Is Global Warming a Swindle?

[Evo]

Turbo I fully agree with you and probably everybody else here that pollution needs to be tackled urgently, I just don't think a policy of 'the end justifies the means', which seems to be the attitude of many environmentalists, is the right way to address it, especially if the 'end' is actually the wrong goal.

That is exactly how I feel. We need to use some common sense and stop the over reaction. Until people are capable of understanding historical climate changes and realistically look at the data, we will most likely cause more damage than good.

 

[Pythagorean]

I've come to add unrecorded data. This is very raw data, I'm not analyzing it or making conclusions, but here goes:

I live in Alaska. Commercial fishing, I've witnessed 3 used-oil bonfires (probably about 10 5-gallon buckets. On land, I've witnessed probably 2 tire-burnings (piles were about five foot radius at bottom of pile) use SOC to find heighth. There's this place in my hometown that the high-schoolers always light whatever gets left out there on fire. Plastic tables, cars, and other random city installments don't ever last longer than a month.

Now, I only fished commercially for three or fours years.

Now imagine all the people doing this all over the world for the last ~70 years. Is that a significant amount of CO2 contribution? I don't know.

 

[Bystander]

(snip)The fact is, unless you go and earn a PhD in a quantitative science, gain employment as a climate scientist, and publish original research in a PR journal, you're not qualified to have your own opinion on it.

Bit extreme --- to paraphrase: "Unless you are trained in one of the quantitative sciences (understand methods of measurement and statistics, and assorted fundamental principles, conservation, Newton, thermo, etc.), no Ph. D. required, no employment in a specialty required, no publication list required, you are not qualified to pass judgment on the quality of the science being presented.

If what is presented as "science" fails to conform to sound measurement practices, statistical principles, and fundamental physics, it's fair game.

 

[Art]

I think this should be painfully obvious - - not that you can't have your own opinion, just that it isn't credible. Intelligent people have opinions on all sorts of fascinating subjects outside their formal training. Those opinions are good for an entertaining discussion at the local pub, and that's about all.

And yet the greatest medical advance of all time The Theory of Germs wasn't discovered by a physician but by a chemist - Louis Pasteur.

It's fortunate he didn't know you're not supposed to dabble outside your speciality

 

[StuMyers]

Bit extreme --- to paraphrase: "Unless you are trained in one of the quantitative sciences (understand methods of measurement and statistics, and assorted fundamental principles, conservation, Newton, thermo, etc.), no Ph. D. required, no employment in a specialty required, no publication list required, you are not qualified to pass judgment on the quality of the science being presented.

If what is presented as "science" fails to conform to sound measurement practices, statistical principles, and fundamental physics, it's fair game.

I think you might be underestimating the depth of a modern quantitative science. You're basically describing the level of a lower-division undergraduate. Except on very rare occaisions, graduate-level errors are culled out of papers long before even the review process begins. Just for fun, why not head over to arxiv, and pull a few modern papers at random. See if you think an undergraduate has any REAL hope of finding error, or making some kind of meaningful contribution.

Here are a few, which my mouse just clicked at random...

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/nucl-th/pdf/0703/0703084.pdf

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/math/pdf/0703/0703631.pdf

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/physics/pdf/0703/0703218.pdf

 

[Mk]

Yep.

The worst car polution I have ever encountered was in Bangkok. Driving around in a tuk-tuk, I really thought I was going to be asphyxiated before I got to my destination.

Hahaha. India is worse! Much worse. But in Guam I saw my cleanest air, and most polluted has the cleanest best air I've seen Except when we get those weird floating evil clouds of Chinese pollution, then you really notice. We also had a volcano eruption a few hundred miles south, then you REALLY notice. You could smell the sulfur and taste the ash in your mouth, visibility was greatly reduced and the air had kind of a slightly-brownish fog to it for a few days.

 

[Mk]

On one episode of Penn & Teller Bullsh!t, Patrick Moore (former president of Greenpeace) said that species reduction claims are nothing more than estimates and there's basically no evidence of dwindling biodiversity on this planet. The episode was about the ignorant hysteria behind the environmentalist movement.

It's possible that he too is just making stuff up, but the scientific method doesn't require you to prove innocence. If you make a claim that diversity is going down, you need to back it up with evidence. At least give a URL or something.

It seems to me species are constantly dying, and a biodiversity crisis seems like an abstract, future, false, crisis. I really don't know anything about it, but it just looks like that.

