With apologies to Morris Albert.
Joe Duggan. A “science communicator”, writes on his blog:
What follows are the words of real scientists. Researchers that understand climate change.
Kevin Walsh
Associate Professor and Reader, School of Earth Sciences
University of Melbourne 
I wish that climate change were not real.
This seems like a strange thing for a climate scientist to say, but it’s true.
If climate change were not real, we would not have to be concerned about it. We wouldn’t have to worry about the future of our water resources, already strained by over population. We wouldn’t have to worry about sea level rise increasing the flooding of our coastal cities and of low–lying, densely–populated areas of poor countries. Above all, we wouldn’t have to worry about climate change being yet another source of conflict in an already tense world.
Life would be so much simpler if climate change didn’t exist. But as scientists, we don’t have the luxury of pretending.
Kevin Walsh
Associate Professor and Reader
School of Earth Sciences
University of Melbourne
Anthony Richardson
Climate Change Ecologist
The University of Queensland
How climate change makes me feel.
I feel a maelstrom of emotions
I am exasperated. Exasperated no one is listening.
I am frustrated. Frustrated we are not solving the problem.
I am anxious. Anxious that we start acting now.
I am perplexed. Perplexed that the urgency is not appreciated.
I am dumbfounded. Dumbfounded by our inaction.
I am distressed. Distressed we are changing our planet.
I am upset. Upset for what our inaction will mean for all life.
I am annoyed. Annoyed with the media’s portrayal of the science.
I am angry. Angry that vested interests bias the debate.
I am infuriated. Infuriated we are destroying our planet.
But most of all I am apprehensive. Apprehensive about our children’s future.
Associate Professor
Anthony J. Richardson
Climate Change Ecologist
Dr Ailie Gallant
School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment
Monash University
Dear Joe,
I feel nervous. I get worried and anxious, but also a little curious. The curiosity is a strange, paradoxical feeling that I sometimes feel guilty about. After all, this is the future of the people I love.
I get frustrated a lot; by the knowns, the unknowns, and the lack of action. I get angry at the invalid opinions that are all-pervasive in this age of indiscriminant information, where evidence seems to play second fiddle to whomever can shout the loudest. I often feel like shouting…
But would that really help? I feel like they don’t listen anyway. After all, we’ve been shouting for years.
I hate feeling helpless. I’m ashamed to say that, sometimes, my frustration leads to apathy. I hate feeling apathetic.
But sometimes I read things, or see things, from individuals, from communities like ‘1 million solar panels installed in Australian homes”, and optimism tickles.
I will keep doing my work. I will keep shouting in my own little way. I will be optimistic that we will do something about this, collectively. I live in hope that the climate changes on the graphs that I stare into every day wont be as bad as my data tells me, because we worked together to find a solution. All I can hope is that people share my optimism and convert it into Action.
Kind Regards,
Dr Ailie Gallant
School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment
Monash University.
Professor Andrew Pitman
Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science
Dear Jo,
You ask me how climate change makes me feel.
I do not have a single answer.
In equal measure, climate change makes me feel frustrates that my community cannot overcome ignorance and apathy. I feel scared that I cannot trigger action. I feel scared about what the future brings. But most of all, to be honest, I feel challenged by the science, I feel invigorated by how bright my group is and I feel very lucky that each day brings new challenges to confront and sometimes to overcome.
A.J. Pitman
Professor, Climate Science at UNSW.
Dr Sarah Perkins
Climate Scientist, Extreme Events Specialist
University of New South Wales.
My Dear Friend,
For sometime now I’ve been terribly worried. I wish I didn’t have to acknowledge it, but everything I have feared is happening. I used to think I was paranoid, but it’s true. She’s slipping away from us. She’s been showing signs of acute illness for quite a while, but no one has really done anything. Her increased erratic behaviour is something I’ve especially noticed. Certain behaviours that were only rare occurrences are starting to occur more often, and with heightened anger. I’ve tried to highlight these changes time and time again, as well as their speed of increase, but no one has paid attention.
