"If you look at the signatories of the op-ed, you won't find people more qualified than that," William Happer, a professor of physics at Princeton University and a signatory, told Design News. "These people are really heavyweights of the scientific world." (See a list of the scientists below.)
It's worth noting that the 16 scientists who signed the editorial aren't alone. Happer told Design News that after the editorial appeared, he received calls from colleagues who wanted to know why they weren't given a chance to sign.
The signatories aren't making a case for coal, oil, nuclear, wind, or solar power. They don't mention whether we should buy electric cars or gas guzzlers. By most measures, their opinion seems apolitical. They just believe that CO2 isn't a problem.
"The demonization of carbon has really distorted everything we do," Happer told us. "If we could back off and say, 'CO2 is probably good,' it would change the way we do things. We'd like to get back to an honest economic discussion not based on carbon footprints or assumptions about 'evil CO2.' "
Whether we agree or disagree with that assessment, it has the potential to affect everything that engineers do. Every day, engineers make decisions about the design of cars, trucks, furnaces, refrigerators, washers, dryers, and all kinds of industrial products. And the emission of CO2 plays into all those decisions. So a solid understanding of global warming science is critical.
In the wild world of the Internet, many bloggers argue that the science is settled. It's "incontrovertible," they say. But is it? Most scientists would acknowledge that the First Law of Thermodynamics is incontrovertible. So is the Second Law, Ohm's Law, Newton's laws, Bernoulli's equation, and a lot of other bedrock scientific principles. But does anthropogenic global warming really belong in the same breath as those?
Well, this is NOT about "niceness" or "graciousness" of my thoughts... but about the irrational polarization towards one (or the other) of the two sides which produces a large dose of Myopia (shortness of sight). As to cite only one of the engineers (and one of the greatest present day engineers in the whole world), my greatest respect for Burt Rutan... and he is reported to have signed as a non-believer of the alleged Human-caused Global warming. And I only mention him because I'm well versed in his engineering triumphs.
As to so called "researchers", we have seen bad examples in both sides. What I was trying to comment, is that truly valuable discussions are those that refrain from the several examples of bad taste and manners tha unfortunately, have started to appear here.
My position is that we, as professionals of the engineering branchs, have the ethical obligation to use our knowledge and skills to adopt a responsible position, not a fanatical one. (I would much prefer to be called a late-understander, than a early contributor to a false scam, my viewpoint).
I will resume my position in respect to avoiding a too premature "taking sides": Trying to establish a definitive conclusion towards this matter is like trying to produce valid conclusions within a VERY NOISY environment or with an extremely narrow window, like trying to determine the seismical classification of a place, when the seismograph is registering every footfall because it is unproperly mounted in a shaky substructure, located next to a large factory with heavy machinery (like presses), and then capturing only a few minutes of readings... or like trying to "see" a long term trend in an electrical signal by using an oscilloscope and only capturing a 2 picoseconds sample...
Good engineers tend to be highly analytical, self confident and capable of being calm when things start to go crazy. Let´s be calm in order to be productive and rigorous.
Good engineers see obvious patterns and make logical deductions. Your inability to be able to and instead choosing to delude yourself with denial noise does not show productiveness or rigor.
Another non sequitur. It has never warmed this quickly and it's never happened with 7 billion exposed to the effects and such warming (or cooling) has never before been caused by human activity. Hmmm, why would you ask such a meaningless question?
That's a nice thought, but I haven't seen any denier, who also claims to be an engineer, present anything to support their contention that AGW is not happening or is due to something other than human activity. So, I can't see why you allege that the anti-denier side stop calling deniers corporate shills when your point appears to be that everyone present rational arguments and data. They don't. Researchers do.
I'm an engineer that has done quite a bit of computer modelling. The results from a computer model are only as good as the science, engineering and data that goes into the model. In the case of climate models these have been refined over many decades as new satellites measure temperatures around the earth, levels of various gases in the atmosphere and energy flux from the sun and reflected energy from the Earth. This combined with ice core samples and billions of Earth based measurements and studies have contributed data and science to refining these models to the point that the general trend is undeniable.
