The
Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) is a nonprofit organization aimed at
placing scientific integrity and discourse at the center of political and
environmental debates. UCS offers numerous publications on a wide variety of
subjects, including global warming,
clean vehicles, clean energy, nuclear power, nuclear
weapons and global security, food and agriculture,
and scientific integrity.
The UCS website offers comprehensive background information on all of these
topics directly through its website, which can be navigated through an easily
accessible topic menu on the left hand side of the homepage. Each of these
topics opens to a summary page with easy to navigate links for more information
on specific topics. A practitioner can get an excellent overview of a
complicated topic through the website alone.
In
addition to substantial background information on this variety of topics, UCS
offers links to regional materials on global warming, clean
vehicles, and clean energy. These regional resources offer news posts,
legislation and analysis of relevant issues for the select region. These
regional resources can be accessed through the left-hand sidebar subtopics
nested within the overarching topic.
UCS
offers robust resources on the nuclear industry, including specific interactive
tools relating to the nuclear industry, such as a Nuclear
Information Tracker and advanced resources documenting nuclear
weapons facilities. In general, the UCS resources provide a useful
counterpoint to the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission's internet resources. An alternate source of information on
Nuclear Energy and Weapons Facilities could prove useful to both industry and
citizen groups participating in the permit renewal process for local nuclear
facilities.
The search
function on the UCS site is a custom Google search with no advanced
options, which may discourage some users. However, this limitation should not
immediately limit use of the resource. UCS topics and filing seem to be very
thorough, which means even a basic search provides decent results. These
results include articles from back issues of the UCS periodicals, which are
available as free online resources.
Finally,
the Union of Concerned Scientists offer a large selection of technical reports
which deepen into the larger overview topics, accessible through their publications page. These
publications are general found through a topic menu, similar to the homepage
topic menu. In addition to these topics, the publications page has links to UCS
periodicals such as Catalyst magazine, the Earthwise newsletter, the Greentips e-newsletter and other
selected publications. A practitioner can find a substantial amount of
scientific and policy information through these publications. Most UCS
publications are available free online, however, a few must be purchased. As
one of the central tenets of the Union of Concerned Scientists is preserving
and promoting scientific integrity, the resources available through UCS are
typically of high quality and low bias. The Union
of Concerned Scientists scored 67 out of 70 on Charity Navigator's independent
review of Accountability and Transparency of the organization. The Union of
Concerned Scientists is a quality resource of independent scientific reports
and tools for legal practitioners, policy makers and engaged citizens.
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