ABSTRACT
Ideology dominates public presentations about immigration, family planning, pollution control, and access to natural resources and technology. Chapter 9 summarizes these ideological-based positions, notes how they have become communicated by telling only part of the story, and details how they have been incorporated into political party positions. We argue that behind this ideology is the reality in the United States that global inequities in wealth, access to resources, and information have widened the gap between extremely wealthy and poor people. Furthermore, current policy appears to widen the gap, not close it. Some states and local governments we label as most innovative have been leaders in trying to cope with these problems. However, with anti-taxing polices on the rise, they may be hard pressed to maintain momentum, while other states have even less resources and/or desire to rebalance access. STEM scientists need to play a more important role in risk-informing decisions rather than being elbowed out of the way by policy grounded in political positions. We list six research areas related to population control and resource conservation that are high priorities.