It almost seems everyone has been ignoring me completely, and I’m not sure why. Is it easier to pretend there’s no illness, hoping it will go away? Or because they’ve never had to live without her, so the thought of death is impossible? perhaps they cannot see they’ve done this to her. We all have.
To me this is all false logic. How can you ignore the severe sickness of someone you are so intricately connected to and dependent upon. How can you let your selfishness and greed take control, and not protect and nurture those who need it most? How can anyone not feel an overwhelming sense of care and responsibility when those so dear to us are so desperately ill? How can you push all this to the back of your mind? This is something I will never understand. Perhaps I’m the odd one out, the anomaly of the human race. The one who cares enough, who has the compassion, to want to help make her better.
The thing is we can make her better!! If we work together, we can cure this terrible illness and restore her to her old self before we exploited her. But we must act quickly, we must act together. Time is ticking, and we need to act now.
Yours faithfully,
Dr Sarah Perkins
Climate Scientist, Extreme Events Specialist.
The University of New South Wales.
Emeritus Professor Tony McMichael
National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health
Australian National University, College of Medicine, Biology and Environment
Dear Joe
It’s hard to imagine that people are doing so much damage to the natural world. It’s sad when a society like ours can’t see further than its bank balance and stumbles blindly into a future when children won’t be able to enjoy the flowing rivers, mountain snow, coloured birds and bush animals. Don’t we have any responsibility for other creatures, forests and rivers? I’m rather ashamed of our behaviour.
It seems so silly to go on behaving like this – though, from hearing our politicians speak, it seems that making and consuming more and more is the point of life. Surely the dreadful heat we have suffered from in recent heatwaves, and the awful bushfires that have terrified rural communities in the past couple of years are telling us that something is going very wrong.
Scientist friends say it’s probably because we’re making the world hotter by adding ‘greenhouse gases’ into the air. So we are seriously harming the world around us and yet we understand how!
It’s really sad that some of our local children seem quite puzzled and worried by what they see on TV bout this and hearing what adults say. I hope my family and our community can try and help solve these frightening problems.
Sincerely,
Tony McMichael
Emeritus Professor, Australian National University
Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales
Knowing how much is at stake, knowing that I am one of the few people who understand the magnitude of the consequences and then realizing that most of the people around me are oblivious. Some of the people are not only oblivious, they also do not want to understand. They have made up their mind, maybe based on the opinion of someone they trust, someone in their family, or a friend, maybe based on a political conviction, but certainly not based on facts.
It makes me feel sick. Looking at my children and realizing that they won’t have the same quality of life we had. Far from it. That they will live in a world facing severe water and food shortages, a world marked by wars caused by the consequences of climate change.
It makes me feel sad. And it scares me. It scares me more than anything else. I see a group of people sitting in a boat, happily waving, taking pictures on the way, not knowing that this boat is floating right into a powerful and deadly waterfall. It is still time to pull out of the stream. We might lose some boat equipment but we might be able to save the people in the boat. But no one acts.
Time is running out.
Associate Professor Katrin Meissner
ARC Future Fellow
Professor Lesley Hughes
Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University
Founding Member of the Australian Climate Council
I became a professional biologist because I just loved animals – watching them, catching them, studying them. I was the kid whose bedroom was full of jars and boxes of things that crawled and slithered and hopped. The notion that I could actually be paid for doing this, as an adult, was truly wonderful.
But where to for our species in the future? Our biodiversity is our life support system, each species a precious support system, each species a precious, irreplaceable heritage item. We have harvested and cleared and plundered and spoiled. Every year our natural capital declines a bit more as we squander our heritage and rob our descendants.
And now we have this new threat, likely to be the biggest one of all.
Climate change is likely to become the biggest species killer ever, impoverishing our planet and our race.
We have so much to lose.
Prof. Lesley Hughes
Dr Alex Sen Gupta
Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales
How does it make me feel?
