Ever since Al Gore went on the offensive with their ad about Clean Coal Technology exposing it for the vapor ware it is, the proponents of CCT have been hitting back. Hard. Seems to question CCT is tantamount to conservative blasphemy.
The management consulting firm I used to work for was spun off from the partnership's accounting branch, so within it's corporate culture we had many "accounting" stories that we told to each other as we sat around the bonfires of corporate earning reports and methodology manuals making 'smores and drinking ourselves into stupors.
Here's one of those stories.
Back in the day when accountants had to wear hats when going on client calls (actually, not that long ago, I think my firm finally relaxed that rule in 1990), a certain accountant went to a client in Chicago. True to form, the Windy City lived up to its moniker and blew his hat off and down the street before he could stop it. Since company rules dictated that he must have a hat, he made a quick stop in the local haberdashery and procured one. Then he rushed to make his meeting on time.
On his expense report for that trip he listed the hat as materials required for the client. His manager, being the careful accountant he was (all of them were "he's" at this time) saw the hat and called in this account to, well, account for it.
The accountant argued that since he was required to wear a hat, that it should be an expense-able item. His manager disagreed and said that a hat, even though not normally worn on the street any more (and here he decried the demise of proper attire in the commonplace), was considered personal attire and was therefore not eligible for reimbursement. After all, as a careful manager he had to watch the partnership's money. Further more, the employee should have made every effort to find his original hat.
The accountant took his time and expense sheet back to redo it. A few hours later he returned to his manager's office with the adjusted expenses. However, the manager, being the careful manager he was, noticed that the bottom line was the same as the original and pointed this out to his employee.
The accountant looked his manager dead in the eye and replied, "Find the hat."
Clean coal technology and its claim to reduce carbon dioxide footprint is a big game of "Find the hat."
8 comments:
As a young engineer, the first time I did an expense report, my boss taught me how to "hide the hat".
Hi Steve, and Happy New Year.
As for Al and the coal, I have thirty-five years of gas analysis expertise, including time spent preparing Carbon dioxide standards used at the National Institute of Science and Technology- back then called the National Bureau of Standards), and I can tell you that neither Al nor his clean coal counterparts are doing anything but blowing smoke at the the public. People like Al Gore and the people doing the reduced pollultion control coal commercials couldn't do a gas analysis if their life depended on it. When I read through their reports with my chemists, we take turns gagging.
But this is an unfortunate part of reality today- we get our science from politicans and advertizing executives and their paid flunky scientists. Scientists that line up with politicians and/or corporate advertising campaings out to have their degrees removed.
I meant to say "Scientists that line up with politicians and/or corporate advertising campaings ought to have their degrees removed." Maybe the word "out" was my subconscious trying to express that I think they should be thrown out as well!
Jerry, we did a lot of "hide the hat" exercises when I was on site for that firm. I learned how to do it while spending six-months in Dallas on a project. I didn't feel guilty because I was tricked into a longer stay than I had planned (was only to be a week).
Rick, both sides are playing fast and loose with the data. However I see more flinging of the bad stuff from the "Al Gore is Insane" side than I do from the other (including the classic fault of mistaking temporal weather for climate).
It was mostly listening to the new proponents of Clean Coal Technology this past week (they are making a major push on the talk show circuit). When pressed about what CCT really is they talk about how the industry is committed to reducing pollutants (um, yeah, so are they going to drop all their objections to EPA regulations? Probably not) and how CCT is a process, not so much a gegaw. How we now have CCT with air scrubbers (you know, the tech the industry was brought to kicking and screaming). And then point to the tree study with increased carbon dioxide which showed promise in the first two years (faster growth, etc), but at the ten year results showed diseased trees whose wood wasn't commercially viable (it was very weak) and that no increase in sequestration happened.
This is only matched by the commercials about how CO2 is not a poison and is a wonderful thing. I think both the ad exec and the business manager should be put in a isolation booth flooded with CO2 see how well that whole "it's good for you" thing works out for them. This past week I also heard someone talk about how excess Nitrogen in water runoff isn't a bad thing, "after all Nitrogen isn't a pollutant it's a fertilizer, and fertilizer is good. Isn't it?" Um, yeah, you know until the alga that blooms feeding on the Nitrogen consumes all the dissolved O2 in the water.
I remember reading several articles in the early 90s about how science was being bent to corporate/government idealism and how this lead to the Union of Concerned Scientists and the other groups. Lately those voices have been drowned out.
I hear you, Steve, but they both need to get out of science. Al Gore is and these coporate guys are interchangeable- they both snow the consumers with propaganda for their own agendas. Paid science that serves politicians and corporations should be called what it is- propaganda.
One of my friends is a university professor teaching propaganda and writes speeches and articles for two clients that support him well- the ACLU and the NRA. He does supportive commentary on gun control legislators and second amendment advocates- sometimes on the same day. I asked him what would happen if either side found out he was writing for the opposition. He said they already knew. Here's his quote: "Rick, they come to me because I'm a professional progandist not in spite of it. What do you think they're looking for- facts?"
You know, Steve, I think we read some of the same articles on that topic about how scientists are selling their sole to corporations and group movements and to government. I'd love to dig some of them up again, or perhaps write some new ones.
One of the big problems is the way that science is funded, and how individual scientists are paid. When corporations and environmentalists are doling out cash for favorable results, there is so something wrong with the system.
Don't confuse me with FACTS. My mind is already make up.
Happy fist day of 2009, Steve!
Post a Comment