Tiny world

Here's a body I came across recently - The Council for Science and Technology, which advises government on scientific issues cutting across departmental boundaries.

Several familiar names crop up, again and again and again.

Comments

[Breath of Fresh Air]

And get paid again and again and again ;)

[Frosty]

1/2 million quid on this....

"Short description of the contract or purchase(s)

United Kingdom. Framework Agreement to create a pool of experts in methodologies for exploring the future for the UK's Foresight Programme. Foresight's role is to help government think systematically about the future. It does this by providing core skills in science-based futures projects and unequalled access to leaders in government, business and science. The major projects use the latest scientific and other evidence combined with futures analysis is used to tackle complex issues and help policymakers make decisions affecting our future. Each project looks at least ten years ahead and often fifty or more. Projects work through a combination of commissioned work and workshops at which the results of the commissioned work is discussed and challenged. The role of the contractor is to develop appropriate and innovatory methodology(ies) for exploring the aspects of the future for the specific project. Smaller projects run by the Horizon Scanning Centre complement this approach by covering the full public policy spectrum, over a timeframe of 2–50 years........."

http://www.bis.gov.uk/cst/business/subgroups

[Sara Chan]

According to the Council's Terms of Reference at

http://www.bis.gov.uk/cst/about-cst/terms

they directly advise the Prime Minister.

John Beddington, Geoffrey Boulton, Paul Nurse. It's a perfect set up.

[Messenger]

Ah, it's all their fault, I see....

http://www.bis.gov.uk/cst/cst-reports

An electricity supply strategy for the UK (2005)

Background

In May 2005, CST published a report that recommends:
immediate investment in large scale, low-carbon, energy generation facilities to meet the Government’s carbon dioxide reduction targets keeping the nuclear option open and placing more emphasis on carbon sequestration and tidal power government investment in R&D should be aimed at new and renewable fuel sources, energy management, storage and improving the supply and training of skilled workers in the UK. development of the transmission network, its protection mechanisms and metering systems to facilitate distributed and diverse generators, ranging from commercial to domestic units;and to address the regulatory issues arising from this form of generation.

Downloads

An electricity supply strategy for the UK: report (May 2005)
Download pdf (PDF, 175 Kb) - Download doc (DOC, 254 Kb)

[BBD]

The great and the good.

Old school tie (or Cambridge college, or both). Jobs for the boys (and girls). Not what you know but who etc.

It's not a conspiracy. It's just the way things have always 'worked' in the UK.

[BBD]

At least Dieter Helm is on the Energy panel. Some hope then.

[Bill]

well get this for multiple memberships.

http://www.cccep.ac.uk/whosWho/home.aspx

The centre for climate change economics and policy.

Grantham Institute for Research on climate change (bob ward's lot)

http://www2.lse.ac.uk/GranthamInstitute/whosWho/home.aspx

http://www.cccep.ac.uk/whosWho/Staff/home.aspx

This is a scandal. Is Lord Stern, Judith Rees and Bob Ward being paid twice. Can they do two jobs. Do they use grantham money to help the CCEP get government money?

[Don Pablo de la Sierra]

It's no wonder that there are so many advisory groups telling the government the same thing. Certainly a profitable way to have "consensus".

[Shub]

Boulton is there on almost every subgroup.

How do you become like one of these guys? I am really inspired.

I would also suggest that the plastic electronics group be taken to task. John Archuleta took the brilliant Quereader to the market at that ridiculous price tag (at a time when the iPad was being released) and now, the company is in the hands of some Russians.

[John Shade]

Some are no doubt there ex officio, a recipe for disappointment in this shoddy, dark and dismal period for science in the UK.

[steveta_uk]

When do all these professors get time to profess?

[Phillip Bratby]

Not much sign of any members with real-world experience. Is there anyone from industry or are they all from ivory towers?

[hro001]

And they have an absolutely fascinating "way of working":

The Council decides the approach to each area of work on a case-by-case basis. It can also choose to deliver its advice to government by various routes including: publishing reports; through confidential written advice; and through discussions with ministers, officials and special advisers.[emphasis added -hro]

http://www.bis.gov.uk/cst/about-cst

One simply cannot imagine what "confidential written advice" they might have given, nor to whom (come to think of it!) In the meantime, here's a blurb from one of their "published reports":

In November 2008 CST published How academia and government can work together. CST found that there is a great deal of good will between academics and policy makers. It recognised that much had already been achieved through the Government investing in a world-class science base, appointing Chief Scientific Advisors in Government departments and clearly committing to evidence based policy.

However, the report identified four areas for improvement:

The working relationships between academics and policy-makers need to be more professional.

There is some ignorance on both sides of what good engagement can deliver, and both sides can fail to value the relationship.

