A day later, and the range of reactions to this story is amazing.
https://twitter.com/annajanejoyner/status/1354167522552119297?s=20
It's worth putting the article link into the search box on Twitter and looking at the ways people react. If striking a nerve means anything, this is it.
propublica.org/article/the-cl…
propublica.org/article/the-cl…
Because it's working in holding people's attention, I'm with @annajanejoyner. And it's about time more people with @lizweil's narrative skills got to work. She's not going to stop here.
There are a few things I hope that @annajanejoyner, @aaronhuertas, @JacquelynGill, @BadAstronomer, @Ben_Inskeep, & @lizweil even, would take a second look at in the piece. Important parts are overlooked. I cc @yayitsrob, too, for the mental health angle.
No one, in any of many comments I've read, has questioned why Columbia undergrads would be focusing on plastic bags. propublica.org/article/the-cl… Until Sunrise, campuses were bereft of action; 350 was a tiny presence by the description of our interns (many from Columbia & Barnard). 
No one, in any of the comments I've read, has questioned how Peter could have gotten through Harvard without receiving education & deep discussion of climate change. As a physics major, no less. But if you're educating 'leaders,' or whatever, the entire class should be taught.
Many commenters found Peter's whiteness, maleness, and privilege grating. But in context, you have to understand how unusual it is for someone with his background and skills to do what he's doing. Most quants stay on Wall Street, as did one of my friends, also a physics Ph.D.
Many of us on the City Atlas team come out of the Ivy League. But proportionally the schools are a pathway to finance or tech, and a 50 tonne footprint, not to building an outhouse, raising chickens, and writing a book about climate change. ocs.yale.edu/outcomes/
The problem with a 50 tonne footprint is the horizontal line in the graph below, which is the per capita target for 2030.
https://twitter.com/steviedubyu/status/1336714839524323328?s=20
Is Peter's language unusual for a climate scientist confronted with an inert society? Here's the late Wally Broecker, speaking at Columbia in 2012.
bwog.com/2012/11/lectur…
bwog.com/2012/11/lectur…
On the mental health aspect, which @yayitsrob and others have brought up. Clearly Peter and his family are in distress, but they have a *reason* to be.
Peter's response is not my response. I've quit flying, and changed careers to help people figure out the info on this thread for themselves, but I haven't done the dumpster-diving thing. However, in 5 years, I may wish I'd done more than I have.
More broadly, mental health is a lens with which to view climate change, and it's why we should do our jobs better. Part of doing our jobs better is to not sugarcoat things. People need accurate information in order to brace themselves.
drive.google.com/file/d/1jRefJ6…
drive.google.com/file/d/1jRefJ6…
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