The Promise of Geoengineering 
Article
The Dispatch

The Promise of Geoengineering 

It is memory-holed now, but acid rain was the largest environmental threat in the 1980s. Grisly pictures emerged, prompting research and then action by the government to reduce sulfur dioxide and nitrogen…

What Did You Expect?
Article
The Honest Broker

What Did You Expect?

About 20,000 years ago, the world was in an ice age. The era is called the Last Glacial Maximum and had global sea levels more than 120 meters (~400 feet)…

What’s Behind the Antitrust Ruling Against Google?
Article
The Dispatch

What’s Behind the Antitrust Ruling Against Google?

In the groundbreaking case U.S. v. Google, Judge Amit Mehta of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ruled Monday that the tech giant has been using its…

Joe Biden is the “Drill, Baby, Drill” President
Article
The Honest Broker

Joe Biden is the “Drill, Baby, Drill” President

I would guess that we are going to hear the phrase “drill, baby, drill” a lot in the next three months. Here at THB, one goal is to ensure that…

We’ll Always Have Paris
Article
The Honest Broker

We’ll Always Have Paris

In 2015, countries around the world met in Paris at the 21st Conference of Parties to the U.N Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) where they agreed to limit global temperature increases…

Data Center Electricity Use III: Make or Buy?
Article
Knowledge Problem

Data Center Electricity Use III: Make or Buy?

The exponential growth of data centers, driven by the burgeoning demand for cloud services, AI computations, and big data analytics, has increased electricity consumption significantly. In the first two posts…

James C. Scott, Legibility, and the Omnipresence of Tech
Article
The Dispatch

James C. Scott, Legibility, and the Omnipresence of Tech

Last week, political scientist James C. Scott passed away. Scott’s 1998 book, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, easily ranks near the top of…

It’s All About the Base(line)
Article
The Honest Broker

It’s All About the Base(line)

This is Part 5 in the THB series — Climate Fueled Extreme Weather. You can find Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, and Part 4 here. Each can be read on…

Why Climate Misinformation Persists
Article
The Honest Broker

Why Climate Misinformation Persists

In 2001, I participated in a roundtable discussion hosted at the headquarters of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) with a group of U.S. Senators, the Secretary of Treasury, and…

The Power of Tumblr
Article
The Dispatch

The Power of Tumblr

The social networking website Tumblr is a shadow of its former self now, but from about 2010 to 2016 something new was arising in it. It was generally referred to…

We Don’t Need No Stinking Science
Article
The Honest Broker

We Don’t Need No Stinking Science

This is Part 4 in the THB series — Climate Fueled Extreme Weather. You can find Part 1 here Part 2 here and Part 3 here. Each can be read on their own, but…

Unpacking the Data Dilemma
Article
AEIdeas

Unpacking the Data Dilemma

Systems of categorization and classification have played important roles throughout history, from ancient religious texts organizing moral codes to modern scientific frameworks. Among these is the modern digital data system,…

Regulation and Utility Performance
Article
Knowledge Problem

Regulation and Utility Performance

Last week’s outages in Houston due to Hurricane Beryl were agonizing and frustrating. The Category 1 hurricane made landfall on July 8 and maintained hurricane strength until it reached Houston,…

The Supreme Court Term in Review
Article
The Dispatch

The Supreme Court Term in Review

“A film is born three times,” French filmmaker Robert Bresson once famously remarked. “First in the writing of the script, once again in the shooting, and finally in the editing.” …

It’s Later Than You Think
Article
The Honest Broker

It’s Later Than You Think

Today, I discuss the concept of the “time of emergence” for the detection of a signal of a change in climate in observations and projections. Our early work in this…