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Then and Now

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Sometimes I look back to 2010 and wonder how we all got through it. I remember the stomachache I’d get every time I opened a newspaper, wondering what awful lies had been printed about climate science that day. I remember the disdain with which people treated the science I love and the scientists I look up to. 2010 was the year when climate change conspiracy theories went mainstream, and the year when the whole issue was a lump of dread I carried around in my pocket.

Things are easier now. The climate system is in really bad shape (and it can only get worse from here), but somehow I find this fact easier to deal with than the judgement of well-meaning, but highly misinformed and misled, people. Maybe this is because I find human conflict scary but graphs and numbers comforting. Or maybe I am just too good at thinking of model simulations as hypothetical.

In my own way I am in denial, because when I think about my future I always picture a world without climate change.

Regardless, the attacks on our integrity have largely abated, and everything feels so peaceful in comparison. Part of this, of course, has to do with policy: the misinformation campaign “ClimateGate” was clearly timed to derail the Copenhagen talks, the likes of which won’t happen again for another few years. I think there is another factor, though, which will protect us the next time around: the scientists are now officially pissed off.

As scientists, we are shy creatures by nature (remember what I said about human conflict and graphs?) but even we can be provoked. Recall that we have discovered important information that could be vital to the future of our civilization, and yet there are many who seek to discredit us and make sure this information is not taken seriously. When those people go so far as to slander and harass individual researchers, nearly to the point of suicide, they have stepped on all of our toes. We are mad scientists, but not in the cartoon sense.

Now, when deniers attempt to construct a scandal, it doesn’t get off the ground. Scientists are there immediately to set the record straight, and the media realizes it is a non-story. When shady politicians try to press charges against researchers, those researchers hire accomplished lawyers because there is a fund for that now. Geoscience conferences  feature so many communications workshops that you could attend nothing else if you chose to. Scientific societies are publishing handbooks on how to respond if your research is publicly attacked, you face charges of fraud, or you fear for your safety.

I like this new attitude of climate scientists. Forget the old paradigm that scientists should steer clear of political speech and stick to pure research. We didn’t give up our rights as citizens when we decided to be scientists. Maybe 2010 was a necessary evil, because it made us realize that we have a responsibility to fight for truth.


Filed under: Musings Tagged: climate change, climategate, denial, global warming, science

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