Climate change is depressing. Is there any point?

Yesterday, I got the email below somewhat out of the blue, in response to my writing about how I feel about climate change. I was actually really glad to receive the note, and that I had a chance to respond. In the off-chance that these words might help others feeling the same way out there, I'm posting them here with personal information removed.

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Dear Professor Carilli,

So, this is rather weird. I am really sorry about sending you this random email, considering you don't know me, and I am sure have more important things to do [note from Jessica: this is, to me, the definition of really important!]. I just need a little help, and I saw something you wrote on isthishowyoufeel.com, and I thought...I have no idea. So, I suffer from severe anxiety and depression, and my mind has seriously focused in on climate change. It scares the absolute hell out of me, and it has basically led me to think that there is no point in my being alive anymore. The world is so screwed, there is no point in me sticking around anymore, or possibly having a child who would have to live in such a terrible world. I know this is partially my sickness, but I also feel like there is legit idea. I don't want to die, but the last few days have hurt so terribly, and I am so afraid all the time, I just have trouble finding other options. This morning, I started googling about finding hope in climate change, and I found what you said online, and I guess I just wanted someone to tell me that there is some hope for the future. Because right now, I do not want to see such a miserable future. God, I really did used to be such a happy positive person, but these last few years...they just been really hard.

Thank you for reading my email and listening to my depressing rambling. I hope that you have a wonderful day

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Dear [redacted],

Thanks for your email. I’m glad you found what I wrote, and I’m not sure if it was helpful or made you feel worse, but in any case I’m glad that you reached out. While I can’t pretend to know how you feel, I can assure you that you aren’t alone in this sometimes hopeless feeling.

When I was 18, I got a tattoo that says “Never Give Up.” This is a reminder to myself that I often think about in this struggle with “what’s the point, when everything is going to shit?” It helps me remember that although humans can be really destructive and thoughtless, we are also astoundingly clever, and have come up with some really amazing technological solutions for environmental problems. I sometimes flip-flop between thinking that yes, the earth would probably be better off if humans all just kicked the bucket – and then thinking, no: humans are animals, and we have just as much right to live on this earth as other creatures – we just need to use our intellect to live on this planet WITH the other creatures more fairly. I love when I hear about some incredible technological solution that has the potential to improve the lives of humans (particularly the disadvantaged) as well as the environment. Killing ourselves, not having children, or living in caves is just not a good solution for anyone…so if there are ways that we can invent ourselves out of catastrophic climate change, I’m all for it!

I also like to focus on personal choices that make a difference for climate change - like hanging my laundry.
I firmly believe that many small efforts do add up to matter.

There are so many cool examples of major scientific progress and optimism, and this gives me a lot of hope.
Here are a few examples that I like to think about:
http://www.sciencealert.com/audi-have-successfully-made-diesel-fuel-from-air-and-water
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/06/antarctic-ozone-hole-healing-fingerprints/
http://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-have-figured-out-how-to-turn-co2-into-solid-rock-within-months
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/rise-ocean-optimism-180959290/?no-ist

Sometimes it seems like it would be good to just abandon ship and give up, but the flip side is that this world needs people like me and you to work hard to make a difference, and to keep shouting about the importance of science and the environment. So I hope you don’t abandon ship, or give up on having kids. I think the world needs more people like us, who care deeply and want to make a difference, and will raise kids who care deeply and will continue making a difference into the future. It’s definitely scary to think that in a few decades, things could be much different from how they are today – and it could be bad. But it could also be better – maybe soon we will make drastic changes to the status quo, and instead of spiraling into disaster, we will rise to the challenge, turn things around, and rise like the Phoenix! What do you think?

Thanks again for reaching out. I hope this helps a little bit.
Hugs,
Jessica
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Also, VOTE!

Humans are pretty cool: 2015 Science Hack Day San Francisco

I was recently lucky enough to be invited to attend the 2015 Science Hack Day in San Francisco. At first I honestly thought that the invitation had been sent to me accidentally (because I have imposter syndrome like everyone else), but once the organizer Ariel Waldman followed up, I happily accepted. A big reason I decided to go was the location: I grew up in the Bay Area, and the bulk of my family and my in-laws are scattered around the region. This meant that I could bring the little ones along (R, 4 years old and A, 3 months), and the grandparents could help take care of them while I was busy science-ing.

