scientific uncertainty
Model Uncertainty in Politics and Climate Policy
The polls could be systematically off, not just due to random error. That’s a worry with climate models as well.
Yes, your favored candidate could sweep the swing states, and yes, climate change could be more moderate than we now expect. But that shouldn’t give you much comfort on either issue, since the errors could equally be in the opposite directions.
Obviously, we’d like to improve our models, but that’s not always easy. In the meantime, the smart thing is to plan on the basis of the best models we have but avoid overconfidence about our predictions.
CONTINUE READINGArctic Futures: White Shield or Blue Economy
Multiplying proposals for ice restoration face geopolitical obstacles
Ice-thickening. Glacier curtains. Cloud brightening… Proposals for Arctic climate interventions seem to be multiplying by the day. The changing climate is not only shrinking ice caps and ice sheets, but also bringing much greater than average temperature rises in polar regions. These impacts particularly disrupt the lives and livelihoods of Arctic Indigenous Peoples. Arctic impacts …
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CONTINUE READINGReflections from a Member of the SCoPEx Advisory Committee
Sharing my lessons
After many years of work, the Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiments (SCoPEx) Advisory Committee concluded our work earlier this year after the research team at Harvard made the decision to cancel the experiment. I was a member of the Advisory Committee for much of its time, serving as chair and co-chair of the committee for …
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CONTINUE READINGA Total Eclipse of the Heat
The eclipse mania gripping U.S. media and the entire nation is an opportunity to gaze in awe at the climate crisis we’ve unleashed and talk about our collective response.
Millions of Americans traveled this week to the path of totality to hunker down with loved ones and total strangers to gaze upwards at one of the most amazing astronomical events of our lives and share something like a transcendent, spiritual experience. I hope we can collectively reckon with another terrifyingly awesome atmospheric event: the …
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CONTINUE READINGChevron Gets the Headlines, But State Farm May Be More Important
The abortion pill case could undermine the authority of agency’s expert judgments.
The Chevron doctrine requires judges to defer to an agency’s interpretation of a statute if that interpretation is reasonable. The State Farm case, which is much less widely known, requires courts to defer to an agency’s expert judgment unless its reasoning has ignored contrary evidence or has a logical hole. As you probably already know, …
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CONTINUE READINGThe global conversation about solar geoengineering just changed at the UN Environment Assembly. Here’s how.
Duncan McLaren and Olaf Corry reflect on the implications of the UNEA-6 non-decision on solar radiation modification for research and governance
As we wrote in part 1, a Swiss-led proposal to the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA) to establish an expert group on solar radiation management (SRM) proved divisive and was eventually withdrawn. Here we explore why, and what that means for any global conversation about SRM. SRM has long generated concerns that, as a powerful lever …
CONTINUE READINGCountries failed to agree first steps on solar geoengineering at the UN. What went wrong?
Duncan McLaren and Olaf Corry observed as diplomats in Nairobi wrestled with a resolution on solar radiation management
In the last weeks, diplomats from all over the world were negotiating more than twenty draft resolutions at the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA). The Assembly is a biennial intergovernmental meeting which sets the global environmental agenda. It also sets the strategy for the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), and outlines policy responses to address emerging environmental …
CONTINUE READINGThe New Particulate Standard and the Courts
The tough new air quality standard is sure to be challenged in court. Winning the challenges will be tougher.
EPA has just issued a rule tightening the air quality standard for PM2.5 — the tiny particles most dangerous to health — from an annual average of 12 μg/m³ (micrograms per cubic meter) down to 9 μg/m³. EPA estimates that, by the time the rule goes into effect in 2032, it will avoid 4500 premature …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Utility Response to EPA’s Climate Rules
The power industry apparently shares some progressive doubts about CCS and hydrogen
There are three big takeaways from the utility industry’s comments on EPA’s proposed new climate rules. First, the industry seems to share progressive concerns about whether we can count on hydrogen and CCS (carbon capture and sequestration). Second, the industry doesn’t invoke the major question doctrine, making it clear that it does not view such …
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CONTINUE READINGComparing the Risks of Climate Change and Geoengineering
The OSTP has adopted a ‘risk-risk’ framing in its report on geoengineering research: will this help or hinder sound climate policy?
Last month’s report on solar geoengineering research from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) consolidated a shift in the discourse on this controversial technology. Over recent years advocates for more research have increasingly adopted a ‘risk-risk’ framing. As Gernot Wagner puts it in ‘Geoengineering: the Gamble’: “The decision is all about …
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