🧵
This passage from excellent @washingtonpost reporting on the WH Coronavirus Task Force should cause us to ask some questions about Scott Atlas

Who is he & how is it that he can have any authority whatsoever to implement or block policy?

He is not elected or Senate confirmed
Atlas staff position in the White House carries the title "Special Advisor to the President"

Such positions date to Reorganization Act of 1939 which created the Executive Office of the President (aka The West Wing) giving the prez new powers to staff

budgetcounsel.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/summar…
Such positions have been off-and-on called "czars" dating to the administration of FDR
loc.gov/item/201667847…
In 1978 the US Congressional Research Service characterized such positions as "an extension of the Presidency itself"

Thus, whatever role Scott Atlas is playing (definitely not "anonymous servant"), constitutionally it is (and can only be) as a proxy for Donald Trump
Flanigan (1995) argued that czars typically fail, and cause confusion, disruption and compromise accountability, discipline (sounds familiar, eh?)

jstor.org/stable/pdf/275…
In 1971 Sen Ernest Hollings (D-SC) complained that White House policy czars were usurping cabinet officials
google.com/books/edition/…
More recently here in 2009 is Sen John Cornyn (R-TX) complaining about the accountability of policy czars under president Obama (quoted in fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R…)
And here is Susan Collins (R-ME) in 2009 also complaining about Obama policy czars
(quoted in fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R…)
So who is Scott Atlas?

Functionally he is Donald Trump

If Trump is delegating his thinking/deciding to Atlas that is his right

If Trump has staffed the EOP with individuals who can't get along, that is his right

But no one should expect effective policy from such a sh*tshow
To wrap up

Atlas is a "special advisor" but he is not a science advisor, he is not independent, he is not Senate confirmed or subject to Congressional oversight

Whether you agree/disagree with his pandemic politics, he is a manifestation of comprehensive governance failure
/END

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More from @RogerPielkeJr

20 Oct
🧵
I am really glad that @hausfath @Peters_Glen made the effort to write a letter to PNAS on the SGD20

But judging from the rejoinder to their letter, RCP8.5 will be with us for a while ...
I outlined the issues in a thread as well, which has details if you are interested, 100% consistent with @hausfath @Peters_Glen letter (which is behind a paywall)
The main issue is that the extreme scenarios favored in climate research (like RCP8.5, SSP5-8.5) are unambiguously flawed

SGD20 claim that these flaws are irrelevant because they are compensated by other flaws, just as big in the other direction (smdh, right?)
Read 11 tweets
19 Oct
This week the FDA vaccine advisory committee is meeting ... science advisory committees are usually pretty boring, not this time ...
biopharmadive.com/news/fda-advis… via @BioPharmaDive
"On October 22 2020, the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research’s (CBER), Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) will meet in open session, to discuss, in general, the development, authorization and/or licensure of vaccines to prevent COVID-19"
Read 5 tweets
16 Oct
I'm still amazed that we are using college football players as study subjects & (apparently) ignoring research ethics and corporate research protocols applied everywhere else on campus
10news.com/news/local-new…
OK, I'll ask

What happens if we find out that the answer to the research question posed below is, no or not much?

Do we say, "well at least we got some games in, thanks for participating in our study"

pac-12.com/article/2020/0…
I get it that universities (and Athletic departments) don't like these sorts of questions

But it is obvious that Quidel views PAC-12 football as a clinical experiment to perfect tests in order to secure FDA approval of their proprietary technology

cnbc.com/video/2020/09/…
Read 6 tweets
13 Oct
Really insightful new essay by Simon Robertson on issues raised by the IPCC dual roles in both assessing and producing climate research
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.100…
We also discuss this in depth (and also in the context of the IPCC IAMC) in this paper:
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…
These issues were highlighted by @Oliver_Geden in 2015
nature.com/news/policy-cl…
Read 4 tweets
13 Oct
Today is Disaster Risk Reduction Day #DRRDay

There is good news to report on this front, but continued progress requires continued effort
Under indicators of the @UN Sustainable Development Goals the world is making progress with respect to disasters - but there is no guarantee that it will continue, sustained effort is needed

tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…
Vulnerability has decreased globally:
"Results show a clear decreasing trend in both human & economic vulnerability, with global average mortality & economic loss rates that have dropped by 6.5 and nearly 5 times, respectively, from 1980–1989 to 2007–2016"
sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
Read 5 tweets
12 Oct
It will be interesting to watch the up-is-down reporting on the new UN report on disasters

The graph below is from data in the report (Figure 5, p. 10)

It shows that "climate-related" disasters have declined by ~15% over the past 20 years (2000-2019)
Back in 2007, in its annual report CRED/EM-DAT warned about using pre-2000 data to say anything about climate change, because of the massive increasing in reporting of disasters around the world.
Here is what CRED told the NYT in 2009:
dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/23/gor…
Read 5 tweets

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