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!
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.