- JoNova - https://joannenova.com.au -

Help failing sad climate scientists deal with their dark moods

What happens when your world view is wrong and you can’t deal with reality?

Climate change: Scientists sad, frustrated as extreme weather becomes the new norm

“There is definitely what you would call ‘climate fatigue’ on the part of scientists,” said Dr Andrew Glikson, from the Australian National University’s School of Archaeology and Anthropology.

“There were hundreds of scientists there, and my impression is while we continue to do the science as best we can, there is a fatigue when it comes to arguing in public.

“You can explain to them as long as you like but if they don’t wish to understand, they won’t.”

There is major cognitive dissonance going on here

Climate scientists know they are right, the media loves them and repeats their message, their fears and even their mood swings. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, levels are rising, what could possibly go wrong? But despite pushing a simple message for 30 years, they can’t convince the people that matter most, the other scientists like meteorologists (survey one, survey two), most geologists and engineers, and thousands of doctors, physicists, chemists, maths guys and all the people who build planes, mobile phones, and walk on the moon and generally get stuff done. Perhaps the other scientists are all stupid, or here’s an alternate reality: perhaps the geography and ecology majors got the model architecture wrong, forgot one major feedback path and the energy they think is cooking our atmosphere is really leaking out the water vapor back door. See the missing hot spot, the decelerating sea levels, the record Antarctic Ice that wasn’t supposed to be there. See all the stories of warm and cold periods, and rising seas, their models can’t explain and all the evidence that shows the sun has a role on our climate that is non-existent in the models. See the scandalous adjustments they keep having to make to all that recalcitrant data that always seems to support skeptics until they “fix it”.

The only solution that stops the sadness is for unskeptical scientists to meet reality. Then at least they won’t have to worry the planet is going to hell. Though they will have to start thinking about the demise of science and the way the research industry has become a cheap political tool full of B-graders who don’t even know the basics of Aristotelian reasoning and the most important parts of the Scientific Method.

Dr Glikson is one of Australia’s leading voices on climate change and last year penned an open letter to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, signed by more than 150 scientists, demanding more action be taken to ease greenhouse gas emissions.

Andrew Glickson and I had a long debate once. A rare thing. It started here, lasted five long rounds and he asked if I’d publish his sixth reply which I said I’d be happy to, in full and with every reference and graph he wanted.

This coming May it’ll be seven years later and we’re still waiting.

Eric Worrall has set up a petition to help scientists avoid personal CO2 emissions. It’s at change.org petition, Help Climate Scientists avoid Personal CO2 Emissions.

 

9.3 out of 10 based on 99 ratings