Quiet, uncritical, obedient: how the UK’s scientists failed the pandemic test
Throughout the pandemic, senior advisers and institutions have failed to challenge a post-truth government. newstatesman.com/health-science…
A well-regarded scientist, now a senior official at OSTP, violated PNAS peer review procedures as an editor so egregiously that it led to the paper she oversaw being retracted
The official is also leading the Biden Admin Science Integrity Task Force
Not a great look...
Today, @axios reports the following about the retraction and the officials role on the Science Integrity Task Force axios.com/white-house-sc…
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Interesting detail in Supreme Court ruling striking down the Biden Administration's vaccine mandate for employers . . . supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf…
The majority argue that Congress never gave OSHA authority to regulate public health in workplaces
A reaction might be for the Biden Admin to propose new legislation granting OSHA that authority
After all, Ds control House and Senate
But . . .
There is no chance of legislation passing that would expand OSHA regulatory authority
How do we know this?
The Senate voted last month to express disapproval of the OSHA vaccine mandate
It was party-line, except for two
Tester (D-MT)
Manchin (D-WV)
🧵Some quick comments on the @WHOSTP science integrity report released today (just in time for my first grad seminar meeting of the semester, so thanks for that!) . . .
1⃣ The report does not define "scientific integrity" -- which is a problem because you cannot regulate that which is undefined ... and Potter Stewart imprecision won't do ... the report does say that future work of the Task Force will come up with a definition
2⃣ Notably missing is any discussion of congressional scientific integrity legislation, notable legislation introduced by @PaulTonko w/ 140+ bipartisan co-sponsors tonko.house.gov/uploadedfiles/…
Reason is likely that Biden Admin doesn't want to cede any oversight power to Congress
🧵 @MunichRe today published their estimates for natural disaster losses in 2021, allowing me to update the time series of global disaster losses as a proportion of global GDP
This thread reports and discusses this update
TL;DR --> Figure below
Munich Re reports ~$270B in total weather and climate disasters losses for 2021, which is 0.28% global GDP
"Spotting is an influential form of wildfire spread whereby firebrands (i.e. burning pieces of vegetation or other combustible materials) are blown into unburnt fuels and ignite separate new ‘spot fire'"
Storey et al. 2020 publish.csiro.au/WF/pdf/WF19124
Albini, F. A. (1983). Potential spotting distance from wind-driven surface fires (Vol. 309). US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Intermountain Forest and Range Experiment Station. frames.gov/documents/beha…
This is an incredibly interesting paper:
Pitts, W. M. (1991). Wind effects on fires. Progress in Energy and Combustion Science, 17(2), 83-134. doi.org/10.1016/0360-1…