A new study by climate change researchers about climate change researchers found that, ironically, they are more likely to travel than other academics.
Of course, some of that may result from needing to examine the evidence of climate change in different parts of the world—someone has to collect the data and physical evidence—but some of it may be due to long-ingrained habits.
A study, published in the journal Global Environmental Change, and written by researchers at the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research, investigated the habit of flying by academic staff, relative to their seniority and whether or not they worked in the field of climate change.
Their upfront conclusion: “Our research makes clear that knowledge alone is insufficient to change workplace travel choices, and in fact those with arguably the most knowledge of all – climate change professors – fly more than any other group.”
They do point out, however, that climate change experts were more likely to believe that flying for work is more justifiable than flying for pleasure, and that 44% of them said they at least sometimes try to offset the carbon impact of flying, compared to 26% of those in other fields.
And yet, while it’s easy to quote, it’s more difficult to demonstrate it’s true in any area of human endeavor!
When the “Climate Change Experts” all agree that its been around for a million years they will all be redundant. Don’t expect any of them to fall on their own sword.
Just because something’s been around a long time doesn’t mean it isn’t accelerating, or that we can do nothing about it. An ember can smolder for a long time before it causes an open flame…
Unfortunately, changing the planet’s climate does NOT seem to be beyond our abilities! And emptying a parking lot in an efficient manner, of course, is not as such very difficult – the difficulty arises from getting people to understand and buy into the strategy and the rationale behind it. It’s actually not a bad analogy for the climate change issue.
To paraphrase Mark Twain: “An expert is an ordinary fellow from another town.”
We can’t even figure out how to properly empty parking lots after a ball game. Seems to me that the challenge of changing the planet’s climate is beyond our ability. But what do I know?
In 1849, French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose “ – the more things change, the more they stay the same… Lets hope we dont have another Ice Age – then were really are in deep do-dah.