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Sometimes, Bruce C. Glavovic is so proud to be an environmental scientist, studying coastal planning, and educating future researchers that it brings him to tears.

Other times, he wonders if these are enough. Scientists have proven beyond doubt that climate change is making the planet worse. Yet his work has often failed to encourage governments to address the problem. Dr. When Glavovic told scientists that his research was unheard of, he said it was tragic and they continued to produce more.

“For God’s sake, we had 26 Conferences of the Parties meeting,” he said, referring to the United Nations global warming summits. More scientific reports, another set of charts. “Seriously, I mean, what difference will that make?”

A professor at Massey University in New Zealand, 61-year-old Dr. It was this frustration that prompted Glavovic and two colleagues to send a jolt in the normally cautious, rarefied world of environmental research lately. Inside an academic journalThey urged climate scientists to organize a mass strike, halting their research until nations take action against global warming.

Predictably, many researchers have called the idea false or worse, calling it “a supernova of stupidity.” someone put from Twitter. But the article addresses questions that many climate scientists have been asking themselves lately: Does what we do in our lives really make a difference? How can we get elected officials to act on threats we have clearly identified? Are we becoming activists? Do we sacrifice our credibility and composure as academics by doing this?

Dr. Glavovic says he believes the research pause will give his fellow researchers a chance to think, really think about how best to use their skills in the thin window humans have left for changing the planet’s orbit. “The clock is ticking,” he said.

climate change there is a way to make everyone feel both too small and uncomfortably large – too big to make the problem worse, too small to stop it. Climate scientists are so devoted to this issue that their discomfort may run deeper.

For scientists of many types, the coronavirus pandemic has fueled a sense that scientific experts and political officials are at best uneasy allies, with distrust and misinformation undermining society’s capacity to work towards complex collective goals.

Dr. These thoughts were floating around as Glavovic worked with about 270 other experts on the subject. final report By the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations body that evaluates climate research. new report, All 3,675 pagesIt was published Monday and concludes that global warming has outstripped our ability to cope.

Each IPCC assessment is a massive multi-year effort by researchers and representatives from 195 governments. Every row, every chart has been fine-tuned to ensure it’s backed by evidence. The hours are long; work is not paid. panel, which Shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007has provided a very important foundation in terms of scientific facts to the global climate talks. But his reports do not deliberately suggest policies for governments to enact. They just list the options.

Dr. According to Glavovic, the panel’s efforts long ago laid out what the world should do. He thinks everyone’s time and energy would be better spent making sure this is done.

“My involvement with the IPCC has been a defining feature of my life for the past five to six years; I slept, I got drunk, I ate IPCC,” said Dr. glavovic “It was an absolute privilege.”

Still, he decided not to agree with the panel’s further consideration. And he wants scientists to join him.

Few seem ready to do so, but many have similarly weak faith in government action. journal Nature researched dozens of scientists working on it. another recent IPCC report. Sixty percent said they believe the planet will warm by at least 3 degrees Celsius this century compared to pre-industrial times—much more than current international targets. A similar share said they experienced anxiety, grief or other distress related to climate change.

As oceans rise, forests burn, and carbon dioxide levels continue to rise, even scientists who don’t want to strike wonder how long they can continue to serve as agents of unbiased, soft-spoken data and evidence.

“Our initial admission must be that this is not working,” said Wolfgang Cramer, another author of the new IPCC report. “This doesn’t seem enough.”

‘An Incredibly Depressive Thought’

Scientists in any field want their work to make an impact. Most are not against some of the most powerful political and economic forces on the planet.

Maria Fernanda Lemos, an IPCC writer in Rio de Janeiro, said climate researchers, like doctors, tend to develop “a little bit of psychological protection, a kind of emotional withdrawal.” “Otherwise, it would not have been possible to carry out this study.”

For Iain White, a professor of environmental planning at the University of Waikato in New Zealand, a feeling of emptiness flooded his mind when he looked up. carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere at different points in your life

In 1973, the year he was born, it was 330 parts per million; About 350 in 1988, the year the IPCC was created; and pushing the 370 at the turn of the millennium.

