This week has been eye opening
about a lot of things. The first of which: don’t try biking with a dog unless
both you and the dog are specifically trained for this feat. A couple of good facial abrasions and
sprained wrist later, I’ll certainly think through my actions a lot more
carefully in the future.
That minor stupidity aside, there
were two major events that happened this week that made me realize some
struggles I will likely encounter for the rest of my career.
The first occurrence was an all
hands meeting for my division. There were bagels/cream cheese, coffee and
orange juice in Styrofoam cups. I find it odd that the top investigators of
anthropogenic waste generation didn’t order recyclable cups. The topics covered ranged from safety,
recruitment and retention to budgeting. TLoTH is a national laboratory, paid
for by American tax dollars. Unlike public state schools, like the one I
graduated from, employees of TLoTH actually acknowledge their publicly funded salaries.
Even further, there is to some extent accountability to the American public
regarding our output. The other side of this reality is that the people who
decide how to spend America’s tax money is Congress. I realize that Congress
members are elected to represent their constituents but by extension their
constituents (by majority, ish) probably agree with their stance on a variety
of political issues. Usually this doesn’t affect me in the least. However.
The administrative person who
presented the slides on budget showed an interesting discrepancy. While
President Obama proposed a significant budget for renewable energy and climate
change research, the House of Representatives proposed smaller budgets. On at
least one topic, the difference in the budgets was close to a billion
dollars. Billion with a B. The reality of the funding for a quarter of my
division is that so many American citizens do not believe climate change exists
that they elect representatives who also hold this view and vote against
funding research. This could mean tens of people lose funding for their work or
lose their jobs entirely. I wholeheartedly believe that humans are wondrous
creatures who can invent their way out of almost any situation. But there is no
way we can invent ourselves out of a burned out planet if the people who
dedicate their lives to researching which ways it’ll burn up are out of jobs.
One of the solutions presented was
to continue hiring a cheaper workforce. I am keenly aware that I was hired
because I am cheap labor. But what kind of incentive is there in the long run
if I get my PhD (still cheap) and somehow actually found a career for myself.
Mid-career scientists are the lab’s current biggest recruitment issue because
so many people are retiring. But if you’re not raising the mid-career folk in
house, you’re also not able to afford poaching them. Unpredictable funding
shifts that likely reset every 8 years certainly presents a daunting career
prospective. In publicly funded places like national labs, there aren’t many
privatization options as buffers for when these shifts occur. You gotta go with
the flow, and if the flow happens to go in a different direction than you know
anything about, too bad. If it happens to return to an area that was researched
a lot in the 60’s, chances are most if not all the experts are retired or dead.
Discontinuities and inconsistencies like this are one factor as to why our
renewable energy sources haven’t accelerated at the same rate as other
technologies.
The other incident that genuinely
shocked me was that I finally had a conversation with a peer who flat-out does
not believe in climate change. Now I understand that climate change is a very
complicated subject with a lot of misconceptions. I am a fan of putting into short
sentences big implications of anthropogenic impact. For example: The drought in
California is so big that the loss of water has actually lead to crustal
uplift, like when a heavy weight gets lifted off your shoulders and you can
finally straighten up. (source)
I live in a town of scientists. I
think the thing that most surprised me about this heated 45 minute discussion
was how inadequate I felt the responses were. His argument basically boiled
down to this: “Climate change doesn’t exist because the world is ruled by
money. People like Al Gore have created compelling propaganda in a similar way
to Hitler for the sole purpose of capital gains.” He demanded that unbiased
third parties review publications. I responded that no such thing as unbiased exists but
peer review is in place for exactly that purpose. He posed that absolutely no
evidence exists for pretty much any geology or climate science construct. I was
pretty impressed that someone who I know uses the internet has never
investigated the legitimacy of a magazine like Science, Nature or Geology. Even
when I brought up the APA (American Psychological Association, there was a
nurse at the table, I wanted to make sure she was represented but I couldn’t
remember the name of a physician or nursing org), he seemed to not acknowledge
its existence.
To some extent, I understand
staying ignorant over certain issues. I am certainly at fault for not reading
enough about any of the police violence and response that goes on in our
country. The rock under which I live is very pretty. But I am unaccustomed to
someone so determined to ignore literally ALL scientific evidence and pose a “reason”
which is orthogonal to what I am trying to talk about. I invite anyone reading
this to please comment on how they regularly interact with people like this. I
want to particularly ask that commentary remain compassionate towards the
person who is disagreeing with you/me/anyone. Just because someone disagrees
with you, they don’t suddenly become a different person than they were ten
minutes ago. They are still your friends. But how do you educate or have a
compassionate disagreement with someone?
Anyway, I’ll leave you with this
recording of this song. I really love this song on the radio but I think watching
the artists perform it added another layer of depth to the raw emotion already
present.
