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October 21, 2024
We Found an Excel File Online
A new paper is just out claiming that climate change is increasing the damage associated with U.S. hurricanes: “US hurricane damage, normalized for changes of inflation, population, and wealth, increases approximately 1% per year. For 1900–2022, 1% per year is equivalent to a factor of >3 increase, substantially but not entirely, attributable to climate change.” As they…
October 15, 2024
The “warming surge,” climate model biases, fewer Gulf hurricanes, and super shoes!
In 2024 it can be difficult to sort wheat from chaff in the peer-reviewed literature. There has always been better and worse science — that goes with the territory — but as I argued last week, we are now in an era of tactical research, with science curated to advance narratives over knowledge. That makes knowing…
October 10, 2024
The Clean Energy Transition’s Voter Problem
The future of the clean energy transition is cloudy. It’s well-known that there are disagreements—wide disagreements—between Republicans and Democrats about our energy future. But less well-known is the bedrock of public opinion on America’s energy supply, the importance of a rapid transition away from fossil fuels, and the general salience of the climate change issue….
October 8, 2024
Weather Attribution Alchemy
In the aftermath of many high profile extreme weather events we see headlines like the following: For those who closely follow climate science and the assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), such headlines can be difficult to make sense of because neither the IPCC nor the underlying scientific literature comes anywhere close…
October 3, 2024
Weaponizing Peer Review
In their book, Merchants of Doubt, Naomi Oreskes and Eric Conway argue that scientists “know bad science when they see it”: “It’s science that is obviously fraudulent — when data have been invented, fudged, or manipulated. Bad science is where data is have been cherry-picked— when some data have been deliberately left out—or it’s impossible for…
October 1, 2024
The American Growth Imperative
Every so often, I come across a policy analysis that is so quantitatively robust and crystal clear in its presentation, that it clarifies how I think. Today is one of those days. In a just-released report the Economic Innovation Group — a non-partisan think tank in Washington, DC — focuses on the rising share of government transfers…
September 30, 2024
Extending Years of Life Through Innovations in Drug Therapy
This summer I experienced a cruelty I hope no one should have to endure. On Saturday my mother passed away, just three months and two days after my dad did the same. I was in my office cubicle working on this newsletter when I got the news about my dad. He was a cancer survivor…
September 27, 2024
The Institute for Regulatory Law & Economics
Today I’m traveling to the 2024 Institute for Regulatory Law & Economics Workshop for Regulators. The 2024 IRLE Workshop marks not only the 18th annual gathering of regulators and scholars, but also the 20th anniversary of IRLE’s founding. Over the past two decades, this workshop has evolved into a valued educational and translational research resource for regulators…
September 23, 2024
A Decades-Old Environmental Law in Need of a Makeover
Last week, SpaceX pushed back its timetable for the launch of Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built, and singled out government regulations as the cause: Unfortunately, we continue to be stuck in a reality where it takes longer to do the government paperwork to license a rocket launch than it does to design and build…
September 23, 2024
Australia’s Misinformation Police
A few days ago Australian legislators introduced a bill focused on “Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation.” The Australian Parliament explains the purpose of the bill: The bill proposes to amend the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 and would make consequential amendments to other Acts to establish a new framework to safeguard against serious harms caused by misinformation or…