As the date approached, I became a bit more nervous than anticipated. My role, as I understood, was: (1) to give a quick talk about coral reefs and in doing so help spark ideas for people to work on during the weekend, and (2) to bring a particular perspective and expertise to the arena that might be useful and (3) to observe and report on the event. The concept of Science Hack Day was still a little muddy to me, though I watched the explanatory video and read some blog posts previous Science Ambassadors had written. In these, it was explained that teams of people would form organically to chose and work on a topic for 24 hours, and then present the results of this “hack” to the entire Hack Day crowd when the time was up.

My lingering worries fell into two camps: (1) sciency-types, myself included, are not legendary for smooth social skills; how will we form groups spontaneously if we are too shy to interact? and (2) how will people decide what to work on, and how will they physically do so? I had also invited my dad to join me at the event as a participant. He designs new and refurbished labs for researchers at Stanford, has patented several inventions, designed and built multiple houses, and is to me the epitome of someone who can come up with clever solutions to problems. He also articulated another worry as we read through rough ideas that participants entered into a shared Google doc ahead of the event: (3) what if all of this potentially amazing collective energy and expertise is wasted on trivial projects?

The Friday before the event, the other ambassadors, the event organizers, and I met for lunch at the waterfront in San Francisco. My mom entertained my littles nearby while I enjoyed interesting and uninterrupted discussions about science with other grownups, and got to eat with both hands. Thrilling! 

Giving my talk in the Oval Office. I love to gesticulate.

On Saturday morning, I left my 4 year old again with my mom, and headed back to The City (as Bay Area folk call San Francisco). Science Hack Day was hosted at the headquarters of GitHub. The space was, to put it mildly, amazing. If you could take all of the coolest things you could think of – a DJ booth, full bar, catering kitchen, pool and foosball tables, a replica of the Oval Office, etc. – and put them all into one architecturally beautiful building, this would be it. Oh, also throw in an on-site daycare to be even more awesome. I don’t even fully understand what GitHub is, but the building made me want to work there.

The first hour of the morning consisted of enjoying breakfast at large wooden tables reminiscent of movie versions of Oktoberfest. Participants donned decorated name-tags and began meeting one another during this time, exploring the work area and gadgets that were on hand. A small CNC milling machine and two 3D printers were staged on one table, along with a collection of powertools and electronics equipment for making circuits and the like. A lot of people were already typing away on computers at the tables, or scattered around on beanbags and swiveling captain’s chairs.

Next, the organizers kicked things off with some opening remarks. Some of this spoke directly to my fears: we shouldn’t worry if it takes us a while to find a team, and the lab-coated organizers could help if we were feeling like a fish out of water and didn’t know how or where to join in. They also explained that nine upcoming lightning talks – in three concurrent sessions around the space – would be followed by time devoted to anyone who wanted to do so making a 42-second pitch for their Hack Day project. Both of these points calmed my fears a bit, but I still wondered how things would actually fall into place.

My lightning talk followed an audio-visually stunning and content-rich talk by a planetary astronomer, Alex Parker, who had a knack for explaining his science in a straightforward and digestible manner (and who was also super nice). I was both totally impressed and happy to learn from his talk, while also terrified about having to go up next. My talk was decidedly less visually arresting and, I worried, perhaps both too simple and too overwhelming. I explained what corals are, the main things that make them unhappy (hot water due to climate change that causes coral bleaching, overfishing, and polluted runoff), and ended with some quick ideas for “hacks” that I thought might be possible and rewarding to work on during the weekend*. Originally, I had planned to just put baby A in a carrier and give the talk with her, but my dad offered to hold her instead – helpful as she decided to throw a fit a few minutes into the presentation.

I didn’t feel confident enough to try to lead a group towards a particular hack, so didn’t pitch a specific idea. Instead, I listened and then cruised around for the first part of the day to see what kinds of projects got started. Indeed, though my initial worries were centered on how people would find groups and decide on projects, it did seem to work out. I should have probably realized that if groups of organisms like ants can end up with coordinated behaviors, then surely humans can, even if only due to emergence.

After a while, I found and joined a group that aimed to make a game to teach kids about human threats to coral reefs; perfect! But, we took quite some time to actually decide on how the game should work and to then make it – in fact, by the time I left that night to get A and myself off to bed at a hotel nearby, we had very few solid ideas of how the game would work.

Our game prototype.

Our group didn’t work through the night like some others did; we had good sleeps and a relatively leisurely breakfast back at GitHub, then realized we really needed to step it up as we only had a few hours left to complete our hack, and had nothing yet to show. We quickly started brainstorming and making decisions on what direction to follow, and who should work on what tasks. We managed to complete the game and even had time to do a run-through, and it seemed to work. Our game, which we called iSea Life, was a cooperative, timed game with the goal to build a coral reef that had more colorful (healthy) pieces than white (bleached or dead) pieces. Some of my teammates are continuing to revise the game, and the final version will eventually be up here, so check it out!