 

[Evo]

I think you might be underestimating the depth of a modern quantitative science.

I think what you are failing to consider is that having a PHD does not mean that you cannot be DEAD WRONG or even crazy. Passing peer review does not make something correct. Having a consensus among a group of scientists does not make something correct.

The amount of "warming" that pollution by humans has added to the "natural" warming has not been proven to be causing any major climate changes, it is only a guess at this point.

Are you familiar with Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation?

What is the AMO?

The AMO is an ongoing series of long-duration changes in the sea surface temperature of the North Atlantic Ocean, with cool and warm phases that may last for 20-40 years at a time and a difference of about 1°F between extremes. These changes are natural and have been occurring for at least the last 1,000 years.

"Is the AMO a natural phenomenon, or is it related to global warming?

Instruments have observed AMO cycles only for the last 150 years, not long enough to conclusively answer this question. However, studies of paleoclimate proxies, such as tree rings and ice cores, have shown that oscillations similar to those observed instrumentally have been occurring for at least the last millennium. This is clearly longer than modern man has been affecting climate, so the AMO is probably a natural climate oscillation. In the 20th century, the climate swings of the AMO have alternately camouflaged and exaggerated the effects of global warming, and made attribution of global warming more difficult to ascertain."

http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/amo_faq.php

And why Knee jerk reactions to try to "fix" problems can make things worse. https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=1078780&postcount=23

 

[edward]

AMO neither proves nor disproves global warming. For that matter it is totally unrelated since it deals with the Atlantic Ocean only. It merely states that a one degree temperature variation of the the Atlantic ocean has been occurring for approximately one thousand years.

 

[StuMyers]

I think what you are failing to consider is that having a PHD does not mean that you cannot be DEAD WRONG or even crazy. Passing peer review does not make something correct. Having a consensus among a group of scientists does not make something correct.

The amount of "warming" that pollution by humans has added to the "natural" warming has not been proven to be causing any major climate changes, it is only a guess at this point.

Are you familiar with (something to do with oceans)

In my experience, it's several orders of magnitude more likely that it's the crackpots who are wrong.

 

[edward]

tell that to the frogs. If it weren't a matter of concern and maybe it isn't for most, why even have endangered species lists.? This is a see no evil hear no evil argumentnot worth the time of day.

The frogs look to be the canary in the coal mine.

WHAT CAUSES DEFORMITIES IN FROGS: In a given population, if 5 percent or fewer of frogs have malformations, that is natural, but there are populations where 70 percent show deformities. Researchers are trying to understand what outside source is causing the frogs to develop abnormally, resulting in diminishing populations around the world. Among the factors that have been studied are climate changes, such as global warming and the thinning of the ozone layer, which can result in overexposure to ultraviolet radiation. Habitat destruction is also a factor, as is pollution: frogs absorb water directly through their skin, so they are vulnerable to water pollutants like pesticides and acid rain.

http://www.aip.org/dbis/stories/2005/15052.html

And the future for wildlife species globally is not all that great.

Washington – In the world’s coldest places, and in the driest places, species of plants and animals face mounting threats to their continued existence, according to one of the world’s most comprehensive wildlife surveys released May 2 by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN).

The Red List of Threatened Species identifies more than 16,100 plant and animal species that are threatened with extinction, put forth as evidence of the steady diminution in the Earth’s biological diversity.

http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2006&m=May&x=20060502140609cmretrop0.8609888

 

[Evo]

In my experience, it's several orders of magnitude more likely that it's the crackpots who are wrong.

And I'm saying that a lot of people with PHD's are among the crackpots. I even know some of them personally.

 

[Evo]

AMO neither proves nor disproves global warming. For that matter it is totally unrelated since it deals with the Atlantic Ocean only.

Exactly my point since the SST of the Atlantic is one of the major examples touted by GW advocates as proof of Global Warming and catastrophic climate change. I'm glad to see you agree it's not related.

What GW advocates never mention is that since SST has risen in the western North Pacific, the frequency and severity of cyclones has decreased dramatically over the last 15 years.

Sorry, but cherry picking facts like this just makes GW's lose credibilty.

https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=1232579&postcount=72

 

[edward]

Exactly my point since the SST of the Atlantic is one of the major examples touted by GW advocates as proof of Global Warming and catastrophic climate change. I'm glad to see you agree it's not related.

What GW advocates never mention is that since SST has risen in the western North Pacific, the frequency and severity of cyclones has decreased dramatically over the last 15 years.

