Denial of extinction crisis

Nature Talk
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I’v been homeless and living in my car since December since I left university. I have no money left, no friends, no family, no clean clothes no nothing. I have to use the free wifi in the local town parks. I’m 90+ k in debt an another 6k on my credit card.

I have applied to literally thousands of jobs and yes, nobody will let me in.

I’ve been trying to get my doctor to allow me assisted dying because following this career path has absolutely destroyed my life in every way possible.

After spending my whole life saving up every dollar I could through living in poverty to get educated in this field. For what seems like nothing now.

Sacrifices? I have sacrificed my life for this. Literally. So I think i’ve earned the right to be untrusting.

02/15/1984

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I deleted my reply but only because there’s a more serious issue of concern going on here.

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Between my last conservation job and this one I spent a year unemployed and job searching. I refused to give up and kept at it though as this is the job I want to be doing. I did odd-jobs to make ends meet while I searched.

I also had no place to live, but I am handy and good company and several friends were happy to help with providing me a place to stay during all that.

Almost everyone I know actually working in conservation has a similar story. The difference is that the ones working in the field persevered, even if they had to sometimes take other jobs and do other things to make ends meet. Even when you do land a job in this field it generally pays poorly. That’s just the truth of the matter.

When I finally landed my current job I had just enough cash for a final tank of gas for my car and to pay for my visa to move to the country my job is in. Ticket flight was covered by the job.

Again, it’s not a matter of “being let in”. This is a field that is extremely competitive to get into as so many people now want to be part of it. Very few people get paid jobs in this field directly out of university. That’s the exception, not the rule. On top of that, the economy is terrible and has been for a while, so that makes job hunting even more difficult, especially in this field.

The more you write here the more is sounds like you’re speaking primarily out of bitterness at having had unrealistic expectations not met.

Stop looking in conservation for a while. Look for a different field for a bit, get your life back in line, get some experience and get involved in conservation activities on the side if you want to.

As a final piece: there is nothing wrong or bad about changing or delaying tour goals. I’ve had a lot of different types of jobs, some that I liked, some that I hated, but you can still do those and keep a larger goal in mind.

Talk with your friends and family (whichever is more supportive), look for some work of any kind, so that you put some money in your pocket and feel like you’re taking agency of your life back over. You can always change the job later, so don’t worry much about what it is, just having something to do makes a really big difference.

Being frustrated, depressed, angry, etc is normal when things don’t go your way and get difficult, but how you respond to those stresses is what makes the real difference. Don’t give up, and look for support to help you out.

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Thank you. In a similar vein, I have removed my post that quoted you.

Technically, though, that could have been considered in violation of the forum guidelines (even on frivolous topics). The seriousness of the surrounding discussions are irrelevant; attack the argument, not the person.

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^this is primarily why I replied. Not gonna lie… took it personal. my bad. I know better now.

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Understandable. I think many were running a bit hot after reading that. :)

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Yes, I hear you. As my sister said, in the Carboniferous Period (390 million years ago), the atmosphere had three times as much CO2 than today based on soil samples. And from the fossil record, plants were much more prevalent, polar regions were continental-type forests and bugs were big. And I mean 15-foot wingspan dragonflies, all because of the high carbon concentration.

Now I’m not saying we haven’t accelerated higher temperatures but from my understanding, we’re already slowing down that process. And as another geological example, we talk about climate change today but I refer to interior Washington state. Look at a satellite map, you can see the flooding scars from the 2-mile thick continental glacier in Canada that has significant melting 10,000 years ago. The flow for the largest coulee (flood path) was predicted to be 100x the flow of Niagara Falls for 500+ years. Now that’s climate change.

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That’s completely wrong. In the Carboniferous period CO2 levels were roughly what they are now, but they got reduced during that time:

Oxygen content was higher, around 35% rather than the roughly the 21% it is now. The higher oxygen content is why the arthropods were larger.

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I also didn’t expect such contributions on Inat. It may have to do with the large proportion of users from the USA: if I remember correctly only USA and Turkey have climate denial issues of this degree.

In answer to the original post, be it climate or extinction, the mechanisms of perception are the same, this paper talked about it a few years ago:
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2011-09485-005

An additional problem that seems to be emerging due to the (often deserved) end of trust towards official bodies is that numbers and facts don’t count anymore.
You can have 30 years of expertise in your field and today a person that never studied anything related can contradict you because they did their own research on youtube.

Authority is held either by legitimacy or by domination. I believe politicians have a terrible responsibility: destroying the legitimacy of institutions is destroying the perception of truth and thus the ability of people to live together to form a society without violence.

