#ClimateDiary - Writing research plans for postdoc applications -> anxiety and guilt about whether I am working on climate change to the extent that I could be.
Only real reassuring thing is remembering I am just one part of a whole community of people who care about this, especially on here. Thankful for that.
@bikepedantic Thank you, all that is needed is good to hear. It's just hard to reconcile the long timelines of academic work with the urgency of the situation.
@jroper what tears me apart is the contradiction between the work I do, which is very explicitly targeted towards helping agencies think about land use as they plan for reducing transportation GHG emissions, and the fact that my wife's career (the income from which allows me to do that not-so-lucrative consulting) has brought our family to a place where we're forced to drive a lot. We have EVs, and use solar generation, and I work from home, but still... it sometimes triggers existential crises.
@colby Yeah, that's tough! I can do research partly because of my prior income in road construction, but at least it was a clean break.
@jroper Don't sweat it, but if you really feel an itch to do more, you could grab some friends and do something like organising a layman lecture on your research, and inviting your local/national politicians!
@jroper Never feel guilty! We all work in systems that don't necessarily reward the work we want and need to do. By carving out a bit of your brain for the good work, you're doing more than most, and all that is needed.