“this is not a report from an environmentalist, it is a report from an economist”…

When someone who’s been running simulations of the Earth’s climate for decades says that “by the middle of the century 200 million people may become permanently displaced due to rising sea levels, heavier floods and more intense droughts,” we snicker… but when someone who has probably never seen a general circulation model in his life says it, we believe?!

Perhaps the leading environmentalists of the world should thank Stern for his help by doing his job for a year.

This is pitiful.

Goodbye.

-cvj

But there is such a thing as giving the benefit of the doubt.

You mean as in “Gee, I really hate the way this guy read my post, but maybe he’s trying to tell me how the vast majority of potential readers are going to perceive it, in spite of my good intentions”?

It seems a rather petty and unfriendly thing to do

OK, note to self: don’t warn Clifford when he’s shooting himself in the foot. He considers it unfriendly.
:rolleyes:

Best,

-cvj

You are superimposing your own perceptions on this, it seems to me.

Yes, absolutely. Perceptions on the receiving end, not intentions of the sender, is what this is about. That’s what I and amanda are saying. As she wrote:

Well, I’m afraid that it is *because* the public perceives that scientists have this kind of attitude that they are disinclined to take you seriously.

I really think she has a point. As you can see at the beginning of this thread, the condescending tone, whether intentional or not, was the first thing I reacted to in your text, too, and the one lasting impression it left me with. Anybody getting that impression is pretty certain to forget all about the actual message. Not so good if getting that message across is your primary goal.

-cvj

reinforcing the public’s own imbalanced priorities when it comes to expert opinion about things that matter: It really matters if you spell it out with money. It irks me no end

Cheers,

-cvj

Really Clifford, it’s not “pointing out what we need to do work together to fix our world” that’s the problem with your post, and I think both I and amanda have been perfectly clear on that.

If pointing out what we need to do work together to fix our world is only seen as condescending, then that is very sad. It is closed minded and short-sighted attitudes like yours that have helped to put us in this situation.

-cvj

This is an unbelievable degree of short-sightedness. How do you go from there to changing anything? This is not about 60 year old cleaning ladies. They do not set policy about our energy usage… they do not invest in infrastructure for public transport, they are not responsible for investment in alternative energy sources… I am not picking on old ladies, or any individual in particular. How utterly ridiculous…

Thanks for the insults. Let’s just agree to disagree on this one. I just don’t have the energy to argue against such a narrow-minded attitude. Sorry.

-cvj

If you were, like so many people, doing a job that you hate, simply because you *need* the money

Yes, many (maybe even a significant fraction of) scientists work hard, but as you like to remind us, it’s doing something they chose to do and love. Be honest now, if you were independently wealthy, would you be doing anything else than wht you’re doing anyway?

I suggest that you try putting yourself in the shoes of a 60-year old cleaning lady with aching joints, knowing full well that there will never be anything else in life for her. You come home from another day full only of humiliating and ill-retribued fatigue, switch on your old TV — and get a lecture from some scientist kid enjoying ten times your salary, paid out of your taxes, telling you with unconceiled disdain that your fixation knuckle-dragging money-fixation is killing the planet.

If I were that 60-year old cleaning the lady I know whom I’d like to kill.

I think it’s very sad that you’ve taken such a rather unkind view of what I am trying to say. It is a focus on economics only that led to us as a society to get to the point where we’ve been screwing up our planet with little or no regard for the future of those who will inherit it. It is not neccessarily elitist to want to strive to think about more than just money in life. It is not just scientists who can take such a view. And I don’t understand why you think scientists are all the way you portrayed, and somehow in opposition to everyone else. That’s odd. We work hard to pay our bills just like everyone else. I’m simply trying to make the point that it would be nice if we could begin to make thos inconvenient choices to change our behaviour for the sake of the planet’s future, and not based solely on an argument about the future econonic costs of doing nothing. Why does it have to be boiled entirely down to economics, and heard from the mouth of an economist, before we do anything? I know that it comes down to that in the ned, but why must it, is what I am asking?

I’m being idealistic, yes, but is that the same as elitist? You judge me hastily and harshly, I fear.

Cheers,

-cvj

Well, I’m afraid that it is *because* the public perceives that scientists have this kind of attitude that they are disinclined to take you seriously. If you were, like so many people, doing a job that you hate, simply because you *need* the money, then you might not take this Olympian, and, frankly, elitist attitude to those horrible materialistic money-grubbing wage-slaves.

I’ve noticed by the way that, on the rare occasions when *scientists* come into serious money, their attitudes to items like income tax undergoes an extraordinary change. Strange, is it not? But I’m sure there is a perfectly good scientific explanation.

On people thinking with their wallet rather than with their head, it is definitely one of the saddest commentaries on a developed nation. If the Germans and the British can do it, why can’t US? That must be the burning question in the mind of most people, those outside of US anyway.

-cvj

Cost-benefit analyses are not bean-counting exercises for rubes who don’t know better, they are essential for intelligent decision-making.