Alexandria, VA – With less than two months before Election Day, AGI and its federation of 50 professional geoscience societies have come together again to provide a list of critical issues and policy recommendations for the next presidential administration. The document, Critical Needs for the Twenty-first Century: the Role of the Geosciences, is meant to inform policymakers of the unique knowledge, experience, and ingenuity of the geoscience community, and to address some of society's most pressing issues.
More commonly known as the Critical Needs Document, the new report builds on the first set of recommendations handed down in 2008 with the addition of an eighth Critical Need: To sustain ocean, atmosphere, and space resources. The other Critical Needs include ensuring reliable energy, providing sufficient water supplies, managing waste, mitigating natural hazards, improving and building new infrastructure, ensuring supplies of raw materials, and maintaining a robust geoscience workforce.
To view the document in its entirety, please visit the AGI Geoscience Policy webpage http://www.agiweb.org/gap/CriticalNeeds2012.pdf.
The American Geosciences Institute is a nonprofit federation of geoscientific and professional associations that represents more than 250,000 geologists, geophysicists and other earth scientists. Founded in 1948, AGI provides information services to geoscientists, serves as a voice of shared interests in the profession, plays a major role in strengthening geoscience education, and strives to increase public awareness of the vital role the geosciences play in society's use of resources, resiliency to natural hazards, and interaction with the environment.