The video below is a repost of my May 20, 2018 list "Climate Scientists Expressing Nightmare/Anger/Fear/Gratitude/Other Feelings."
I was reminded of it after reading Hanna Krueger's December 4, 2020 Boston Globe article "‘Makes you ask why the hell we even bother.’ Infectious disease experts face disillusionment as COVID-19 pandemic worsens."
Krueger's article quotes a former Buddhist monk from Sri Lanka, epidemiologist and Harvard scientist Michael Mina: "At almost every step of this pandemic, we have failed magnificently as a country. And in ways that we just really didn’t need to fail.” Mina continues, "I’m just astounded by the dysfunction, the willingness to just stay the course as hundreds of thousands of people die, and the unwillingness to innovate in literally any way.” Mina "has been advocating for widespread at-home rapid antigen testing since March with little success." He said “I’ve realized that when we need to rise up as a country, we have truly no moral capacity to do it. It’s just the most mind-bending, complete 'Twilight Zone' experience that makes you ask why the hell we even bother.”
I respect Mina's emotional honesty, sincerity, and frustration. He is knowledgeable, hard-working, and has retained, so far, capacity to care. The article notes "And Mina, in all those hours spent not sleeping each week, continues his crusade to universally distribute at-home rapid tests." The article ends with Mina's words "I just see a lot of people dying. And I really want this pandemic to stop. I really want people to not die so much."
Similar emotional honesty of four Australian climate scientists was show in the video below:
The video notes "Among climate scientists, the conversation is turning to their personal plans." The scientists say "And you can cope with extreme heat much better if you've got cooler nighttime temperatures to sleep. [ . . . . ] I don't think there will be any safe places. [ . . . .] So my approach is to be as mobile, as flexible, as possible to be able to adapt to whatever is going to happen. My children are bilingual and we're working on a third language. Both children have three passports, and they actually have the freedom to be able to study and work either in the European Union, or in Canada, or in Australia. [ . . . . ] I've done what I can to protect my family. I can't protect them from changes in the global economy. I can't protect them from [ . . . ] mass migrations."
Regarding the need to educate and respond, Isaac Asimov said, "Well, it’s perhaps not important that every human being thinks so. How about the leaders thinking so? How about the opinion-makers thinking so? Ordinary people might follow them. If we didn’t have leaders who are thinking in exactly the opposite way; if we didn’t have people who are shouting hatred and suspicion of foreigners; if we didn’t have people who are shouting that it’s more important to be unfriendly than to be friendly; if we didn’t have people shouting somehow that people inside the country who don’t look exactly the way the rest of us look, that something’s wrong with them."
Today the University of Cumbria published "International Scholars Warning on Societal Disruption and Collapse." The post notes this "public letter signed by over 500 (updated 2/8/2021) scientists and scholars from 30 countries, calls on policy makers to engage more with the growing risk of societal disruption and collapse due to damage to the climate and environment. The letter invites focus on how to slow, prepare for, and help those already suffering from, such disruptions. The signatories are specialists in a range of subject areas that relate to this challenge, who commonly believe it is time to listen to all the scholarship on humanity’s predicament." The Guardian published a short version here.
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