Joe Gitchell

"It seems to be a law of nature, inflexible and inexorable, that those who will not risk cannot win." John Paul Jones #USPassportQuotes

Democrats, Independents, Rob-publicans — no matter your party, Iowans from all political stripes are joining this campaign to bring real change to our state.

@jgitchell @aakashgupta @katrosenfield @uofl In awe of Aruni Bhatnagar's in-depth empiricism. Hoping we learn many valuable takeaways from the @GreenHeartLou project! And even though this focuses on health impacts from urban trees, cc'ing @greenforestsw, to make sure they're also aware of this.

Hope-booster!!! Thank you for your time at the @washingtonpost, @Milbank, and looking forward to your next chapter!!

Savage.

@aakashgupta @katrosenfield And to add a dimension or benefit from trees, featuring the research of buddy, Aruni Bhatnagar of @uofl. Gift link! wapo.st/4cZEebQ

Let me explain exactly why every new subdivision in America looks like the top photo, because the math is wild. A mature tree increases a home's value by 7 to 19 percent. On a $400,000 house, that's $28,000 to $76,000. A single shade tree produces the cooling equivalent of ten room-size air conditioners running 20 hours a day. One tree on the west side of a house cuts energy bills by 12 percent within 15 years. The bottom photo is worth more, costs less to live in, and sells faster. This has been documented by the University of Washington, Clemson, Michigan State, and the USDA. The data is not in dispute. Removing those trees saves the builder roughly $5,000 per lot. Concrete trucks need twice the dripline radius of every standing tree. Utility trenches need flat ground. A bulldozer flattens 200 lots in an afternoon. Preserving trees adds weeks and thousands per home. So the developer pockets $5,000 in savings and the buyer eats $50,000 in lost value for the next two decades. The person making the decision and the person paying for it have never been in the same room. The Woodlands, Texas is the proof of what happens when they are. George Mitchell bought 28,000 acres of Houston timberland in 1974 and preserved 28% as permanent green space. He forced McDonald's to build behind the tree canopy. That McDonald's became one of the highest-volume locations in Texas. The first office building, designed to reflect the surrounding forest so you couldn't see it from the street, leased completely. The Woodlands median home price today: $615,000. Katy, a comparable Houston suburb that clear-cut: $375,000. Named #1 community to live in America two years running. Fifty years of data. The trees are worth more than removing them saves. Developers clear-cut anyway because they sell the house once and leave. You live in it for 30 years.

"This is what scientific progress with potential to impact practice and policy looks like!" A Dual Win for Retatrutide, a Triple Agonist from Lilly - ConscienHealth conscienhealth.org/2026/03/20/a-d…

If you want to indulge your science curiosity, hit this gift link from @ljevanso writing for the @nytimes on birds adapting behaviors to protect their young using a surprising method. nytimes.com/2026/03/18/sci…

Vive La France!! @KiranSidhu41's careful reporting highlights how important the framing of the ANSES reporting on nicotine vaping is (ie, focused on risks, not on broader issue of risk-benefit), but still an important contribution to the corpus of systematic reviews on risks.

@ArielleSelya @RushmoreExt23 May @JMacNYC's knife chip and shatter. #ShapingVaping

Hope-booster from @RobSandIA !

We don’t have to agree on everything, but finding common ground is a place we can build from.

Empircal support for the "Intellectual Humility" pillar of my "Holy Trinity of Truth Detection" (which also includes "Cognitive Flexibility" and 'Analytical Thinking"). The truth is out there... if we let it in when it comes knocking.

A @Clive_Bates thread 🧵 Must read!!

I appreciate @RushmoreExt23 boosting my first substack--though please see my reply to him with my proposed tweak to his closing sentence. 🙏

Thank you, PK. My only tweak: disagreements can be fruitful if you respect yourself and your critics enough to know why both of you could be wrong. We can get less wrong, together, if we're talking to each other. Re-upping this great @notsmartblog @davidmcraney pod with @tomstafford: youarenotsosmart.com/2022/05/29/yan…

Anyone who's considered the possibility that they might one day form an opinion about nicotine regulation knows what it is to grope for common ground in the dark. Disagreements can be fruitful if you respect your critics enough to know why they're wrong. open.substack.com/pub/joegitchel…

London-based nerds! Check out the cool stuff @sophiescott and chums are pulling together coming up.

Episode is out. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/why…