Headless gets results

From Ken Green at Planet Gore.

To the fellow who took offense at my slagging engineers for elevating engineering efficiency over morality, well, you're right. I should have said that "this is the problem with many engineers who wade into public-policy debates." I know a lot of engineers are pragmatists and straight-thinkers. But I've found that the ones drawn to public policy (and I also include scientists in this) tend to ignore (or are unaware of) the fundamentals of good public-policy design. So for the activist climate scientist, only a linear response to climate change is acceptable: if putting emissions up causes change, you must stop putting emissions up. You can't think about accepting some change, and mitigating other change, or some downstream sequestration, or geo-engineering. If these people were physicians, and a patient complained of stomach pain from eating, they'd insist the only answer was to give up eating. And, a disclaimer: my doctorate is in environmental science and engineering. I'm doubly damned.

I see Ken's distinction now. He deals with academics and think-tankers, I deal with real-world engineers.

I do think Mr. Green's efficiency vs. morality comparison hit the wrong target. In my experience, it is management who makes that call, not engineers. Engineers are left making cost-benefit recommendations based on the resources they are budgeted.