A WUWT reader from NCAR sends this but wishes to remain anonymous. I verified the IP address as coming from NCAR. Bold mine.
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Hi Mr. Watts,
I come to your website nearly every day. Working here at NCAR, we rarely ever get to hear the other side of the CAGW argument, so I greatly appreciate your balanced and very informational website. I’m a young scientist and am too afraid to speak out at work, because I fear repercussions. Anyway, I thought you might be interested in reading an announcement for a seminar coming up soon here at NCAR. It came in our “Staff Notes” that everybody here at NCAR receives every day in our inbox. Some of these folks are getting really bitter that they are losing ground in this all-important argument.
Speaker: Thomas E. Downing, CEO of the Global Climate Adaptation Partnership
Date: January 7, 2014
Time: 2:00pm
Place: FL 2 Room 3107
Title: Change-making in the Adaptation Landscape
Abstract:
Action on climate adaptation, a wicked problem, requires navigating a landscape that is only partly known, using wayfinding aids that are problematic at the best of times, in company with often recalcitrant partners. Beginning with this metaphor, Tom Downing traces recent thinking and emerging prospects for climate change adaptation. He draws upon a toolkit that spans theory of change to multi-attribute metrics. Case studies from Africa and Latin America illustrate key principals of practice.
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Here’s the actual announcement from NCAR:
http://www2.ucar.edu/for-staff/daily/calendar/2014-01-07/ral-seminar-series-change-making-adaptation-landscape
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It will be interesting watching the actions, and reactions, of the CAGW in-group as it gradually dawns on them that the November 2014 U.S. Congressional election is likely to result in a GOP-controlled Senate and House, along with a significant increase of Tea-Party-minded members in both houses.
When Senator Reid is no longer able to control the work flow of the Senate, and both houses are free to investigate the various green scams of the past six years, along with all of the coercive behaviors that have accompanied them, many illegal, some heads are going to roll. Jobs will definitely be at risk for many, and in some cases jail time will likely be warranted.
As that realization dawns, and I believe that time is upon us given the obvious lack of support from the public for the CAGW agenda now, I suspect we will see wholesale abandonment of the green agenda by many of its current principals, with only the hard core adherents who are nearing retirement holding fast to their “principles” as they might be. (I would prefer “propaganda” over “principles” here.)
Australia’s recent sacking of the green party is the canary in the coal mine for warmists in the U.S. 2014 will not be a happy new year for them, I suspect.
Indeed, your best case and worst case scenarios present the possibilities accurately. The darned abstract was so unclear I thought I was missing something. An academic possessing very unclear thinking (reflected in an abstract) may see “new” problems when they are the same old problems, may see problems where there are none, or may see problems that are problems only to his/her interests and assumes because of isolation that other people’s circumstances or interests are the same. I can see this academic might think that oil companies are “uncooperative” partners if they refuse to give up fracking and off-shore drilling.
My Ph.D. advisor was Robert (Gene) Woolsey. His most important law was:
As I wrote above seeing adaption as a “wicked” problem is at best a sign the problem is badly formulated, probably with too large a scope.
If the problem is formulated as trying to find the Optimum solution, the solution space is so large and the uncertainty so great, then indeed it is a wicked problem. That is exactly the kind of solution a rational manager with a profitabiltiy motive does not want. Adaption is exactly the kiind of problem where a menu of good, robust, low-risk non-global solutions can be made available for immediate decisions at local levels.
Climatologist says: “You all have an undeserved, low opinion of NCAR, including Data Soong.”
I agree, most of those at NCAR who fully support CAGW are nice people, but there is a subset who say some rather venomous things about skeptics, apparently assuming that everyone in the room agrees with them. I’m very early on in my career, and haven’t worked in the field long enough to prove I am invaluable. Seeing other young colleagues getting laid off in the past couple years (likely for purely economic reasons), I don’t want to give my superiors a reason to change their attitude about me, if they find out I don’t agree with them on CAGW.
