Academics are sometimes their own worst enemies aren't they? They so desperately want to be taken seriously but the otherwordliness of some members of the academy is so overwhelming as to make academia look more like a lunatic asylum than somewhere were knowledge is sought.
As an example, take the story carried at WUWT today. A group of academics at the University of Southampton - one of them a former airline pilot - have written a paper calling for a global regulator of air travel to be put in place.
A global regulator with ‘teeth’ needs to be established, but investing such a body with the appropriate level of authority requires securing an international agreement which history would suggest is going to be very difficult. … the ticket price-increases necessary to induce the required reduction in traffic growth-rates place a monetary-value on CO2 emissions of approximately 7–100 times greater than other common valuations. It is clear that, whilst aviation must remain one piece of the transport-jigsaw, environmentally a global regulator with ‘teeth’ is urgently required.”
We could have a "green halfwit of the year" award, if it wasn't for the fact that the team from Southampton have probably just killed off any sense of expectation.