This take made me cringe. The only one putting emphasis on the fact that this scientist who has visited Antarctica 20 times in their life happens to be female, is you.

This

It's almost as if almost all public servants in all governments are required not to be political publicly and is written into their contracts.

> It's almost as if almost all public servants in all governments are required not to be political publicly and is written into their contracts.

I'm framing this, it's a perfect example of the endemic "dumb HN take".

1. asserting some personal desire as a rule

2. asserting it across the entire world

3. ignoring the actual details of the actual thing being discussed (climate change is surely not political in the same way that gravity isn't)

4. having no empathy at all for the actual topic or interest in it

5. despite all of the above, for some reason deciding to post a comment instead of saying nothing

Why is reporting scientific findings considered political?

Probably because many of those increasingly read like "if we don’t stop this soon we’re all gonna die". The direr the reported consequences of human activities get, the more we think "this scientist is telling me how to live my life".

It’s like playing Russian roulette, and having all the fun ruined by some eagle eyed gun expert pointing out that actually, there’s a bullet in that gun. The risk comes from the bullet, but we’re still tempted to be annoyed at the expert instead.

Because it’s going to quickly go from we observed this which is a finding to

we project that the world is going to end unless we do X which is not a scientific finding but rather one of a multitude of opinions on the future which is why climate models are averaged because there is no consensus and even if there was science doesn’t work on consensus.

You can tell by the dramatic article that this is why the government doesn’t let people like her give its opinions because her opinion diverges from that of the government.

Besides, Humans != TheWorld. This planet is going to spin even if we--arguably the biggest issue this planet ever had--are gone. There is this old joke. Two planets meet and have a chat. "So, how are you?" "Well, not good." "Why?" "I have homosapien!" "Don't worry, this will pass."

So, no worries, the world is not going to end.

And if humans manage to ruin their living conditions so badly that we end up dying out, evolution has just made another important step. After all, it is not like we deserve to survive.

There is case history in this area in Australia. "High court rules public servants can be sacked for political social media posts" https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/aug/07/high-...

And here is the APS professional standards manual. https://www.dfat.gov.au/about-us/publications/corporate/ethi...

You overlooked the other male scientists in the article that spoke out on the same issues?