At 1 pm on Sunday, everyone finished hacking and gathered to see presentations of everyone’s projects. First, Heather from GitHub gave a nice speech where she showed that although some of the projects that people have worked on during previous Science Hack Days may have at the time seemed trivial, some of them led to real and useful solutions to problems. Indeed, jiving off of other people and applying their thoughts to another problem is a great way to come up with new ideas. Case in point: I came up with my PhD research project by chance during coffee with a friend. Although Science Hack Day could be perhaps used to bring folks together to solve pre-determined “real” problems facing the world, in many ways the design seems perfect for stimulating creativity in a sort of random-walk approach. Even if the presented projects don’t immediately seem useful, maybe they can be further refined in the future or applied to known problems.

Since I’m an environmentalist, the projects I liked the best were those that had some obvious application towards environmental problems. These included “smogify,” a filter to make photos visually reflect the air quality at the time and place they were taken; an extension to Google maps to quantify the carbon footprint of various transit modes on calculated routes; and an application that would redirect someone from a dubious website to a trusted source after they searched for something “sciency” like “climate change.”

In the end, I really enjoyed my time at Science Hack Day and found it to be a highly rewarding experience that I will think back on often.

Another cool hack: a bias-meter for news articles.

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*Here is a brief rundown of my ideas for coral-reef hacks, most of which were not exactly feasible to work on in such a limited time and space (GitHub being rather dry, after all):

Three biggest problems for corals:

1.     Climate Change à causes coral bleaching and increases disease susceptibility

a.     Suck greenhouse gases out of atmosphere (this was not actually a suggested hack, but something that needs to be figured out)

b.     Improved suctioning device to combat black band disease (one of a large number of coral diseases, this would perhaps not have a large impact but is somewhat manageable)

c.     Shading devices

d.     How to mix up deep, cool water

e.     More zooplankton?

f.      Genetic engineering?

g.     Map potential poleward expansion?

2.     Overfishing à one consequence is algal overgrowth

a.     Underwater chicken tractor, to enclose herbivorous fish and get them to clean off macroalgae on a particular part of the reef?

3.     Polluted runoff à many causes and consequences

a.     Minimalist sewage treatment

b.     Runoff reduction ideas

c.     Water cleanup?

How to talk to journalists as a scientist, and not make them hate you

Before I left Australia, I got to participate in a day-long media training event with Science in Public. A group of post-docs were chosen to learn from journalists in radio, print, and television. I had previously been interviewed a few times for articles, and I mostly felt like an unprepared idiot. With a small amount of training, I feel a lot more comfortable about the idea of both speaking coherently with non-scientists, and not ending up giving an accidental foot-in-mouth quote that makes me cringe to read/hear later on.

Today, I’ve asked my friend and radio-journo Jennifer Macey to give us her thoughts on ways scientists can provide good interview material to journalists, for everyone's benefit. [I’ve added some bits in, too]

Jessica: Who is the professional Jennifer Macey?

Jennifer: I report for the ABC's news and current affairs programs, AM, The World Today and PM. These are broadcast around Australia on the public radio [Australia’s version of NPR]. I've been a journalist for almost 20 years (eek) and although I am a general reporter - reporting on everything, I have a particular interest in environment and science yarns.

Jessica: What’s a typical day at the office for you?

Jennifer: The morning shift starts at 5:30am and the editorial meeting is at 6:15am, where the reporters pitch/suggest story ideas to our producer, who then considers them and assigns us one. We then have an hour and a half* to read the scientific paper and ring our contacts or the number on the bottom of the university or institute's press release. We hope that they are still awake in the US or Europe, or wake them up if they're in Australia. We ring every mobile phone number in our contact list related to that subject matter to find another scientist who can add a second voice. We email them the paper so they can make a considered comment before they've even had breakfast. Do a short interview for 10-15 minutes. Pick the best quotes, cut them out. Write a script. Record script. Edit out the bloopers and cut and paste it all together, in time for the 8:00 am show. Phew!  

The midday show allows three hours to prepare a story and the afternoon show gives us a whopping four hours. A typical story can be anywhere from two and half minutes to four minutes long. That is not a lot of time to explain a complex scientific study and may explain why science stories can sound simplistic to an experienced ear.

*I cannot even fathom reading a paper in this amount of time to then explain to my cat, let alone the entire country; yet the journos do this, PLUS interviews and story-producing to boot. These people are amazing.