I feel frustrated. The scientific evidence is overwhelming. We know what’s going on, we know why it’s happening, we know how serious things are going to get and still after so many years, we are still doing practically nothing to stop it.I feel betrayed by our leaders who show no leadership and who place ideology above evidence, willing to say anything to peddle their agendas – leaders who are at best negligent and at worst complicit in allowing this to happen with full knowledge of likely consequences. I feel bemused. That scientists who have spent years or decades dedicated to understanding how it all works are given the same credibility as poleticians, [sic] media commentators and industry spokes people with obvious vested interests and whose only credential is their ability to read discredited blogs.I feel concerned that unmitigated our inaction will cause terrible suffering to those least able to cope with change and that within my lifetime many of the places that make this planet so special – the snows on Kilimanjaro, the Great Barrier Reef, even the ice covered Arctic will be degraded beyond recognition – our legacy to the next generation.I also feel a glimmer of hope. China and the USA are starting to move in the right direction and beginning to show some global leadership on this issue, even if Australia is backtracking again to a position of laggard and obstructionist.
Alex Sen Gupta
Senior Lecturer (Oceanography)
Climate Change Research Centre
University of New South Wales
Professor Brendan Mackey
Director Of Griffith Climate Change Response Program
I was unable to receive a hand written letter from Professor Mackey, but he kindly contributed the typed copy above.
Dear Earth,
Just a quick note to say thanks so much for the last 4 billion years or so. It’s been great! The planetary life support systems worked really well, the whole biological evolution thing was a nice surprise and meant that humans got to come into being and I got to exist!
I’m really sorry about the last couple of 100 years – we’ve really stuffed things up haven’t we! I though we climate scientist might be able to save the day but alas no one really took as seriously. Everyone wants to keep opening new coal mines and for some reason that escapes me are happy to ignore the fact that natural gas is a fossil fuel. Well, no one can say we didn’t try!
You’re probably quietly happy that “peak human” time has come and gone and it’s kind of all downhill got us now, though I guess you’re more than a bit miffed at what we’ve done to your lovely ecosystem (the forests and corals were a really nice touch by the way) and sorry again for the tigers, sharks etc.
In case you were wondering, our modeling suggests that your global biogeochemical cycles (especially the carbon one) should reach a new dynamic equilibrium in about 100,000 years or so. I guess it will be a bit of a rocky road until then but, oh well, no one said the universe was meant to be stable!
All the best and do try and maintain that “can do” attitude we love so much.
Prof Brendan G. Mackey, PhD
30 July 2014
===============================================================
Two things:
1. Logic (Science) and emotion (feelings) are polar opposites. Mixing the two is a sure recipe for logical disaster. Ref: fMRI reveals reciprocal inhibition between social and physical cognitive domains. NeuroImage, 2012; DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2012.10.061
2. I feel like I want to hurl.
(h/t to Maurizio Morabito)
-Anthony
Oh, wait … Just what IS the evidence for catastrophic anthropogenic global warming?
CO2 levels were steady … global average temperatures went down, were steady, and went up.
CO2 levels rose constantly … and global average temperatures went down, went up, and were steady….
Oh … How many so-called “scientific” agencies promoting the government’s global warming political and economic agendas receive government money, power, political influence, and promotions?
I can’t believe my taxes are paying for these cretins. This must be wind up. No-one, not even a warmenista, can be this bare arsed stupid.
I find it quite incedible that they mention “facts”. If they have facts and therefore reasonable proof, then they woiuld have something to worry about. Until then they should just join the Baptists waving banners at the funeral of Robin Williams.
Cheers
Roger
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com
***testifying, as suggested by Marshall!
21 Aug: WaPo: Matthew Hutson: Why our brains are wired to ignore climate change
Recently I learned about “Prius repellent” — a tricked-out truck takes deep swigs of diesel and spews black smog all over a tailing vehicle, preferably a hybrid. These ominous clouds signal that, in our national conversation about climate change, something has gone very wrong.