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Hmmm. By the time I had read most of the thread I was no longer sure if this is relevant, but for what its worth…I am enjoying working in conservation as an independent volunteer, doing my own research after an informal fashion, (documented in iNat, which has made all this possible), and along the way have had many casual conversations with people - mostly the people walking or exercising dogs in the Reserve, but some of them working in the field - about “the environment”.

What I have noticed is, you need at least a vague interest in Nature and the perspective of a few decades to be personally aware of local extinctions and population declines to the point no one sees those animals any more, or when they do they consider them rare and special. Which of course they are now, but 20 years ago they weren’t.

In 1997 I thought it was just fine to see a couple of kereru flying together. Then an older man told me he used to see them in flocks. That was my first clue.

It is this sort of observation that makes extinction real to people, so I have been passing on my own observations/memories, and the anecdotes of others.

Once we become aware of the undeniable absence of something we once knew locally, when we read the science news it is easy to relate that experience to the news about things we know little or nothing of, and accept as truth that a mass extinction is probably taking place. (Nothing is absolutely certain in life, as Nature can always surprise us).

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@jameson_nagle I do not agree with you, but I think I understand the place you are coming from, and I have to say that I respect you for putting up with the pressures of the scientific community for so long. As someone else already mentioned, I don’t think there is much intentional distortion of truth in the scientific community, but that what you are perceiving is the result of it being such a competitive environment.

Please stay well, we need more people who love Nature, as you clearly do.

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To get back to the original topic, I completely agree about people’s own ‘extinction’ experiences, which is partly why I am so surprised that there is even much denial over there being an extinction crisis; it seems that everyone has their own story to share. Just in the last twenty years here in my area of New York State, we’ve lost ruffed grouse, whip-poor-wills, much of our giant silkmoth populations, and now our ash trees are rapidly disappearing - no these aren’t extinctions, but they are still massive losses that may take centuries to recover from. As I said previously, I am unhappy that media coverage of this issue relates it to something global and beyond anyone’s control, as these few instances are the results of specific human interactions, not a fact of our existence. The more success we have on solving local conservation issues around the world, the better the global situation will be. I think the lesson to learn here is that we need to be inspiring a love of nature in others and be encouraging them to help in any way they can, instead of merely shaming them for using electricity, mowing a lawn, etc., which will do little to change people’s lifestyles and their impact on other species.

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@earthknight @birdwhisperer I don’t want to get too deeply into this but it is important to be precise when speaking about these things. CO2 levels were substantially higher in the early Carboniferous and declined to levels similar to today (and perhaps lower) as the Caroniferous progressed. The people who model climate are well aware of this. More to the point, it really has little to do with climate change in the 21st Century.

Anthropogenic climate change is real, rapid and a major challenge for a bunch of reasons, not least for specialized life forms adapted to a narrow range of environmental conditions. The human built environment is also unlikely to be able to adapt as quickly as conditions are changing unless major change takes place in how humanity orders its affairs. A huge proportion of humanity will be confronted with changes in their immediate environment that will be impossible to deal with in isolation. The social, political, economic and environmental implications are stark. With respect, geology has nothing to say about these things.

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Hi @jameson_nagle, I’m sorry you’ve faced so many obstacles in building a career in natural resources/conservation. You are not alone. Perhaps there could be section of the forum dedicated to job postings in natural resources/nature education/conservation etc. I’d love to help with that if others think it’s a good idea. I know you’ve tried everything to find a job but let me know if you want me to share any of the online job boards I look at for job opportunities in natural resources and conservation. ### UPDATE: started a discussion of that topic here: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/botany-wildlife-conservation-jobs/16384. ###

I got a PhD in ecology a few years ago and I’m unemployed currently. I know I’ll eventually find a job but it’s not as easy as my friends and family think and certainly getting jobs in ecology often means frequent moves from place to place–which rips us away from community and family. I know lots of folks with tremendous passion for nature and great skills who cannot get jobs.

I’m sensitive to your situation but you should not blame scientists working in conservation or natural resources–it’s truly not up to them whether you have a job.

The reason we have trouble getting jobs, even after years of doing unpaid internship and underpaid seasonal jobs is that there simply is not enough money flowing into natural resources and conservation. Conservation science and on-the-ground conservation work produces enormous benefits for society but it doesn’t generate profits for companies or shareholders. Therefore, payroll in that sector comes almost entirely from public generosity–either through government, by way of taxes, or from philanthropy. For example iNaturalist has tiny staff and is supported by the California Academy of Sciences, and the National Geographic Society and donations from some of the users (thanks guys!). Even then it’s mostly built on the unpaid work of thousands of people.

