After the Wildfires: Where should we live?
In the first event of our Science Meets Science series, we organized a panel discussing the policy issues surrounding housing, wildfires, and where we should be building.
We were joined by Scott Stephens, UC Berkeley Professor in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management; Laurie Johnson, Urban Planning Consultant; and Louise Comfort, Visiting Scholar at the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS).
We explored questions such as:
- Should we be building in wildfire-prone areas?
- Should we rebuild cities like Paradise?
- Should we be giving out money to retrofit for fire safety or encouraging people to move away?
- Are policies over-focused on fuel management (forest thinning)?
Listen to a recording of the full public discussion:
Food of the Future: What will GMOs’ role be?
In our second forum of our Science Meets Science series, we focused on the scientific ethics of feeding a growing world and using GMOs to get there.
We were joined by Sarah Hake, Professor of Plant & Microbial Biology, UC Berkeley, and Center Director – USDA Plant Gene Expression Center; and David Zilberman, Robinson Chair and Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
We explored questions such as:
- What are the advantages provided and threats posed by genetically engineering staple crops?
- In what ways can gene modification influence crop yield, food digestibility, and producer profits? What could this mean for feeding the world under climate change?
- Could modern GMOs (based on technologies like CRISPR) be more economically viable than their previous counterparts?
Check out the full recording of the public discussion!