George Marshall, a founder of the Climate Outreach think tank, tries to get us talking productively in his intelligent and genial new book, “Don’t Even Think About It.” He visits with fellow environmentalists, with psychologists and policy analysts, and with political opponents — even sharing a few laughs in the lair of 40 Texas tea partyers — to try to understand just why people are so prone to deny or ignore climate change…
You might think that climate-change deniers are short on scientific literacy. But everyone’s heard the facts about greenhouse gases. At this point, deniers are actually better versed in science than are accepters. Rather, political forces shape their attitudes. Marshall quotes the ethicist Clive Hamilton: “Denial is due to a surplus of culture rather than a deficit of information.” …
In his view, the “Green Team” should borrow several elements from the “God Squad”: There should be opportunities for public commitment to the cause.
***People should testify to their doubts and anxieties, so they can work through them with peers…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/uncertain-forecast-for-the-planet/2014/08/21/da465b9e-0eb4-11e4-b8e5-d0de80767fc2_story.html
This explains why the scientific community is divided on the issue of catastrophic AGW. Half of them are scientists. Half of them are environmental activists employed as scientists. I think amateur scientists can do better science than activists.
These comments show a obvious disdain for scientists from a bunch of cretins with the combined IQ of a baboon. The grammar is embarrassing and rhetoric typical of keyboard cowards
Steve B says:
August 21, 2014 at 3:32 pm
Aussies use to be pragmatic realists. It seems the Marxist disease and Messiah Complex Disorder has run rampant in Australia and as such Australia needs to be quarantined and all existing sufferers exiled to a small Pacific Island out of harms way.
—
Very much so, it was a country full of straight talker and practical thinkers who didn’t tolerate pompous experts and professional BS artistes.
It’s why many recognized the ABC, or rather, not the ABC itself, but the dopey warped people employed by it as a profoundly degenerate cultural influence (now assisted by the similar touchy-feelies at SBS TV/Radio) ever since this weepy self-flagellating Gaia fever retard’ogoop appeared during the late 1980. Creutzfeldt-Jakob Bovine Encephalopathy exploded in the ecology and climate psience departments . The result is this painful interminable whining from University Campuses.
Dose of free nembutal for all sufferers, it’s the humane thing.
Palindrom, to provide evidence of the existence of something, you do not call on hearsay; you provide evidence.
As has been repeatedly shown, the alarmists have no evidence.
Indeed, the failure of the computer models to predict reality is evidence that the computer models are wrong. And the computer models are the opinion of the alarmist “experts”. Opinions written in computer code (ooh fancy) but mere opinion, none the less. The physical evidence – the observation of the real world – does not support the irrational hysteria shown by these letters.
If you want to open the minds of us poor benighted sceptics why not provide some evidence?
Or failing that persuade us to redefine “epistemic” as “proven by assertion” (that might be harder).
Geeks says August 22, 2014 at 12:16 am
I have the highest respect for scientists.
But I do have disdain for the blubbering fools who wrote these essays.
How would you define a scientist? Is logical investigation involved? Is observation of the real world involved? Is rejection of failed hypotheses involved?
Because the models were wrong.
Geeks on August 22, 2014 at 12:16 am
“These comments show a obvious disdain for scientists from a bunch of cretins with the combined IQ of a baboon. The grammar is embarrassing and rhetoric typical of keyboard cowards”
——————–
In the first row it should be “an obvious” not “a obvious” and you missed the period at the end of the sentence. Welcome to the world of keyboard coward baboons. Also, my high school grammar teacher would cringe at the number of prepositional phrases in one sentence.
palindrom:
In your post at August 21, 2014 at 7:50 pm you make the uninformed comment
I suggest you read this shocking paper by Richard Lindzen. It is the most recent update of an interesting read which names names concerning how those institutions were deliberately usurped and by whom.