Sorry, but cherry picking facts like this just makes GW's lose credibilty.

https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=1232579&postcount=72

The weather in the Pacific has also always run in cycles. This still proves nothing either way. Cherry picking seems to be the norm here. You just cherry picked the cherry I picked.

 

[mheslep]

... I'd suggest starting at realclimate.org and read what some of the actual climate scientists are writing. .

I'd suggest avoiding that site, an advocacy machine for self perpetuation of Mann.

 

[Gokul43201]

Exactly my point since the SST of the Atlantic is one of the major examples touted by GW advocates as proof of Global Warming and catastrophic climate change.

Evo, are you talking about politicians or scientists? And can you include a link to an example, so we can see for ourselves how they could be so wrong? I find it hard to believe that scientists in the field can either be ignorant of things that the lay person is aware of, or alternatively, can pull off a scam of the magnitude indicated.

 

[Evo]

The weather in the Pacific has also always run in cycles. This still proves nothing either way. Cherry picking seems to be the norm here. You just cherry picked the cherry I picked.

The point is that GW advocates were claiming that a rise is SST would equate to a rise in storm activity. Turns out that's not what is actually happening over most of the world's oceans.

Also, the cherry picking was not addressed at you.

 

[Evo]

Evo, are you talking about politicians or scientists? And can you include a link to an example, so we can see for ourselves how they could be so wrong? I find it hard to believe that scientists in the field can either be ignorant of things that the lay person is aware of, or alternatively, can pull off a scam of the magnitude indicated.

I linked to it above. https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=1232579&postcount=72

 

[edward]

The point is that GW advocates were claiming that a rise is SST would equate to a rise in storm activity. Turns out that's not what is actually happening over most of the world's oceans.

Also, the cherry picking was not addressed at you.

I understand what you mean, I was just kidding a bit with the cherry picking thing.

My overall view on all of this is that it is time to move on to new and cleaner energy sources. And hopefully do it sooner rather than later. Burning fossil fuels creates a lot more than just CO2.

My personal opinion on global warming is that with all of the billions of tons of CO2 man has added to the atmosphere in the last 100 years, it would be abnormal if we didn't see some warming.

Then again we can just blame it on the sun.

 

[mheslep]

I think this should be painfully obvious - - not that you can't have your own opinion, just that it isn't credible. Intelligent people have opinions on all sorts of fascinating subjects outside their formal training. Those opinions are good for an entertaining discussion at the local pub, and that's about all.

Thats crap. Richard Feynman was noted for saying that if a subject could not be explained in a freshman lecture, it was not yet fully understood[by anybody]. He also said its incumbent on the research proponents, not their critics, to freely offer up every conceivable foil for their discoveries to avoid http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/02/CargoCult.pdf" . Especially note the base behavior evident in the bogus follow up findings on Millikan's oil drop experiment therein. No doubt those guys were all "PhD"s in their field, and 'peer reviewed'. Yes, step aside laymen, leave it all to them. Please.

Peer review is an important process step, its used in this GW context as if its the final goal; it is not. Theory confirmed independently, and repeatedly, by experiment, is.

 

[Bystander]

I think you might be underestimating the depth of a modern quantitative science. You're basically describing the level of a lower-division undergraduate. Except on very rare occaisions,

First sentence, last paragraph, page 3 of your first link, "Although they have the same neutron number, the isotones ⁵⁸Fe and ⁵⁸Ni ..." 'Tain't at all rare coming out of Oak Ridge --- what passes for an in house editorial review board at that lab is a sad, sad bunch. The paper itself? No comparisons of the Monte Carlo results to measurements or data, shot full with "apparently" and "appears," and a rehash of other peoples' work.

graduate-level errors are culled out of papers long before even the review process begins.

Was the paper proofed at all? No, again, a tradmark of Oak Ridge. Reviewed? Obviously not by anyone with an education beyond Jr. High or Middle School. Read by an editor? Nerp.

Just for fun, why not head over to arxiv, and pull a few modern papers at random. See if you think an undergraduate has any REAL hope of finding error, or making some kind of meaningful contribution.

Here are a few, which my mouse just clicked at random...

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/nucl-th/pdf/0703/0703084.pdf

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/math/pdf/0703/0703631.pdf

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/physics/pdf/0703/0703218.pdf

Second and third links? Math, no measurements, no physics.

