Guest “I couldn’t make this sort of schist up, if I was trying,” by David Middleton
Academics Demand Sabbaticals to Save World from Climate Change
by THOMAS D. WILLIAMS, PH.D. 31 Oct 2019
More than 1000 British professors have signed a letter requesting more time off from teaching so they can tackle climate change and “save all life on our planet.”
“Humanity stands at the brink of a precipice. If we do not urgently address climate breakdown and the ecological crisis, the very future of life on earth is in question,” begins the open letter published this week by the Times Higher Education magazine and addressed to vice-chancellors, Universities UK and UK Research and Innovation.
[…]
The academics note that they are particularly well suited to the task of saving the world from global warming, given their expertise and prestige among the common people.
“Universities are the bastions of wisdom and knowledge that are urgently needed to combat the climate crisis,” they insist. “Now is the time to increase our efforts.”
Occasionally straying into hyperbole and remarkably unscientific language, the letter asserts that “the crisis is at our doorstep” and that humanity now faces “an even greater challenge” than going to the moon in the 1960s.
[…]
Earlier this month, another group of academics published an essay urging institutions of higher learning to encourage climate scientists to cry in order to relieve some of the stress associated with climate trauma.
[…]
In requesting space for climate scientists, the authors compare them to those who work in disaster relief and the military.
“In these fields, well defined organizational structures and active strategies exist for employees to anticipate and manage their emotional distress,” they declare.As Breitbart News reported last month, a growing number of children in the UK are being treated for an overwhelming terror of “environmental doom” as climate alarmists spread fears of an impending climate disaster.
[…]
“A lot of parents are coming into therapy asking for help with the children and it has escalated a lot this summer,” said psychotherapist Caroline Hickman of the Climate Psychology Alliance (CPA), referring to the newly coined psychological phenomenon of “eco-anxiety.”
Brietbart
The letter is a fracking hoot! I bolded the particularly funny academic titles among the signatories.
Universities must act swiftly and independently on climate change
An open letter from academics and campaigners to sector leaders
October 29, 2019
By ContributorsDear vice-chancellors, Universities UK and UK Research and Innovation,
Humanity stands at the brink of a precipice. If we do not urgently address climate breakdown and the ecological crisis, the very future of life on earth is in question. David Attenborough has said “We cannot be radical enough” in tackling the climate crisis, and the people are listening. Universities are the bastions of wisdom and knowledge that are urgently needed to combat the climate crisis. Now is the time to increase our efforts.
[…]
Support fellowships, placements and volunteering for mitigation, adaptation and ecological restoration
We ask you to support scientists, academics and students to help address the climate emergency through a series of new programmes, fellowships, sabbaticals and voluntary placements to help the critical efforts needed to save all life on our planet. These will be hosted by a large partnership between universities, companies and NGOs working on solutions.
We need to be leaders. We need to transform our universities into action-oriented institutions.
Please help us make this possible.
Signed,
The World University Rankings
Mark Maslin, professor of Climatology, UCL; fellow of the Royal Geographical Society
Alice Larkin, head of the School of Engineering, Tyndall Centre, University of Manchester
Shaun Fitzgerald, director, The Royal Institution
Michelle Shipworth, associate professor in energy and social Sciences, UCL Energy Institute; director of ethics, UCL Bartlett School of Environment, Energy and Resources
James McKay, manager, EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Bioenergy, University of Leeds
Robert Falkner, research director, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, London School of Economics
Claire Barlow, deputy head, department of engineering, University of Cambridge
Steve Evans, director of research in industrial sustainability, University of Cambridge
Alice Roberts, professor of public engagement in science, University of Birmingham
Jim Al-Khalili, president of the British Science Association, University of Surrey
Zamzam Ibrahim, president, National Union of Students
Mark Miodownik, director, UCL Institute of Making
Paul Ekins, director, UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources
Peter Smith, professor of soils and global change, University of Aberdeen
Hagan Bayley, professor of chemical biology, University of Oxford
Philippa Browning, professor of astrophysics, University of Manchester
Jim Lynch, emeritus professor of life sciences, University of Surrey
George Adamson, convenor of King’s Climate Research Hub, department of geography, King’s College London
And more than 1,000 others. For the full list of signatories, click here.