Perhaps then you will stop wasting space on this thread with ignorant nonsense in support of the emotionally stunted fools whose writings are the subject of the thread. You are interrupting enjoyment of laughter at the fools.
Richard
A number of commenters have asked me to “provide evidence” for global wamring.
In this forum, that’s a fool’s errand, because the vast majority of the readers have persuaded themselves that any evidence that does not fit their preconceptions is untrustworthy. The view from inside the scientific community — I’m talking hard-science geophysicists, not some airy-fairy socialist enviro-hippie types out to impose higher taxes — is very different.
As I said in both my previous posts, this blog is an echo chamber — that’s what “epistemic closure” means. If AGW theory really were as baseless as many here think, this would be reflected in the scientific literature. It is not. The usual explanations offered for the essential unanimity of opinion among competent, quaified experts (I can already hear howls of “Lindzen! Curry! Spencer! Christy! Singer! Happer!” — note that I said competent, qualified experts) is that scientists are all whoring for government grants, or subject to some herd mentality, or whatever. This is a pretty easy sell, since so few readers have direct experience of how the scientific community operates. In reality, these claims of widespread delusion among scientists are fanciful, and in their extreme forms pure paranoid drivel.
I’m sure that very few of you will take anything I say seriously, because you come here for more red meat to feed your set-in-concrete view of the world, but if you’re still not entirely convinced that the entire world scientific community is off its rocker, there are plenty of resources out there to read. Just have the courage to check your prejudices at the door, and concentrate on the quality of the arguments.
Wow! palindrom has returned from his academic bubble (or Mom and Dad’s basement) to enlighten us. Just for clarification (since he is clumsily throwing this term around):
“The term “epistemic closure” has been used in U.S. political debate to refer to the claim that political belief systems can be closed systems of deduction, unaffected by empirical evidence.”
So how’s that arctic death spiral working out for you? How are the global warming temperature anomaly predictions compared with predictions (not hindcasts)? Hurricanes? Sea level rise? What about Antarctica?
I suggest palindrom that YOU need to pull your head out of the sand and actually INVESTIGATE the empirical evidence, as I have. You make simplistic arguments about the correctness of AGW “theory” but don’t even want to bother trying to define exactly what it is – probably because you are ill-equipped to do so.
Please – go to your own echo chamber at REAL CLIMATE so you can wallow in pity (like your like-minded colleagues described in this post) about how people are taking CAGW “theory” seriously…
…sorry…my last paragraph should read…
Please – go to your own echo chamber at REAL CLIMATE so you can wallow in pity (like your like-minded colleagues described in this post) about how people are NOT taking CAGW “theory” seriously…
Dear palindrom,
Your 4:25am post certainly puts us in our place.
Just one tiny problem.
As M. Courtney observes—
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/21/climate-scientists-laid-bare-%E2%99%AA-feeelings-nothing-more-than-feelings-%E2%99%AB/#comment-1714778
“As has been repeatedly shown, the alarmists have no evidence.”
So I suppose it is truthful to say, it would be a fool’s errand. What would you write when you have no evidence? Always the elephant in the room alarmists pretend isn’t there. In your case, pretending really, really hard.
Alarmists are fools, often delusional, increasingly unethical and hoping for misery.
Palindrom, ” AGW theory really were as baseless as many here think, this would be reflected in the scientific literature. It is not.”
Prove it.
Give us references to these papers in the scientific literature that can withstand a moments logical discussion.
You don’t because you can’t. You have no evidence.
And you must know it because you won’t even try and find some.
I’m on pre-moderation at the Guardian and WUWT.
I must be the most offensive commenter ever.
(Not counting Youtube).
“Associate Professor
Anthony J. Richardson
Climate Change Ecologist
Dr Ailie Gallant
School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment
Monash University
Professor Andrew Pitman
Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science
Dr Sarah Perkins
Climate Scientist, Extreme Events Specialist.
The University of New South Wales.