Hit Evo's link, http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/wmo/ccl/rural-urban.pdf , once, and Google "Stevenson Screen," or "Cotton Region Shelter," recall what you were taught about transport processes as an undergrad, and see if you believe Peterson's arguments for homogeneity of meteorological temperature data.

 

[StuMyers]

First sentence, last paragraph, page 3 of your first link, "Although they have the same neutron number, the isotones ⁵⁸Fe and ⁵⁸Ni ..."

And what's the problem? Redundance of isotone and neutron number? Isn't that a bit nit-picky?

'Tain't at all rare coming out of Oak Ridge --- what passes for an in house editorial review board at that lab is a sad, sad bunch. The paper itself? No comparisons of the Monte Carlo results to measurements or data, shot full with "apparently" and "appears," and a rehash of other peoples' work.

Comparisons are outside the scope of the paper. And remember, it's an arxiv pre-print. I doubt any but maybe the third author is a native english-speaker. Oak Ridge does have a poor reputation, you are correct. But, I'd argue that this speaks to the error-correcting mechanism of science. We know they need to be watched.

Second and third links? Math, no measurements, no physics.

Nothing wrong with that. There is value in theory. Like a wrote, I clicked three links at random. The purpose was to show how current research is in general beyond the grasp of students at the undergraduate level. But yes... maybe they can go and proof-read the english.

Hit Evo's link, http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/wmo/ccl/rural-urban.pdf , once, and Google "Stevenson Screen," or "Cotton Region Shelter," recall what you were taught about transport processes as an undergrad, and see if you believe Peterson's arguments for homogeneity of meteorological temperature data.

Peterson would agree that the raw meterological data is non-homogeneous. That was his purpose.

 

[mheslep]

Fe 58 (N=32) and Ni 58 (N=30) are not isotones.

 

[StuMyers]

Thats crap. Richard Feynman was noted for saying that if a subject could not be explained in a freshman lecture, it was not yet fully understood[by anybody]. He also said its incumbent on the research proponents, not their critics, to freely offer up every conceivable foil for their discoveries to avoid http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/02/CargoCult.pdf" . Especially note the base behavior evident in the bogus follow up findings on Millikan's oil drop experiment therein. No doubt those guys were all "PhD"s in their field, and 'peer reviewed'. Yes, step aside laymen, leave it all to them. Please.

Peer review is an important process step, its used in this GW context as if its the final goal; it is not. Theory confirmed independently, and repeatedly, by experiment, is.

When Feynman wrote about CCS, he was referring to scientists within a discipline not questioning the work of previous scientists in that discipline, often whose work they were building upon.

It is the job of scientists to question and poke at the work of other researchers in their field. This is likely to be well beyond the ability of any layperson or non-specialist, in general.

The non-romantic fact is that it is the scientists job to convince other specialists, then tell the non-specialists how it is. I can't convince a lay-person about some data regarding J/Psi suppression in QGP, I can only really tell them. I can convince a peer, however. It's the job of the other peers to make sure I'm kept honest.

 

[Bystander]

And what's the problem? Redundance of isotone and neutron number? Isn't that a bit nit-picky?

⁵⁸Fe is isotonic with ⁶⁰Ni, or ⁵⁶Fe with ⁵⁸Ni. Now, how much time do you want to waste on the paper, the authors, Oak Ridge, or the archive?

Comparisons are outside the scope of the paper. And remember, it's an arxiv pre-print. I doubt any but maybe the third author is a native english-speaker. Oak Ridge does have a poor reputation, you are correct. But, I'd argue that this speaks to the error-correcting mechanism of science. We know they need to be watched.



Nothing wrong with that. There is value in theory. Like a wrote, I clicked three links at random. The purpose was to show how current research is in general beyond the grasp of students at the undergraduate level. But yes... maybe they can go and proof-read the english.



Peterson would agree that the raw meterological data is non-homogeneous. That was his purpose.

His purpose was to "homogenize" the data with an assortment of ex post facto corrections; i.e., that it is homogeneous. Meteorological temperature measurements are in fact uncharacterized combinations of air temperature, wind speed, and emissivities of assorted "tattle-tale" gray bodies, none of which are included in the collection of ad hoc corrections that are applied.

 

[StuMyers]

Fe 58 (N=32) and Ni 58 (N=30) are not isotones.

This an example of why physicists can't do chemistry?

 

[StuMyers]

⁵⁸Fe is isotonic with ⁶⁰Ni, or ⁵⁶Fe with ⁵⁸Ni. Now, how much time do you want to waste on the paper, the authors, Oak Ridge, or the archive?



