🧵
Science Diplomacy and The Pandemic Treaty

Here are five important science-related issues to include in any future global pandemic treaty

rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/science-dipl…
1⃣
First, improve the process for the WHO’s declaration of a public health emergency.

2⃣
Second, countries should agree on common standards for data collection and dissemination during a pandemic, to inform responses and enable relevant research to be undertaken.
3⃣
Third, nations should agree to establish international standards for the recommendation of vaccine and drug approval in a pandemic.

4⃣
Fourth, nations should agree on procedures for investigations of pandemic origins.
5⃣
Fifth, and finally, regardless where the Covid-19 origins search leads, a pandemic treaty should include international regulations on research conducted on potential pandemic pathogens.

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More from @RogerPielkeJr

6 Apr
Recently I've had many convos w/ academic faculty about diversity

One common view is that academic excellence means denying as many students as possible an opportunity to come to our campus, called EXCLUSIVITY

That's just wrong

Academic excellence means ACCESSIBILITY for all
University EXCLUSIVITY is in practice the manufacturing of demand for access far above the ability of a campus to supply education

That supply/demand mismatch justifies high tuition rates which further supports EXCLUSIVITY

So campuses become most accessible to the wealthiest
Some campuses use high tuition to subsidize lower income students thus enhancing accessibility

This is impractical for state schools as tuition rates can never be this high

The net effect is the increasing presence of wealthiest at state schools at the expense of the poorest
Read 4 tweets
3 Apr
🍎 to 🍎

This (left) million to one estimate of likelihood of natural origin to lab leak from @jfischman is incorrect

In 2012 Klotz & Sylvester (right) estimated an 80% change of a lab leak pandemic based on simple assumptions

scientificamerican.com/article/its-mu…

thebulletin.org/2012/08/the-un…
The fact that COVID-19 first broke out in a city housing one of the world's few high-level labs engaged in bat coronavirus research means a lab leak necessarily must be on the list of possible origins until it's conclusively refuted, regardless what theoretical arguments are made
The CDC current says that 15% to 70% of COVID-19 cases may be asymptomatic, with a best guess of 30% (deets below)

So if there was a lab leak, there is a meaningful chance that the leak would have been unknown to the lab or the individual(s) who may have been a vector
Read 4 tweets
29 Mar
This is a great reality check via @MattHourihan

To hit a 2% of GDP target for US federal R&D spending (i.e., same as peak of space race) would require annual $ increases of:

30%-->2026
18%-->2030
13%-->2035
10%-->2040
US federal R&D $ has been more or less constant as a % of domestic discretionary spending for >40 years
Data @aaas @MattHourihan
Meaningful increases in R&D $ > increases in domestic disc $ would represent the most significant change in US R&D OVERALL budget policy in a half century

So key to watch is if federal spending increases dramatically overall, cause R&D ain't gonna eat someone else's lunch

/END
Read 4 tweets
29 Mar
Biden OSTP to investigate Trump OSTP & federal agencies on matters of scientific integrity ...

"The goal will be to try to implement practices and policies that prevent anything that might be uncovered from happening again."
Improving scientific integrity policies and practices across federal agencies is a good idea

But it requires more than executive action, it will require legislation

See: rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/scientific-i…
A Biden OSTP investigation of Trump OSTP and agencies is fine, let's learn lessons ... but it should not come at the expense of pushing forward scientific integrity legislation such as led by @RepPaulTonko

Here is my 2019 testimony on that bill: science.house.gov/imo/media/doc/…
Read 4 tweets
24 Mar
🚨New Preprint posted🚨

Most plausible 2005-2040 emissions scenarios project less than 2.5°C of warming by 2100
osf.io/preprints/soca…
w/ @matthewgburgess @jritch

What do plausible IPCC scenarios project to 2100?
We answer this question
And the news is good

🧵 follows...
We have done a lot of work to identify implausible scenarios of the future
➡️iopscience.iop.org/article/10.108…
➡️sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

In this new paper we turn that around and seek to identify plausible scenarios and analyze them as a subset of all scenarios
Plausibility as a criteria to evaluate scenarios comes from IPCC

We define plausibility as an acceptable growth rate error in CO2 emissions 2005-2020 & 2005-2040

We use 2 error filters with 1311 AR5 & SSP scenarios identifying the 5-10% & 20-40% most plausible scenarios ⬇️
Read 11 tweets
18 Mar
Short 🧵

You might remember late last year a study was published arguing that hurricanes were staying stronger, longer over land, looking at 1967-2018

Headlines followed ... Image
New study looks at a longer time period-1900-2019-finds over the period of record that storms are actually weakening faster (non-sig downward trend), even after removing outliers

"There is no significant linear trend throughout the whole 120-year period"

agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.10… Image
But fear not

By looking at 15 data points since 1980 an upwards trend can still be claimed

Where would hurricanes & climate change discussions be without analyses that start in 1980? Whew ;-) Image
Read 4 tweets

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