CSTPR Graduate Student, Marisa McNatt was awarded a Beverly Sears Graduate Research Grant to fund her research at University of Colorado Boulder. Marisa’s research project will generate hypotheses and policy recommendations for improving U.S. offshore wind farm development processes.  Specifically, this project will gather and analyze data on how key stakeholders and contextual factors, such as economic and institutional conditions, at the state- and local-levels have affected the Block Island offshore wind farm, currently under construction off the coast of Rhode Island, and the Fishermen’s Energy offshore wind farm, proposed for construction off the coast of New Jersey coast.  These case studies were selected because of their similar project parameters and initial timelines, but varying stages in developmental progress.  For instance, both offshore wind farms were proposed in 2008, and if completed, will generate about the same amount of electricity, and will be visible from shore.  Yet, Block Island is expected to generate electricity by fall 2016, whereas Fishermen’s Energy has met with numerous setbacks in recent years and is not yet under constriction (Gibbons, 2012 & Fishermen’s Energy).  The significant differences in the developmental progress, and similarities in design parameters provides an ideal opportunity to evaluate how the differing stakeholder values and contextual factors in the Atlantic City, NJ and the Block Island, RI regions are affecting the progress, or lack thereof, of these offshore wind farm projects.

The CIRES Center for Science and Technology Policy Research (CSTPR) is pleased to announce Max Boykoff as its new Director.  Professor Roger Pielke, Jr., who served as the Center’s founding director from 2001-2007, and again as director from 2013 until he completed his term in January, has gone on to spearhead creation of the CU Sports Governance Center within the CU Athletic Department.

After completion of his Ph.D. in environmental studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz and a stint with a research fellowship at the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute along with a fixed-term lectureship in the School of Geography and the Environment, Boykoff joined the University of Colorado faculty in Fall 2009.  His research focuses on the cultural politics of climate change and the transformation of carbon-based economies.  He holds appointments at CU across multiple units, including CIRES as a Fellow, the Environmental Studies program as an Associate Professor, and as an Adjunct in the Geography department.  Boykoff states he enjoys this interdisciplinary focus as it enables him to “access tools and perspectives across the various disciplines to answer challenging, complex, and multi-layered issues” confronting us in the 21st century.

CSTPR is important primarily as a research center, with teaching and service elements that all emphasize how science finds traction in politics and decision making, how policy decision makers access scientific ways of knowing, and how science and policy can help people decide the type of futures they want for themselves and for their communities.  Boykoff says this doesn’t merely take place with influential policy makers at the city, state, national, or international levels, but also importantly with “everyday people in society.”  A number of initiatives that serve not only the CU-Boulder community, but also those “everyday people,” excite Boykoff, who strives in his role as Director to lead and support research from CSTPR faculty and students that take up science-policy challenges reaching varied audiences.  “To be successful requires us to think smarter about reaching people where they are and helping them then to make what they consider to be ‘better’ decisions in the face of 21st century environmental challenges.”

Boykoff is energized by the interdisciplinary nature and spirit of CSTPR, and enjoys helping folks make connections across the natural and social sciences, as well as humanities, within a culture of rigorous productivity and belonging.  The breakdown of disciplinary boundaries, Boykoff believes, will help the broader science-policy community thrive, and is an endeavor he seeks to foster at CSTPR.  “We live in a place where, per capita, we have the highest concentration of climate scientists.  This is exciting as it uniquely enables collaborations between CSTPR researchers and the wider CIRES community as well as across the CU-Boulder campus and broader community.” He says that it is important to “[build] bridges to other groups to most capably address complex, dynamic and formidable challenges,” and Boykoff hopes CSTPR will build from its guidance under its previous Directors to continue to be a “hub for collaborative science, technology and policy research.”

And finally, when asked to choose between Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson if only one could join CSTPR?  “Neil deGrasse Tyson, all the way.”

Interested in CSTPR and science policy?  Visit the CSTPR website or contact Max Boykoff at boykoff@colorado.edu.

Updated through March 2016

The Media and Climate Change Observatory (MECCO) monitors fifty sources across twenty-five countries in seven different regions around the world. MECCO assembles the data by accessing archives through the Lexis Nexis, Proquest and Factiva databases via the University of Colorado libraries. These fifty sources are selected through a decision processes involving weighting of three main factors:

• geographical diversity (favoring a greater geographical range)
• circulation (favoring higher circulating publications
• reliable access to archives over time (favoring those accessible consistently for longer periods of time)

World, Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, Spain, United Kingdom, & United States

Figure Citations
Andrews, K., Boykoff, M., Daly, M., Gifford, L., Luedecke, G., McAllister, L., and Nacu-Schmidt, A. (2016). World Newspaper Coverage of Climate Change or Global Warming, 2004-2016. Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Web. [Date of access.] http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/media_coverage.

Bonnie Rusk will be joining CSTPR beginning this April as a visiting scholar. Bonnie is a Conservation Biologist with 25 years of experience in the West Indies focusing on biodiversity, terrestrial ecosystems and protected areas, and more recently on climate change adaptation strategies for coastal forests and strategies for their integration into local policy.

Bonnie has been consulting for multilateral, bilateral and international donor organizations since the mid 1990’s in the West Indies, including for World Bank, UNDP, USAID, and has extensive experience with both the development and implementation of Global Environment Facility funded projects.

She has been the Senior Biologist and Founding Director of the Grenada Dove Conservation Programme since 1991, carrying out research and management for an IUCN Critically Endangered species and its habitat, including the development of new protected areas. Her on-the-ground work incorporates a stakeholder participatory approach to planning and management.

She has a 25 year collaboration with the Government of Grenada, providing technical expertise that supports development and implementation of international and national programs and strategies to further commitments to Multilateral Environmental Agreements. She has ongoing collaborations with numerous international organizations.

While her professional training was done primarily in the United States, most of her career has been working in the West Indies. She is originally from Montreal, Canada.

Bonnie has a M.S. in Conservation Biology and Sustainable Development from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1993).