I believe that the benefit of saving ecosystems and species for our future selves and future generations is literally incalculable. However, unless we can get someone to pay for the work it takes to protect them TODAY they will disappear. That is the sad truth. Right now billions and billions of dollars are flowing into industries and products that are destructive or at best dysfunctional–everything from social media ads, to oil and gas extraction, to unhealthy fast food, to vastly overpriced health insurance, to political lobbying, to private prisons, to unsustainable housing developments in flood and fire zones. On the other hand, where is the money for saving endangered species, managing fisheries, making farming more sustainable, reducing air pollution, making sure drinking water is clean, removing plastic from the ocean–etc? Ironically, when you do work that literally benefits everyone it’s extremely hard to get anyone to pay for it! (positive externality). It’s as simple as that. The economic system we live in today is designed to destroy whatever does not generate short-term profits. If we don’t change it, natural ecosystems will gradually be impoverished and at the same time there will always be fewer positions in conservation and natural resources than qualified applicants. https://theconversation.com/creative-self-destruction-the-climate-crisis-and-the-myth-of-green-capitalism-47479

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To me, that’s almost like saying historians don’t matter because history can’t help us with today’s problems.

Perhaps this is better way to explain the climate change crisis. Imagine you are trying to tunnel into the earth’s core, except the deeper you go, the more knowledge you obtain regarding climate change. The farthest down humans have drilled is 7 miles and imagine that as our current knowledge. Yet we keep making judgements for the end result that’s still 4000 miles down. And these judgements are always worst case scenario. We acted that way when Covid first came to the US and look at what we’ve learned in six months. It’s completely reversed. So I just think we’re making hysterical assumptions at the moment and maybe when we as scientists sit back and take a breather, we can return with a clear mind to see what’s causing these problems and see if (or should) we can reverse them.

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@birdwhisperer, here’s a better analogy for climate change. Let’s say you and your friend are on a long road trip. You are in the passenger seat and your friend is driving on the completely straight stretch of road through the Arizona desert. You’re traveling 100 mph in a brand new Tesla (your friend is rich). Up ahead there is an immense canyon and a giant cliff. You look ahead and you say “Boy, I certainly wouldn’t want to drive off that cliff.” But your friend, the driver doesn’t seem to notice. You tell him, “Hey man slow down! We gotta turn up ahead to avoid that cliff!” He just says, “Hey don’t worry about it, we’ve been going straight for 20 miles and nothing bad has happened. I haven’t had to turn sharply or brake a long time, so why should I change now”. The driver doesn’t seem to understand the danger–he is projecting recent experience to the future and not taking into account a change in the circumstances. He just says “Look don’t worry, let’s just relax and wait and see what happens when we get closer to the cliff–besides have you ever actually driven off a cliff? How do you know it will be that bad? With the safety features in this new Tesla we’ll probably survive.” You know on a perfectly straight road you can actually steer by looking in the rearview mirror–but a straight road isn’t guaranteed to be straight forever.

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It is an issue that will always polarize scientists and citizens. We must stay alert on the various claims that are made, especially the most extreme and see if there are interests other than the nature conservation purposes in claiming something on both side.

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No it’s not.

The geology of the Carboniferous will tell us nothing about how to save polar bear habitat, the vast sea of impoverished humanity living in coastal cities with no property to sell that would allow them to relocate or the enormous mountain of capital invested in places that will soon be too hot, too wet or too dry as the effects of warming cascade through the environment.

Regardless, the allegation that geology, of the Carboniferous or generally, has not been considered in modelling environment change is false.

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Good idea!

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To add on to this, geologists and physicists have been studying the factors that control the earth’s climate for over 100 years. The geological record along with simulation modeling of the earth’s atmosphere and ocean is the STRONGEST evidence we have that climate change is happening, caused by CO2 and methane emissions from industry and will continue to happen in the future. It’s true that some geologists downplay global climate change but almost every one of them has some professional or personal connection with the oil, coal, gas industry which is a large employer of geologists. But even the geologists that work in that industry knew about climate change 40 years ago!!! I was born 37 years ago and I’ve seen the same arguments for inaction ever since I became aware of the environment.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-climate-change-almost-40-years-ago/

This year my hometown of Medford Oregon nearly burnt down after weeks of extremely high temperatures. And we thought last year was the worst ever. The evidence is overwhelming. Climate change is happening and things are getting worse.

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