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April 21, 2025

Trump Comes for Climate Research

Last week Politico published a scoop related to climate research under the Trump Administration: The Trump administration is canceling funding for the U.S. Global Change Research Program, the entity that produces the federal government’s signature climate change study, according to three federal officials familiar with the move. The move, which had been widely expected, is a potentially fatal…

April 17, 2025

The New Rules for Experts

My friend and AEI colleague Tony Mills — director of the AEI Center for Technology, Science, and Energy — has been on a tear lately. Today, I share four of Tony’s essays published in the past month on public trust in science, reform of NIH, COVID’s long-term costs, and how virologists lost the gain-of-function debate. Enjoy, and see you…

April 15, 2025

Censorship is Anti-American

On March 25, Rumeysa Ozturk, a graduate student at Tufts University — “a Fulbright scholar working on a PhD in child study and human development on an F-1 student visa” — was detained by six plain clothes government officials as she walked down a Boston street. Yesterday, The Washington Post reported that a State Department memo, prepared…

April 10, 2025

The Apocalypse Machine Rolls On

Climate scenarios are fundamental to climate research and policy. For more than a decade, one scenario dominated research informing discussions of climate among scientists and decision makers. Called RCP8.5, today that scenario is widely recognized as implausible, leading to apocalyptic portrayals of future climate change and providing an unreliable basis for policy analyses for adaptation and…

April 7, 2025

Behind the Curtain

Last month, climate scientist Kate Marvel, of NASA, shared “something I have really struggled with” about extreme event attribution. She was speaking as an invited expert in a public information-gathering session of the U.S. National Academy committee1 on extreme event attribution.  Marvel, who also served at the lead author on the chapter on “Climate Trends” in the 2023 U.S. National…

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, from left, Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump and Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, attend a campaign event at the Butler Farm Show, Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024, in Butler, Pa. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

April 4, 2025

A Policy Professor Grades Trump’s Trade Policies

For this first edition of THB Subscriber Questions (THBSQ#1) I am going to address one question asked by many readers. Anders Valland asks:  Professor, now you know where it starts. What are your reflections on the new tariff regime? I’ll start with a disclaimer and some throat clearing — I do not research or publish in…

March 31, 2025

Economics and Politics of Tariffs

In recent years, when teaching my senior policy capstone course I would often pivot the course on short notice to discuss current events, updating the readings on the syllabus, and often inviting guest lectures from relevant experts. Among such pivots were Covid-19, Russia-Ukraine, the U.S. elections, October 7th, and more.  Part of my motivation of…

March 31, 2025

“Drill, Baby, Drill” is Nothing Short of a Myth and Populist Rallying Cry

Who uttered the quote that is the title of this post? A prominent climate activist, perhaps? Or maybe, a progressive Democratic member of Congress? No and no.  The quote comes from a representative of a Texas-based oil and gas production firm last week to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas in its March Energy Survey. Here…

March 27, 2025

Global Energy Demand Set to Accelerate

The International Energy Agency has just published its Global Energy Review 2025. In this post I share the five most important take-aways I see in the report. I encourage you to have a look at the full report for IEA’s interpretation of its top conclusions. Let’s jump right in . . .  Have a look at the figure…

March 20, 2025

Is Single Extreme Event Attribution Even Possible?

The U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) currently has a study committee on Attribution of Extreme Weather and Climate Events and their Impacts. In this series — Weather Attribution Alchemy — I have previously discussed the committee’s many conflicts of interest. Today I discuss a crucial scientific question at the center of the committee’s work,…