Stern Report Reviewed

Rog: “ you must know that most bridge designers refer to the stress tables and err on the side of caution”

Mate; if it were only that simple. Engineers like John Monash, John Holland etc grew out of some tables hey

Google Yarra, bridge, failure, royal commission etc…and find the 1961 Kings Street steel span stuff also the historic Monier designs

home.vicnet.net.au/~aholgate/jm/papers/jm_aust_engg.html

then ask how each engineer coped with the issue of increasing traffic as time went on

From an eye witness “I saw a small “V” of light come as the middle of the bridge kept moving outwards, then the western edge of the bridge fell and I watched it until it was about a third of the way to the ground, then I turned my eyes to the eastern end of the bridge in time to hear the half girder land on the ground”

http://www.prov.vic.gov.au/exhibs/westgate/eyewitness.htm

“On 5th January, 1975 at 21:27 the bulk ore carrier "Lake Illawarra" crashed into pier 19 (from the western side) claiming 12 lives and severing the Eastern Shore's link with Hobart by knocking out a 420 foot section of the bridge”

http://www.parliament.tas.gov.au/history/brd1.htm

I would like to think that there is a bit more going on than a verbal exchange over at places like the IPCC.

I would also like to think all our bridge designers considered worst case first. Working in the visual after the event is quite revealing.

We can refer to our Yarra and Derwent crossings.

So what is an appropriate discount rate and why?

John - "Dearie me, it seems that people are fixated on whether I hold a PhD or not in much the same way that they hold peer-reviewed papers in reverence. The focus on both signifies that they have no intellectual capability to determine the credibility of a paper or report for themselves but want that to be done by others."

Completely agree John. In fact just today I tendered for designing a large bridge just down the road. I said to them that, according to John McLean, all you need is the intellectual capability to design a bridge which I believe I have, and they accepted this and now I am a bridge designer. In fact I am going to get Steve McIntyre to audit my design, seeings as be has a degree in Pure Maths, he should be able to give my design a once over.

Wish me luck.

Dearie me, it seems that people are fixated on whether I hold a PhD or not in much the same way that they hold peer-reviewed papers in reverence. The focus on both signifies that they have no intellectual capability to determine the credibility of a paper or report for themselves but want that to be done by others.

As someone else wrote elsewhere, I don't care if a scientific statement comes from an axe-murder who has no formal education; it's the intellectual argument that matters.

It's not as if this forum is actually overloaded with people with proven credentials in the subject. Not so oddly, it seems that those who show no credentials that scream loudest about others.

My "PhD" is very simple. I spotted the error when the list was first released and I immediately contacted those responsible for it. Marc Morano has also contacted me directly to clarify the matter. I think I've seen that Marc has corrected his list but I can't recall for sure. I haven't paid a lot of attention because I regard it as trivial - either a statement stacks up or it doesn't.

As for other sites, well you know what happens when you let something lose into the wilds of the Internet.

Now almost back to the subject at hand, will SJT please tell us all why he raised the question about my PhD and why it at all relevant to a blog post that draws attention to a criticism of the Stern Report? Should we instead take his question as a non-sequitur that tells us about SJT's character and intellectual capabilities?