Thread by @AukeHoekstra

I think we need to start talking about psychological health of climate scientists. They are talking each other and us into a depression. Depression is real and it's a soul destroying unhelpful affliction to have.

https://twitter.com/jeffgoodell/status/1465358586465374211

Climate scientists are most severely impacted it seems. I think that's not because they know more but because they only focus on the problems (not on solutions) and because perversely they are more important when the problem is worse.

I've scanned hundreds of climate scientist papers the last few months and they almost always boil down to: "here's some new way to look at precisely how bad it is."

Even when you don't actually find that the future looks worse than you thought, that's a pretty horrible job.

The easiest (but not healthiest) way to deal with this is to give in to doomism and this is becoming part of the climate scientists group culture. It seems almost disloyal to see a glass half full. (@hausfath is the only climate scientist I know with an eye for what's improving.)

Engineers on the other hand mostly focus on developing solutions. And although they use the same knowledge base (e.g. @IPCC_CH reports) this focus on solutions makes the papers more upbeat and probably less depression inducing.

So my advice to climate scientists is simple:
feel proud you convinced us of the severity of the problem and move on.
Start working with other disciplines to look at effective mitigation and adoption. It will make you less depressed and more useful.