The limits of expertise. Attention landowners: speak up about the state's new regulations for wetlands.
The limits of expertise. Attention landowners: speak up about the state's new regulations for wetlands.
The limits of expertise
According to the Sun article below, CU's spending big on a power facility: they're putting $43 million into a heating, cooling, and power-generating plant so that it will be more reliable and emit less pollution and carbon. This something the administration of the school characterizes as, quoting the article, "..an affordable bridge to looming, ultra-green technology." That is, something better, not perfect, for the NOW while we await perfect in the future, something achievable with given financial and other constraints.
Yet some on the faculty are not too happy. Again quoting:
"But when you ask for campuswide advice at CU, you’re getting critiqued by Ph.D.s as comfortable with physics and chemistry as they are with exercising the First Amendment."**
That's the gist of this post. What does it mean if you are an expert in physics and chemistry and you have a problem with the current plan (or any particular policy decision)?
Not much.
That's worth remembering when you read things about what experts recommend. You should be asking yourself whether or not the opinion sought of the expert is properly in the domain of the expert and whether or not the question is a technical one or a value judgment.
Experts are highly trained, educated, and/or experienced in a particular topic (and all too often anymore this is an especially narrow topic when it comes to academics in the sciences where you may specialize in a sub-sub-sub field of your topic). Outside of that topic, they are as hopeless as anyone else.
I know a fair bit about math and physics, but if you asked me what I thought was best when mounting a needlework sampler, you'd get a shrug. I have no earthly idea.
Even closer to my field of study and education, I could tell you about the basics of heat transfer, electricity, electrical current, etc., but I have limited knowledge about how you can best design and build a power plant in reality, using the technology that is currently well known and available.
Care should also be taken to note the nature of the question asked of any expert. Academic fields, no matter which, are helpless as guides on value judgements. They might describe different alternatives. E.g. A mechanical engineer can tell you about buying a smaller boiler that is cheap now but will cost lots of fuel or buying a bigger one that will use less fuel over time, but she cannot tell you which one is better.
Better might be that I have no money right because I'm diverting lots of it to raising kids so I need to go cheap. Better might be that I like having lower operating costs and am willing to borrow money to do it.
The point is "better" is not the question an engineer has any more meaningful insight on than anyone else. Asking experts to make value judgements is like trying to turn a screw with a hammer. You're using the wrong tool.
Get comfortable with asserting yourself and your right to be just as good at making value judgments as anyone else.
And get comfortable with reminding people that outside of their field, experts are as helpless as you or I.
**Though interestingly enough the only expert from CU's faculty I saw quoted in Booth's article here is a law professor, not incapable but not always known for their deep knowledge of chemistry and physics.
https://coloradosun.com/2024/08/21/cu-boulder-energy-plant-alternative-renewable-power/
Attention landowners: speak up about the state's new regulations for wetlands.
It is important that you be there to protect your interests because no one else will do it for you and you can be sure the environmentalists will be there in force.
The last regular legislative session saw passage of a bipartisan bill to regulate Colorado's wetlands (this is in response to the SCOTUS decision which returned a whole host of wetland/water regulations back to local authorities should they choose to--the Sackett decision if you want to look it up).
The bill itself is linked first below and essentially tasks CDPHE (via the Water Control Commission) with deciding on rules around wetlands.
As the Sun article linked second below has it, this commission is seeking public input and will hold a series of public meetings, starting September 5th, during year that they'll be deciding on what regulations to impose.
That's where you come in. If you are a landowner (and this includes you farmers) and are concerned about rules around wetlands and what this would do to efforts to use your land in the way you want to, go to the third link below and sign up for email updates so you can keep on top of the process and/or opportunities for you to speak up.
You can be sure industry and environmentalists will be there. You can also be sure no one will be there representing your group unless you take the bull by the horns and do it yourself.
Speak up and make sure your concerns are heard and are part of the new regulation.
If you have questions, the email listed as contact was cdphe.commentswqcd@state.co.us.
https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb24-1379
https://coloradosun.com/2024/08/30/writing-a-few-rules-protecting-colorado-wetlands-begins/