originally
intended. Compromise, a word with an unjustifiably bad reputation, is the norm.
Final legislation rarely satisfies fully the desires of any group, but usually
delivers at least one step in the right direction. And as circumstances change,
the decision is revisited.
All this talk of debate and compromise may not sound too appealing. Following
this path probably means developing a few calluses, and results can often be
elusive. An important factor, perhaps the most important, in any political success
is persistence. Successful legislation often takes years to become law. It can
mean waiting for favorable conditions so that compromise is possible. Demonstrating
the relevance of geoscience requires similar effort. Every geoscientist has
a responsibility to participate at least by supporting those actively engaged
in the process. But this is the least required. The fact remains: We could use
a few more standard-bearers.
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