martincolorado

Roth and Shapely won the 2012 Nobel Prize for theoretic work that helped match donors with patients in need of organ transplants: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/06/11/4122248...

I'm not sure what EPA can do to make it more useful. My personal example is the USEPA/USEEIO modeling framework [1]. My agency uses a pricey and rigid proprietary modeling framework. When I suggested USEEIO as an extensible cost-effective alternative I was met with resistance that it is free and mustn't be any good and definitely not defensible in court. Classic .gov thinking. I think DoD prioritizing open-source along with the work of USDS/GSA at digital.gov needs to diffuse to Senior Execs at other agencies to shift the paradigm. Unfortunately it feels like this is a decade out. Thank you for pushing OSS in .gov and to your peers at EPA for USEEIO.

[1] https://github.com/USEPA/USEEIO

I see a use-case for public resource data sets. For example, right of way, land use variance, permits, and land records. These are fundamentally public data sets that are often maintained by entities with limit budgets and the potential (even incentive) for fraud is substantial. Also, there is significant value in being able to access the data set for analytical purposes such as real estate analysis.

Agree this is mostly false, and likely not deceptive but fast/sloppy writing. For example, depending on the landscape and forest ecosystem composition, a wildfire could result in the ecosystem becoming a net carbon source. Examples include Ponderosa, Jeffery, and Lodgepole Pine and Douglas fir landscapes in California and Arizona. In a high intensity burn fire where the stand is replaced, it is possible to degrade the soil and emitted soil Carbon through both burning of soil organic matter and subsequent erosion[1][2]. With degraded soil and increasing temperatures the conditions won't be available for Ponderosa, Jeffery, and Lodgepole Pine and Douglas fir to regenerate and the species that succeed them likely don't have the same carbon sequestering potential. This phenomena can be extremely site specific in which former south facing pine stands might not regenerate pine and instead regenerate as chaparral and manzanita (for example, west side Sierra 5000-7000 feet above sea level).

Dying trees and wildfire is especially problematic in Boreal forests in Alaska and Canada[3]. Managing Boreal forests as a carbon sinks is going to be difficult with climate change. In Canada million acre fires are normal as the species composition is susceptible to stand clearing fires and fire intensity can be high resulting in the ecosystem being an atmospheric carbon producing source. Conversely, Redwood forests even at maturity increase their capacity as carbon sinks and are highly resistant to catastrophic fire.[4] So, species composition, soil, and fire influence on whether or not decomposing trees are a carbon sink or source.

Building on the model presented earlier:

CarbonCaptureRateToStopGlobalWarming = growTreesPlantsAndBuryDeadOnes(...params) + newTech(...params)

Replace growTreesPlantsAndBuryDeadOnes with growing fire resistant species that sequester carbon in the soil/biomass at high rates. For example, Redwoods in coastal CA and Oregon.

[1] https://www.firescience.gov/projects/briefs/03-1-1-06_fsbrie... [2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00167... [3] https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-10-3638-5_... [4] https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=26107

I'm curious as to why you decided to look into purchasing a clearcut in order to better understand if this is popular amongst a demographic such as tech workers with growing wealth--is there a market for this specifically in consulting forestry with a tech focus. Check out the Society of American Foresters if you want to pay for a forest management plan. Or as noted try the local forestry extension and the Forest Service's State and Private Forestry contacts.

https://www.eforester.org/Main/Certification_Education/Certi...

https://www.forestry.oregonstate.edu/forestry-and-natural-re...

https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/r6/communityforests/?cid=fsbd...

This right here “configuration of the VAMS application is occurring using Deloitte’s propriety GovConnect platform.”

Because it is so difficult to launch a project and provision the requisite infrastructure in the federal government due to various IT regs and laws and subsequently obtain an Authorization To Operate (ATO) in a timely fashion an existing platform is routinely sole sourced especially when speed is necessary.

Why? This is both legit and utter bs. Legit: the fed gov actually attempts to protect a persons’ private data. BS: after the drain of the acquisition process (led by non-technical folks), ATO, slide decks to more non-technical management (Deloitte and their peers crush this), the competent folks find other jobs either in or outside gov that free their creativity.

Positive: groups like USDS are reducing the drain, but once an exec gets burned they go back to checkbox management and shun the learning organization culture that has made tech the anti-thesis of this type of acquisition in other sectors.

*edited misspelling to show gov tries to protect not product privacy data

As an economist thinking about a move into health economics, could I reach out to you to discuss opportunities in the field?