Developing an economic
competitiveness strategy or climate-change-mitigation policy will inevitably
challenge whoever wins in November, points out Shawn Lawrence Otto. It would be
nice, he suggests, to know that the chief executive had done his homework.
A Minnesota-based
screenwriter, known for the movie House
of Sand and Fog, Otto is also a founding organizer of a movement to put
science and technology front and center by petitioning both major national
parties to engage in dedicated science debates. The American Association for
the Advancement of Science joined this call in January, as have over 37,000 other
backers (among them Elizabeth Marincola, publisher of Science News) and representatives of 200-plus universities and research
organizations. The signatory organizations represent more than 125 million
people, Otto says.
