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Roger Pielke Jr. Profile picture
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9 Nov, 8 tweets, 4 min read
A design flaw is revealed here

The management structure of US Global Change Research Program has it overseen by a subcommittee of the White House NSTC

That means that its leadership is -- in effect -- politically appointed even if they are not technically political appointees
However it has come about that the leader of the next US national climate assessment will work from an agency as a career scientists (not politically appointed & not working from White House) is good news for the integrity of the NCA as an advisory mechanism
Climate science has been overseen from the White House since the 1980s & the US NCA since the 1990s

On that early history see:
Pielke Jr 2000. Policy history of the US global change research program: Part I. Administrative development. GEC 10:9-25. sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publicat…
Just yesterday we argued for some distance between political appointments and the US NCA
nature.com/articles/d4158…
Situating a crucial science advisory process in the White House (via extensions into EOP) is akin to a marshmallow test for elected officials

They might mean well but there is a lot of temptation there also

Lesson for science advice?
Keep the marshmallow out of the White House
USGCRP was originally created administratively to develop policy for science (w/ OMB) & NOT science for policy

But when Congress got ahold of it that changed

Pielke 1994. Scientific information & global change policymaking. Climatic Change 28:315-319.
sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publicat…
In 2007 Sarewitz & I proposed methodologically how to fix the USGCRP design flaw as an example of a more general issue in S&T policy:

Sarewitz & Pielke 2007. The neglected heart of science policy: reconciling supply of and demand for science. ESP 10:5-16.
cspo.org/legacy/library…
How to ensure independent scientific advice from the US National Climate Assessment is a forthcoming topic of The Honest Broker Newsletter

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More from @RogerPielkeJr

Roger Pielke Jr. Profile picture
30 Oct
🧵
A new RCP8.5 critique published today
Pedersen et al adds to @matthewgburgess et al & @hausfath @Peters_Glen
It is a valuable contribution to growing literature documenting why it's inappropriate to use RCP8.5 as a reference scenario in climate research
nature.com/articles/s4324…
There now appears to be a growing consensus that RCP8.5 (and by extension SSP3-7.0 and SSP5-8.5) are inappropriate when used as reference scenarios (for definition of what a "reference scenario" means see @jritch &I --> osf.io/preprints/soca…)
There is a bit of unfortunate historical revisionism in the paper

Compare Pedersen et al (left) with the original description of RCP8.5 in Riahi et al 2011 (right)

The use of RCP8.5 as a reference scenario can be found in thousands and thousands of papers, with more added daily
Read 6 tweets
Roger Pielke Jr. Profile picture
29 Oct
🧵Thread
Initial reactions to Blake Leeper CAS ruling

Summary:
Leeper lost his appeal to run in Olympics but World Athletics (IAAF) lost the case & will completely reshape possibilities for athletes with prosthetics to run in elite competition

cc:
@Dr_Weyand
@Scienceofsport
First, this case hinges on rules, processes and science
On the latter it is remarkable to see IAAF demanding access to data, when they refused (to this day) to release data in their research re: Semanya
Similarly, I had a good chuckle seeing IAAF emphasize peer review (Semenya research wasn't) & the necessity of data release for CAS to do its job
In this case the data was shared by Leeper's team, in Semenya case IAAF never shared its data
Read 20 tweets
Roger Pielke Jr. Profile picture
27 Oct
Incredible
Solar power enjoys an incredibly strong a global public consensus
As do wind and hydro, 7 just below gas
Nuclear, oil, coal ... not so much
Via @pewglobal
pewresearch.org/science/2020/0…
Ideological polarization on climate policy is a largely found in a few English-speaking countries (plus Sweden!)
Via @pewglobal
With a high % of authors of @IPCC_CH coming from ideologically polarized countries (US, UK, Australia) not surprising that those politics re-emerge within the assessment process

But ideological battles over climate are a non-issue for >95% of the world

carbonbrief.org/analysis-gende…
Read 5 tweets
Roger Pielke Jr. Profile picture
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
Roger Pielke Jr. Profile picture
19 Oct
🧵
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…
Read 10 tweets
Roger Pielke Jr. Profile picture
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"
Details:
fda.gov/advisory-commi…
Read 5 tweets

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