Then you get engineers and scientists that doubt this glossal mountain of data when this is not their area of expertise. I call this their Shockley moment when they grab a few little fragment of contrary data and jump to a conclusion contrary to the huge mountain of data amassed supporting the generally accepted theory. This puts them in the same league with Creationists, believers in ghosts, leprechauns and little grey saucer men.
The absolute, passionated and totalitarian posture adopted by some people calling others 'Corporate Shills' is not going to produce anything valuable.
Good engineers tend to be highly analytical, self confident and capable of being calm when things start to go crazy. Let´s be calm in order to be productive and rigorous.
Leave the trickery and name calling to politicians, we engineers can be better than them, or not?
Good observation, Glenn. Apart from the mentioned effect, there is a couple of others (Overconfidence, Illusory Superiority Etc.) But there is a difference between the findings of those Psychologists, which were based on the execution of relatively simple tasks (reading comprehension, operating a motor vehicle, and playing chess or tennis..) and the extrapolation of their findings and its application to a group of professionals like trained and knowledgeable engineers.
Even when a real debate on a polemic subject like the so called "Global Warming" will provoque uncontrovertible polarization into two large opposing groups, we can expect that, at least, the debate among engineers will have much more serious and complete arguments that a similar debate between the general population, simply because engineers do usually have a better understanding of scientific matters.
More than that kind of phycological distortions, it will be the overheated, absolutist positions adopted by some individuals (engineers or not) what will cause wrong conclusions.
One thing is clear: Both sides have strong interests in imposing their viewpoint; "Green" business is no better/worse than the petroleum/energy industry... both sides will do whatever they deem necessary to impose their dictates. People tend to identify themselves with the "green" movement simply because it appears to be an intrinsically "good" position. But this has caused a good deal of counterproductive measures. Politicians that proclame themselves as "green", are frequently the worst decision makers, confirming the "Law of unintended consequences" more than anybody else. There are examples of fanatical postures adopted by that kind of politicians and governants. Like religious extremists, those kind of "leaders" end up causing more confusion and actual damage than anyone else.
As engineers, we certainly have abilities that can make us better informed and critical, so we need to keep studying and analyzing the various postures on this subject. But one thing is clear: Being too pasionate is not the proper way to tacke a scientific task, and let's beware of the hidden interests of BOTH sides!
BTW: The " Dunning-Kruger Effect " was nominated and awarded the 2000 satirical Ig Nobel Prize in Psychology for their paper, "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments".
You Earthlings look like a buch of rightfull guys at the Titanic discussing if the water is coming in from the left or the right side and considering if it finally will sink the boat, while a few guys make money sell deck chairs and declare that the boat is not sinking.
From the narrow human perspective, it will be too late when the boat is underwater.
During the last 300 years mankind has been burning millions upon millions of tons of fossile fuels as there was no tomorrow, blindly deniying that "IT HAS MUST HAVE SOME TYPE OF CONSEQUENCES".
Has anyone considered the thickness of the thin breathable layer of gasses that sustain life in earth, if the earth was an apple; the breathable atmosphere will be thinner than the apple skin, but a few stupid still thinking thak they can alter the atmosphere forever without CONSEQUENCES.
Well.. we will see who WAS RIGHT; when the boat sinks... in a cloud of smoke. just matter of time, irreversible.
And it would appear that the global warming crowd is using every tool at hand to prevent evidence from being presented. Why is that?
They, whoever "the global warming crowd" are, are not doing that. Your question is a non sequitur. It's the denial crowd that has no scientific legs to stand on. Where is their science? Whatever it is has been debunked so thoroughly as to make your side a laughingstock, were the damage it's getting away with not so catastrophic.
I'd say you're part of the "global warming crowd", doing your best to shout down and mock anyone who dares to express a dissenting opinion. Regardless of their excellent qualifications to do so. Regardless of the criminal fraud (yes criminal) committed by members of the "global warming crowd" to back up their opinion.
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