It's "dead heat" – Americans rate global warming last

Gord Richmond said @ur momisugly January 24, 2012 at 10:39 am

Pompousgit@ur momisugly12:29
You don’t need a degree in “Environmental Engineering” to deal with those issue, and some of the others raised earlier. They all fall under the discipline of Civil Engineering and Mining Engineering, and have done for generations.

Sorry, you obviously don’t know what you are talking about. From the NPER website:

Environmental Engineering is concerned with water and waste water treatment and environmental management (including application of re-use and recycling), waste management (including ecoefficiency and cleaner production concepts, and life cycle assessment), surface and ground water system environmental management (including water quality management), contaminated land assessment and remediation, natural resource management, environment protection, management and pollution control, environmental management system design (including environmental management planning, and auditing), environmental impact assessment and environmental management planning, environmental information systems, natural system accounting (including economic evaluation), social impact analysis, community consultation and dispute resolution, sustainable energy planning and design, greenhouse gas mitigation and management, environmental risk assessment and management, and environmental policy formulation.
The area of practice of Environmental Engineering has been established to distinguish Engineering Associates competent in the practice of Environmental Engineering where Environmental Engineering is the dominant area of practice in their professional life.

http://www.engineersaustralia.org.au/nerb/environmental-engineering

Peter Kovachev says:
If this is a part of a trend, I’d be nice to know more. Like, engineers being practical types, are they seeing a drying-up of funds for envirnmental sciences work?
Environmental engineers don’t do environmental sciences work. They do environemental engineering work.
A monopolization and political control of the field by a tight establishment ? A surplus of radical ideologues and activists who’ve turned off a largely conservative core of engineering and science types? Inability of the big players, including the UN, to deliver on its promises? The collapse of and unsustainibility of green industries and failure of their projects?.
None of that has anything to do with environmental engineering. The downturn in the field of environmental engineering is due to the downturn in the sectors of the economy that employ environmental engineers: infrasturcture development, land development, resource development, energy development, heavy industry, etc. There is also less public sector funding available for reclamation and remediation projects, public infrasturcture, etc. “Radical ideologues and activists” UN promises, and “green industries” dont matter F@ur momisugly#$ all to environmental engineering.
Gord Richmond says:
You don’t need a degree in “Environmental Engineering” to deal with those issue, and some of the others raised earlier. They all fall under the discipline of Civil Engineering and Mining Engineering, and have done for generations.
You dont know what you are talking about. Environmental engineering is a specialty field within the broad umbrella of engineering, just like Civil, Traffic, Architectural, Mechanical, Electrical, Chemical, etc. There is some overlap between Environmental with Civil, and Chemical, and Mechanical, and Hydraulic etc, but none of those encompasses the entirety of the field and there is plenty of specialized knowledge in each of those others that is not generally applicable to Environmental. That is the point of specialization.
You guys need to grasp that “environmental” does not mean “environmentalist”, let alone “environmentalist whacko”. Environmental engineering is a productive discipline. It is engineering, not politics.

The physics and chemsitry of climate change do not give a tinker’s damn about American public opinion.

Peter Kovachev said @ur momisugly January 24, 2012 at 12:03 pm

In other words, thepompousgit, “environmental engineering” is a self-declared discipline which appropriated for itself a slew of specializations which could just as easily stayed in civil engineering.
But wait! There is more! “Environmental engineering,” I see, is not for the lowly, practical “gearheads,” but…incidentally and by-the-way… provides a happy, well-funded home for connoisseurs and sponsors of human engineering as well. How’d they sneak in?
Look again at some of those “sciences” grafted onto the butt-end of the website ad you cited as some sort of evidence. Namely stuff like, “…social impact analysis, community consultation and dispute resolution, sustainable energy planning and design, greenhouse gas mitigation and management, environmental risk assessment and management, and environmental policy formulation.”
Whoo-wee, now that’s some mighty engineering, i’n it? Why not call it Engineering of Everything and Everyone?

The College of Environmental Engineering is no more, nor any less “self-declared” than any other College of Professional Engineers. It seems to me that you want to claim “a slew of specializations which could just as easily stayed in civil engineering”. Civil engineers are like that, I guess. I have had civil engineers claiming, without warrant, expertise in fire safety, building surveying (when they didn’t even know what building surveyors did), acoustics, building services (hydraulic, electrical & mechanical)… I even had a guy with one year post secondary education in electrical engineering claim that his qualification was the equivalent of degrees in building surveying, building & construction and civil & structural engineering. Engineers are like that, I guess.
To be listed as a member of a College on the National Professional Engineers Register requires demonstration of implemented designs to a designated (high) standard within the discipline. Relevant qualification helps, but is not mandatory. If you have a beef with Professional Engineering Registration, take it up with Engineers Australia, or the affiliated body in your country of residence.

