Well which way is it then?
Last year Professor Andrew Pitman said the science was settled, he was a poor volunteer, and skeptics were rich (which was why they were winning).
…climate scientists are losing the fight with climate sceptics. That the sceptics are so well funded, so well organized, have nothing else to do, they kind of don’t have day jobs, they can put all of their efforts into misinforming and miscommunicating climate science to the public, whereas the climate scientists have day jobs and this isn’t one of them. All of the efforts you do in an IPCC report is done out of hours, voluntarily, for no funding and no pay, whereas the sceptics are being funded to put out full scale misinformation campaigns…”
[Source: It was so bad, the ABC broadcast it, twice — Eleanor Hall interviews Andy Pitman. Robin Williams thought it was so “useful” he rebroadcast the same factually incorrect, irrelevant material.]
Tom Nelson caught him telling prospective students in the Adelaide Advertiser that they ought to rush to study climate science so they can get paid well, be political activists, and change our understanding of the climate.
Almost invariably, climate PhDs with a physics or maths background find themselves in demand overseas and with excellent salary packages,” he said. ”This is a growing area with a small number of such specialists, making them an elite that are coming in at the ground floor of a worldwide demand, so it is a great way to fast-track a career.”
I rather scathingly explained the 7 errors in Pitmans paragraph last year. (Skeptics are unfunded, with no salary packages, no PR team, no UN department, and little support, yet can name hundreds of studies to support them. Pitman probably gets close to $200k a year for being a professor, yet despite the high salary, makes unscientific ad hom attacks that are unworthy of a grad student, and can’t provide empirical evidence to support his models).
So much for volunteering, he received $60k in grants to attend IPCC events.
But what’s the story with the “new” field of climate science? I thought the science was settled? You mean there are things we don’t know?
Climate systems researchers have the chance ”to pursue some very serious science that will significantly affect policy and – because the field is so new – change our fundamental understanding of climate”.
Well that’s alright then. The only part of climate science up for grabs is the fundamental understanding part. (@#$!)
If the science was settled, he’d be giving the students a bum steer. The students though seem to have a pretty good grip on the future prospects of climate researchers:
The director of the university’s Institute for Sustainable Solutions, Professor John Crawford, said market research showed young people were greatly concerned about the environment but ”for reasons we don’t fully understand, it’s difficult to recruit students” ‘For every graduate that comes out of Sydney University there’s about three jobs, and pretty well-paid jobs,” he said. ”There’s no shortage of opportunities; we just have a shortage of students…”
And silly me, but I thought the job of scientists was to unravel the mysteries of the universe, not to “affect policies”. It used to be that people who wanted to affect climate policies became Greenpeace activists. But now, Climate scientist-Greenpeace activists — What’s the difference? They both write reports for the IPCC.