This interesting discussion from the Coastal Engineering Manual, which pre-dates the blow-up over “Climategate,” “Glaciergate,” and all of the other “gates” that the science has experienced lately:

Before engineering and management can be considered, a fundamental question must be asked:  Is  sea level still rising?  During the last decade, the media has “discovered” global warming, and many politicians and members of the public are convinced that greenhouse gases are responsible for rising sea level and the increased frequency of flooding that occurs along the coast during storms.  Most scientists accept the findings that the concentrations of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere have increased greatly in the last century, largely due to industrial and automobile emissions.  However, the link between increased gas in the atmosphere and changing sea level is much more difficult to model and verify.  Wunsch (1996) has pointed out how difficult it is to separate myth from fact in the politically and emotionally charged issues of climate change and the oceans. The Environmental Protection Agency created a sensation in 1983 when it published a report linking atmospheric carbon dioxide to a predicted sea level rise of between 0.6 and 3.5 m (Hoffman, Keyes, and Titus 1983).  Since then, predictions of the eustatic rise have been falling, and some recent evidence suggests that the rate may slow or even that eustatic sea level may drop in the future (Houston 1993).

(b) Possibly more reliable information on Holocene sea level changes can be derived from archaeological sites, wave-cut terraces, or organic material.  For example, Stone and Morgan (1993) calculated an average rise of 2.4 mm/year from radiocarbon-dated peat samples from Santa Rosa Island, on the tectonically stable Florida Gulf coast.  However, Tanner (1989) states that difficulties arise using all of these methods, and that calculated dates and rates may not be directly comparable.

(c) Based on an exhaustive study of tide records from around the world, Emery and Aubrey (1991) have concluded that it is not possible to assess if a eustatic rise is continuing because, while many gauges do record a recent rise in relative sea level, an equal number record a fall.  Emery and Aubrey state (p. ix):

In essence, we have concluded that ‘noise’ in the records produced by tectonic movements and both meteorological and oceanographic factors so obscures any signal of eustatic rise of sea level that the tide gauge records are more useful for learning about plate tectonics than about effects of the greenhouse heating of the atmosphere, glaciers, and ocean water.

They also state (p. 176):

This conclusion should be no surprise to geologists, but it may be unexpected by those climatologists and laymen who have been biased too strongly by the public’s perception of the greenhouse effect on the environment….Most coastal instability can be attributed to tectonism and documented human activities without invoking the spectre of greenhouse-warming climate or collapse of continental ice sheets.

(d) In summary, despite the research and attention devoted to the topic, the evidence about worldwide, eustatic sea level rise is inconclusive.  Estimates of the rate of rise range from 0 to 3 mm/year, but some researchers maintain that it is not possible to discover a statistically reliable rate using tide gauge records. In late Holocene time, sea level history was much more complicated than has generally been supposed (Tanner 1989), suggesting that there are many perturbations superimposed on “average” sea level curves. Regardless, the topic is sure to remain highly controversial.

The papers cited here are as follows:

• Wunsch, C.  1996.  Doherty Lecture: “The Ocean and Climate – Separating Myth from Fact,” Marine Technical Society Journal, Vol 30, No. 2, pp 65-68.
• Hoffman, J. S., Keyes, D., and Titus, J. G.  1983.  “Projecting Future Sea Level Rise; Methodology, Estimates to the Year 2100, and Research Needs,” Report 230-09-007, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC.
• Houston, J. R.  1993.  “Responding to Uncertainties in Sea Level Rise,” The State of Art of Beach Nourishment, Proceedings of the 1993 National Conference on Beach Preservation Technology, The Florida Shore & Beach Preservation Association, Tallahassee, FL, pp 358-372.
• Stone, G. W., and Morgan, J. P.  1993.  “Implications for a Constant Rate of Relative Sea-Level Rise During the Last Millennium Along the Northern Gulf of Mexico:  Santa Rosa Island, Florida,”  Shore and Beach, Vol 61, No. 4, pp 24-27.
• Tanner, W. F.  1989.  “New Light on Mean Sea Level Change,”  Coastal Research, Vol 8, No. 4, pp 12-16.
• Emery, K. O., and Aubrey, D. G.  1991.  Sea Levels, Land Levels, and Tide Gauges, Springer-Verlag, New York, NY.

