Climate scientists, mourning Earth's losses, should make their voices heard | Sarah Myhre

Climate scientists are feeling the need to engage in social leadership before it's too late

It's easy to find a news hook to begin an opinion piece on climate change. Coral bleaching, record-setting heat waves, and expensive, deadly wildfires are a weekly occurrence in the news cycle. But, as climate warming advances, extreme events won't be newsworthy - they'll be expected.

We scientists are the gatekeepers of the basic information that fuels decision making by nations, businesses and communities. As these public entities are more and more threatened by the advancing impacts of climate warming, from flooding, to water scarcity, to the spread of tropical diseases, our role as objective scientists has to change. We are so skilled at many, many detailed and quantitative tasks, but, as you would expect from a community of introverts, we are not great at shining that brilliant light back on ourselves.