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Comment by spywaregorilla | Hacker News Reader

No because there's very little reason we cannot do both simultaneously. Space is no more the opportunity cost of climate science than any other thing we do on earth.

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You would think that. But I'm one of a few scientists that work on the only fully integrated climate observation station for the Greenland ice sheet. I'm headed to Greenland as I type this. The Greenland ice sheet is the fastest melting piece of ice in the world, and is one of the canaries-in-the-coal mine that we need to observe to understand catastrophic climate change impacts. I was just discussing with my colleagues the other day the amount funding that projects such as the JWST get, and how it's extremely difficult to get funding for climate observations. We operate the station on a paltry shoestring budget and it was nearly shutdown by the NSF last year.

And. To be clear. It's a difficult discussion to have. Bickering about which science projects deserve more funding is a lose-lose battle, like cutting of each other's kneecaps (JWST is an incredible project). Yet climate science is extremely poorly funded, in particular monitoring projects or analysis. Climate science has also fallen prey to the "must be new big and shiny" problem that everything else has.

But it's incorrect to state that climate science is competing with JWST more than it is competing with any other venture, scientific or otherwise, for funding.

Of course that's incorrect, and that's not what I'm stating. The comment I replied to implied that we can (and are) doing both simultaneously. I'm trying to show the degree to which that is or is not true. I even said clearly that arguing about funding isn't worthwhile, for exactly the point you make. It's philosophically useless and categorically weak. The idea is simple: we don't care about global climate all that much, either studying it or fixing it. The funding and social effort shows that clearly. We prefer sexy shiny science the same way we prefer cars and iphones shipped from China.

> The idea is simple: we don't care about global climate all that much, either studying it or fixing it.

This is why I'm so pessimistic about the future. I don't really think we are all willing to sacrifice our shiny objects and accept a less carbon intensive lifestyle when the cost doesn't seem imminent. I often compare it to being overweight due to u healthy habbits. People aren't born obese, but slowly choose that lifestyle for immediate pleasures all the while the danger only creeps up.

Not articulated very well because I'm on mobile... best of luck to everyone.

how frustrating it is for you to do what you do and know what you know? I only know the “common” knowledge about climate change and it makes me angry every time I think about what we know and where we’re still heading.

I'm fairly early in my career (read: youngish). And, truthfully, I'm very much having an existential crisis. I often wonder what the worth in studying the climate is. After all, we already have an extremely detailed understanding of the basics. Does refining our estimate of melt and other such issues, reducing the error bars, really contribute anything more to society? I'm not sure. It feels fruitless. But I recently had a friend explain that I should consider myself more a documentarian than a researcher which shifted my perspective quite a lot. Some people here will like the quote:

"Somebody has to document what happened, it's better than selling ads on the internet. Imagine a world where we burn ourselves to death and we didn't even keep track of the specifics, it seems even more tragic."

Anyway. I think the answer is clearly... frustrating.

thanks for replying. and I like the quote :-)

>And, truthfully, I'm very much having an existential crisis. I often wonder what the worth in studying the climate is. After all, we already have an extremely detailed understanding of the basics.

This same line of thought is what turned me away from pursuing a degree/career in climate science. It feels like an area where you can make significant contributions to the analysis of impacts and gain greater understanding of the future direction things will take (and the rate), it'll be akin to shuffling deckchairs on the titanic in terms of being able to actually effect any meaningful change; since I was frustrated in my current career with a sense of futility I realized the move into climate would not be satisfying, as much as the topic was of interest.

Similarly with working in industry 'tackling' climate change. Pinning hope on technological advancements are (IMO) fundamentally flawed. Plus much of 'green' industry where the majority of jobs are to be fund amount to a thin veneer of PR for organizations that are significantly exacerbating the issue.

As an aside, how much stock do you put in the notion that the first Blue-Ocean Event will significantly ramp up the rate of change being felt globally?

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