DISASTER PREPARATIONS Building a Fellowship that Empowers Policymakers to Leverage Science
As all of us just saw with hurricanes Helene and Milton, extreme weather and other impacts of climate change are already affecting the fabric of our society. As evident by these recent tragedies, U.S. leaders are navigating a complex and interconnected policy landscape as they wrestle with how to confront climate change.
As all of us just saw with hurricanes Helene and Milton, extreme weather and other impacts of climate change are already affecting the fabric of our society.
As evident by these recent tragedies, U.S. leaders are navigating a complex and interconnected policy landscape as they wrestle with how to confront climate change. As an example, when considering how to prepare communities for future hurricanes, policymakers must think about climate change in the context of water management, disaster response, energy systems, supply chains, and transportation infrastructure, just to name a few. The climate solutions that are needed cross into a vast array of sectors, all of which involve deep knowledge, understanding, and coordination.
That’s why the National Academies chartered a bold new path to support the next generation of federal policymakers with the Climate Crossroads Congressional Fellowship. This isn’t a traditional science policy fellowship that embeds scientists into government offices. This fellowship is comprised of Capitol Hill staffers who support Members of Congress and congressional committees, and the National Academies provides the tools and connections to experts to enable them to directly build their own scientific literacy and form a lasting community.
Recently, National Academies’ staff welcomed the second cohort of fellows to the Climate Crossroads Congressional Fellowship. In this year’s cohort, there are 36 fellows who represent different geographic regions, various career levels, serve in both chambers of Congress in committee and personal offices alike, and hold a variety of roles on Capitol Hill.
The new cohort kicked things off in September with a reception allowing the fellows to hear directly from the National Academy of Sciences President Marcia McNutt about our long history of informing climate research and policy over the past forty years. She noted that “The power of science is its ability to predict the future,” and that’s in part why the National Academies created a program that is uniquely positioning policy makers to better leverage the power of science to inform their work.
Over the next nine months, fellows will attend modules and events, where they will deepen their scientific literacy in the context of their policy work.
During the curriculum’s first module - covering how climate change is affecting extreme weather, and related impacts on human health – fellows engaged with leading experts in climate and public health.
In the coming months, these fellows will attend many more modules where they will continue to build stronger relationships with each other, the Academies, and the experts in the field to learn more about the different dimensions of climate change and the emerging solutions on the horizon.
The highpoint of the fellowship is an intensive weekend seminar, which will include several field site visits to translate scientific concepts that are being discussed in modules to initiatives on the ground. This will allow the fellows to see first-hand how communities, companies, and governments are considering and planning for climate change.
This opportunity to engage directly with communities will also help fellows learn how the scientific enterprise can support the federal policymaking ecosystem. The decisions policy makers choose to implement right now will have long-lasting impacts on our communities for future generations. The Climate Crossroads Congressional Fellowship plays a critical role by making sure that U.S. decision makers have the knowledge and tools they need to help shape climate policy for decades to come.
Ryan Gallasch is Congressional Affairs Officer and Director, Climate Crossroads Congressional Fellowship. The article was originally posted to the website of the National Acdemies.
