David Evans devoted six years of his life to carbon accounting - building models for the Australian government to estimate carbon emissions from land use change and forestry. Here's David's expert opinion on global warming.
'I Was On the Global Warming Gravy Train'
"When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty conclusive, but since then new evidence has weakened that case. I am now skeptical. ...
... By the late 1990s, lots of jobs depended on the idea that carbon emissions caused global warming. Many of them were bureaucratic, but there were a lot of science jobs created too. I was on that gravy train, making a high wage in a science job that would not have existed if we didn't believe carbon emissions caused global warming. And so were lots of people around me; there were international conferences full of such people. We had political support, the ear of government, big budgets. We felt fairly important and useful (I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet! ...
... Unfortunately politics and science have become even more entangled. Climate change has become a partisan political issue, so positions become more entrenched. Politicians and the public prefer simple and less-nuanced messages. ...
... At the moment the political climate strongly blames carbon emissions, to the point of silencing critics. The integrity of the scientific community will win out in the end, following the evidence wherever it leads. But in the meantime, the effect of the political climate is that most people are overestimating the evidencethat carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming."
3 comments:
it's a bit like race relations in this country,lots of peoploe with their snouts in the trough trying to find it even where it doesn't exist
They've done a lot of good in some areas; in others they've caused no end of problems.
couldn't agree more.I think wih these things there's a period of time when they are need ed,to make people aware,then there's a second stage when they gather a self perpetuating momentum of their own and create the very sort of vested interest they originally fought against.
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