Professor Lesley Hughes
Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University
Founding Member of the Australian Climate Council
Dr Alex Sen Gupta
Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales”
I’m sorry if this has already been brought up, I haven’t read most of the comments – but did ANY of these groups/positions/job titles/organizations even exist 30 years ago? “Climate Change Ecologist”, “Climate Scientist, Extreme Events Specialist”, etc? Look all the new (I think) positions/etc that have sprung up as a result of the CAGW fraud. It’s amazing. “Climate Scientist, Extreme Events Specialist”, what in the Mordor is that, exactly?
This is really going to be hard to overcome. So many people have hitched their wagons, completely, to this fraud, not just these clowns but also many rich and powerful people. Sigh.
Climate Science, defined as belief trumpets observation?
This palindrome, minus the e, is very sure that it can not provide evidence that will convince even one of the million plus visitors to this site.
Such omnipotence, I guess I can’t argue with that,course that is just using a lot of words to say;
“I have no evidence” .
I know you cannot produce any science to support your delusion, that is how I became a cynic of fools who “believe” in science. Such a profound ignorance of science and the methods there of, shall not go unrewarded.
If the alarmed ones used their real names, they would be besieged by telemarketers and miracle workers. Greenpeace is proof of the rising gullibility of these marks.
I foresee the rising scams, Come Save the World, World Savers R Us.
Oh wait, this field is already awash in politicians and NGO’s.
All funded by taxpayers.
If the reason the ten Australian climate focused scientists who wrote the despair ridden ‘how I feel’ letters is the collapse of a pre-scientific ideology that primarily motivated them to become climate focused scientists, then why did the ideology collapse?
It is arguable what pre-science ideology, if any of the ten letter writers had one, could have been their climate profession raison d’être. But candidate pre-science ideologies could be in one of the following categories: mystical (supernatural GAIA entity), pragmatic (forget integrated conceptual knowledge / ideals and just go try social re-engineering stuff to see if it works), pre-destination (what you do is inevitable so just go with the flow). There may be other categories, but that is a start.
Has any pre-science ideology collapsed the preceding decade? I am looking for suggestions. But, I would say that there was a pre-science ideology collapses in the pragmatic category in at Copenhagen (2009) and Australia (2014).
John
O.K, I’ve now buzzed through the comments. w/r/t the letters from these “scientists”, I have to remind myself that these clowns are not bad or evil people – though some of those at the top levels of the CAGW movement could probably be labelled as such – they are just clueless earthly-Utopian nerds with, possibly, a high IQ but absolutely no common sense, and no idea of the true damage to humanity this fraud is responsible for.
And, finally, I really should not laugh too much at these scientists’ apocalyptic fear. They seem legitimately afraid. Throughout history, scientists have thought they have discovered ominous phenomenons , and raised perfectly legitimate concerns. I harken back to another brilliant scientist – Dr. Egon Spengler – upon discovering a similar valid threat to mankind – the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man….
“Sorry, Venkman, I’m terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought….”
I lied, one last one, I apologize in advance….
I grabbed this image from another site I frequent, ‘cause I think it most closely resembles the typical CAGW (non)scientist, especially the “elevated proboscis” aspect…
And, I subsequently found this – the process most CAGW scientists use to secure funding…
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYmzdvMoUUA?feature=player_detailpage&w=640&h=360%5D
Yeah, I know, I know, I’ll stop now…
Oops initial image did not show up, here’s the link
http://imgur.com/Smoqslr
Frank K. says:
August 22, 2014 at 6:04 am
Wow! palindrom has returned from his academic bubble (or Mom and Dad’s basement)
http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2014/08/how-scientists-feel-about-climate.html?showComment=1408640534888#c7647139080075044465
“palindromAugust 22, 2014 at 3:02 AM
I dropped a single drive-by comment there, which I expect will be greeted with fury and/or removed. What a den of fools.”
If any of you want to comment there, good luck! I have given up. If I were to tell them that Jesus walked on water, I would expect the response to be: “What’s the matter, could He not swim?”