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Reporting On the Brink

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ProjectARCC and the Simmons College Student Chapter of the Society of American Archivists (SCoSAA) co-hosted On The Brink: Archives, Climate Change, and the Future. The event, held on the Simmons College campus, was also live streamed; a recording of the event is forthcoming.

The two-part event featured both presentations by panel members and an open Q&A session afterward. The panel was composed of Casey Davis, project manager at the American Archive of Public Broadcasting and founder of ProjectARCC; Lisa Pearson, who is Head of the Arnold Arboretum Horticultural Library and Archives; Trisha Shrum, PhD candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School and co-founder of DearTomorrow; and Lucas Stanczyk, Assistant Professor of Political Science and Affiliated Faculty of Philosophy at MIT.

Davis presented on her personal revelation regarding the urgency of climate change and the importance of archivists to understand and respond to the challenges presented by this phenomenon. Shrum’s presentation combined an introduction to the DearTomorrow organzation with a discussion of developments in behavioral psychology that may prove useful in motivating the public to make and support environmentally conscious actions. Pearson presented a brief historical introduction to the Arnold Arboretum and provided an insightful look at how the library, archives, and grounds of the Arnold Arboretum have been (and could be!) useful to activists and researchers. Bringing the event to a somber and grounded conclusion, Stanczyk emphasized the nature of climate change as a longitudinal and international issue, and presented figures concerning emission benchmarks that must be attained in order to reduce and mitigate the impact of global climate change on the environment.

For some people, the biggest takeaway from events like these can be the revelatory understanding that climate change is a serious and imminent threat that will affect all people, everywhere (though not equally so; less-developed nations, and areas closer to sea level, are in more immediate danger). For the initiated, events like On The Brink serve to remind us of our purpose and spur us on to continued action. As a culmination of mutual cooperation between SCoSAA, ProjectARCC, and our panel presenters, the event was also a reminder of the importance of collective action to mobilize real change concerning climate change. While individual environmentally conscious actions are effective and important, our voices are strongest when unified. ProjectARCC is just one example of an organization that rallies concerned individuals who share a mutual association around the issue of climate change. Finding a way to become involved in environmental activism– be it at the community, institutional, state, or national level– is the next critical step in transforming concern over climate change into real action.

Each of these speakers brought this revelation about in different ways. Davis’ presentation on Project ARCC highlighted the potential benefits of tapping into mutual association (through a shared professional interest) to rally members of the community around an issue. The involvements and accomplishments of ProjectARCC since its founding are a testament to this. Shrum demonstrated how environmental activists can tap into social networks and insights into human psychology to better unify and inspire people to collective action. At the local level, Pearson shared information about how researchers, community members, and the interested public are making use of the Arboretum’s resources to advance scholarship and activism goals.  

— Chris Kaplan

Dramatically Reducing An Archive’s Carbon Footprint by Working with the City

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ProjectARCC members Blake Relle and Danielle Cordovez set out to highlight an organization that took steps to positively impact the climate. Through Twitter, we learned that the City of Toronto Archives won the “Race to Reduce” challenge by lowering energy consumption by a staggering 59%. They were able to achieve this through C40 Climate Leadership Group initiatives instituted by the city. Relle and Cordovez spoke with the City Archivist at the Toronto City Archives, Carol Radford-Grant , and Project Manager, Prashant Bhalja, to learn more about this impressive accomplishment.

The C40 Climate Leadership Group consists of different government bodies and agencies within major cities whose focus is to make a positive impact on the global climate. In an effort to show leadership, Canadian officials announced plans to encourage the development and use of energy efficient solutions to take action against the effects of Greenhouse Gas emissions.  Being the largest city in Canada, Toronto took the lead in implementing C40 initiatives to show that they were actively doing their part, and not just talking about what should happen.

The city of Toronto approached the staff at the Archive to see if they would participate, and lower their energy consumption. The staff was thrilled to be part of this project for three reasons. First, the building that houses the archive was over twenty years old, and in need of upgrades. Secondly, the building’s energy consumption was higher than comparable constructions in the city, and throughout the Province of Ontario.  Finally, the staff had a hard time keeping the temperature, and relative humidity at safe levels due to the city’s extreme weather conditions.  In the winter the temperature, factoring in the wind chill,  temperatures can may fall to -40 degrees Celsius.  In contrast, the relative humidity in the summer ranges from 80% to 90%.