I should clarify “… a small subset …”
Stephen Rasey says:
January 1, 2014 at 9:49 am
I assume your quotation from Woolsey should read “A manager does not want …”; however, the quotation brings up an interesting point; being that simply finding a direction of improvement allows one to continually improve even on a complex landscape that is evolving; whereas finding an optimum and making a map of how to get there could have one arrive at the location of an optimum that no longer exists.
My wife is getting a Ph.D. in education and when I read the abstract to her, she immediately noticed the “theory of change” phrase. I should have known that the incomprehensible verbiage would point to some indefinite, trendy idea in the social sciences. And I see that the idea is one of making a map toward a desirable goal and measuring one’s progress there, which one can hardly quarrel with. Here is a gem from one online offering about theory of change “There is nothing as practical as good theory.”
This seems to muddle the role of theory. Good practice comes from honestly assessed experience. Theory is an invaluable part of the assessment loop, but it has to be vetted through experiment.
More precisely:
“Tho’ I’ve belted you and flayed you,
By the livin’ Gawd that made you,
You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!”
Hlaford says: @ur momisugly January 1, 2014 at 5:57 am
Funny, but I noticed the problem of abstract not following the paper content a while ago, and did not attribute it to wilful attempts to do science and be PC at the same time….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I noticed it also.
Now think about this. The title and the Abstract are PC so it gets a pass and the Journal publishes it. This means the reviewers never even bothered to do anything but look at the abstract and give it a pass. OR they don’t care what gets published as long as it can be used to generate headlines.
Also it means there are younger up and coming scientists who are just waiting for the old PC crowd to retire or die off or for the academic climate to become less hostile. Often children are the opposite of what their parents are so Conservatives end up with far left kids and Progressives with conservative kids. Political swings are rather common.
@Kevin Kilty at 1:05 pm
(what’s the emoticon for embarrassment?)
Yes. Woolsey’s Law is
Your observation that adoption is likely a continuous improvement in a changing landscape is spot on. Adaption will be a suite of solutions, non-exclusive, non-global, parallel, and incremental. Adaption is the antithesis of a wicked problem.
Dear NCAR-employee, right now I feel sorry for you, as you have to sneak to WUWT to get balanced and true information. But, i would strongly recommend that you
SPEAK UP FOR YOURSELF!
even if you loose your job. It cannot be very satisfying to stay there for long. You probably have plenty of opportunity to get a new one.
After all, in some months from now. I guess the world needs teachers, tutors, and scientists that have the most precious of all: HONESTY, PROUDNESS, and INTEGRITY. We need guys like you to tell the rest of the naive world why the world is no longer warming, why they were fooled – about the grand cover-up and what the consequences are.
He draws upon a toolkit that spans theory of change to multi-attribute metrics. Case studies from Africa and Latin America illustrate key principals of practice.
Regions that are known for their Marxist and totalitarian regimes. Why am I not surprised?
Dear Young Scientist at NCAR,
I too say be careful. I worked for 10 years as a contractor at a NOAA office. My tenure as a respected and valuable asset collapsed when I asked a few very measured questions about the data and processes used to make the astonishing predictions of rapid increases in the rate of sea level rise. Six months later, I went from senior project leader to unemployed without the slightest warning. 10+ years of exemplary service and relationships were flushed, instantly. No real reason was given. I can’t go into how I know AGW skepticism was my downfall without putting others who still work there at risk.
Watch your back.
NCAR is FUBAR.
The seminar they need would be titled:
Are we a “Ship of Fools”?
But that would require some real thinking and analysis. Instead they choose to play a good game of “buzz-word bingo”.
Some dumb questions I would like to see asked and answered at this seminar:
1. What is your definition of a “Wicked Problem?”
2a. Why do you ASSERT that adaption to climate change is a Wicked Problem?
2b. Could it be that if adaption to climate change is not a Wicked Problem[1], then the organization you head, the Global Climate Adaptation Partnership, has little to justify its existence?
3. Tell me why proposed MITIGATIONS of Climate Change, such as. Carbon Cap and Trade, Carbon Tax, regulations on CO2 emissions, are not Wicked Solutions —- even Wicked Solutions to a naturally and geologically insignificant problem.
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[1] that adaption instead is composed of a bunch of simple, straightforward, non-exclusive, optionable, locally and individually manageable solutions.