I looked up the lead whiner in LinkedIn and Dr. Mark Maslin appears to actually have some scientific qualifications…
Education
Cambridge University
PhD Marine Geology / Palaeoclimatology
Dates attended or expected graduation 1989 – 1993
Activities and Societies: Darwin College Student President, Darwin College Boat Club, Darwin College Drama Society, Cambridge University Shakespeare Society CUSS (Midsummer Nights Dream and Macbeth), Darwin College Football Club, Editor of Darwin College student magazine
His LinkedIn page gave us a foreshadowing of how these sabbaticals might be spent…
Solving Climate Change talk in Bristol
Published on January 14, 2019Mark Maslin
Professor at UCLDear All
I am giving a talk on climate change and how we can reverse it at the Hen & Chicken, in Bristol at 7.30pm on the 12th Feb. Saving the World hopefully with a pint in my hand! Would be wonderful to see you there and have a great discussion about solving the major issues of the 21st century.[…]
LinkedIn
The Climate Change Crisis Kegger!
How funny is this: Kafka would be proud.
If and only if he ever knew how to be proud.
I say…since we only have 12 years to save the planet…and they are so conscientious and passionate about wanting to be involved…and they believe that it is far more important to save the planet than to educate students…we should enable them to fight the good fight by granting them an unpaid 12 year sabbatical so they can concentrate on far more important things than teaching.
Why aren’t they in California fighting fires? Why aren’t helping cleanup after tornadoes and hurricanes?
Perhaps then they could be replaced by teachers that actually want to teach instead of paid to infect the minds of youth with eco-fascist messaging.
Those who can do. Those who can’t teach.
If any of those clowns were capable of “fixing” anything they wouldn’t be professors.
Hahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahaha
The academics note that they are particularly well suited to the task of saving the world from global warming, given their expertise and prestige among the common people.
Hahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahaha
“Universities are the bastions of wisdom and knowledge that are urgently needed to combat the climate crisis,” they insist. “Now is the time to increase our efforts.”
Hahahahahahahaha
It looks like he wants to continue the after class tavern get together. They sit around getting drunk while creating faux problems and then talking them to death.
These over educated, adolescent minded, pseudo intellectuals simply want to stay forever in college. Now they are working on a way to party and get paid for it. All play and no work makes jack a burden to the rest.
Seriously, it is really funny, and all the more so because they seem to have said these things in all seriousness!
The *blank*ing *blank*heads would not know wisdom if one of them accidently found some.
I did not get two sentences into this before I was laughing loudly for real.
Every time I start to read more I start laughing again.
This is one of the funniest things I have ever seen in print:
“The academics note that they are particularly well suited to the task of saving the world from global warming, given their expertise and prestige among the common people.”
And I can see it looks very promisingly like a howler all the way through.
Who knew that a bunch of, mainly, atheists would en masse become affliced by the Jesus syndrome, just about the time they finally convinced themselves belief in God is rationalists’ ‘sin’. Irony always comes back to bite you in the least expected place.
Not God, but rather mortal gods and goddesses. Whereas the former is extra-universal and moral, the latter are terrestrial with secular ambitions.
I see in the latest series of Titania McGrath tweets (one of the best piss-takes of modern wokeness) there is a reference to an article she (he) wrote where the niece was glued to the door of a service station. Titania hoped her niece’s first words were “Greta”
Bought the book, ‘Woke’ by Titania- read it in a cafe and laughed so much I kept getting funny looks. I could hardly swallow my coffee for laughing!
I can see it now, they’d probably do useful stuff like taking sailboats to climate meetings only to get halfway there and find out it’s been cancelled…geniuses!
I must admit I’ve had a pint or 2 to calm a panic attack. And I’ve solved most of the world’s problems after 5 or 6
Isn’t it odd that no-one ever suggests Prohibition on drinking and all alcohol reserved for motor fuel for the duration of this ‘crisis’
“Humanity stands at the brink of a precipice.”
Yes, and that precipice represents the decision to walk away from said precipice, and continue to enjoy the remarkable benefits of fossil fuels, or to walk off said precipice, in the name of “saving the planet”.
One can only hope that humanity chooses wisely.
Fire/dismiss the lot of them. Tell ’em tenure is rescinded for incompetence & misconduct. Let them plead otherwise.
Perhaps the guillotine makes even more sense. Remember “Tale of Two Cities” and the old ladies solemnly knitting as the heads rolled down?
Dr. Mark Maslin is a nutter. He once called me shill on twitter. That was the end of any credibility I gave him.
Funniest line …. how they are “prestige amongst the common people”
Where to start with that one?
We must be saved by these elitists. Haha
Au contaire , we need to be saved from these dillusional elitists
I too would like a vacation (sorry, sabbatical). Send your checks to…
‘Universities are bastions of wisdom and knowledge’? If that was ever true it certainly isn’t now!