Making improvements to the building was necessary, and would allow safe, long term storage for the collections.  Improvements  included the installation of a new HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning)  system, and energy efficient boilers to to properly regulate temperature, relative humidity, and the air flow in the building. The new boilers require little energy to function. The  HVAC system is automated, and lowers consumption in practical ways such as shutting  off when the loading doors are open.  Radford-Grant reported that very little problems arose during the installment of the HVAC system, and boilers as the archival staff worked well with Bhalja, and discussed concerns in advance to ensure low risk of damage to the collections.

With the new HVAC system and boilers,  the Archive lowered electricity use from 200 -250 to 130 kilowatts monthly,  resulting in a 59% reduction in energy use. The reduction was so severe,  that the meter was checked and replaced by the gas and electric companies to make sure it hadn’t been tampered with.  To maintain the low monthly number, Radford-Grant and Bhalja agree that daily monitoring of consumption, in addition to staff training on how best to utilize the equipment is necessary.

Radford-Grant and Bhalja’s  advice to archivists planning to implement energy reduction practices are:

  1. Every building has room for improvement to minimize energy use. Look for it.
  2. There does not have to be a choice between lowering energy and climate control. Comfort should not be sacrificed for conservation. There is a balance that optimizes both goals.
  3. Collaborate with your area, and research municipal initiatives for Greenhouse Gas Emission reduction.

To continue their efforts, the City of Toronto Archives hopes to install a new air conditioner and improved insulated windows in the coming years.

For us at ProjectARCC, two important lessons came out of the interview with Radford-Grant and Bhalja. First, people tend to believe that they, as one person, cannot do anything to affect climate change. That is not so: each person can do their part to make a positive impact on the climate. One can install solar panels, install new windows, or install lights the automatically turn on and off. Each small thing adds up. A lot of things over the course of history have changed because one person stood up and said, “Enough is enough.” In other words, there are things that everyone can do.

Secondly, we need to work together. We are global citizens and have a duty to leave the planet in better shape than we found it. There is a lot of talk in the archival profession about working together. If we do not start working together now, when will we? We need to ask ourselves — in the style of President Kennedy — “Ask not what your planet can do for you, but what you can do for your planet.”

— Blake Relle and Danielle Cordovez

Elevate a Climate Change Exhibit

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Two weeks ago, ProjectARCC challenged archivists to elevate their collections related to climate change using #PreserveClimate. There’s also a survey archivists can fill out for collections to go into a larger project.

One example of an archive that has recently elevated their materials related to climate change is the American Archive of Public Broadcasting. In late October, the American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB) launched its Online Reading Room, providing the public with access to thousands of historic public television and radio programming dating back to the 1950s. As part of the inauguration of the Online Reading Room, AAPB staff launched three curated exhibits featuring content that is topically and historically significant. AAPB Project Manager Casey Davis curated one of the three exhibits, the title of which is “Climate Change Conversations: Causes, Impacts, Solutions.“

The exhibit highlights television and radio conversations with climate scientists, activists, journalists, historians, and students who used the venue of public broadcasting to discuss climate change for more than a quarter of a century. In these recordings, they have repeatedly communicated the science of human-driven climate change and its impacts in interviews, call-in radio shows, debates, public lectures, news programs, and documentaries.

While scientists and activists have consistently used public broadcasting to disseminate information about climate change, the conversation has changed over time. In the 1980s, focus was primarily on communicating the potential threats of global warming. Since then, programming has increasingly examined the actual impacts, and in addition, struggled to keep the American public informed and engaged.

Organized into six sections, the exhibit highlights public broadcasting recordings of conversations on climate change—its causes, impacts, and proposed solutions—from 1970, the first year that Earth Day was celebrated, to the present. Among the recordings include conversations with Gus Speth, former Dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, James Hansen, the first scientist to testify before Congress on the threat of global warming, former Vice President Al Gore, three recordings with Bill McKibben, writer and activist who founded the international organization 350.org, Katharine Hayhoe, climate scientist who has become well-known for communicating climate change to fellow evangelical Christians, and David Brower, founder of Friends of the Earth.

