Inevitably, the changed circumstances have led to a sad loss of engineers’ professional standing. The engineers involved today are more likely to be consultants whose advice may or may not have any effect on the non-technical decision makers. The engineer has to accept these conditions, otherwise he won’t be appointed as consultant next time.

Eventually, the downward slide will correct itself naturally as the mistakes of the new engineering "order" become apparent - the Mercury fiasco (an American report, June 1998, stated - "The government has mandated an inquiry, but specified that privatisation is not to be considered as a possible cause"!); the demolition of the corps of engineers, the toast of the engineering world, which produced the lowest-priced power in the world; the electricity "reforms" which certainly cannot live up to the politicians’ ludicrous claims for lower-priced power; Cave Creek, which brought about a Minister’s resignation over design errors with a viewing platform; the perceived need to drain the surroundings to the Clyde Dam, (deemed unnecessary by the designers, and reputed to have cost an extra one billion dollars).

But the most worrying feature of this April issue is the major article "Profiting from Climate Change" which exemplifies the policy of the official engineering body in ignoring the developing greenhouse Truth, seeing more advantage in supporting the vested interests of their non-technical associates in the western world’s dishonest, fast-growing industry.

Here they are promoting the claim that New Zealand, through some nebulous scheme for the trading of emissions, can profit from the as-yet non-existent agreement to control the level of the "pollutant" CO2 in the atmosphere - this is the latest ploy of the international doomsayers, who are trying to convince the countries involved that signing the Kyoto agreement will assure them of such financial profit. Certainly, someone would have to pay for the utterly unnecessary carbon tax (by whatever name) which they promote - but they are telling each country that there’s a profit in it for every one of them.

The technical world - at least those people who are not on the greenhouse gravy train - are quickly coming to the conclusion that changing CO2 levels make no contribution to any global temperature change. There is a correlation, however - increasing CO2 is the result - not the cause - of a steady, natural increase in temperature since the Little Ice Age of the 17th century.

Given these facts, engineers must seek the Truth, taking time to comprehend the factors that destroy the greenhouse fallacy. Above all, the acceptance of the untrue cannot be justified on the spurious claim that it could lead to some mythical profit.