On Jun 3, 9:06 am, Tom Adams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Jun 1, 3:42 pm, "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > > The role of scientists is not limited to pure science. There are
> > > social and ethical responsibilities.
>
> > You are certainly right about that. Still, most government
> > organisations have, I believe, a mandate to be policy neutral, which I
> > understand as meaning that they provide facts, but not political
> > advocacy. How that's to be interpreted is another matter, but the
> > basic principle that objective facts and subjective opinion should be
> > separated out, as far as possible, seems eminently sensible.
>
> > There is a big grey area there, eg think of one of your pet concerns,
> > namely the assumptions that go into economic models.
>
> > I understand that we are adapted to the present climate, and that
> > climate has been stable for a long time, so any change comes at our
> > peril, and I've commented extensively on both points fairly recently
> > here, eghttp://groups.google.com/group/globalchange/msg/ff2d74d601ef5ce5
>
> > Economic models, depending on the assumptions you feed them, in the
> > peer reviewed literature do include negative damages in their range
> > (see the paper by Tol I quoted earlier), so believing that modest
> > climate change may be beneficial is not nearly as outlandish as some
> > people here seem to think.
>
> > Let me say one final thing about Griffin. Looking at his CV, climate
> > change is not at all his speciality
>
> True, he has a Phd in aerospace, an MBA, and he seems to collect MS
> degrees for a hobby. But none related to bio or earth science. He's
> currently working an a computer science MS, that's maybe on hold
> with his current demanding job.
>
> > and it seems to me that he got
> > asked his personal opinion here.
>
> He's the head of the agency that generates more info on global warming
> than any other in the US, and has some unique capabilities essential
> to the whole effort to get info about earth sciences. The inteview
> questions were about the priorities of his agency and about a critic
> that said that earth science should be priority #1. Maybe he was just
> being ask for a bottom line on the importance of the global warming
> info his agency generates.
Here is the critic Easterbrook's article arguing that environmental
research shoud be NASA's #1 priority:
http://www.wired.com/science/space/magazine/15-06/ff_space_nasa
Here is the full Griffin inteview, this makes is clear that Griffin
was aware of Easterbrook's article:
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.rss.spacewire.html?pid=22736
You can see that the question "Is global warming a problem?" is in
context with the issue of NASA's priorities, not just a request for a
personal opinion. And, its not a question that should have blindsided
Griffin given that he was already aware of the Easterbrook article.
And
Easterbook was not the first to report on or criticise NASA on the
issue of cutting Earth science research.
>
> > I also think that Griffin accepts the
> > IPCC consensus on the climate science,
>
> Based on what? Even a charitable reading of his remarks make it sound
> like perfectionism is an important issue. Clearly that is not the
> issue, as indicated by the IPCC impact report. The issue is dangerous
> climate change, not a desire for no climate change. If you could
> prove
> it highly likely that 3C was not dangerous, then the IPCC would back
> off to beyond that value.
>
> I don't think Griffin has an understanding of the IPCC consensus or
> climate change issues.
>
>
>
> > but when it comes to questions
> > like the value of eco-systems for their own sake, or whether
> > developing world farmers can be sensibly asked to do other jobs in the
> > future, and for their food to be imported from a Siberia or Canada
> > with large scale water projects to deal with both droughts/floods, I'd
> > suspect he'd make similar value decisions and/or let's call it
> > "guesses about the future of a complex system like human societies and
> > the world's eco-systems that cannot be made on an entirely rational
> > basis due to too little being known about them" than I'd make myself.- Hide
> > quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
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