Both sides needing to better appreciate the constraints that each is operating under - and not just time pressures, though these can be important. They need to keep open dialogue going throughout and mutual trust is crucial.

Both sides needing to recognise ways to value the relationship based on beneficial outcomes. Creative solutions are needed from both sides.

http://www.bis.gov.uk/cst/cst-reports

IMHO, it is certainly not beyond the realm of possibility that this cosy arrangement may have contributed to the "creative solutions" arrived at in the aftermath of Climategate ;-)

[ZT]

Not from Cambridge:

Beddington, University of Edinburgh PhD after a degree from the LSE
Boulton, University of Birmingham, PhD and Birmingham undergraduate degree
Nurse, UEA PhD, initial degree University of Birmingham

Here is a typical Cambridge view of climatological 'science': Kelly Notes (page 81 and onward). Strangely, Oxburgh chose not to include Kelly's view in his report...

[Oxbridge Prat]

Hermann Hauser is an entrepreneur.

[BBD]

ZT; Oxbridge P

Wires crossed: I was thinking of this:

http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2011/5/24/ennobled-scientists.html#comments

Browne: King's Ely and St John's Cambridge
May: Sydney HS and Uni of Sydney
Turner: Hutcheson's GS and Glenalmond and Gonville and Caius, Cambridge
Rees: Shrewsbury and Trinity Coll. Cambridge
Stern: Latymer and Peterhouse, Cambridge

Mostly public school and mostly Cambridge.
May 24, 2011 at 6:34 PM | Unregistered Commenter Messenger

To which BH replied:

Interesting. The chairman of the commission before Jay was Lord Stevenson whose education was:

Edinburgh Academy, Trinity College, Glenalmond, and King's College, Cambridge.
May 24, 2011 at 7:03 PM | Registered Commenter Bishop Hill

[ZT]

The better educated the CAGW supporter (discernible in the University they attended, for example), the more apparent the disinclination to come into contact with facts. Hence, the activists are from the UEA end of the university spectrum. (And even at the UEA the upper echelons are impressively impervious to learning details - plausible deniability being the only skill still being studied in those hallowed concrete towers, no doubt).

[simpleseekeraftertruth]

Celebrity Big Brother?

[Alexander K]

This is beyond parody - the incestuousness of the group is totally indecent. No wonder the government is given almost the same advice on every facet of energy. The more one learns about the way in which the upper echelons of power works in the UK, the more one is morally revulsed.

[diogenes]

social network analysis anyone?

[golf charley]

Maybe they have no others friends, and have set this up as some form of support group, for self interested academics, with zero employment potential in the real world

[ZT]

There is something to be said for the US system of replacing the groups of "disgraced, FOI-breaching, email-deleting, scientific-method abusing” supporters every four or eight years.

[Brent Hargreaves]

When, at some future date, Global Warming is finally ditched by the upper echelons of government science advisors they'll adopt the Blair Defence.

They'll say: "Based on the evidence we had at the time the decisions we made were rational. With the same data at our disposal we'd today make the selfsame decision." Such people are incapable of saying, "I am deeply ashamed of the gigantic waste caused by my catastrophic misjudgment and my stubbornness in sticking at it when thousands of level-headed citizens challenged my stance."

As it was over Iraq, so it is for Global Warming. Gross misinterpretation of the facts, gigantic resource squandered on a non-problem, power-junkies wantonly making a bigger mark on history than if they'd quietly done the right thing.

[pat]

in australia, garnaut wants THREE "INDEPENDENT" (LOL) bodies to oversee a carbon tax that no-one wants!

31 May: Australian: AAP: Garnaut wants three bodies to oversee tax
CLIMATE change adviser Ross Garnaut wants three independent bodies set up to oversee Labor's proposed carbon tax and ensure big business doesn't end up running the show.
Prof Garnaut has recommended a carbon bank be established to administer the tax and the subsequent emissions trading scheme (ETS) which, he says, should replace it by 2015.
An independent committee, based on a United Kingdom model, would advise the government on national targets, caps and "expanding coverage of the scheme".
A third independent agency, which could be part of the existing Productivity Commission, would determine how emissions-intensive trade-exposed industries were assisted.....
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/garnaut-wants-three-bodies-to-oversee-tax/story-fn3dxity-1226066034675

[Martin Brumby]

@May 30, 2011 at 11:52 PM | Brent Hargreaves

Absolutely correct.

Just as both the architects of the financial collapse and the regulators who were supposed to bark but didn't even whimper, are either still there in the same job, paid more than Indian cricket stars, (Lord "Adair" Turner) or have cut and run with a pension which is like a lottery win every year (Fred the Shred).

Don't expect those behind the cAGW scam to even have the decency to blush.