Evidently Al Gore didn’t make the Coastal Engineering Manual bedtime (or pot) reading.

Bookmark to:

Hide Sites

Back in March 2007 I noted the following:

The best practical argument for disestablishment, however, is that it would give more freedom to the church to set its own agenda.

We’ve already noted that there has been talk about Parliament forcing the CofE to admit women bishops.  In the gay-crazy mood the UK is in these days, we’re honestly surprised that the government allowed Rowan Williams to humour the Global South the way he did in Dar-es-Salaam.  The main reason why they haven’t is that the CofE isn’t a very significant part of Britain’s landscape any more except for its empty church buildings.  And there’s always the National Trust for those in a crunch.

But we know that, with the homosexuals, there’s not an insignificant enough opponent they won’t try to crush sooner or later.

Well now we have this:

Tory leader David Cameron has launched an astonishing attack on the Church of England over its attitudes to homosexuality. In an interview with the gay magazine Attitude, Cameron tells award-winning journalist Johann Hari that ‘our Lord Jesus’ would back equality and gay rights if he were around today. He says he doesn’t want to get into a row with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams. ‘But I think the Church has to do some of the things that the Conservative Party has been through – sorting this issue out and recognising that full equality is a bottom line full essential.’ He also introduces a new phrase to the English language, one that might be current in High Tory circles but not one I’ve heard before, in reference to Muslim women: ‘Blowing the hijab off them.’

I don’t think that the Tories’ gay supporters are going to sit by and allow Cameron to avoid getting “into a row” with Rowan Williams.

The CoE’s position as an established church has always made it vulnerable to state interference and control of the kind that Cameron is implicitly threatening.  That’s why North American Anglicans’ endless desire to find validation by the CoE (along with getting into an Anglican Covenant, with the CoE as the natural centre) is misguided and will end in disaster.

One Anglican friend noted to me that she thought they should move the Communion to Africa.  In spite of the Ugandans’ rough times lately, that still looks like a good idea.  But I advocated that, too, in times past, and not just for Anglicans either:

The Archbishops of Canterbury and York participated in a much publicised “guilt march” across the UK about the evil of slavery.

But there’s an easier and more substantial way to even the score: just let the Africans and their allies, including the descendants of slaves in the West Indies, take the lead in the Communion.

We find, however, that, Western church leaders–liberal and conservative alike–are reluctant to bow to the obvious and allow the centre of power of Christianity to shift where its people are.  The liberals are especially adverse to this process, as they are further from the Africans’ idea than their conservative counterparts.

The desperation of conservative parishes in TEC, however, has them affiliating with provinces such as Uganda and Nigeria, along with others.  They have gone past guilt.  It is time that the rest of us follow suit.

Bookmark to:

Hide Sites

Seems to be about all our President hears these days:

In response to President Obama’s comments on infrastructure in his Jan. 27 State of the Union address, ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) has issued this statement by 2010 President Blaine D. Leonard, P.E., D.GE, F.ASCE:

We appreciate that the president mentioned in his address that railroads and the Interstate Highway System are critical investments in American infrastructure. He also spoke about how investments in infrastructure are investments in nation building. But the fact is, in recent decades we’ve stopped investing in our future. We are still driving on Eisenhower’s roads and sending our kids to Roosevelt’s schools.

The broken water mains, gridlocked streets, crumbling dams and levees, and delayed flights that come from failing infrastructure have a negative impact on the checkbook and on the quality of life of each and every American. Investing in America’s infrastructure will support and create jobs — an essential function for economic recovery — as well as bring tangible personal benefits to Americans, like safer communities, less money spent on gas and more time with our families due to shorter commutes.

The President’s leadership on infrastructure is essential for our future prosperity. We need a bipartisan commitment to create a long-term plan for our infrastructure; one that includes sufficient funding levels and dedicated revenue sources. Without that, anything we do now will be nothing more than a band-aid.