Dr. “I concluded that it would increase every year until I retire,” White said. “It was an incredibly depressing thought.”

Scientists said they haven’t spoken enough about the emotional cost of researching planetary catastrophe. “Examples of grief and people who don’t choose to have children, and all those kinds of things you hear that you wouldn’t really think about 20-30 years ago, but are pretty common now.”

Timothy F. Smith, 50, a professor of sustainability at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia, said he and his colleagues have long grappled with doubts about their work: the need?

And so, in early 2020, Dr. Smith, Dr. White and Dr. Glavovic met in the New Zealand seaside town of Tairua. Their plan was to draft a joint research project. Instead, they pondered why it was so difficult for any research to make a difference. They concluded that stopping this research and halting IPCC assessments is scientists’ best hope to encourage elected officials to take action.

Mixed Messages

When the three professors called the leading scientific journals to strike, there were very few participants.

Dr. “None of us have ever been rejected this many times,” Glavovic said. Eventually, their article was published in the journal Climate and Development.

Dr. Glavovic traces his willingness to take a stand to grow up as a white South African under apartheid, a system he detests. In his 20s, he risked jail time by demanding to become a conscientious objector to conscription.

“Being in the military is a very interesting experience and everyone around you is carrying a rifle and you are not,” he said.

Part of his argument is easily misunderstood. He calls for an end to IPCC assessments, not because the panel believes it has failed, but because it considers it a stunning success. He proved the links between human activities and global warming.

“We propose a moratorium on science that simply documents the decline of human well-being and planetary health,” he said. “This science does not contribute to solutions.”

Harvard science historian Naomi Oreskes acknowledged that the panel’s assessments sent a “mixed message”. “The IPCC comes up with another report that once again says the science is definitive every time,” he said.

Well, then “why do we need another report?” said.

Pierre Friedlingstein, a professor at the University of Exeter who worked on previous IPCC reports, said past assessments have ended with a lot of discussion about how the next one could be better. But only governments, not scientists, can make major changes to the way the panel works.

“At the end of the day,” he said, “you have a system that is incredibly similar to the one we had before.”

Susan Solomon, an atmospheric chemist who has worked on IPCC reports in the past, said science can indeed be decided on climate change and global average temperatures.

“But so what?” said. “No one lives on the global average.”

In the 1980s, Dr. Solomon’s research helped reach a comprehensive agreement to restore the ozone layer. This effort was successful, he said, because people realized how the problem was affecting them personally. Similarly, as scientists improve their understanding of the local and regional threats of climate change, elected leaders will feel more pressure to act, he said.

“There is always more to learn about the impacts of climate change and how to tackle future risks,” said IPCC spokesman Andrej Mahecic.

Other researchers say high-level action on carbon emissions isn’t the only point. They say their responsibilities are much broader.

In India, “local governments are desperately looking for data and information,” said Aditi Mukherji, a Kolkata-based IPCC writer. “They’re looking for scientists to tell them what municipal action they can take,” he said.

Edmond Totin, an IPCC writer in Benin, said that few leaders in West Africa see climate change as a burning issue, not compared to education or security. But ordinary people are hungry to know the changes they are seeing in water resources, crop yields and hunting patterns.

Dr. “I make more of an impact at the local level than at the high level,” Totin said. “I don’t even think I’ve made any changes at the global level.” He laughed.

When Debora Ley, an IPCC writer in Guatemala, is discouraged by the latest dire climate reports, she thinks of the people in the villages she helped set up small renewable energy systems.

“The first time they turn on a light bulb and see it,” he said. “Excitement on their faces.”

But there are also difficult days. Dr. “Sometimes the best friend is ice cream,” Ley said.

Putting forward the strike calls, Dr. Glavovic, Dr. Smith and Dr. It prompted White to think critically about his remaining years of study. Indeed, that’s all they want scientists to do as well.

Dr. “I don’t want to document the fall,” White said. “I want to try and use how little time we have to at least bring some joy.”