Earth Sciences are in a prime position to help mitigate our climate crisis ... but has the burden of knowing it was part of the reason we're in one.
NewsletterOur climate is changing. The data is clear that over the past century, and especially over the last few decades, the Earth's global climate is getting hotter. This change is caused by humans adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere at a rate far faster than anything in the past few million years ... and all that carbon dioxide is coming from burning hydrocarbons that locked up ancient carbon into the crust.
Yet, once the clues began to fall into place through seeing the local impacts of burning and extraction of these fuels, little was done to slow down. Why? It is as simple as money. The hydrocarbon business is still hosts some of the largest corporations on the planet -- So, many of us became part of the hydrocarbon industry. If we didn't, maybe we were getting funded by such firms -- they played a big role in supporting undergraduate and graduate research. The graduates from our departments who became flush with cash would often times donate back to the schools to support new students in the Earth Sciences.Now, that sounds like a lot of blame and guilt to lay on the Earth Sciences. We need to come to terms with that past . That's okay.
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