By Paul Homewood
From the New York Times;
Sometimes, Bruce C. Glavovic feels so proud to be an environmental scientist, studying coastal planning and teaching future researchers, that it moves him to tears.
Other times, he wonders whether any of it has been enough. Scientists have proved beyond doubt that climate change is transforming the planet for the worse. Yet their work has mostly failed to spur governments to address the issue. When all the signs are telling scientists that their research is not being heard, it is tragic, Dr. Glavovic said, that they just keep producing more of it.
“We’ve had 26 Conference of the Parties meetings, for heaven’s sake,” he said, referring to the United Nations global warming summits. More scientific reports, another set of charts. “I mean, seriously, what difference is that going to make?”
It was this frustration that led Dr. Glavovic, 61, a professor at Massey University in New Zealand, and two colleagues to send a jolt recently through the normally cautious, rarefied world of environmental research. In an academic journal, they called on climate scientists to stage a mass walkout, to stop their research until nations take action on global warming.
Predictably, many researchers balked, calling the idea wrongheaded or worse — “a supernova of stupid,” as one put it on Twitter. But the article gets at questions that plenty of climate scientists have asked themselves lately: Is what we’re doing with our lives really making a difference? How can we get elected officials to act on the threats that we’ve so clearly identified? Do we become activists? Would we sacrifice our credibility as academics, our cool composure, by doing so?
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/01/climate/ipcc-climate-scientists-strike.html
Many people would no doubt respond – Yes, please do!
Indeed, I have sometimes argued that if the science is is so settled, then why do we need to pay thousands of climate scientists to carry on writing the same old reports?
But the fact that many researchers balked at the idea rather gives the game away. As one said, a supernova of stupid. If they all resigned, they would have to go out and get real jobs, instead of sponging off the taxpayer.
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
March 2, 2022 at 07:57AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 