What’s in your collections?

What to Know for the Paris Climate Talks

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ProjectARCC is challenging archivists from around the world to elevate and broadcast their collections that relate to climate change. Use #preserveclimate to join the conversation and add to the database!

This week, an important and big climate change conference started in Paris, and will continue until December 11th. In the wake of the 13 November terrorism, an already high-profile meeting will take on new meaning. It would not be hyperbolic to say what could come out of the Paris meeting could chart the very path of human existence for our foreseeable future.

This is a brief post that includes some useful links and a very quick primer to help ProjectARCC allies understand the significance of the road ahead. If this primer leaves you wanting more, I highly recommend this short graphic novella of the history of international efforts to manage climate change. A text-based timeline can also be found here.

WHO?

The Paris talks, often referred to in shorthand as COP21 (or the 21st meeting of the Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNFCC) will be the most recent attempt to bring together the international community to committing to real reductions in carbon emissions that will keep the world as close to not exceeding 2º Celsius of warming as possible. 2º Celsius has been the benchmark target set by the climate change policy community for several years, and exceeding this target will almost certainly cause severe and irreversible changes to the world climate. We have already warmed the planet by 0.8º Celsius since the late 1800s. Because reduction of emissions would have to be so dramatic to bring current projections to 2º or less, many scientists and policy makers are now reckoning with adaptation to a planet that could warm by at least 4º Celsius by 2100, if massive reductions in carbon emissions are not immediately implemented.

WHERE?

Paris, France (specifically, Le Bourget, which is just outside Paris). COP meetings rotate between regions, and France applied for the 2015 Western European hosting turn back in 2012. The actual meeting can only be attended by national delegations of the UNFCC parties, intergovernmental agencies and non-governmental organizations with officially-recognized observer status (e.g., the World Bank), and journalists. However, close to the official meeting location, there will be a venue that will host activities that the general public can attend.

As this blog post goes to press, following the Paris terrorist attacks French authorities are committed to going forward with hosting and security for the official meeting events, but will not allow any public street marches associated with the climate talks. At past climate summits, such as Copenhagen in 2009, public demonstrations served an important role in giving voice to those most vulnerable to climate change’s disasterous effects.

WHEN?

While the meeting will take place over the course of 12 days, there has been significant groundwork laid over the past year. The initial negotiation sessions began in February, in Switzerland. The meeting in Paris will be the final vote to accept the framework to measure progress on each country’s committed reductions.

WHY?

In general, the COP (Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) takes place every year (since 1995). In addition, you may see things like “CMP” when reading about COP — this refers to parties which signed on to the Kyoto Protocol, which was the first time binding greenhouse gas emission targets were set. This year is the 21st conference of COP, and the 11th conference of CMP (i.e., COP21/CMP11). The United States is a party to the UNFCC, but never ratified the Kyoto Protocol, citing concerns over lack of emissions reductions from developing countries. This is why the recent carbon emissions agreement between China and the United States is a huge deal — it represents perhaps a loosening of the “Which country should cut first and faster?” question that has often derailed recent international climate negotiations.

HOW?

The biggest difference with this round of climate talks is the model to which countries are pledging individual emissions reduction targets. Each country has set their own target, known as Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC)– on the plus side, this means countries may be more likely to actually meet reduction goals, something that has been elusive in the past. On the other hand, many experts note that even if all countries meet their own self-defined targets, it will not be enough to collectively stay under the 2º target. The World Resources Institute has developed an interesting visualization tool for the submitted INDCs.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR?

Historically, a stumbling block in climate talks has been tension between reduction expectations of highly developed countries with high emissions (such as the United States) compared to rapidly developing countries (such as China and India). Meanwhile, many Pacific Island nations are literally reckoning with going underwater, possibly in our lifetimes. There will likely be significant discussion over the obligations of developed countries to assist extremely vulnerable and under-resourced countries cope with the effects of climate change.