ASCE has, IMHO, bought too much in recent years to the “politically correct” line rather than what’s really correct, scientifically or otherwise.  But the Society has consistently documented the defects in our infrastructure.  These pronouncements only get publicity when something collapses (like the I-35 bridge in Minnesota.)

And speaking of Minnesota, it seems that their junior Senator Al Franken isn’t happy with his Great Helmsman these days:

Sen. Al Franken ripped into White House senior adviser David Axelrod this week during a tense, closed-door session with Senate Democrats.

Five sources who were in the room tell POLITICO that Franken criticized Axelrod for the administration’s failure to provide clarity or direction on health care and the other big bills it wants Congress to enact.

The sources said Franken was the most outspoken senator in the meeting, which followed President Barack Obama’s question-and-answer session with Senate Democrats at the Newseum on Wednesday. But they also said the Minnesotan wasn’t the only angry Democrat in the room.

“There was a lot of frustration in there,” said a Democratic senator who declined to be identified.

“People were hot,” another Democratic senator said.

Bookmark to:

Hide Sites

This priceless gem, from a colleague at the Church of God International Offices:

I have discovered the difference between a northern fairytale and a southern fairytale.

A northern fairytale begins, “Once upon a time…”

A southern fairytale begins, “Y’all ain’t gonna believe this…”

This should be enshrined at Rock City.

Bookmark to:

Hide Sites

And in this case I’m not referring to the attorneys:

Sharks gathered off Reef Road Thursday morning, but were not moving into public swimming areas.

Mark Hassell, town lifeguard supervisor, reported Thursday that no sharks were seen congregating at Midtown Beach or Phipps Ocean Park. Both public beaches remained open.

Midtown Beach was closed for about 30 minutes last week when a group of sharks moved through the area.

Rick Wentley, owner of PB Boys Club and an avid surfer, said he checked conditions Thursday morning with the thought of going out.

Although he usually surfs in the North End, he said he was going to move farther south along the Palm Beach shoreline — just in case — to avoid sharks. But it turned out the waves just weren’t there.

Sharks typically migrate north in March and April.

Gary Goss, professor of biology at Palm Beach Atlantic University and a local shark expert, said the grouping of sharks is most likely a prelude to the upcoming seasonal migration.

The schooling behavior is typical for fish and the sharks that go after them for food, he said.

“They’re getting ready to go north.”

The seasonal migration pattern is a well-honoured practice amongst the human residents:  south to winter in Palm Beach (with the social season to go with it,) then north for the summer.  So why not the sharks?

My family was somewhat exceptional in being year-round residents.

And now for something completely different: saw this piece about Republican “activist” and philanthropist Helen Cluett:

When is it time to get out of politics? A) When you’re about to turn 90. B) When you realize that all of the candidates you’ve backed have lost. C) Never.

Helen Cluett will tell you the answer for her was B, but if you dig a little deeper you’ll see that the real answer is C.

Cluett turns 90 in May, and she says she’s “worked my fingers to the bone” for the Republican Party, and that it’s time to step aside to let a younger crowd take over the battle.

And you may in fact not see Cluett working the phone banks in 2012 or even this fall when the fate of Congress again is put before the American electorate.

But she’ll be deeply involved — if only to argue a point or two with visitors, family and friends. That’s the nature of one of Palm Beach’s most noted activists, both in politics and in charitable causes.

The Cluetts were the “sellers of shirts” whose weight on the vestry of my home church Bethesda-by-the-Sea was crucial in the 1968 booting of my mother’s ladies guild’s rummage sale from the church proper. That in turn led to the start of the Church Mouse resale shop, now something of a Palm Beach institution.  Obviously Helen wasn’t directly involved in that, as in that time there were no women on the Vestry (her husband Bill was another story.)  But for me, active in both Republican politics and the church, it’s hard not to feel an affinity with someone who has been diligent in the G.O.P. and lists Jesus Christ as a “most admired person” in the Shiny Sheet.  Besides, the whole Church Mouse saga is a classic “lemons to lemonade” story.

