Mary Anito

While the use of AI feels inevitable these days, as a scientist and engineer I think intentional forethought to both protect our freedoms/rights and jobs is important. I like technology and know we all survived the global adoption of cell phones but AI feels larger. The energy consumption on already stretched grids is worrisome. While data centers are needed, I believe we need to put an accurate cost to humanity/resources on them to capture their true usage. I read a lot of the New York Times and am an avid NPR listener that further researchers topics I hear that are of interest to me. As someone with little kids, I don’t want to give away their rights or their planet while we should be the responsible adults protecting both of those.

KEYWORDS: Advanced, worrisome, unwieldy, potential, fear

Climate change and wildfire management are huge. Advancing our grid to be more renewable and more robust. Empowering more household solar and less utility usage as needed. As someone who renovates home, incentivizing green upgrades and lasting solutions is key to minimizing rework and excuses demand of utilities. I’m an Ev person continuing to identify charging solutions, especially for non single family dwelling drivers. I think our kids are growing up more environmentally aware than even my generation so that gives me hope.

KEYWORDS: Possibility, protection, responsibility, beauty, conservation

As a female scientist who has long done STEM outreach, I think we don’t have great scientific literacy. As a mom of little kids I’m realizing that general literacy is key to then open up kids to math, science etc. Without solid reading it’s tough to get deep on other subjects. But kids inherently love the experimental nature of science, my middle child could experiment all day. But why don’t we have a science fair at our Seattle elementary school? I always had one in my small rural school in NY and it got me hooked into a problem solving and hypothesis building mindset. Sprinkling science in early to entice kids is great but once they have that solid grasp on reading, helping them build experiments and see that science is in everything is the best way to hook them in. I haven’t met many scientists on staff at any schools so having a scientist on staff prior to middle school would help. And engaging with local outreach programs. I love what Junior Achievement does for financial literacy - could we have something similar for science at each grade level.

KEYWORDS: Opportunity, future, broken, test based, expensive, necessary

I feel like it’s two part - using some of the historical prescribed burn practices along with modern technology is key. Recreating responsibly (as a former REI employee) is a must. Building more fire resistant housing or installing more fire resistant upgrades will help. In the cities impacted by the air, looking at filtering solutions is a must but bet the r fire management and mitigation are absolute necessities.

KEYWORDS: Needed, multi-faceted, tech forward, Native American-led, mitigate-able.

Every year seems to bring new challenges for our waterways. We’re in the salmon run area and await promising numbers every year. This year the gray whale deaths are awful. We’ve got to address our dependence on carbon and minimize the pollution to keep our temps down. We have to contour novel research to help species adapt when possible. We need to support our environments and those that were here before us - boat traffic, run off, sewer overflows (from aging infrastructure) - we can address these and have to do so.

KEYWORDS: Nature, pollution, adapting, food source, starvation, urbanization/sprawl