EDITOR’S CORNER
The Annual Meeting, Talented Students, Diversity and More
John L. Berry, CPG-04032
I’m excited about this issue because we have four Peer Reviewed papers, all on the theme of Groundwater Hydrology. Three of these, each very different from the oth- ers, concern karst aquifers, and the other concerns a major water-supply project in Florida. A second major theme of this issue is a set of three papers that I think will be of inter- est to Young Professionals: two are by young professionals, in the first the author tells why she is fascinated by the biogeochemical process that go on in caves and salt domes, the second is a comparison of ArcMap and the Open Source software QGIS/GRASS. The last is by a Board Member who has looked at the demographics of AIPG and thought hard about what we can do to serve younger members better: he proposes a formal mentorship program and he wants to hear your views on the subject.
We also, sadly, have five obituaries in this issue: two of these people I knew and respected very highly. Two were people I didn’t know personally but who had an enormous impact on those who did know them. The fifth was a lady who not only was a good geologist, but wrote a series of thrillers with geologists as their heroes: she wasn’t an AIPG member, but was well-known to members in the South West, and I think deserves commemoration as someone who brought our profession to wider notice.
In that vein, there is also a group of papers under the head- ing “Professional Affairs”: I hope this will also be a regular feature of TPG. In this issue is a piece about a change making it easier for geoscientists moving into Arizona to practice there, as well as an announcement by AGI of a “licensing intern”, and two pieces submitted by AEG members to the Geologic Legislative Action Group, which is composed of AGI, AIPG, AASG, ASBOG, GSA, and the National Speleological Society, among others. One of the pieces lays out a model program for geoscientists in each state to keep informed about legislative affairs, provides guidance on how to inter- act with legislators in general, and also on how to pick and support legislative champions. The second piece makes three concrete proposals, the first of which is to act on the first essay, the second is to set up a nationwide and state-by-state organizational framework for interacting with legislatures, and the third is to come up with finding to pay for all this. I’m bringing these to your attention because I am very aware, after what happened in my state last year, that geoscientists are regarded as “low-hanging fruit” by extreme free-market activists, such as the Institute for Justice and ALEC, in their campaign to abolish all forms of professional licensing. They regard us as a small insignificant group with no public impact for good or bad: they do not realize that our work literally underpins our national infrastructure, makes water supply possible, and provides the metallic, non-metallic and energy commodities that make our civilization possible, not to mention our work on earthquake, volcano, tsunami and flooding warning systems. As far as numbers go, we are
about as numerous as brain surgeons and who would like to be operated on by an unlicensed brain surgeon? (But that may be in our future, too). We can’t all write thrillers, but we can and should learn to interact with the public and their representa- tives, and do so on a regular basis.
In our letters column we have two letters expressing apprecia- tion for the work of AIPG and TPG on behalf of the profession, and one letter each for and against the evidence for global warming.
In the meantime we have an impassioned President’s letter citing the changes in her home State of Alaska, and in David’s column he recommends a video about rising sea levels. I have watched the video and it is good, and mostly even-handed. Furthermore, AAPG, our sister organization and group of scep- tics on this question appointed an ad hoc committee to study the issue in 2018: their report is due out very soon (AAPG Explorer June 2019, page 30) , potentially leaving us exposed as the last earth science institution without an official position.
I hope that in this issue all of you, our readers, will find something to engage your opinions, something of interest, and above all, something of use to you in your work.
Sept. 5th 2019 TPG scoop!!
Norway mountain finally crumbles!! As predicted by YP Ingvild Nygård in last issue
¡¡STUDENTS!!
Scoop your Peers: Submit your Research! Thoughts! Forebodings!
STUDENT ISSUE DEADLINE HALLOWEEN 2019
More information from
aipg@aipg.org or
jlbassoc@gmail.com
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