More Than 10,000 STEM PhDs Have Left Federal Agencies In 1 Year; Climatologist Kate Marvel One Of Them (Interview)

[hatrack]

EDIT

Q. And meanwhile, those teams of people are shrinking. In fact, one of the things that haunts me is that the organ we use to do the research, the human brain, is itself being altered by the phenomenon under study. Heat degrades working memory and executive function. Chronic stress reshapes the hippocampus. Wildfire smoke exposure has neuroinflammatory effects. You yourself have written about running world-ending simulations and the emotional weight of that work. Do you ever think about whether the conditions of doing climate science in 2026 are affecting the quality of the science itself?

A. Oh, 100 percent. People are like, “What are we doing?” If nobody is going to listen to us, if we’re just going to be the scientist in disaster movies who exists to be ignored and then gets killed in the first big set piece, what are we doing here? There is a lot of frustration. A lot of, “It’s not our fault that this is politicized!” We just told you what was happening and then everybody got mad at us. If you read that New York Times article on my resignation, some guy I’ve never met who’s calling me “Kate” — I guess we’re on first-name terms, guy I’ve never met — he’s saying it’s all the scientists’ fault. I don’t think it is, man. And to be blamed for as much just feels bad. We are trained to be introspective. We are trained to always think: Oh my gosh, that’s a mistake; can I fix this mistake? But that means we also probably waste a lot of mental energy thinking, “What did we do wrong?” when maybe we didn’t do anything that wrong.

Q. Your book, Human Nature: Nine Ways to Feel About Our Changing Planet, is organized around some of these feelings. You argue that climate scientists are allowed to have feelings about the planet they study and that perhaps the rest of us should, too. That’s the opposite of a norm in science that says feelings are noise as opposed to signal. How do you think about the relationship between emotional honesty and scientific credibility?

A. The book came out at a weird time. Look who’s in charge. Look how they act. I don’t ever want anybody to call me emotional ever again. If you look at how these guys are acting, nobody should ever have imposter syndrome ever again. For me, there is no contrast, no tension, between being a human being and being open about your values and emotions and what you would like to see in the world, and at the same time, getting the math right. I think it’s lying when we pretend that we are perfectly objective and unhuman. We’re not. But at the same time, we do have a responsibility to look at the data, to change our minds where necessary, and to get the numbers right.

EDIT

https://grist.org/science/kate-marvel-nasa-departure-human-nature-book/

[wolfie001]

1. Replaced by racist, science-denying homophobes

Because that's your run-of-the-mill tRUMP supporter.