Where are the emotions?

The keynote speaker representing the IPCC had just finished his presentation at the World Symposium on Climate Change Adaptation at Manchester Metropolitan University. It was September 2015. The questions from the conference delegates were sparse and bland. Feeling a bit bored and dissatisfied I decided to liven things up by asking a question that had been on my mind for a while. “There is a view that the IPCC and climate science generally would be more effective if there was more expression of emotion,“ I ventured, “what do you think about this?” I made reference to two articles in the media that reported a panel member crying and how this was received (see here and here). “What you have just presented is terrifying, what do you do with these emotions yourself?” Professor Hans-Otto Pörtner paused ever so slightly. Then with…