I’m a climate scientist. Here’s how I’m handling ‘climate grief’

Posted: August 17, 2023 by oldbrew in alarmism, climate, Psychobabble, trees
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Not meaning to sound harsh here, but why not try this Talkshop remedy – pull yourself together. Climate has always varied naturally, and always will. That’s it.
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Researchers must find personal ways to cope with impending losses — one way is by taking small solutions-oriented actions, says Kimberley R. Miner in Nature’s Career Column.

Last September, before the rains came, my field team learnt that it was probably too late for half the blue oaks affected by California’s drought in the region in which we were working.

Because of years of ongoing drought, many of the trees would not recover from the long-term water loss and would die. The next morning, I sat outside our science team meeting and cried.

A friend sat with me and explained that she had just recovered from an episode of extreme climate grief brought about by studying rapidly changing terrestrial ecosystems. She had started taking weekends off (many of us work seven days a week) and encouraged me to do so, as well.

After we talked, I walked around the parking area for a while, listening to the birds and watching the midday light filter through the diverse trees in downtown Santa Barbara. I breathed the ocean air and grounded myself in the present, where the air was cool and the birds were singing.

Soon after that, I started taking weekends off to kayak near my home in Southern California and hike on the trails above Pasadena, and built a small bird garden on the porch of my apartment. I also started talking frankly to my colleagues about the emotional turmoil that is often sparked by working as a climate scientist today, and many others had similar stories.

I am in my mid-thirties, working at NASA as a scientist, and I already have five scientist friends with severe, emergent health challenges. They are all affected by overwork, exhaustion and extreme stress.

The only other thing they all have in common is that they study climate change.

Full article here.

Comments
  1. Kip Hansen says:

    Bloke ==> Folks suffering “climate grief’ has been propagandized into an unhealthy mental state. They need to read the other side of the story — and stop feeding their mental anquish and instability by watching and reading climate crisis scary stories.

  2. ivan says:

    I think the biggest problem with these so called ‘climate scientists’ is that they are very gullible and have been fooled by the idiots of the IPCC and the MSM with all the scare stories.

    It starts with the enviros proclaiming that nature must be left alone and then they get all upset when there are large forest fires because the forests weren’t managed. From there it progresses to being taught in schools and universities where the ‘climate scientists’ are making very good money by playing computer games, they call those games models, but there hasn’t been one that has managed to predict anything in the real world – the best example of that is the cartoon by Rick McKee ‘Actual Climate Change Pronouncements by Scientists : A brief recap’ which shows how wrong they were from 1970 on.

  3. JB says:

    How does one be an effective scientist while being emotionally invested in a field totally controlled by Nature?
    Hey, I’m more concerned about the weather pattern change that’s affected my garden. Our zucchini never budded, the leaks are stunted as are the cantaloupe. Peas never got going before it got too hot. The watermelon also did not bud, and I got all of 2 carrots. On the bright side, cucumbers were prolific again this year, and we managed to get 16 tomatoes. It will be interesting to see what the potatoes did come Fall.

    As for trees, I would just love to take down those mighty oaks fouling up our front yard and turn them into furniture!

    Can’t imagine any work load in Climate science capable of exhausting people.

  4. Philip Mulholland says:

    The R. in her name is Rain.
    Kimberley Rain Miner.
    Here is an example of her work:
    Earth to Mars: A Protocol for Characterizing Permafrost in the Context of Climate Change as an Analog for Extraplanetary Exploration.

  5. Phoenix44 says:

    The problem is they have convinced themselves that everything is climate change and that every forecast of doom comes true. Note that’s she’s crying not because something happened but because something is forecast to happen.

    This is not reality but delusion. She’s simply delusional.

  6. Chaswarnertoo says:

    Seems many mentally ill, gullible people become climate catastrophe activists. They are obviously unsuited to the role.

  7. watersider says:

    Percisly Chas, you got it in one – mental illness.

  8. stpaulchuck says:

    these are NOT scientists! These are Feelz driven psychotics who switched over to science degrees “or else we’re ALL GONNA DIE!” Along the way they find they are pissants trying to change the massive forces of nature to yield a future of their idiot dreams totally at odds with reality.

    My sight of their futures? Well I expect a number of them to off themselves (really), some more to become drug addicts (if not already), and a few to wander off “to the mountain” to contemplate their belly buttons. In the meantime there will be a continuous stream of asinine proposals like blocking out the sun [*facepalm*]. Keep an eye on them for the sake of the planet and OUR futures as they will get more strident over time as they fail and fail with their unrealistic expectations of their ‘gigantic’ intellects [*laughs behind hand*] They are the danger to us and to Earth, not the Satanic Gases.

  9. oldbrew says:

    I am in my mid-thirties, working at NASA as a scientist, and I already have five scientist friends with severe, emergent health challenges. They are all affected by overwork, exhaustion and extreme stress.

    The only other thing they all have in common is that they study climate change.
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    Which is the problem – NASA or climate?

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