His purpose was to "homogenize" the data with an assortment of ex post facto corrections; i.e., that it is homogeneous. Meteorological temperature measurements are in fact uncharacterized combinations of air temperature, wind speed, and emissivities of assorted "tattle-tale" gray bodies, none of which are included in the collection of ad hoc corrections that are applied.

Again, to be fair his purpose was to attempt to more rigorously homogenize the data. Either way, the old UHI analysis was far worse, and we're all convinced that UHI's are a temperature gradient mess.

 

[edward]

Let's stay in the world we live in. Nineteenth century science was nothing like today's.

History tells us that the 19th century scientists were saying the same thing about the 18th century scientists. The third rail of science is still insight and a thousand cookie cutter peer reviews can't replace it.

The capability of ever precisely measuring the thinning of the ozone layer was doubted. Those with insight did it.

 

[mheslep]

When Feynman wrote about CCS, he was referring to scientists within a discipline not questioning the work of previous scientists in that discipline, often whose work they were building upon.

It is the job of scientists to question and poke at the work of other researchers in their field. This is likely to be well beyond the ability of any layperson or non-specialist, in general.

That is not RFP's point. Its not about the other guy; the other guy is not the one most responsible for insuring I'm doing good science, its me: "... the first principle is that you must not fool yourself -- and you are are easiest person to fool." His own work famously pointed out where it was limited, had no answer, didn't apply, or just plain failed.

-Atomic Theory of the Two-Fluid Model of Liquid Helium, up front in the abstract:
"... The view is not adequate to deal with the ..."
-Very High-Energy Collisions of Hadrons, 2nd para:
"...I have difficult in writing this note because it is not in the nature of a deductive paper, but is the result of an induction..."
-CalTech freshmen physics lectures (the Redbooks, preface):
"...pessimistic. I don't think I did very well by the students. ...failure"

BTW, try to find that kind of honest self introspection in Mann - Nature '98 MBH

The non-romantic fact is that it is the scientists job to convince other specialists, then tell the non-specialists how it is. I can't convince a lay-person about some data regarding J/Psi suppression in QGP, I can only really tell them. I can convince a peer, however...

Then I ask you to consider, without malice, and as I dare say Feynman would, that you don't fundamentally understand the concept yourself.

BTW, for purposes of persuasion, I think you'll find the Feynman method ala "My findings are the following... but note these many possible areas where it does not explain ... is yet unconfirmed ... conflicts with previous results..." for more effective in convincing a 'lay-person' than "the consensus on this matter is..., the debate is over..", etc.

 

[StuMyers]

Then I ask you to consider, without malice, and as I dare say Feynman would, that you don't fundamentally understand the concept yourself.

Well, that's always a fair bet. But what I mean really, is that I lack the patience to explain J/Psi suppression and it's implications in QGP to a lay audience. I'd have to backtrack way too far, explain way too much, and life is just too short. We don't even speak the same language.

 

[Evo]

Well, that's always a fair bet. But what I mean really, is that I lack the patience to explain J/Psi suppression and it's implications in QGP to a lay audience. I'd have to backtrack way too far, explain way too much, and life is just too short. We don't even speak the same language.

If you understand the subject well enough, it shouldn't be too hard to explain it in simplified terms.

I am one of a very small handfull of people in the world that have the expertise that I have in technology. I sit in board meetings with the CEOs & CFOs of huge companies and at the same table are the CIOs and CTOs and IT techs and I have to simultaneously give two presentations, one technical and one non-technical. I turn to the CEO and hand him pretty colored diagrams and graphs, while handing the tech people detailed white papers. If you can't explain something equally well to peers and laymen while entertaining both, then either you don't truly understand the topic or you have a problem communicating.

 

[denverdoc]

My belief is that if you are employed in whatever capacity to support a particular view, than one needs to recuse themselve from such debates. ZA conflict of interest, pure and simple. In my biz, I always get suspicious when one says things like "among a handful in the world". Unless you have a cv with 100 plus pubs, its all puffery.

 

[Art]

Let's stay in the world we live in. Nineteenth century science was nothing like today's. Today's medical advances come from highly trained specialists in multi-million dollar labs.

You might as well argue that Galileo was an amateur astronomer.

In any case, I didn't say you shouldn't dabble outside your specialty. Dabble away. Just don't expect to come up with anything revolutionary. And if you think you have, but the pro's think you haven't, guess what? You haven't.

