The Academy of Very Concerned Scientists
Before it even opened its doors, the Academy of Sciences’ convention-defying new home was already famous for being the greenest building on Earth. But few are aware that it houses 46 well-traveled researchers who are also toiling 24/7 in the fight against global warming. The question is: How can a bunch of specimen-gathering wonks in a natural-history museum help solve the most urgent environmental crisis of our time?
Healy Hamilton: The preservationist
Healy Hamilton’s curiosities pull her in various research directions, but a passion for conservation guides all her work. At Palmyra, a remote atoll in the central Pacific, she and a consortium of international researchers are studying octopi living amid pristine coral reefs to make the case for coral-reef protection worldwide. Rain forest deforestation sparked her interest in Amazon river dolphins. And back in San Francisco, the biologist is studying the effects of climate change on biodiversity in this country. The academy’s specimen collections—a vast storehouse of biological data spanning centuries—provide valuable information about species’ historic and current habitat ranges. With computer models, Hamilton uses this data to project likely shifts in response to global warming. Ultimately, this information helps government and environmental agencies decide things like where to create pathways to protect shifting animals and plants. “We are addressing really important questions,” Hamilton says.
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