Ah, Mark Maslin!!
Could this be the same Mark Maslin who told a lot of porkies about floods in Europe, that a quick analysis of the facts showed to be absurd?
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2017/08/26/new-floods-study-not-supported-by-the-data/
Or the same Mark Maslin, who attempted to ludicrously blame the Little Ice Age on “Cortez the Killer”?
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2019/02/09/little-ice-age-which-froze-the-river-thames-caused-by-americas-genocide-study-finds/
No, no, no. Those who believe they can make a positive contribution to saving the planet are morally obligated to quit their positions and engage in appopriate activities full time, regardless of how they may suffer economically.
Those who saved the world in WWII did not do it part-time, nor worry about the personal cost.
Quit and let others teach the studenta. Please quit and let others teach the students.
“Universities are the bastions of wisdom and knowledge”
Obviously not …..D’OH !
They only need to spend a few minutes at the “Our World in Data” site to quickly understand they are spreading the greatest CON and FRAUD trick in history.
Just check out the numbers/data over the last 30 years, 50 years, 100 years or 200 years or …… and they should easily understand why that is the case.
Unless of course they are totally delusional and completely barking mad?
“The academics note that they are particularly well suited to the task of saving the world from global warming, given their expertise and prestige among the common people.”
This truck driver must not be one of “the common people” Williams if referring to since in his case I think that the “PH.D” behind his name must stand for: Perfidious Highbrow Dickhead.
I think Dr. Williams was being sarcastic… But I like the PhD definition.
Earned my PHD at the youthful age of19.
Summer job in the north at our power utility as Post Hole Digger .
Probably learned more there than from a univ. sheepskin.
(Boy, those holes for a forty foot pole were a challenge!)
Then my apologies to Dr. Williams however the definition stands for a great number of those with PhD’s.
In spades … 👍👍
Just came across some important new research.
Summary of the abstract:
“New research suggests that drinking coffee in the morning helps others live longer.”
+42×1042
Actually he has a BS, MS, PhD (Bullsh*T, More of the Same, Piled Higher and Deeper)
What an elitist self-aggrandizing idiot.
The climate change we are experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control even those asking for more time off. According to their idol, Al Gore, the science is already settled so the additional service of these professors is not needed. The universities involved should give them as much time off as possible by laying them off. To reduce their carbon foot print the professors in question should just stay home and laying them off will help them to do that.
Lay them off and tell them they can apply for their old jobs in 11 years, after they’ve saved the planet.
That sounds good. That will give them an eleven year unpaid sabbatical to fight climate change. With all of them personally fighting climate change then no one else need give it a second thought The institutions involved will save money since they do not need to pay those people any more.
“…prestige among the common people.” Wow, David, I’m willing to bet that a lot of the common people think this collection of jackwagons needs to do some honest work and quit whining. “Save all life on our planet”. Wow (sorry, that’s redundant) these people need help which I doubt they are going to get.
Send them all the China to protest wildly about their 30% emissions. Academic problem solved 😉
[Catastrophic] [Anthropogenic] [Political] Climate Change? It matters.
#MeToo. I’ll see you in Vanuatu.
“You don’t know what it’s like out there. In the private sector they expect results.”
Dan Ackroyd. Ghostbusters. Truer words were never spoken in a movie.
I thought the science was settled.
CO2 is the cause and windmills and solar panels are the cure. Unless these professors plan on manufacturing and installing windmills and solar panels, what else is there for them to do?
Wow who knew, to save the world, all we need is a scary co2 seeing greta, and professors 😐
For such loud words, they have done absolutely jack s#it, as the u.n. has been crying end of days since at least the 1960s, but not all of a sudden academics can save the plant…. LOLOLOL
“The academics note that they are particularly well suited to the task of saving the world from global warming, given their expertise and prestige among the common people”
I’m having a difficult time deciding if the academic dudes do more damage in the classroom or away from it. Looks pretty much like and, a jump ball.
On the other hand, taxpayers end up funding this virtue signaling, no matter what.
Well, to me the scary thing is that a couple of them at least are at the top level of engineering schools.
If I were an insurance company, I’d find out where their recent graduates went to work – and raise their professional liability rates by 1000% (or cancel their policies entirely).
It’s not only the kids now skipping out, but the teachers, too. Maybe just shut down school and save a lot of money.
What a scam.
“I’d like to be relieved of my normal workload but continue to get paid the same so that I can engage in complete bull**** and look and feel good about myself among my peer group.
What a scam.