Peter Kovachev said @ur momisugly January 24, 2012 at 12:25 pm

Right, JJ, so environmental activism, legislation, slew of regulations, industry lobbying, pressure groups and political cultures have no effect on the financial health of this “discipline.” Industry and the public would really, really like to spend a lot more (and lot longer) if they could on “…social impact analysis, community consultation and dispute resolution, sustainable energy planning and design, greenhouse gas mitigation and management, environmental risk assessment and management, and environmental policy formulation.”
GordRichmond, perhaps. Perhaps environmental engineering should be a purely “productive industry.” It can start by shedding the stuff I’ve cited in italics above, and get to it, then.

A few years ago, our local council had engineers (civil & hydraulic) build a pump & pipe system to carry the effluent from our village to sullage ponds at another village some distance away at a cost of several millions of dollars. Those sullage ponds were never designed to take the extra load and the subsequent smell caused considerable distress in that community. The wholesale destruction of long established gardens in our community also caused considerable distress. A friend who is a sanitation (environmental) engineer (and famous for his portable septic toilet design) points out that the civil engineers’ solution cost millions of dollars more than upgrading the original local septic systems would have cost and caused far less distress.
Even more recently, the water needs of a village on the opposite side of the river needed supplementation and the civil/hydraulic engineers proposed a pump and pipe system. The pump was to be located directly opposite our rather beautiful and treasured Palais Theatre, used for musical concerts, dances, weddings etc. and immediately adjacent to our war memorial where we honour “those who died for our Empire”. Fortunately, before we started poking the civil/hydraulic engineers with extremely sharp objects, the water authority engaged Environmental Engineers skilled in “social impact analysis, community consultation and dispute resolution” that you so loathe, and a compromise solution emerged. We kept the amenity of our Palais and the pump & pipeline were installed where nobody objected.

Peter Kovachev says:
January 24, 2012 at 12:25 pm
In other words, thepompousgit, “environmental engineering” is a self-declared discipline which appropriated for itself a slew of specializations which could just as easily stayed in civil engineering.
Not true. Much of what falls under the specialization of Environmental Engineering could not have stayed under Civil, because it was never was in Civil in the first place. A great deal of Chemical Engineering, for example. Civils dont need chemistry. Chemicals dont need most of Civil. So they specialize. That is the point. Environmental Engineers need some, but not all, of both of those – plus some other stuff. So they specialize. That is the point.
The problem with you guys, is that you don’t know what you are talking about, and you can’t grasp that the word “environmental” does not mean “environmentalist”. Environmental Engineer and environmental activist are not the same thing. The motive for specialization olitical cruiwas to meet the demands of the market, not out of some political crusade on the part of the
Right, JJ, so environmental activism, legislation, slew of regulations, industry lobbying, pressure groups and political cultures have no effect on the financial health of this “discipline.”
Of course those things have an effect on the financial health of the discipline of Environmental Engineering. I listed some of those impacts above. The actions of environmental activists, for example, have effectively halted hard rock mining in my state. This action by environmental activists has harmed every discipline involved with the mining industry, including Environmental Engineering. The bust of the housing market has effectively halted the residential land development industry in my state. This action by some financial instrument marketers has harmed every discipline involved with the housing market, including Environmental Engineering.
Industry and the public would really, really like to spend a lot more (and lot longer) if they could on “…social impact analysis, community consultation and dispute resolution, sustainable energy planning and design, greenhouse gas mitigation and management, environmental risk assessment and management, and environmental policy formulation.”
Those are minor aspects of environmental engineering. They are also minor aspects of Civil, and Chemical, and Traffic, and etc engineering. They are services that engineers provide, not demands upon society that engineers make. Environmental engineers frequently help industry defend itself against environmental activists. It is funny to watch, as activists have a tough time dealing with the hard facts that engineers trade in.
Equating engineers and activists just because they share the adjective “environmental” as you do is the same as denigrating Automotive Engineers by invoking automotive safety activist Ralph Nader.

Ford quits USCAP Membership
http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/shareholder-activism-right/331226

I’m afraid the decline in interest in “global warming” may have come too late for California. Already the concept, its perceived horrificacies and what to do about them are imbedded in California Statute and Regulation, with AB32 as the prime example. Even if the public’s concern dropped to Zero the mandate for the state’s utilities to attain a 33% Renewable Portfolio Standard would march on, somewhat like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice.
The utilities are currently signing long term contracts (Power Purchase Agreements) with as many solar PV (and a few solar thermal) developers as fast as they can in order to qualify for Federal Subsidies of one kind or another before those subsidies sunset. These contracts will last for 20-30 years and guarantee that the developer will receive 3-10 times the going rate for power produced today. Additionally, transmission lines to bring this expensive power to the centers of population are also being constructed along with backup conventional natural gas powered plants in order to firm or level out the variable output from not only the solar plants but wind farms as well. This adds up to extra $Billions$ that ultimately the ratepayer and the taxpayer will have to cover.
I’ve estimated that in order to meet the state’s 33% RPS the utilities need about 20% more than they now can claim. This means that the total investment will be about $85 Billion if the 20% is achieved by just the solar plants. And how much loss in value can we assign to about 155,000 acres of desert landscape turned into essentially an industrial complex?

@G. Karst says – January 24, 2012 at 10:22 am
It should be “yet to be disproven”, and you are right. It may yet be.