— Eira Tansey

 

ProjectARCC challenges archives to #preserveclimate during COP21

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From November 30 to December 11, world leaders and scientists will meet in Paris in the hopes of negotiating an international accord to reduce carbon emissions and respond to the imminent threats of climate change. As we move closer to this United National Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP21) in the coming week, I believe that we are on the precipice of changing the conversation about climate change. Archivists can play a role in elevating the conversation and increasing climate literacy by using our collections to improve public awareness of climate change through exhibits and social media. We’re making commitments now a future for our planet. As the guardians of cultural heritage, let’s not only work to ensure the preservation of our collections from the impacts of climate change, but let’s take that responsibility further by providing better access and discoverability to our collections that could be used to educate our communities on the urgency for action on climate change.

ProjectARCC would like to challenge archives to use the hashtag #PreserveClimate during COP21, which is taking place from November 30 – December 11, and promote your collections that are relevant to the conversation about climate change.

In addition, we ask that you help us identify archival collections related to climate change by filling out this survey: https://projectarcc.org/elevate/survey-elevate/.

Once we have compiled this survey, we will use the information to create a database and visualizations that identify these collections and where they exist, which can be used as a resource for scholars, researchers, scientists, journalists, and the general public. 

We encourage you to take the challenge and #preserveclimate during COP21. If you’re wondering what types of materials are relevant to the issue of climate change, here are a few suggestions:

  • materials documenting natural disasters
  • dated historic photographs of landscapes and agriculture
  • records of climate change or environmental activist groups
  • scientific data sets for climate change research
  • government records about local, regional, or national response to climate change
  • manuscript collections documenting how people feel or felt about climate change
  • papers of climate scientists
  • recorded lectures, interviews, and debates about climate change

— Casey Davis

Committee Quarterly Reports Summer/Fall 2015

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Reduce Committee

The Reduce Committee has met three times since it was formed, twice in real time and once asynchronously. In addition to contributing resources to the Climate Change Syllabus, the Reduce Committee was active in planning, preparing, and co-implementing a tweet-up with the Sustainability Round Table of ALA (SustainRT) on sustainability issues in libraries and archives. The event took place on Monday, October 19, 2015 at 1:00-2:00PM, during which members from ProjectARCC and SustainRT posed six unique questions to followers on Twitter about ways to practice sustainability in our institutions, motivate the archival community to affect climate change, and educate the public about climate science. Followers’ comments and answers were responded to and retweeted, and potential answers were offered by both groups. Also, each tweet contained the hashtag, #SustainLIS, of which there is now an archive on Twitter.
Looking forward, the Reduce Committee is considering hosting “office hours” for members of ProjectARCC to synchronously tune into a publicly available webinar (or series of webinars) concerning climate and preservation issues, such as the regional webinars made available by the Image Permanence Institute. The Committee has also considered hosting a live tweet-up during the webinar(s) in which we will pose questions to the group and its followers in order to spur on a conversation. A webinar tweet-up would further educate members of ProjectARCC while simultaneously drawing social media attention to ProjectARCC, our mission, and the issues we aim to affect.

Elevate Committee

The Elevate Committee has launched two initiatives designed to highlight climate change-related issues in archives.  The first is a list of climate change related collections located in repositories around the country.  The second initiative is developing a taxonomy of keywords and subject terms to help researchers locate archival collections related to climate change.

Protect Committee

The Protect committee has examined the landscape of existing archival disaster management to see where we may fit in and make best use of our limited resources. We have examined the COSTEP framework (https://www.nedcc.org/free-resources/costep) in depth and shared other resources during our group meetings. Recently, we have agreed to partner with the Regional Archival Associations Consortium (RAAC) Disaster Planning and Recovery Subcommittee. That subcommittee plans to focus on climate change issues in the next year, so it is a natural alliance.
We have had some changes in our membership roster, as of November 14, 2015, our active members include:
  1. Eira Tansey (Chair)
  2. Dana Gerber-Margie
  3. Rebecca Fraimow
  4. Shannon Struble
  5. Hanni Nabahe
Other activities we have done:
Looking forward, we plan to work on the following activities:
  • Collaboration with the RAAC disaster subcommittee on interviewing archivists who have dealt with disasters and the lessons learned
  • Creating a map of recent disasters that have impacted archives

Preserve Committee

Report to come.

