In her on-campus lecture April 11, Neta Crawford, winner of the 2024 , described how in 2018, she began searching for data on the carbon emissions produced by the U.S. military. When she found the data was not readily available, she began calculating it herself. She found that the U.S. military was responsible for 81 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year–more than the total emissions for many entire countries.

Following that work and a related scientific paper, Crawford contributed language to a requirement by Congress that the U.S. military report some segments of its emissions beginning in 2021. In 2022, herĚý,Ěý“The Pentagon, Climate Change and War: Charting the Rise and Fall of Military Emissions,” was published by MIT Press.

In her writings, Crawford traced how the United States and other military powers became dependent on large amounts of fossil fuel, from the quest for coal stations around the world in the 19^th Century to thousands of U.S. troops defending oil supplies in the Middle East today. She concluded that the legacy mentality requiring vast military presence and activity can and should change in order to reduce military emissions.

“I described how we got here, but the world doesn’t have to be that way. We could decrease the tens of thousands of forces in the Middle East, and then decrease their emissions which will help with climate change and potentially decrease tension.”

Citing reductions in U.S. oil imports from OPEC, Crawford said the need for the oil is lower, so military efforts to protect it also should be reduced.

“The U.S. is poised to defend oil that we cannot and should not burn. So, we are defending access to oil which we decreasingly need,” she said.

Crawford commended emission reduction programs in the military but called for bigger changes.

“The military has very good people looking at incremental ways to reduce their emissions. I’m talking about a much larger restructuring, though, and that’s not happening,” Crawford said.

“What I am arguing in the book is, first of all, count the emissions. Secondly, they don’t have to be as high. The military has shown, in fact, that they can decrease their emissions. They are not doing it very ambitiously, and they can. And this matters.”

The $100,000 Grawemeyer prizes also honor seminal ideas in , ,ĚýĚýandĚý. Winners visit Louisville to accept their awards and give free talks on their winning ideas.

.Ěý

“Scientists should be involved, stay informed and advocate for science funding,” said Naomi Charalambakis, a graduate student in the University of Louisville Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology. “A lot of students and postdocs are completely unaware of how the budget begins and where scientists can intervene to help that process along. We have direct input and we can change the attitudes of policymakers.”

To help students and faculty at UofL gain a better understanding of the budget process and how individual researchers can affect it, the Science and Policy Outreach Group (SPOG) will present, “Funding Your Future: A forum discussing the federal budget and the importance of science advocacy,” at 10 a.m. August 26 at HSC Auditorium.

The event’s keynote speaker, Congressman John Yarmuth, will help clarify the federal budget process and provide an update on federal funding for the 2017 fiscal year, which begins October 1. Yarmuth, who represents Kentucky’s 3rd Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, serves on the Committee on Budget and the Committee on Energy.

The forum schedule includes:

• 10 a.m. – Naomi Charalambakis, graduate student and Society for Neuroscience fellow, “The Federal Budget – How it works and why students should care.”
• 10:45 a.m. – William Guido, PhD, chair of the Department of Anatomical Sciences and Neurobiology, “The Importance of Advocacy – a chairman’s perspective.”
• 11 a.m. – Jon Klein, MD, PhD, vice dean for research of the UofL School of Medicine, will introduce Congressman John Yarmuth. A Q&A session will follow.

The event is hosted by the Science and Policy Outreach Group (SPOG) and the Career

Research Advancement Focused Training (CRAFT) Seminar Series. SPOG is an organization of graduate students at UofL with the mission to create and facilitate a dialogue between students in the sciences and members of Congress and the community. The CRAFT Seminar Series offers monthly presentations on career development for postdoctoral fellows and graduate students at UofL.