Forget climate change, it's the scientists we need to worry about
In the 1980s I worked in an office on the South Bank, over the road from what is now the Tate Modern. Around the corner there was a depot of the London Borough of Southwark's street maintenance team, and it seemed at the time that some of their workers used to practice road repairs outside our office building, for it was always being dug up. I remember well the discussions amongst us engineers, scientists and statisticians, wondering for how long the pneumatic drills were going to continue. 'They must have a new batch of recruits', I remember a manager saying in September one year, about the time milkround recruits were joining us. 'It may seem ridiculous that workers are paid to dig holes and then fill them in, but that's how they train'. No one was quite sure whether he was taking the mickey or had inside knowledge of Southwark council (who, at the time, were very left-wing and regularly mocked in the press), but he was making a good point. Workers need to ...