“Half of the wildlife in Africa has died on my watch.” – Watts up with that?

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

Climate researchers want to be “administrators of grief, to hold the hand of society when we step into the unknown space of the climate crisis”.

Scientists have to face both facts and feelings when dealing with the climate crisis

Kimberly Nicholas

I was taught to use my head, not my heart. But when we acknowledge the sadness of what is lost, we can secure the future

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The testimony of the death or death of what we love looks very much like an environmental scientist job description these days. Over dinner, my colleague Ola Olsson summed up his career factually: “Half of the wild animals in Africa died on my watch.” He studied biodiversity because he loved animals and wanted to understand and protect them. Instead, his career has turned into a decade-long funeral.

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My dispassionate training did not prepare me for the increasingly frequent emotional crises of climate change. What do I tell the student who suffocates in my office when she reads that 90% of the seaweed she tries to protect should be killed by warming before she retires? In such cases, facts are cold comfort. The skill I had to develop on my own is finding the right bedside manner as a doctor on a feverish planet. trying to move beyond probabilities and scenarios, acknowledging what is important, and grieving for what is lost.

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It took me a long time to grapple with my climate and ecological grief, but swimming through is the only way forward. One role that environmental scientists can play is “to be stewards of grief, to hold the hand of society as we step into the unknown space of the climate crisis,” as my friend Leehi Yona so beautifully wrote when the 1.5C- IPCC report was published. As scientists, we have had much more time to watch the decline of what we love. We’re further down the path to where we all need to go as a society, face hard truths and still find ways to be kind and resilient, do better and get through together. We still have so much at stake that it is worth fighting for.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/24/scientists-facts-feelings-climate-crisis-sadness

Whenever I read something like this, I feel like I’ve just received an unexpected and unwanted random hug from a stranger. You know, the quick look to see if you have obvious signs of mental or physical illness, the quick check to make sure your wallet is still in your pocket.

Let’s just say I’m in no hurry to hold your hand and let you guide me, Kimberley.

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