Our Conversation to #SustainLIS with ALA SustainRT

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On Monday, October 19, 2015, ProjectARCC and ALA SustainRT co-hosted a tweet-up to discuss the actions we can take as archivists and librarians to reduce our professional carbon footprint, implement sustainable practices in our institutions to prepare for and mitigate the effects of climate change, and engage the public in environmental awareness and sustainability education. Each group posed three questions pertaining to these topics, totaling six distinct questions. Tweet-up participants offered great solutions, posed further questions and concerns, and shared resources.

The content of the tweet-up can be found in a curated Storify.

Stay tuned for more information on the joint ProjectARCC-SustainRT event we are planning for ALA Midwinter 2016 in Boston! Also, please tag #SustainLIS in your future tweets about anything pertaining to sustainability in LIS, including new research, trends, events, success stories, areas for improvement, thoughts, and actions.

— Carey MacDonald

New England Event: Join ProjectARCC at the Boston Rally for Jobs, Justice & Climate on 12/12

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rallyTo change everything, it takes everyone. Join ProjectARCC at the New England rally for Jobs, Justice and Climate taking place on Saturday, December 12 from 1-3pm starting at the Boston Common.

 

From November 29 through December 11, world leaders will meet in Paris to negotiate a new global climate treaty. This is the 21st attempt at establishing an international accord, and it’s our responsibility to demand that leaders agree on bold climate solutions. On December 12, people will come from across New England to rally for climate action to ensure a resilient future for current and future generations. As the profession responsible for the long-term preservation of our cultural heritage, archivists must act to ensure that the commitments made by our leaders will safeguard our collections and the communities we document.

If you’re interested in joining ProjectARCC at the rally, please fill out the form below, and we’ll get in touch with you soon with more details.

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Thank you for your response. ✨

In solidarity,
The New England area members of ProjectARCC

Disaster Planning: Do Something

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A month or so back, the ProjectARCC blog featured a blog post titled “Doomsday Preppers,” about the fact that preparing for disaster is one of the most important functions of an archivist. Most of the standard functions that we practice as archivists — creating backup copies of digital files, storing physical items in safe and protective containers, making sure that we track when and where our collections are at all times — serve as a form of protection against disaster.

But how do you actually go about planning for the kinds of major disasters that climate change scientists have been warning us to expect? What happens when you really do get the flood or the earthquake that you always knew was a possibility, but never really thought was going to happen at your institution?

Many archives and cultural heritage organizations have disaster plans, which provide solid, practical instructions on how to cope with an emergency — what precautions to take, who to contact, and what the first steps should be to protect the collections when a disaster hits. If your institution doesn’t have a disaster plan yet, the Society of American Archivists has a great Annotated Resources page full of disaster plan templates, examples, tutorials and bibliographies to help make the process of developing one a little easier.

However, even if your institution already has the best disaster plan imaginable, archivists are busy people; with deadlines for grants and projects and fiscal years looming over our heads, preparing for some kind of abstract catastrophe can often take a back burner. If your institution does have a disaster plan, when was the last time you actually looked it up and read it? How often does someone take a look at it to make sure it’s up to date — and how long does it take to push changes through the bureaucracy to approve it? Are new employees aware of it, and what information it contains, and how to find it if the emergency actually does take place?

One of the best resources for improving ongoing disaster preparedness in archives in cultural heritage institutions is COSTEP, the Coordinated Statewide Emergency Preparedness Framework, developed by the Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC). COSTEP encourages cultural institutions to work together on a statewide level with emergency management agencies and first responders. The state of Massachusetts currently has a thriving official COSTEP program, which hosts regular meetings and trainings, and hopefully other states will follow suit.

However, even if you’re not ready to spearhead an official statewide COSTEP initiative, the COSTEP Framework document has a number of fantastic recommendations about how to build relationships and prepare for disaster within a community before disaster occurs.

Speaking of workshops, taking any kind of disaster preparedness workshop — either cultural institution-specific ones, such as those offered by the NEDCC, or more general ones like those offered by the Red Cross — is a good way to become aware of hazards and disaster resources in your area.

Still, no matter how prepared you and your institution are, there’s always going to be some disasters that can’t be prevented by any amount of planning. The archival community has generated resources to help cultural institutions post-disaster, too. The National Disaster Recovery Fund for Archives was originally created to assist archives recovering from Hurricane Katrina; it’s since expanded its mandate to support the recovery of archives from any major disaster, and can provide up to $2,000 in initial emergency funding.