“Universities are the bastions of wisdom and knowledge…..”
To me, that is becoming increasingly debatable these days.
More like bastions of leftist dogma and indoctrination in many cases. And in the case of Ivy league Law, Economics, history, and Polysci, bastions for the training of connected government elitists.
They are conflating wisdom and knowledge. They are NOT the same. If they were, Hitler wouldn’t have had a chance. Starting in the 1890’s the ‘bastions of wisdom and knowledge’ taught that Germans were the end result of evolution and that other groups, especially Jews and Gypsies were not as evolved.
The prospect of that tipsy old blowhard, ‘preaching to the choir’ down at the Hen & Chicken about the so-called ‘climate crisis’ is truly offal.
Someone local ought to go down there and do some serious heckling.
More than 1000 gullible fools.
Both psyentists and politicos have been telling us for years – The Science Is Settled.
Now they tell us that they are not needed to do the job for which they are handsomely paid for a year.
Great. Sack the twats.
And just what do they think they will do that is not already being done (not that it needs to be done)? Spend more time in protesting? More time pounding on politicans doors. What a sorry excuse to get out of teaching. Come to think of it we might be better off if they weren’t in the classroom. Be gone with them all.
This should be in the nightly news to be ridiculed. It won’t, and that’s why it’s depressing.
If these PhD brainiacs in academia were so smart they wouldn’t propose to selfishly request extra time off to stop climate change. They would go to the root of the problem and propose oil company geologists and geophysicists have extra days off so their time is reduced and they can’t discover more evil hydrocarbons.
Oh wait! That won’t work because oil companies actually expect their employees to show up and do the job they were hired to do.
Can someone help this dear child? She went the wrong way! This is all wrong. She shouldn’t be here. She should be back in school on the other side of the ocean.
You have stolen her dreams and her childhood with your empty words. … People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!
https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg/status/1190290034131267591
Does anyone have a row boat, a balloon, that you could spare? Do it for the children… and don’t be like this rapscallion!
https://twitter.com/Tony__Heller/status/1190349783950450688
No, she does not need to cross the Atlantic, she *wants* to cross the Atlantic. My grandfather had to work hard for years before he could afford to go back.
It shouldn’t be a problem, if she can use a computer, she should be able to do schoolwork from anywhere.
I hear northern California is usually nice this time of year. Lots of wind power, lots of places to charge Arnold’s Tesla.
Why there is not another letter by various signatories that will state it is a propaganda-led agenda without any sound scientific basis. Submit those side by side and make people aware of the whole underlying mean motive.
‘..In these fields, well defined organizational structures and active strategies exist for employees to anticipate and manage their emotional distress,” they declare.’
Translation: There are shoulders available for employees to cry on.
Talk about making things more complicated than they need to be…
When I was in the military (admittedly a long time ago) emotional distress was dealt with by getting on with the job. My pilot was killed in an aircraft accident. I was lead mourner at his funeral in the morning, airborne with the boss immediately afterwards.
You can’t fix stupid !
“Andrew Cuomo: ‘We Didn’t Have Hurricanes’ Before Climate Change”
https://dailycaller.com/2019/11/01/andrew-cuomo-hurricanes-climate-change/
ROTFLMAO
Hold them to their words.
Give them their brief sabbaticals.
It their absence fails to attract notice because Academia doesn’t need them; can their butts permanently.
While reading this article, I had a brief image of the self described saviors being handed shovels to help build a sea wall; install a wind turbine; dig anchorages for solar arrays; dig trenches for solar heated sidewalks; whatever.
That brief mental image was of a bunch of egotistical dullards holding shovels they never intend to use.
In a high pitched voice, they’re saying; “Werk”!?
What they really mean is that they believe they are best at telling the rest of us to work, suffer, do without; while they plan to forever fly, drive, have warm homes in winter, cool homes in summer and well cooked meals.
It’s a crime that the Royal Geographical Society has declined to such depths.
“I couldn’t make this sort of schist up, if I was trying,”
Actually, you probably could, but you would need a sabbatical to get it done…
An admission that climate scientists are really anti fossil fuel activists.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/02/03/hidden-hand/
https://ncc-1776.org/tle2010/tle556-20100207-02.html
Don’t have a mouth full of beer when you get to the end. Can’t say I didn’t warn you.
Well done, David. that one has aged well.
From the article: “Climate Psychology Alliance (CPA)”
Well, I laughed out loud when I read that. At first, I thought it was a little absurd, but I suppose there is a need for climate psychologists since there appear to be a lot of people who are very stressed out over human-caused climate change rhetoric, thanks to the efforts of the CO2 scaremongers.
