You have consistently sucked the air out of the room bickering with *multiple* people. You've wrapped yourself in a heroic banner and pretty much declared you are on a crusade to sort us all out, and the rest of us need to get behind you to help push. That will not endear you to the myriad of researchers and citizen scientists here who have been studying (and continue to be) the Arctic for decades.
Thank you for your comment.
I certainly don't see myself as a hero. I am throwing a desperate Hail Mary as I watch the future get subsumed.
With all due respect to the people who spend their lives researching the Arctic, and becoming experts, I thank them. They and countless others have performed a great service in educating people.
At this point we have a surplus of information available to anyone interested. Civilization is not going over the precipice because of a lack of scientific understanding.
We are going under as a result of social inertia. At this point it's probably a lot more important to understand the bystander effect than Albedo Warming Potential.
AGW is primarily a social science problem at this point. This is a community which you claim is"terrified" of AGW, but there is very little discussion of what we do about it.
We're all watching it happen. No accountability to each other. Committed perhaps to adding to unnecessary surplus of understanding that we're screwed.
Twice this year, > 1M kids skipped school on the same day to protest climate change and the world moved on with hardly a pause. Are we with them or are we quiet bystanders?
It's interesting that even in a community that is mostly accepting of the risk of AGW and terrified, that the social construct of our obligation to do anything about it is taboo.
If you want to understand why the world can't embrace the mission of fighting AGW, maybe we can start by understanding why ASIF can't embrace it as a mission.
What is within us that prevents us from joining those kids?
We're not fighting. We're bystanding. We're throwing out surplus science and largely spectating.
It's all fucking madness. I'm not a hero. I'm alone. I'm outraged. I study history. I'm all too familiar with how easy it is for good people to do nothing when evil arises.
Rich;
There are places for discussion about action, and there are places for discussion about research - which puts tools in the hands of people like you and me to take our arguments to the street.
These forums are dedicated to science, for the most part, but we *do* have active discussions about action.
Because of this, you also miss the the fact, the virtual certainty that most of us *are* taking action, across multiple venues to address climate change.
Some like Neven and myself are working hard to reduce our and our families personal carbon foot print.
We all contribute to the discussions here trying to understand
AND BETTER ARTICULATE exactly what is going on in the environment. Discussions and research products here have frequently been picked up in mass media and significantly contribute to public understanding.
Contributions here have prompted new research by scientists studying the Arctic. *Tell* me that isn't important?!
Do not think for one moment that the scientific discussion here isn't helping.
Similarly, do not assume that forum members are not actively pursuing remedies to climate change elsewhere - whether lobbying our governments, educating people about the science, contributing to environmental organizations or taking direct action themselves. (edit: Some of us may also actually be actively running as or supporting candidates for political office in an effort to directly change policy...)
It's all going on, Rich. We just don't talk about it here for the most part,
because "this" isn't the appropriate forum for those discussions.
There *is* a place for the dialog you want to have. It even exists here in other threads:
https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/board,16.0.htmlYou will find people there very willing to engage you on exactly the topics you are describing.
Most of the posting you do in the Arctic Sea Ice threads really isn't helping, and in fact is making things harder.
For the sake of coherence, please consider moving your concerns there and reduce the amount of noise and friction being generated in the Arctic Sea Ice threads.