Bookmark to:

Hide Sites

It’s hard to catalogue all of the whining that our President and other members of his party have made because a) the Republicans have opposed their agenda (health care, cap and trade, card check, etc.) and b) it has not passed as a “consequence” of this.

If we look at this objectively, however, we come to realise that this cannot stand, and this piece is to demonstrate why.

Considering the Obama Administration’s agenda, we see the central desire of any elitist snob: to make the U.S. a Europe on the other side of the Atlantic.  (And let’s be clear, snobs: we are the other side of the Atlantic.)  Just ticking of the agenda (as in the first paragraph) should make this clear: our “best and brightest” would like universal state-furnished health care, trade unions representing the workforce, and everyone taking mass transit to their jobs (note I didn’t say, “taking mass transit to work.”)

It makes sense, therefore, that a European style objective should be obtained with a European style process, and the Obama Administration was gifted in the 2008 election with the potential to do just that.  The process is familiar to anyone who understands how parliamentary systems work.  You have the majority, “the Government.”  They prepare and propose a program, elucidated by a “speech from the throne.”  The minority, “the Opposition,” has the job of opposing this.  Assuming that the majority passes its agenda, it stands or falls upon the success of that agenda in the next election.  The whole concept of “bi-partisanship” in this kind of system is rubbish.

The Democrats, lead by their de facto Prime Ministers Obama, Pelosi and Reid (first problem: there’s more than one) had the White House and both houses of Congress.  They gilded the lily by having a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, if you count their coalition partners (one Socialist, one Independent.)

Personally, I’m good with this concept.  That’s why I proclaim myself as an elitist snob.  They won the election, they pass their agenda, then they stand or fall based on its success or failure.  Sounds simple to me.  I don’t like the Democrats’ agenda, but hey, if Americans are dumb enough to vote for this, they deserve to suffer the consequences.  I figured this would roll forward with little meaningful opposition.

It didn’t.  Their explanation is that there is no “bi-partisanship” because the Republicans wouldn’t do anything but say “no.”  But, in the European/elitist snob scheme of things, the Republicans filled their part of the bargain.  As the Opposition, their job is to say no and wait until the Government goes down the tube with their agenda and they get back into power.

The core problem the Democrats are having is that they’re trying to forward an agenda that is not acceptable to their entire coalition.  Before they set off on this adventure, wisdom would indicate that they should have surveyed their own people and figured out what would pass.  Had they done this, they could have passed a great deal with the Republicans left with, to use Mao Zedong’s phrase, “gesticulating and criticising.”

Lesson from this: don’t entrust a European agenda to a group of people who are simply overconfident Americans with a view of themselves as exceptionalistic as their opposition has of the country.  Maybe they should start by overhauling our system of government and getting a parliamentary system where this would play out like it’s supposed to.  Personally I’m good with that too, but I doubt seriously that the country would be the better for it, which is why I support a party whose inclinations don’t always square with my instinctive desires.

Bookmark to:

Hide Sites

If Galbraith, whose economics are back in vogue again, wasn’t one, they don’t exist:

Here we reach the heart of the matter. Galbraith’s thinking about social and economic matters was always de haut en bas; his solutions emerged from the Olympian heights of his own ratiocination, to be applied to the clueless multitudes below. (No doubt his own great height, over 6 foot 8, accustomed him to looking down on people.) His literary style is symptomatic of his attitude, a true case of the style being the man himself. Hundreds of times, he uses question-begging locutions that intimidate with their orotund grandeur. I open a book of his at random and find the following: “The controlling fact is”; “This trade-off is present in all accepted thought”; “Nor should one wish otherwise”; “It has now been adequately urged”; “This is not a matter of choice; it is the modern imperative”; “It would, of course, be a serious error”; “This has long been recognized”; “All of this is to be welcomed”; “The lesson is clear”; “The solution is not difficult; it has the advantage of inevitability.”

