CSPO Conversations

During a presidential election year, the COVID-19 pandemic has the potential to disrupt the most important tenet of democracy: political representation. In response, many states are implementing or considering systems to allow citizens to vote by mail.

Although most observers find large-scale voter fraud unlikely, there are significant challenges to scaling up vote-by-mail. Officials need to address cybersecurity concerns and make absentee voting more widely accessible. Otherwise the system will be set up for failure—and this election will be remembered as the 2020 vote-by-mail fiasco.

On June 24 at 1:00 PM ET, join Maria Carnovale, lead policy analyst at Duke University’s Initiative for Science and Society, to discuss her Issues article, “Will the Idea of Vote-by-Mail Survive COVID-19?”

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Protection of biodiversity and animal habitat need to be on the front lines of the fight against deadly diseases. Habitat destruction and the wildlife trade are just two of the unsustainable practices that are increasing the likelihood of diseases such as COVID-19 making the leap from animals to humans. Conservation scientist Leah Gerber, the founding director of the Center for Biodiversity Outcomes at Arizona State University, proposes creating a global body with scientific heft and enforcement teeth to lead a sustained fight against the drivers of zoonotic disease.

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Bats have been identified by some experts, and in the media, as the culprits behind the costliest pandemic in modern history, even though the source and method of transmission of the novel coronavirus remain unclear. Despite a long tradition of being misunderstood and feared, bats have an outstanding record of living safely with humans. Exaggerated warnings of bat disease risks aren’t just misguided. They threaten the health of entire ecosystems and economies. Join Merlin Tuttle, one of the world’s leading bat scientists and conservation experts, to discuss the vital role bats play in ecosystems and how misplaced public health concerns are endangering these important mammals.

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How have public universities responded to the COVID-19 pandemic? As university presidents look toward resuming in-person classes in the fall, what have they learned from the crisis, how will their institutions evolve as a result, and what might that mean for the future of higher education in the United States? How will public universities adapt to the serious financial challenges likely to arise in states and the nation in the months ahead? Could the response to the pandemic translate into an enhanced role for America’s public universities in the restoration of the nation’s public health and the recovery of its economic and social wellbeing?

Please join the presidents of three of the nation’s premier public universities—Arizona State, Purdue, and the University of Washington—as they discuss “COVID-19 and the Mission of the US Public University.” Register for the online event and participate in this important conversation.

The COVID-19 pandemic has produced challenges that are commonly dealt with in engineering in the United States. Policy responses to the pandemic could be improved with lessons from other types of infrastructure, and by investing in “efficient resilience” when it comes to medical infrastructure. Engineering professors Braden Allenby and Mikhail Chester take a close look at how engineered systems such as electric power, communications and transportation infrastructures deal with peak load, disaster recovery, and partial failure to offer ideas for building greater resilience into the US medical system and infrastructures that provide critical services during pandemics.

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The United States has the world’s highest rating on the Global Health Security Index. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may well have the planet’s highest density of expertise in infectious disease. The nation had forewarning from its health experts and intelligence services that a pandemic was gestating in China and then southern Europe. So how is it possible that the United States mounted such an inept response to the coronavirus pandemic?

Join M. Anthony Mills (R Street Institute) and Robert Cook-Deegan (Arizona State University) for an in-depth conversation on fixing the broken links between expertise and governance, and on how improving the legislative branch’s capacity for understanding science and technology is necessary to ensure that the country is better prepared for the next public health crisis. Their new essay on this subject can be found at Issues in Science and Technology.

Other nations, including Scotland and England, are following France’s lead in convening their own citizen assemblies on climate. Will the United States be next? If so, what lessons might policymakers and organizers derive from Macron’s misadventure with climate politics and subsequent change of approach? Can citizen assemblies help to overcome political gridlock in order to implement effective climate policies?

Join Yves Mathieu of Missions Publiques, co-organizer of both the Grand Debates and the Citizen Assembly on Climate, in a CSPO Conversation moderated by Daniel Sarewitz.

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Solutions to the critical and complex challenges of sustainability (such as deep decarbonization, food sufficiency, and equitable water and energy access) demand collaborations between universities, businesses, government, and civil society. In this CSPO open workshop, five academic leaders from ASU and The Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies in Germany will propose questions, issues, and strategies for collaborative efforts to forge transitions to sustainability. Intensive discussion will follow, where workshop attendees are invited to bring the perspectives of their own institutions and experiences to engage and critique these ideas.  The outcome of our deliberation will provide valuable input to the Global Sustainability Strategy Forum for further development of strategies for fostering transformation to a just and equitable sustainable society.

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