From the monthly archives: March 2017

The Global Climate Change Rollback – here’s a number that matters

By On March 29, 2017 · Leave a Comment · In Painting By Numbers

Policy-makers are probably the worst offenders when it comes to using and abusing mathematical modeling and numerical analysis, the subject of my latest book, Painting By Numbers: How to Sharpen Your BS Detector and Smoke Out the Experts. When it comes to the administration’s rollback of the global climate change regulations and specifically the […]

Policy-makers are probably the worst offenders when it comes to using and abusing mathematical modeling and numerical analysis, the subject of my latest book, Painting By Numbers: How to Sharpen Your BS Detector and Smoke Out the Experts. When it comes to the administration’s rollback of the global climate change regulations and specifically the Clean Power Plan, however, one number which really matters is 3. That’s the number of times the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act Amendments.

This means that the Administration cannot just end the Clean Power Plan, central to the EPA’s carbon regulation strategy, but must come up with an alternative regulatory framework. The EPA concluded, and the Supreme Court upheld, an endangerment finding for carbon pollutants, and therefore the agency is legally required to regulate carbon emissions.

Ironically, this is similar to the repeal, replace, repair problem with the Affordable Care Act. You can’t just “repeal” EPA’s carbon regulations, and it will be difficult to replace them. So, repair is probably going to be the sensible option. 

Nothing is easy when it comes to federal regulations and that’s the way the framers of our Constitution intended. 

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Painting By Numbers: One Small Step for Reduced Health Risk, 15,000 a day for you…

By On March 27, 2017 · Leave a Comment · In Uncategorized

The latest of my irregular posts elaborating on my new book, Painting By Numbers…   It’s only fair to recognize when numbers are reported appropriately. I’d started hearing about the mysteriously accepted “10,000 steps daily” number several years ago when wearable fitness devices started getting attention. Seemingly overnight, it seemed 10,000 became to the exercise […]

The latest of my irregular posts elaborating on my new book, Painting By Numbers…
 
It’s only fair to recognize when numbers are reported appropriately. I’d started hearing about the mysteriously accepted “10,000 steps daily” number several years ago when wearable fitness devices started getting attention. Seemingly overnight, it seemed 10,000 became to the exercise world what PI is to the world of math.
 
This morning, I read an article about 15,000 steps a day! The article reviews a study in which Scottish postal workers, those walking to deliver the mail and those in sedentary back office positions, were studied to determine any association with risk of heart and other diseases.
 
The first thing I learned is that the 10,000 number has never been scientifically validated as a means of reducing health risk, though I’m certain it has been for selling fitness products. The study did reveal, for this small sample size, that a high level of activity does indeed show an association with reduced health risk and that the more activity, the lower the risk. The reason I am pointing out the article, though, is that it makes it clear that there is merely an ASSOCIATION between activity and health, adhering to Commandment Eight in Painting By Numbers, Suspect the (Co)mpany They Keep (i.e., making a bright line distinction among co-location, coincidence, correlation, causation, convergence, and consensus). The article further underscores the study’s other limitations. I like the conclusion: “…the findings imply there are good reasons to get up and move…” Rather than push towards the realm of certainty, the article makes clear that there is only an “implication.”
 
Exercise is kind of the reverse of smoking. Anyone who smoked cigarettes or still does probably knows just by what is happening to their body that the habit is terrible for you. By the same token, I’ve never heard anyone, unless they injure themselves, come back from vigorous exercise and say, “Well, damn, I feel worse!”
 
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/22/well/move/should-15000-steps-a-day-be-our-new-exercise-target.html?rref=collection%2Fbyline%2Fgretchen-reynolds&action=click&contentCollection=undefined&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=collection
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Painting By Numbers – Where’s the Beef??

By On March 26, 2017 · Leave a Comment · In Painting By Numbers

Another in my continuing series on applying the “commandments” from my most recent book, Painting by Numbers: How to Sharpen Your BS Detector and Smoke Out the Experts…

“Americans ate 19% less beef from ’05 to ’14,” according to a recent headline. The article goes on to focus on the carbon footprint reduction associated […]

Another in my continuing series on applying the “commandments” from my most recent book, Painting by Numbers: How to Sharpen Your BS Detector and Smoke Out the Experts…

“Americans ate 19% less beef from ’05 to ’14,” according to a recent headline. The article goes on to focus on the carbon footprint reduction associated with eating less beef and avoiding the methane emissions from the back ends of cattle and all the carbon-intensive stuff that has to happen to get that steak to your dinner table. The original study (hot linked in the article) the article is based on comes from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). It wasn’t just beef eating that fell during this period; chicken and pork were affected as well.