From the 'real world', as you call it, there are many contempory examples of scientists excelling in areas outside their speciality. To mention but a few there is of course Crick (he of DNA fame) who was a physicist who 'dabbled' in microbiology and was awarded a nobel prize in medicine and Prof Gilbert who was appointed Assistant Professor at the Department of Physics in Cambridge Uni in 1959 who won a nobel prize in chemistry in 1980 or even more recently Sir Peter Mansfield

Physicist wins Nobel Prize for Medicine 2003
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2003 has today been awarded to an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Physics, Sir Peter Mansfield from the University of Nottingham.

http://www.innovations-report.de/html/berichte/preise_foerderungen/bericht-63263.html

 

[vanesch]

If you understand the subject well enough, it shouldn't be too hard to explain it in simplified terms.

Only up to a point. I've also done several "science fair for the public" and honestly, I hate it because often you have to tell a silly story that, by a far stretch, has something to do with the real stuff, but of which you can only understand the link when you already know the real stuff. The thing I often did was "explain the standard model to the layman" ; you can't really. The website for the public at CERN is the kind of idiocy you tell then.

However, I think that climatology must be explainable to a physicist. After all, it's physics, and relatively simple physics (only, the system is complicated). You do not need any general relativity, quantum field theory or whatever sophisticated part of the arsenal of the modern theorist to do climatology. It's essentially a complex transport phenomenon, of the kind you meet in many branches of physics and engineering: thermal transport, radiation transport, matter transport. Absorption, re-emission etc...
All this is in principle understandable by any physicist worth his degree. There shouldn't be any *theoretical* difficulty for a physicist to follow any argumentation by a climatologist. Of course, some jargon would have to be explained, several known phenomena by climatologists would have to be repeated etc... but normally, a physicist should have all the theoretical knowledge to understand a detailed argument.
Unfortunately, I haven't yet seen such an argument, completely developed from A to Z, where I don't have to take anything on faith (which I shouldn't, given that I'm able in principle to follow every argument) and which leads to a conclusion that there is or that there isn't, any GW.

 

[turbo]

If you can't explain something equally well to peers and laymen while entertaining both, then either you don't truly understand the topic or you have a problem communicating.

Thank you! It's quite frustrating to watch some otherwise potentially valuable threads fall into a cycle of dueling citations and appeals to authority.

I used to write and present safety courses to the crews and staff responsible for the operation of Kraft chemical recovery boilers. At any given presentation, there could be low-level utility operators (including new hires), boiler operators and their assistants, evaporator operators, foremen, superintendents, engineers, etc. These boilers represent huge safety risks because they burn evaporated black liquor, and any uptick in the water content of the feed liquor could result in a smelt-water explosion capable of cracking the boiler tubes. You just don't want that happening inside a water-tube boiler operating at 900 psi or so.

The training was mandated by the mills' insurance companies for the most part, and I could have just presented the materials to satisfy the training requirements (40 hours/year for each operator, typically), but I made a point of trying to convey to each person in the room how the proper performance of THEIR job could contribute to boiler safety. Conveying the material in a way that was understandable and usable to people with such a wide range of experience/ability/responsibility was a challenge, but it was do-able because I knew the mechanics, physics and chemistry of recovery boilers inside-out, and in my previous job as a process chemist, I had worked with engineers, operators, and their supervisors in a similar environment for years. Putting in a week's worth of classroom time was pretty foreign to some of these guys, so if I couldn't keep the material relevant and interesting, I would have lost them the first day.

If I ask someone a question about some aspect of their job and they can't explain it to me, I assume that they either have a problem formulating and communicating concepts OR they don't understand what they are doing. I ran into this a lot in older mills in which Jim trained Joe and Joe trained Frank and Frank trained Larry... This peer-level on-the-job-training is dangerous in potentially risky situations like boiler operation, because without skillful evaluation and re-training, you eventually get to the point where your operators can tell you "first you open valve A, then you throttle back on valve B until this gauge gets to this level..." without any real understanding of what's going on. Sorry for going OT, here, but it seems that too often statements are made to the effect that some aspect or another of this GW debate is too complex to explain properly to the masses. That is an unacceptable way to duck a question. It's one thing to say "you are wrong" or "you don't understand the problem" - it's another thing entirely to have the depth of knowledge and understanding that will enable you to explain in clear and simple language why the other person is mistaken. [/rant]