A great paper by @JessicaWeinkle
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.111…

"the extent to which the insurance industry directs, funds & validates the production & use of science for estimating risk is itself a full blown political enterprise that functions to prioritize industry interests"
Weinkle documents the co-optation of scientists by the insurance industry to create regulatory-friendly research that appears to be "independent"
The use of the resulting research by industry goes unchallenged and in fact, legitimizes the work of the (no so) "independent" experts as authoritative because industry is using it ... so a mutually reinforcing legitimization circle
And Weinkle is not just talking about a one-off collaboration here and there

Insurance industry-academic ties are deep and pervasive
Bottom line is that insurance-academic connections warrant scrutiny (just like any industry-academic connections)

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More from @RogerPielkeJr

29 Apr
Biden Has Elevated the Job of Science Adviser.
Is That What Science Needs?

Excellent stage setter for Lander hearing today by @WilliamJBroad

nytimes.com/2021/04/29/sci…
You can watch the Lander OTSP confirmation hearing here in about 1 hour: commerce.senate.gov/2021/4/nominat…
Here are five policy questions that I recommended be put to Lander at the hearing:
rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/five-questio…
Read 23 tweets
28 Apr
There is an interesting investigative journalism project to be done on the revolving door between climate science & policy and private sector climate services

Just as one example, John Kerry's predecessor as "climate envoy" co-founded a consulting firm that feeds off of RCP8.5
Absolutely fascinating how climate scenarios (RCPs, SSPs & their derivatives) are enabling entirely new markets for consulting based on financial risk assessments of fictional futures

It is also amazing how much money is being paid to explore these outdated, fictional futures
Observing the monetization of climate scenarios I am reminded of this passage from Rayner and Sarewitz 2021 @TheBTI Journal on how the Chesapeake Bay Program confused models and reality
thebreakthrough.org/journal/no-13-…
Read 7 tweets
26 Apr
🧵
Happy Monday
I'm going to let you in on a secret
It is out in the open but I doubt you've heard about it

Th most recent CMIP6 modeling studies of tropical cyclones/hurricanes project no detectable changes in storm metrics most associated with damage ... under RCP8.5 ... 1/n
Kreusseler et al GRL look at "integrated kinetic energy" (IKE) as a metric of potential damage and in model projections find "no significant changes in lifetime maximum IKE between present climate conditions and a projected climate scenario"
agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.10…
Very important
Kreussler et al support Klotzbach et al 2020:
"minimum in MSLP seems to be a better predictor of IKE in HR than the max wind speed, which tends to support the use of central pressure deficit as a better proxy than max surface winds to estimate TC damage"
Read 10 tweets
23 Apr
🧵
For the 6th time in the past 6 years US tornado counts through 22 April are below average (2005-2020)

I was curious ... does a quiet start suggest a quiet year?

Data: @NOAA @NWSSPC Image
The answer is -- yes -- a quiet start does to some degree suggest a quiet year

Here is the relationship of tornadoes through April 22nd and the year's total

Counts through April 22nd average ~28% of the annual total & regression r^2 is ~0.39

Data: @NOAA @NWSSPC Image
Evidence suggests decreasing tornado incidence

Our work shows a long-term decline in normalized tornado losses (in fact the decline is so pronounced it is evidence in non-normalized data as well)

Data updated from: doi.org/10.1080/174778… Image
Read 6 tweets
22 Apr
😬
When RCP8.5 isn’t bad enough
New Swiss Re climate report

“We use multiplicative factors of 5 and 10 to simulate the increasing severity of outcomes from nonlinearities”

That’s right
Take sketchy model results & then multiply by 5x and 10x to account for “unknown unknowns”
The headline result — 2050 global GDP reduces 18% — is the result of taking economic outcomes of RCP8.5 in a simple econometric model & then ...

[never seen this methodological step before]

... multiplying those results by 10 to account for unknown unknowns

HT @AndrewSiffert
Here is the New York Times on the Swiss Re RCP8.5x10 analysis

“Rising temperatures are likely to reduce global wealth significantly by 2050, as crop yields fall, disease spreads and rising seas consume coastal cities...”

I cannot overstate how bonkers this is
Read 4 tweets
21 Apr
I’ll never forget the 1st time I contacted police on a blog harasser — he threatened gunshots in heads of my children, only to find out he was a college professor & is still harassing me today⤵️

➡️From snark to dark: how harassment took over the internet ft.com/content/b1da22…
Online harassment takes other forms also:
Then there is/was a Twitter “blocklist” that includes me and my followers (taken at some point in time promoted & shared by a lead of the US Natl Climate Assessment & a leading journalist — obviously intended to isolate and marginalize
I’ve seen that online harassment can become real world harassment with real world consequences

issues.org/the-science-po…
Read 5 tweets

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