Can we do anything to stop the panic ?

 
I am not worried about the future of the planet, but a heck of a lot of thinking Westerners are , and that deeply affects the mood of our nations.
We as westerners are in a jumpy mood and that is not good,


We need IMO, more than anything,  to find a place of rest and sound vistas of hope that will slow down the rush to deal with both real and perceived crisis. Yes,  there are real threats and we must face them and find a more stable and secure way forward. 







In particular we need to find hope in the way we manage the earth and its resources ; The science of earth SE and the science of human belligerence SHB,  I will call them  ,
There are many worries and soundly based threats here in our communities but i suggest  the main one for now is to find more areas of consensus about how to best transition to using less fossil fuels, LFF 

The Fossil fuel focus is sound, but the mood of panic about it is not .

LFF is Ok but is it the pure political imperative of Net Zero  sound ?   
Maybe we need to separate and understand the drivers of panic, so we have some hope of slowing down to a sound thinking and variety of solutions base. 

We are moving too fast 
In Australia,  like in the USA , we have leaders and large groups of people who want everything to change quickly.
Trump wants Tariff control and Bowen wants Net Zero and complete carbon dioxide control. 
Desperation is not a sound driver. and worse still 

-- if we have no consensus about where we want our rich countries to land we could land anywhere. 


I went to London to an ARC conference in February in a desperate mood. Not a desperate to change mood ( anything but) but a rather desperate attempt to see whether anyone else was not in a jumpy mood ; to see if any applied scientists were concerned that they weren't being heard in the panic.
Sure enough, we all were , there were but not nearly enough scientist  ( it costs ) and the great range of people were mainly concerned with SHB - how humans react to crisis. i am sure the physicist and biochemists are out there somewhere but maybe with all the simple noise about what they know is  complex, they keep quiet. ---- just like I am told to do.  
It seems that while there is no public service agents saying [CO2] is not the issue, the mood was to reject net zero outright as a crude fixed and ineffective political response that will only send our States broke for no appreciable benefit.
New technology yes , but net zero and the way it has negative outcomes - No . 



Are scientists talking ?     
There were lots of convincing economists and social observers, but not the applied physicists for eg   we need to at least review the decades of dismissal of the lonely voice of Plimer to say [CO2] did not need to be used to drive LFF and the latest incarnation of a plan called Net Zero. 
A review is only proper as the name of the problem has in last 2 decades changed from AGW to CC and the solutions changed from anything to everything; from a few things carbon to denying everything carbon,
For 16 years you can't get a job as a scientist in the public service in Australia unless you agree that Carbon is evil. Such hypocrisy, false authority and thought control breeds the corruption and desperation of those in the public service . 


Are the scientist agreed ? 
Yes we agreed that we need a public service that is truly independent of the political process, Don't often get one but we must strive to get one
.
One great thing about the conference was that we all agreed that we in the West no longer had them and it was harder than ever to keep our research institutions independent when the funding of Western universities was increasingly politically controlled. 
Those who just can the rich for wanting to support research and new schools are not helping. Those who ignore the huge dead weight of so many Universities and schools are not helping either. 

More independent schools are proposed but just having more young people who have studied physics and chemistry working in regions would help. I haven't even mentioned the value of that for mediating discussions about ignorant threats by those who wanna say ---stop the use of chemicals for eg 
While our politics is determined by the ignorance of the Greens we will be served up and have to deal with ignorance.     

Briefly then me 
For me at least , sacrificing our children to try and get to net zero is a quick fix mistargeted aim to change the world that simply will not work. Things that don't work only create more panic, One of my FB pages  @conservation that works 

Most there could see the risk of isolated Australians sitting in their bark huts feeling self righteous getting cold because their dream of a new type of battery with a solar panel and a windmill outside isn't  ever going  to work.
The transition away from coal oil and gas will never be to netzero - that aim will never be a reality or a reasonable goal because  we need to respect the role of the carbon economy and use it --  not in some fit of self righteousness try and avoid it.