One of my first interviews was conducted over the phone while I breast-fed this little critter in the back of my car in the pouring rain. This was not an ideal way to focus and come up with thoughtful answers to the reporter's questions.

Jessica: Ok, so maybe we shouldn't blather on for 20 minutes about background leading up to the point out our work.

I’ve also learned that it’s Ok for scientists to contact journalists directly with story ideas. How do you typically get your ideas for new science stories?

Jennifer: I subscribe to a lot of science email notifications from Universities and via the Australian Science Media Centre (AUSSMC), which compiles science papers and gathers a bunch of responses from experts along with their contact details. The AUSSMC is a journalist’s best friend, and makes the frantic search for comments much easier**. But I also get updates on upcoming science articles from Eurekalert. These are usually strictly embargoed. We also subscribe to alerts from Nature etc.

Sometimes scientists will even contact me and say they're working on something and we can prepare something in advance to coincide with the embargoed release. Or our producer may see a science story on another news site and we'll do our own version of the story with new interviews. Generally, we come up with the idea and broadcast it on the same day. Occasionally we do stories in advance but that's pretty rare. The number of times a press officer at a university or a medical institute has said to me, "Oh no, Dr. so-and-so is not available, but she'll be back next week…" Sorry—next week it won't be news anymore. 

**If you would like to be interviewed as an expert regarding a scientific publication in your field, you can sign up to be on various expert databases—particularly if you are a woman or under-represented in your field, go sign up and get your perspective out into the media.

Some examples:

American Geophysical Union: http://sharingscience.agu.org/aeon/

National Science & Technology News Service: http://nstns.org

Minority Postdocs: http://minoritypostdoc.org

Australian Science Media Service http://www.smc.org.au

Scholar Universe: http://www.scholaruniverse.com/

Women in Life Science (Europe): http://www.embo.org/science-policy/women-in-science/wils-database-of-women-in-life-sciences

Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada http://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/Media-Media/Expert-Expert_eng.asp

Am I still considered an expert ocean scientist if I can get seasick underwater?

Jessica: Going into an interview, you generally already understand the story or scientific finding—something I didn't know until recently! When you put together the story, you also do most of the science-explaining for the audience. What are you hoping to get from the interviews you conduct?

Jennifer: Initially, I want the scientist to briefly describe the process of the study, and what significance or what impact this discovery will have. Even if I do have an understanding of the science, I still need the scientist to explain the study or the discovery in simple, layman’s terms. Sometimes I need an explanation from the beginning so I can be sure I understand it myself and can then interpret it for our listeners (sometimes we're translators!).

I also always love interesting details, for instance that the scientist was looking for a certain gene and accidentally stumbled on some new bacteria. I also like to see the big picture—who cares? Or even something very basic, like for a coral scientist to simply describe the beauty and expanse of the Great Barrier Reef.

Words that paint pictures in the listener’s head are the best way of conveying science stories. Here's an example from a story that I did about the Brood II periodical cicadas that emerged last year. The imagery is so great - comparing cicadas to a boy band that will be as loud as an aircraft - loud and slightly annoying!  

JENNIFER MACEY: And will they be noisy?

MICHAEL RAUPP: Oh they're going to be extremely noisy. This is a big boy band. It's only the male cicadas that sing, and their sound levels will approach about 90 decibels. This is the sound of a jet aircraft, a very loud lawnmower, or in this case, because these are just teenagers, they're 17 years old, it's about as loud as a rock concert. 

(Here’s the full story: http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2013/s3755727.htm)

We were really excited to learn that the munitions littering our study location--where we were manually pounding metal pipes into the seafloor--were no longer live. We also learned some cool science stuff.

Jessica: What are some other ways scientists can be more helpful to journalists during interviews?

Jennifer: Think about your audience. I've described what a radio current affairs journalist is looking for. Radio news journos who have 45 second stories with a 15 second quote have different needs. Newspaper or magazine journalists also have different requirements. We have a pretty smart audience, but a science journal or a magazine that focuses on one subject will have more discerning, informed readers that may need less simplified explanations. 

Also, the phone lines in America are rubbish, it's like ringing a developing country. You need to get them upgraded.

Jessica: Thanks, Jennifer! For other ideas to make your time talking with journalists more effective and efficient, check out training events and blog posts by organizations like COMPASS (in the US) or Science in Public (in Australia). For instance, the COMPASS “Message Box” is a great way to organize your thoughts so you don’t trip yourself up during an interview by getting lost in your own brain and forgetting your point.