How scientists feel about climate change: Prof Tony McMichael

Emeritus Professor Tony McMichael expresses how sad he is that children may not be able to experience nature in the same way in the future because society is too focussed on money in a handwritten letter expressing how he feels about climate change.

McMichael’s, who is from the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health at the Australian National University’s College of Medicine, Biology and Environment, letter has been published on Is This How You Feel?, an online platform that is showcasing letters from scientists across Australia.

McMichael writes:

It’s hard to imagine that people are doing so much damage to the natural world. It’s sad when a society like ours can’t see further than its bank balance and stumbles blindly into a future when children won’t be able to enjoy the flowing rivers, mountain snow, coloured birds and bush animals. Don’t we have any responsibility for other creatures, forests and rivers? I’m rather ashamed of our behaviour.

It seems so silly to go on behaving like this – though, from hearing our politicians speak, it seems that making and consuming more and more is the point of life. Surely the dreadful heat we have suffered from in recent heatwaves, and the awful bushfires that have terrified rural communities in the past couple of years are telling us that something is going very wrong.

Scientist friends say it’s probably because we’re making the world hotter by adding ‘greenhouse gases’ into the air. So we are seriously harming the world around us and yet we understand how!

It’s really sad that some of our local children seem quite puzzled and worried by what they see on TV bout this and hearing what adults say. I hope my family and our community can try and help solve these frightening problems.

To read the rest of the letters submitted to Is This How You Feel?, click here.

Photo: linno1234 via Freeimages  

Further reading:

How scientists feel about climate change: Prof Katrin Meissner

How scientists feel about climate change: Prof Lesley Hughes

How scientists feel about climate change: Alex sen Gupta

How scientists feel about climate change: Prof Brendan Mackey

New project asks scientists how they feel about climate change