It didn't take long after the Federal Minister for Climate Change and Water announced the green paper on a national emissions trading scheme for a section of the media to find it's anti-anthropomorphic climate change position.
The Australian lead the charge yesterday with this from Dr. David Evans.
I DEVOTED six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian Greenhouse Office. I am the rocket scientist who wrote the carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia's compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, in the land use change and forestry sector.
FullCAM models carbon flows in plants, mulch, debris, soils and agricultural products, using inputs such as climate data, plant physiology and satellite data. I've been following the global warming debate closely for years.----
But since 1999 new evidence has seriously weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and by 2007 the evidence was pretty conclusive that carbon played only a minor role and was not the main cause of the recent global warming. As Lord Keynes famously said, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"
Now Dr. Evans has a perfect right to his own opinion. However, there is one question that comes to mind; is this opinion worth considerable weight?
I honestly don't know, but I suspect that a man whose biography shows that his Phd was in electrical engineering, whose forte is mathematics and computer programming, whose first love appears to be his investment portfolio and the stock exchange and who has a company to promote, may not be the person with the last reliable word on climate change theory.
Dr. Evans also appears to be a fan (perhaps also a member) of The Lavoisier Group which was founded in 2000 as a group of people who were concerned about the drift at that time towards ratification of Kyoto and the decarbonisation of Australia.
So, in the end, perhaps David Evans is not "the rocket scientist".
Saturday 19 July 2008
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5 comments:
Evans asserts of 1999:
'The evidence was not conclusive, but why wait until we were certain when it appeared we needed to act quickly? Soon government and the scientific community were working together and lots of science research jobs were created. We scientists had political support, the ear of government, big budgets, and we felt fairly important and useful (well, I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet.'
What a load of mendacious nonsense. In 1999, Howard's mob was adamant that AGW was a figment of the left's imagination. What 'political support' did anyone have who believed in AGW?
Evans claims he's changed his mind. Can he cite some earlier publications in which he actually endorsed AGW? Or was he simply an employee, doing the job he was paid to do, without necessarily having to believe it had a sound purpose?
You're right, Ken L. Evans does not appear to be a reliable source.
This week voices for high-carbon industries are coming out of every nook and cranny decrying ETS.
I read from Evans' Lavoisier Group profile that 'he wrote the software which the Australian Government uses to calculate its land-use carbon accounts for the Kyoto Protocol.'
Presumably this is the software that allowed Howard's mob to claim Australia was more than meeting its Kyoto obligations by not clearing land as fast as it used to. Now I can understand why Evans had 'political support'.
Describing himself as "the rocket scientist" is highly deceptive (and also quite amusing). I've seen some programmers with high opinions of themselves but this guy takes the cake.
He was a consultant that wrote some computer code for the AGO.
Spot on, Sam.
But then saying that you had two small contracts (worth around $200k) "To provide various scientific programming services including (but not limited to), the conversion of excel spreadsheets to C Programs and various Modelling programs." as a member of the business Science Speak [AGO Consultancies 2003-04] doesn't sound as good as saying "I am the rocket scientist who wrote the carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia's compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, in the land use change and forestry sector."
Dr. Evans seems to be gilding the lily quite a bit.
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