Lunch talk for the Kiwanis Club today. Because the computer hookup wasn't working, and it was a small group, I just sat down to talk with them instead. They had asked me to come and update them on what we've been doing in the planetarium, and we had a wide-ranging conversation about dark matter, black holes, making color photos from a series of grayscale ones, Technicolor film, and so on. I generally think that my job, at these events, is to be sparkly---unicorns and double rainbows, all the way. So I sparkled about HST, and I told jokes about dark matter, and I was witty about black holes.
But then they asked me about climate change.
They should not have done that.
Because they are wrong.
Their whole belief system is founded around an incorrect understanding of basic physics, and a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of time.
And for the first time ever, I didn't hedge. And I wasn't polite. And I didn't pull my punches. And of course, no one was convinced. Because data doesn't matter. And 28,000 separate lines of investigation that agree don't matter. Shifting coffee plantations, migration patterns, ice cover, times of bloom, mass extinctions, wildfires, glacial retreats, just don't matter. What matters is that they don't WANT it to be true. Too bad. Nature doesn't care what you want. I failed to sparkle. And there were no unicorns, and definitely not any rainbows.
So I know I'm burnt out. Because I couldn't even let the Kiwanis Club wrap themselves in soothing lies that make them feel better. And for the last two weeks, we've been doing climate change in my environmental physics class, and even I can't find any rainbows.
But I'm sure if I take a vacation, I'll find a unicorn around here somewhere.
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