While I’m sure all of us hope that we’ll never need to apply for that funding, I know, for one, I’m glad to know now that it’s there and available — staying aware of these kind of resources, just in case, is one more way of being prepared.

— Rebecca Fraimow

Do you have more ideas for archivists to improve their disaster planning? Consider joining the Protect Committee as part of ProjectARCC. Our next meeting is Wednesday, October 21st. We’ll be discussing developing relationships with similar projects and mapping archival disasters.

EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT: On the Brink: Archives, Climate Change, and the Future

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We are thrilled to announce our SCoSAA/ProjectARCC collaborative event: On The Brink: Archives, Climate Change, and the Future!

The  Simmons College Student Chapter of the Society of American Archivists (SCoSAA) and ProjectARCC are hosting On the Brink: Archives, Climate Change, and the Future,  a panel discussion among archivists and energy policy, ethics and communications experts which will bring the topic of climate change to the forefront, as it will deeply impact the archival profession.

The event will be held at Simmons College in Boston, Massachusetts on Wednesday, November 11 at 5:30pm in the Kotzen Meeting Room. Register to attend on our Eventbrite page: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/on-the-brink-archives-climate-change-and-the-future-tickets-18737615713

While the meeting is capped at 50 attendees, we will have unlimited capability to livestream the event, which you can attend through  GoToWebinar via think link: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/7581571748555811330 and the Webinar ID: 120-664-547.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact SCoSAA Co-Chairs Betts Coup and Kristen Weischedel at scosaa@simmons.edu.

About ProjectARCC:

Founded on Earth Day in 2015, ProjectARCC is a task force of archivists striving to motivate the archival community to affect climate change. We believe that archivists, those responsible for the preservation of history for future generations, should be as passionate and concerned about preserving a habitable and safe planet for future generations.  To learn more about ProjectARCC, visit our website athttps://projectarcc.org/.

About our speakers:

Casey Davis

Casey E. Davis is an audiovisual archivist and project manager who by day is Project Manager for the American Archive of Public Broadcasting at WGBH. Alarmed about current and impending impacts of climate change on the archival profession, Casey, along with other archivists across the United States formed ProjectARCC, a task force of archivists striving to motivate the archival profession to affect climate change. Casey also serves as archivist for DearTomorrow, a campaign to collect and preserve letters from parents to their loved ones about climate change. She is the Co-Chair for the New England Archivists Roundtable for Early Professionals and Students and serves on the NEA Membership Committee.

Lisa Pearson

Lisa Pearson is the Head of the Arnold Arboretum Horticultural Library and Archives. She oversees all of the operations of the library and archives, as well as creating displays of archival materials for the library and exhibits in the Visitor Center. In addition she manages new library book acquisitions. Earlier in her time at the Arboretum she was the project cataloger for the digitization of several of their historical photograph collections. This has given her an in-depth knowledge of their holdings. Prior to coming to the Arboretum, she was employed for many years as a librarian in the insurance industry, first on the property/casualty side and later in the life/health and financial services realm. Outside of work she is an artist working in metal, leather, and textiles, who gathers her inspiration from Medieval and Renaissance art.

Trisha Shrum

Trisha is a PhD candidate in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School specializing in behavioral science and environmental economics. In her work on how moral frames and time preference affect support for climate change policy, she developed the fundamental concept that underlies DearTomorrow. She credits her own daughter, Eleanor, and Christiana Figueres for the critical inspiration. Prior to coming to the Kennedy School, she earned a Masters of Environmental Science at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. She holds a B.A. in Environmental Science and a B.S. in Biology from the University of Kansas. Trisha has been studying and analyzing climate change policy for nearly a decade.

Lucas Stanczyk

Lucas Stanczyk is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Affiliated Faculty of Philosophy at MIT. He completed his PhD at Harvard in 2012. Lucas’s primary research interests are in political philosophy and the history of political thought. He is completing a book manuscript on the economic duties of citizenship and has started research for a second book on contemporary inequality. At MIT, he teaches classes in political philosophy, the history of political thought, and the ethics of public policy.