>"Elsewhere we have documented a pattern we label "erring on the side of least drama." By this we mean that scientists often have a tendency to avoid dramatic findings, because drama is associated with emotion, feelings, irrationality, and even femininity, qualities that have traditionally been viewed as at odds with scientific rationality. We have shown that in several domains related to climate change, scientists' estimates of various threats - CO2 emissions, Arctic Sea ice loss, Sea level rise - have tended to be low relative to actual outcomes. Scientists considered such underestimates to be "conservative" because they are conservative with respect to the question of when to sound an alarm or how loudly to sound it. (It is of course not conservative when viewed in terms of giving people adequate time to prepare.) The history recounted here is consistent with this finding: That WAIS assessments underestimated the threat of rapid ice sheet disintegration, because most of the scientists who participated were more comfortable with an estimate that they viewed as "Conservative" than with one that was not." (Discerning Experts, 2019. Michael Oppenheimer, Naomi Oreskes, Dale Jamieson, Keynyn Brysse, Jessica O'Reilly, Matthew Shindell, and Milena Wazeck)
Yeah, it's important for pessimists and pessimistic realists to have a place to talk about these things without the ever-pervasive prescription to hopium that seems to be tacked onto the end of every.single.article.
There can be an acceptance that things are too far gone for most people to impact positively, and that many people have consigned themselves to this. IMO as long as they aren't going out into public and trying to attack environmentalists who are trying to make changes, it's a good and healthy thing for people to have a community of like-minded individuals to talk with.
"I do this with all sincerity. I priced the book as little as I could (99 cents) and it’s even free for Amazon Prime members. Any meager money I make on this will be donated to whatever foundation I can find that can keep people from going to college. Nothing in my career has anything to do with this. It did not help me in any way to spend 100s of hours getting this book ready and available to you and your children.
I am shamed by the indentured servitude that our 22 years olds find themselves in when they graduate. Student loan debt just topped a trillion dollars for the first time. I am ashamed by an America that let this happen. I describe in the book the groups who benefit from that trillion dollars. They don’t care about 18 year olds. They care about their own egos. They care about money."
