Comments on: Climate change policy myopia

By: samv

samv — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 01:03:53 +0000

Either you appreciate the irony or you don’t. I’d hate to ruin the joke by dissecting it.

By: Roger Dewhurst

Roger Dewhurst — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 06:15:29 +0000

These days the children get out of university thinking and that they know everything and that the sun shines out of their arses. They do not and it does not. However gone are the days when they were just shit kickers until they had learned something. What a pity. Look at them here, in bloody droves.

By: Roger Dewhurst

Roger Dewhurst — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 05:39:33 +0000

Oh dear. It seems that the numbers change. I put a number at the top thinking that number defines the post that I am replying to and now I see that the number changes. Someone needs a kick where the sun does not shine.

By: Roger Dewhurst

Roger Dewhurst — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 05:35:38 +0000

Flattering but no. Someone asked me to write stuff for Wikipedia. I am just not going to play the games required to do that at this stage of my life. I have opinions based on my life experience. These I am quite prepared to stand by, as you have seen. Bullshit and academic arse kissing cut no ice for me at all. I think that I have learned that if you want someone to take in your message it is best to make the bugger laugh. He/she/it (one wonders these days) might remember that. Stodge he will not.

By: Roger Dewhurst

Roger Dewhurst — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 05:24:34 +0000

101.

No problem with that. As far as I am concerned it is the legal shysters who are the worst.

By: CTG

CTG — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 04:49:18 +0000

The thing is that proxy studies – whether they involve tree rings, ice cores, sediment records or whatever – are not attribution studies.

Roger seems to believe that all he needs to do is show that the MWP was warm, and this will prove that AGW is wrong.

That is not so.

There is nothing in the proxy data that would indicate that the MWP warming and today’s warming have the same cause. Indeed, the greater temporal and regional variability of the MWP compared to the globally consistent warming seen today suggests very strongly that these are two different events.

By: Doug Clover

Doug Clover — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 04:21:39 +0000

Publication in a journal is not the end the proces. Lots of crap get published in journals. The second part is when the article reviewed by the author’s peers. If it is good or or value (even if disagreed with) it will be picked up and used to inform other work.

Have you thought now that you are semi retired about taking those reports/data and writing them up for a journal. I am sure that your peers would find it of interest.

By: Roger Dewhurst

Roger Dewhurst — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 03:58:24 +0000

I am afraid that degrees are merely a basis for going out in the real world to learn something useful.

By: Roger Dewhurst

Roger Dewhurst — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 03:54:19 +0000

90.
When I was working in Australia in mineral exploration I found that you could separate the exploration geologists into two groups, those that relied entirely on the printed word and would disregard any opinions provided by those with local knowledge but no academic record and those who were prepared to pick the brains of those with local knowledge. I was in the latter camp. I never had cause to regret it.

Of course we wrote reports documenting our work. Almost none of these were ever published for obvious reasons. Some are accessible in state Departments of Mines if you know what you are looking for.

This may explain why I do not assume that the refereed article is the be all and end all. I recall one such article on the sub-surface geology of part of the Lake Frome Embayment. It was rubbish. The author based his paper on half a dozen holes as I recall. At the time I had some hundreds! At the end of the project I had seen drill cuttings, drill cores, electric logs and gamma counts for nearly 1000 holes. The final report on that project, to which I contributed, has never been public. It is however the basis of a solution mining operation now in progress.

I have spent weeks in state Departments of Mines wading through reports looking for stuff that might be useful. It made me a little cynical.

By: Doug Clover

Doug Clover — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 03:42:25 +0000

I agree with you on these points. It is unfortunate that new grads are put in the position where they are making policy or managing issues that are often outside their areas of expertise. This is a combination of hiring policies and agency’s limited budgets. This, however, is where they have to, and should, rely on specialists.

It is the role of the specialist to provide clear, and balanced advice. It is my unfortunate experience that in some cases contracted expertise (especially so in economic analysis) comes with baggage.