The cumulative effect is to intimidate those who believe themselves not well enough informed to contradict so high an authority. We are far from the realm of Jane Austen’s light and ironic “It is a truth universally acknowledged.” When J. K. Galbraith enunciates a truth universally acknowledged, he does not want us to smile inwardly; he wants us to fear not being included in le tout Paris of correct, generous, and humane thought. What fool does not wish to be on the side of the inevitable? Who does not want to recognize what has so long been recognized? Who dares to deny that what the Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics says three times is true?

It’s hard to convince most Americans that a) those who are raised at the top hold a high opinion of themselves and a low one of the rest of humanity and b) they’re so convinced of their own rectitude that they’re oblivious to the real nature of their idea.  It’s been that way for a long time.  As I said in a post about growing up in Palm Beach:

Attitudes from the “coasts” about “flyover country” in the U.S. have been deep seated for a long time; stage productions like this only reinforced that. It’s fair to say that, if the “Religious Right” had fully grasped the contempt they were held in when the movement first got going in the late 1970’s they would not have started the Moral Majority: they would have started a revolution.

Dalrymple also notes this:

There remains, however, an astonishingly gaping absence in Galbraith’s worldview. While he is perfectly able to see the defects of businessmen—their inclination to megalomania, greed, hypocrisy, and special pleading—he is quite unable to see the same traits in government bureaucrats. It is as if he has read, and taken to heart, the work of Sinclair Lewis, but never even skimmed the work of Kafka.

Had he done this, his view of the world would have been much more cynical and less roseate.  Besides, he should have read Kafka long before Sinclair Lewis.

Why?  Because Kafka is European!  Any real elitist snob knows that!

Bookmark to:

Hide Sites

Our government loves to spend money, but not on really productive pursuits:

The drumbeat of jobs, jobs, jobs in Washington and debate on financing have become major roadblocks to getting a six-year $500 billion transportation bill into gear and onto a fast-paced road to passage.

Infrastructure advocates argue that investment in transportation infrastructure is a sure-fire creator of jobs. There’s support for jobs and infrastructure on Capitol Hill, and the clamor for jobs will increase government investment in the latter. However, there’s no guarantee Congress will go further and address surface transportation’s long-term needs any time soon.

It’s true that transportation projects aren’t the quick job creators that some would like.  But people need continuous employment.  Beyond that, upgrading and maintaining our transportation system is necessary to insure the general productivity of our economy, which does create long term economic growth.  That’s a fact, and the political bias on both sides against transportation spending doesn’t change that.  Put another way, they will pay for themselves over time.  They’re an investment.

The favoured largesse is, of course, wealth transfer and entitlement payments.  But Sarah Palin fans take note: that “bridge to nowhere” she got caught up in during the 2008 campaign (and all of the other ones we see) will do more to improve the productivity and long-term well being of the country than the vast majority of entitlements.

Bookmark to:

Hide Sites

This is a very old piece, dating from the late 1990’s, which I am reposting on this site.  It’s still relevant for a number of reasons, not the least of which to address an issue that became a hot topic in the following decade: the concept that science and religion are mortal enemies and mutually exclusive.  The article is the same, except I’ve modified the opening paragraph and deleted the closing link to reflect the fact that it has been moved.

Most of my family business website is devoted to the wave equation as it is applied to piling, the equipment used to install the piling and other related topics. This article takes a look at some broader issues that affect engineers and their profession. Having worked in engineering for over twenty years, and having also taken on some activities outside of the profession, I realize that there are some things that need some broader consideration than they usually get.

As things stand in the U.S. today, engineering — which I know to be a great and honourable profession — is in a state of crisis. This isn’t of itself unusual; in times that change as rapidly as they do, just about everything in life is in a state of crisis. Technical journals lament the fact that the work involved in becoming an engineer, coupled with the legal risks associated with the practice of engineering (especially in construction centred civil engineering) isn’t adequately compensated by the income an engineer can reasonably expect during a career of practice. They do this while advocating the addition of a master’s degree as the first degree of practice (a step that is probably a necessity, albeit an unfortunate one.) Looking at the compensation and stature in society given to doctors and attorneys (grudgingly in the latter case) compared to that of engineers makes one sometimes wonder if it’s worth it. Many obviously don’t think so; engineering not only has difficulty attracting women and minorities to the profession in the U.S., it struggles to get its native sons to look at it as a career.

