Climate and Energy: The Outliers
Every issue explores cutting-edge developments in technology, medicine, education, climate change, and much more. Articles provide in-depth analyses of science and technology’s impact on public policy, the economy, and society—bringing today’s best minds to bear on tomorrow’s most critical topics.
Editor's Journal
Outlier Thoughts on Climate and Energy
As the Paris climate talks were starting, activist Bill McKibben wrote in Foreign Policy magazine that “The conference is not the game—it’s the scorecard.” He explained that he did not expect the… Read More
From the Hill
From the Hill – Winter 2016
“From the Hill” is adapted from the e-newsletter Policy Alert, published by the Office of Government Relations of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (www.aaas.org) in Washington, DC. Congressional budget… Read More
Perspectives
How to Bring Global R&D into Latin America: Lessons from Chile
Over the past several decades, a growing number of multinational companies have established research and development (R&D) facilities outside of their home countries. More recently, some universities and public research organizations have… Read MoreA Policy Experiment is Worth a Million Lives
Smoking cigarettes is a public health disaster in the United States and the rest of the world. Every year, around 500,000 smokers die prematurely, and the Surgeon General considers smoking the single… Read MoreFact Check: Scientific Research in the National Interest Act
Since its creation in 1950, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has served a mission that helps make the United States a world leader in science and innovation. NSF invests about $6 billion… Read More
Features
My Climate Change
Decades of reporting on climate science and the climate policy debate have led me through a long evolution in my thinking, and I hope to a little practical wisdom. Some things just… Read MoreExceptional Circumstances: Does Climate Change Trump Democracy?
Researchers who flirt with the idea that more authoritarian governance would help us address global warming are badly mistaken. What’s really needed is more democracy. The threats to democracy in the modern… Read MoreA Roadmap for US Nuclear Energy Innovation
The future role of nuclear energy is attracting new attention. Several recent climate policy assessments have concluded that meeting the world’s growing appetite for energy while achieving deep reductions in global greenhouse… Read MoreWhat’s the Big Idea?
I am a venture capitalist and have been for 27 years. Trained in nuclear engineering in the 1970s, I worked in that profession until 1988, when I joined Venrock, the private venture… Read MoreBetter Data for Better Mental Health Services
Read MoreEvidence-based policies for improving care and treatment of those with serious mental illness are urgently needed—but good evidence is hard to find.
The Search for Schizophrenia Genes
To gain insight into the biological basis of disease, President Obama launched the Precision Medicine Initiative in January 2015. A major aspiration of the program is to identify the genetic underpinnings of… Read MoreCitizen Engineers at the Fenceline
Environmental regulators would do a better job protecting air quality and public health if they worked with local communities. On August 22, 1994, the Unocal refinery in Rodeo, California, along the north… Read MoreThe Fictional Age
Turns out the cute boy from history class is a complete drug-head. Can’t even write a Fictional Age paper. Or won’t. I don’t know which is more nauseating. “You never got concentric?”… Read More
Book Reviews
Questions of Fairness
This is a highly useful and aptly titled book, virtually a one-volume education in the array of normative challenges posed by the various aspects of our global energy regime. That “regime” is… Read More
No, Really, Why Are We Waiting?
British economist Nicholas Stern’s Why Are We Waiting? revolves around an ethical argument he made a decade ago on the economics of climate change in his famous “Stern Review.” Stern pushes total… Read More
A Cautionary Tale
People are causing climate to change and it poses serious risks to society. Although there are many options for dealing with it—including some that could be tailored to fit smoothly with virtually… Read More