Expert Judgment and Earthquakes
Last week, six Italian scientists and a former public official were found guilty of manslaughter for not accurately warning the citizens of L’Aquila before an earthquake ravaged the city and killed 309 people. RFF Chauncey Starr Senior Fellow Roger Cooke noted that the case has piqued interest in Structured Expert Judgment, a process he developed to quantify uncertainty and improve decisionmaking in complex risk scenarios like earthquakes.
Reducing CO2 Emissions in the United States
The United States could come close to meeting the emissions reductions commitments it made in Copenhagen, according to new research from RFF Darius Gaskins Senior Fellow Dallas Burtraw and Matt Woerman. The study contends that improved fuel standards, EPA regulations under the Clean Air Act, cheap natural gas, and better energy efficiency may achieve greater emissions reductions than what was proposed under Waxman–Markey. These results sparked a thoughtful conversation with the Council on Foreign Relations’ Michael Levi, still underway here.