The article makes a valiant case for how Americans are “gradually changing their diets, driven by health concerns and other factors.” The original NRDC study’s aim is to show that the answer to the question, “Where’s the beef?,” is a victory in the war on climate change. It may indeed have something to do with that.

But the larger explanation for this quantitative result probably has as much to do with general economic forces. 2007 marked the beginning of the “great depression” and the economy has been on an anemic (relative) growth cycle since we came out of it. The beef ranch-to-table production and delivery cycle is not only carbon intensive, it’s expensive. Beef, for most people, is one of the most expensive foods they buy, and it would be natural to cut back on its consumption during bad economic times.

The article is a little more fair about all this than the original study. The author cites a survey in which 37% of Americans say price is the number one reason why they ate less beef. That’s somewhat out of step with the conclusion NRDC is trying to draw. The study avoids mention of ANY economic factors. It would have been more credible if there was even an attempt to “iron out” the affect of general economic conditions. Consumer economic activity generally has been substantially cut back since 2007.

Of course, the study also doesn’t explicitly CLAIM a correlation between consumer’s desire to impact carbon footprint by eating less beef, but you can bet it wishes to suggest one, it we invoke Commandment six in Painting By Numbers, “Understand the Business Model.” NRDC is an environmental policy organization (and an effective one at that).

What’s critical here is the aura around that 19% number (and I’m not even going to start in on the methodology to calculate it). In the study, it was all about an associated (not correlated) improvement in carbon footprint. In the article, it was about all the reasons except economic forces why Americans are reducing beef consumption (price being more of a footnote). In two iterations, there’s a great deal of political, cultural, and social “stuff” hanging off of that number. Imagine how laden it might be once it’s being discussed around the dinner table!

https://www.nytimes.com/…/…/beef-consumption-emissions.html…

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Painting By Numbers – The Congressional Budget Office scoring of the American Health Care Act

By On March 15, 2017 · Leave a Comment · In Painting By Numbers

I’ve been posting at my Facebook author page regular supplements to the examples from everyday life I use in Painting By Numbers: How to Sharpen Your BS Detector and Smoke Out the Experts. I figured it would be smart to post them here too. Here’s one from this week.

It’s always instructive to study […]

I’ve been posting at my Facebook author page regular supplements to the examples from everyday life I use in Painting By Numbers: How to Sharpen Your BS Detector and Smoke Out the Experts. I figured it would be smart to post them here too. Here’s one from this week.

It’s always instructive to study the source when controversy swirls. I just read the official Congressional Budget Office (CBO) “scoring” of the Republican American Health Care Act (AHCA). While the “numbers,” $330-billion (reduction in federal deficit) and 24-million (forecasted number of uninsured Americans by 2026) are getting the headlines, the real conclusion of the report is this:

“…the great uncertainties surrounding the actions of the many parties that would be affected by the legislation suggest that outcomes of the legislation could differ substantially from some of the estimates provided here. Nevertheless, CBO and JCT are confident about the direction of certain effects of the legislation. For example, spending on Medicaid would almost surely be lower than under current law. The cost of the new tax credit would probably be lower than the cost of the subsidies for coverage through marketplaces under current law. And the number of uninsured people under the legislation would almost surely be greater than under current law.”

It’s that word, “direction,” I call to your attention. Those who pay economic modelers usually want hard numbers and ranges and low, high, and average scenarios. But most modelers will tell you that all they are able to provide with much confidence, especially on something like legislation affecting 1/6 of the US economy, is a few “directional” conclusions.

The CBO is bi-partisan so I am assuming they didn’t start with the answer (the AHCA is better than Obamacare!) and work backwards, commandment 11 in Painting By Numbers. However, you should more strongly consider commandment 6, understand the business model. The role of the CBO in this case is to provide “quantitative cover” for a controversial and convoluted piece of legislation. This helps legitimize the effort in the minds of politicians and us citizens, but how much the analysis informs the debate is questionable at best.

Here’s the original CBO report: https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3516452/CBO-Health-Care-Cost-Estimates.pdf

 

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