“For context, the U.S. debt is rising by $1 trillion every 100 days, and neither leading presidential candidate seems focused on tackling the issue this election cycle. ‘Neither is talking about fiscal rectitude and [Trump] is actually talking about extending tax cuts,’ said David Page, head of macroeconomic research at Axa Investment Managers.” - Caleb Naysmith/Yahoo!Finance, April 3, 2024
What would you consider the “science” in these scenarios? What science would you trust? What leads you to trust one science claim and not another? If the credibility of the source, how do you determine the credibility of a source? …
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, Sweden was among the few countries that did not enforce strict lockdown measures but instead relied more on voluntary and sustainable mitigation recommendations. While supported by the majority of Swedes, this approach faced rapid and continuous criticism. Unfortunately, the respectful debate centered around scientific evidence often gave way to mudslinging. However, the available data on excess all-cause mortality rates indicate that Sweden experienced fewer deaths per population unit during the pandemic (2020–2022) than most high-income countries and was comparable to neighboring Nordic countries through the pandemic. An open, objective scientific dialogue is essential for learning and preparing for future outbreaks.” - The Swedish COVID-19 approach: a scientific dialogue on mitigation policies, Björkman et al, 2023
This all seems so counterintuitive. You don’t die of Covid unless you are infected with Covid, so why wouldn’t there be an association between infection and death rates?
“It is an increasingly familiar experience. A request for help to a large language model such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT is promptly met by a response that is confident, coherent and just plain wrong. In an AI model, such tendencies are usually described as hallucinations. A more informal word exists, however: these are the qualities of a great bullshitter… The fundamental problem is that language models are probabilistic, while truth is not.” - AI models make stuff up. How can hallucinations be controlled? The Economist February 28, 2024
A sense of panic rarely leads to thoughtful planning. More often panic leads to bad policies, rushed implementation, poor outcomes, and political backlash. Better to tread carefully and self-correct as necessary.
So what does that mean for humans and the planet? Some predictions: unpredictable weather, extreme heatwaves, heat stressed cities, increased wildfires, severe droughts, water scarcity, increased frequency, intensity and/or amount of heavy rain and flooding, loss of species/mass extinctions, deforestation, lower crop yields, reduced food security, and widespread economic hardship. These problems will vary by region and local preparedness. Worst off will be countries that lack the resources or political will to build resilience and adapt to the coming onslaught of troubles…What to do?
On the left we have intensive farming, clearly not the way to go. On the right, “agroecological agriculture”, clearly on the side of virtue and biodiversity. Now here’s another example of intensive agriculture…
“Intensive” is rarely used in a positive context for farming. People tend to associate it with low animal welfare, pollution and faceless corporations…But there are lots of different ways to farm intensively.” - - Emma Garnett, Five misused food and farming terms, from natural to intensive – and what they really mean, 2023
Ok, so global CO2 emissions continue to rise, except for a pandemic-induced dip in 2020. But look closely at the above chart and you’ll see definite signs of progress, especially since 2010. For one, CO2 emissions are increasing more slowly than global population and GDP per capita. Two, energy intensity - a measure of energy inefficiency - has been declining steadily for over 30 years. And, three, there’s an accelerating decline in “carbon intensity”, which means…
Mastery is that feeling of riding the wave, of knowing what adjustments to make as it tries to throw you off. You may still lose your balance. The wave may win. But you're not overwhelmed; you’re focused and you keep trying.
“Stop all grants to advocacy groups?” I’m assuming “advocacy groups” refers to environmental groups, many of which employ scientists and policy wonks with expertise directly relevant to EPA concerns…Why in the world should the EPA simply stop using these groups? It’s possible to have strong convictions about the environment (whether nature-or human-centered, whether left or right) and maintain a high level of professional integrity. Environmental activists can still provide high quality information and advice. The EPA doesn’t have to embrace their ideological convictions to benefit from their input.
There was a time when Republicans embraced the cause of environmental protection. Think Progress noted that “some of the greatest conservationists ever to take the oath of office were Republicans.” Both Greenpeace and the Union of Concerned Scientists rated Richard Nixon one of the greenest president ever. And we're not talking ancient history here: both Presidents Bush supported cap and trade policies to reduce pollution…So what happened?
The American public has largely come around to Carter’s vision of protecting huge swaths of wilderness in the US. For example, by 2017, 70% of American voters opposed drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. This included 84% of Democrats, 64% of Independents, and 52% of Republicans. (Leiserowitz et al, 2017). However, Trump was not among those Republicans…on his last day of office, his administration “issued drilling leases on more than 400,000 acres (160,000 hectares) of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge” (Reuters, January 19, 2021)
“Abstraction is the enemy of personal empathy, but it’s essential for equitable elections. Villages are communal, but they aren’t truly democratic. A level of abstraction is necessary to imagine other citizens as equal agents with rights, not clan histories.” - Adam Gopnik, To Fix Democracy, First Figure Out What’s Broken
Excerpt from Plan for Trump Administration: “The next Administration should champion the elimination of the Conservation Reserve Program…The USDA should work with Congress to eliminate this overbroad program.”
Comment: Note that the Conservation Reserve program, established during the Reagan administration, already targets highly erodible land and areas with “significant adverse water quality, wildlife habitat, or other natural resource impacts related to activities of agricultural production”. Those are specific and concrete environmental harms – not overly broad at all.
From Chapter 10 of Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise , a project led by the Heritage Foundation that outlines policy goals for a second Trump term: “For a conservative USDA to become a reality, and for it to stay on course with the mission as outlined, the White House must strongly support these reforms and install strong USDA leaders… There would be strong opposition from environmental groups and others who want the federal government to transform American agriculture to meet their ideological objectives.”
Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise is a project led by the Heritage Foundation that outlines policy goals for a second Trump term. William Perry Pendley is the author of Chapter 16: Department of the Interior. Pendley was appointed to deputy director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in 2019 and later served in an unofficial capacity as acting director of the BLM for the remainder of the Trump administration. My intention for this series of posts is purely informational, so for now I’m keeping my opinions to myself.
Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise is a project led by the Heritage Foundation that outlines policy goals for a second Trump term. Mandy Gunasekara is the author of Chapter 13: The Environmental Protection Agency. Gunasekara was Chief of Staff to EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler from March 2020 – January 2021. Here are excerpts from Chapter 13. Note that my intention in this series of posts in purely informational. For now, I’ll be keeping my opinions to myself.
The following are excerpts from articles written during or shortly after the Trump administration. List of articles:
The Trump administration’s major environmental deregulations.
The Trump Administration Rolled Back More Than 100 Environmental Rules. Here’s the Full List.
Trump Cuts EPA Budget Again.
Latest Trump proposal on endangered species could limit future habitat, critics say
The environmental legacy of President Trump.