Part of the problem is an inheritance from the ancien régime division of labour in society, something we inherited not only from the French (before their revolution) but from that last great ancien régime society of Europe, the United Kingdom. In such a scenario there were three classes (or estates) of society; those who prayed (the clergy,) those who fought (the nobility,) and the rest of us who worked to support the other two. Needless to say the last group, although essential to the success of the other two, wasn’t quite up to par with them in esteem. A carryover of this can be seen in our own society which, although technologically oriented as any, is still pretty much run by its attorneys (the keepers of the law) and its managers and administrators (business and government,) neither of which are very technical about much of anything.

But it would otiose to blame everything on others; part of the problem is with ourselves. Putting the perennial PR problem aside, the root problem is that engineers are by nature too narrowly focused on a purely technical view of things to “lift up their eyes” (to use a Biblical expression) and take the broad view not only of the world around them but their potential role in it. This is not to say that engineers are the uncaring, unfeeling automatons they are caricatured to be; they are not. But we really tend to be boresighted about a lot of things when it would pay us to expand our perspective. Such a disposition is reinforced by the educational system, which tends to crowd out other studies to fulfil the necessities of a complete technical curriculum.

I have had to struggle with this as much as anyone; however, for me there have been two factors that have mitigated a narrow focus to a large degree.

The first is my interaction with the family business, both in growing up and in the time I spent there. My decision to go in to the business came relatively late in high school; my education up to that point had been heavily weighted towards the liberal arts. When I arrived at Texas A&M, I discovered that I was in the company of engineering students, most of whom had been technically focused through JETS, technical hobbies and other activities leading up to entering the College of Engineering. I managed to make the transition well but my perspective remained different. Moreover in the years at Vulcan I spent a lot of time dealing with financial, legal, personnel and other non-technical matters. They used to allow engineers in the U.S. to be licensed “by eminence,” i.e, without the educational requirements but based on experience and performance. It’s too bad they don’t admit lawyers to the bar that way, or I’d be totally bivocational!

But the other, and certainly more powerful, force in my life that make me look at things differently was my Christian faith and my relationship to Jesus Christ. This in turn led to my activities in the church and other Christian organizations. These, coupled with study of the Bible, let me to realize three important things.

• People are most important. Christ came to redeem people, not things or even institutions. If our activity is not centred around the needs of people, we have missed the most important thing.
• People have problems that do not always admit straightforward, “clean” solutions. This was especially driven home when I spent a lot of time at a Christian coffeehouse ministry that was also a counselling centre. Although Jesus Christ is the solution for people’s problems, implementing that with hurting people on a daily basis takes caring and love.
• The study of engineering was helpful in my Christian walk in that it emphasized absolutes. Sooner or later it is necessary to take a stand somewhere. Engineering also reinforced an ethic of personal integrity and “dealing in reality,” which is important in the development of real Christian character.

Being a Christian has forced me to focus on realities that are not purely technical in nature, yet which represent real human needs that must be addressed. This has broadened my outlook and hopefully made things better for others too. Technology is intrinsically morally neutral; it is what we do with it, and with ourselves as well, that makes the difference.

Bookmark to:

Hide Sites

That’s what it looks like to me:

The Federal Reserve, in what one can assume is likely a very critical resource for bank directors, says that while newly appointed Bank Directors may have such mission critical skills as “basic management experience and skills, an inquisitive attitude, and a willingness to commit time and energy to bank matters” they likely miss “a basic knowledge of banking and what to consider in overseeing a bank.” Well thank goodness the Fed is there with this critical 5-minute guide in providing bank directors with all the information they need on how to to run a bank. And they wonder why some are sceptical about the soundness of the bank system.

HT to a well placed relative who is far more qualified than many on the Fed.

Bookmark to:

Hide Sites