Science Education & Policy
In the waning hours of the year’s biggest climate change conference – COP27 – we learned of a deal to create a loss and damage fund. This is essentially a source of finance to compensate poor countries for the pain they are incurring because of climate change. An often-cited example of such suffering is the ongoing drought in the Horn of Africa region, which has put some 22 million people at risk of severe hunger.
While some have heralded this agreement as long overdue climate reparations, others point out that the loss and damage fund does nothing to address the root causes of climate…
I was astonished when I read NASA’s draft Environment Impact Statement for their mission to return samples from Mars. NASA are normally so reliable. Normally their work is well grounded in the best and most recent science, and they are also very open with the public, for instance sharing their images from Mars as soon as they receive them themselves.
But this was far from NASA’s usual standard, and full of mistakes.
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They used cites to out of date papers without mentioning papers that overturned their results. This is an example,…
Humanity progresses thanks to the diffusion and sharing of human knowledge. In particular, scientific progress is brought forth by the sharing of ideas, measurements and experimental results among scientists, and the distribution of excellent education. We have grown very good at doing that, but can we improve the sharing of knowledge for the common good?
The answer is certainly yes, as the interconnection of the scientific community and the interdisciplinarity of its efforts are hampered by borders, language barriers, cultural differences, political influences, religious hindrances,…
Hank |
When the federal government took over health care during the Obama years, a lot of promises were made while the concern when legislation was passed without knowing which parts of three competing plans would be implemented boiled down to high cost to get a million people insured who couldn't get insurance.
It ended up being worse than projected. Individual plans shot up 300% in just a few years and may never be affordable again. There are two big reasons the system is flawed, and they are why up to 40% of people will abandon their political party if a candidate on the other side says they want…
Hank |
In a recent paper calling to add even more regulations to legal gun owners, the American Academy of Pediatrics wrote "Each day, 28 U.S. children and teens -- the equivalent of a high school classroom -- die from gun violence, making it the No. 1 killer of youth through age 24."
How did they get their number, and why are they claiming a 24-year-old is a child?
(1)
The actual number of kids who died due to accidents, the kind of thing AAP suggests government regulation will prevent, is...9. Government doesn't do anything to prevent crime against kids with over 20,000 laws regulating guns in…
If you are in a business where costs are both fixed and high, but your number of customers is slashed due to government regulations and public concern about leaving the house, it may not be worthwhile to continue. In more heavy-handed states like California, thousands of restaurants went out of business. In some places, so did doctors.
In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, doctors faced reduced revenue, staff who stopped wanting to work, and decreased morale, according to an analysis of billing claims data. The work found that nearly twice as many family physicians stopped work…
Hank |
European governments will tell you they have shown 'leadership' in combating CO2 emissions. What they leave out of media briefings is that they are lying, and always have been.
The original climate treaty, the Kyoto accord, was written by Germany and France and used a target date after West and East Germany unified, so by closing a few Soviet-era power plants Germany met its target, while France had increased nuclear so their emissions easily met the old date target as well. It did nothing for emissions, it was political theater.
The recent Paris agreement is even worse, despite what…
The way Chief Justice Roberts tosses red herrings, he could get a job at Seattle’s Pike Market. The court may make unpopular decisions, he says, but that’s no reason to question the Supremes’ legitimacy. He’s right, but he’s right in a way that totally misses the point.
Here are a half dozen real reasons why Americans question the court’s legitimacy:
1. Mitch McConnell refused to consider President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the court, saying the nomination fell too close to a presidential election. Then, even closer to the next presidential election…
Hank |
In today's Washington Examiner, I detail how the Biden administration did an end-run around their own scientists - and what that will do to the price of food.
How ridiculous is the new level imposed on a popular weedkiller for America's most important crop? It is equivalent to government saying you should not be exposed to the sun for more than one second every 10 years or you will get skin cancer.
They did it by exploiting loopholes in regulatory agencies available since 1984, the Chevron Deference ruling which found that a regulatory body could create a regulation that acted as…
Hank |
Random violence is obviously a psychological problem. Every mass shooting has a link to psychiatric medication but medicine doesn't cause shootings any more than guns do. Yet we know that together there may be warning signs because number one in firearm deaths is not mass gun shootings, those are so rare they are big news, it is suicide. (1)
Discouraging gun purchases among people with major depressive symptoms may be an opportunity to diminish suicide risk while help is obtained. A new cross-sectional survey found that people with moderate depressive symptoms were more likely to have…