There’s a lot of attempted brainwashing going on out there.
The fastest way to REDUCE a nation’s economic output and set it on a path to demise is to intentionally reduce the productivity of its workforce. Worker productivity (number of widgets produced per person-hour) is probably THE most important metric that economists use to study/make economic output projections by looking at changes in worker productivity.
Bill Conerly, PhD in economics, wrote this in Forbes 4 years ago:
“Productivity is the most important determinant of the standard of living of a group of people, a nation or a planet. Productivity in its simplest form is output per hour worked, and its recent slower growth rate is distressing. This article summarizes why productivity is crucial to our standard of living.
source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/billconerly/2015/05/19/productivity-and-economic-growth/#2c81ba785417
So yes, the Greens and the other socialist idiots who want to destroy Western capitalism love shortened work weeks and more sabbaticals and paid vacations. They are all for pushing lower worker productivity by government fiat.
Lower worker productivity –> lower economic growth –> lower energy use growth –> lower emissions + lower standards of living for the workers. Basically it’s an elitist’s set-up for, “Let them and their families go cold and hungry for their laziness.”
The working class has often had an answer for the “let them eat cake” elite. The elite never like the answer. In America right now, that answer is Trump. Other nations will find their unique answers. The elite will like none of them.
I recommend they spend their time at the beach where they can monitor the sea level rise first hand.
Distinction Rebellion?
Check out the lead cartoon.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/the-news-in-cartoons/ss-AAJ7oYd?ocid=spartanntp
They should be relieved of their responsibilities for the rest of their lives. So they could do something good for humanity in another field of work.
Every member of the global warming cult has earned a sinecure, and elected parliamentarians should be replaced 60% by nominees of universities (excluding geoscientists and engineers) and 40% by nominees of the national broadcaster.
,
It’s past time to cut Federal funding for the Academic Extension arm of the Deep State…where they use Group Oppression Studies and Climate Fraud Research…and Campus Censorship of any opposing views…TO DECONSTRUCT the country.
Many Universities are now doing more harm than good….AND ALL SOCIAL SCIENCES DEPARTMENTS do nothing but harm and are a danger to civilization.
What utter nonsense. As if our climate never changes but for our actions. This guy’s comments are proof, as if any were actually needed, that it requires very little actual intelligence to create and academic career.
They already have 365 work-free days every year. Since 2020 is a leap year, I suppose it’s understandable they want an increase.
Perhaps if they had retained Dr. David Mackay of Cambridge as their spokesperson they might have projected some small sense of competence in the field.
Sadly, he has taken that sabbatical from whence none return, but he was kind enough to leave behind a free book of his research at withouthotair.com, so it’s unlikely we will be needing to pay anyone to sit and think about the problem.
Hans Rosling wrote Factfulness shortly before shuffling off this mortal coil, but there is a charge for it. In a nutshell, things are getting a lot better, all over.
HEY OF IT GETS THEM OUT OF THE CLASSROOM AND KEEPS THEM FROM INDOCTRINATING OUR CHILDREN….I’M ALL FOR IT!!!!!
You just misused a perfectly good word……….using it for something it is not. “Schist” is not, cutely, hatched -up slang word. Geologically and petrographically speaking, a schist is a type of metamorphic rock.
Check out your snark before you use it……schist-head.
No schist, Sherlock.
I’m a fracking geologist. I know my schist. However, it was gneiss of you to make a fool of yourself.
Oh, and an ellipsis consists of three dots… Never take grammar for granite.
Academia trashed it’s reputation as a bastion of wisdom many years ago. It is now run by political activists infiltrated over the years peddling hysteria. 97% of these purported scientists are just tools of these activists. Fortunately for us the 3% do a very good job albeit at great risk to their careers.
These signatories are the activists asking for time off to pursue tteir political agenda, no doubt at our expense. The trouble is that the rot is in high places; so they could well get what they ask for.
And there, lurking behind the scenes are the politically based UNFCC and IPCC similarity infected, giving claimed credence and support to the whole.
Those who can do. Those who can’t teach.
If any of those clowns were capable of “fixing” anything they wouldn’t be professors.
I see there is a drama teacher in the list. How to combat climate change through dance…
One can only hope that they all gather together in a building without a phone sanitiser….
Drama teacher… Wasn’t that Justin Trudeau’s schtick before he got his current government job?
I thought he was a drama queen… 😆
But that’s more a characteristic, than a qualification.