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[–] The_Cat [S] 1 point 3 points (+4|-1) ago  (edited ago)

We're fucking up the planet and our climate on an unprecedented scale. This has been found, established, verified and confirmed over and over again. And it's getting worse. More warming means less ice means more warming means more methane means more warming etc etc. If we don't get our shit together right now, we're fucked. We're probably already too late.

There is no overt pressure. Officially we're allowed to research whatever the fuck we want. But whether you get funding depends heavily on how much you publish, how high impact you publish, and if your research reaches news outlets etc. So in that sense, there is a LOT of subtle pressure to produce "sexy" research. What's sexy varies from time to time and domain to domain. Nanodots are sexy, and so are neural networks and machine learning. So if you do a machine learning/neural network study on nanodot properties, the government is going to be all "shut up and take my money". Meanwhile, research into high pressure material properties gets a big shrug, which leads to me currently doing research for free because the funding ran out. How's that for financial incentive.

Edit: If you want accurate and reliable information about climate change, Skeptical Science is clearly explained and very well sourced.