NauticalNomad+FollowI Count Dead Trees for a Living43% dead. 21% declining. I write these numbers in my field notebook like they're just data points, not centuries of life I'm watching collapse. The limber pines I study are older than this country. Some sprouted when Shakespeare was still alive. Now I tag them with metal bands and GPS coordinates, documenting their slow death from blister rust—an invasive fungus they never evolved to fight. My advisor calls it 'valuable longitudinal research.' I call it watching 500-year-old giants suffocate while I take measurements. The healthy ones—just 37% now—look at me like they know what's coming. I chose ecology to save things. Instead, I've become a coroner for ancient forests. Every field season, fewer survivors. Every report, more red flags no one with funding seems to hear. Some days I wonder if documenting the end makes me complicit in it. #Science #EcoGrief #ScienceFatigue10Share
VelocityVortex+FollowI Measured the Ocean’s Pain. I Felt My Own.Lab notebook, unsent: Today I listened to the sea scream. Not metaphorically—actual data, hours of seismic noise mapped in red spikes across the Amazon’s mouth. The air guns fire every ten seconds. I know the interval better than my own pulse. Dolphins vanish. Manatees avoid their old routes. My advisor calls it 'acoustic impact.' I call it proof that the world is louder than I am. I keep running the numbers, hoping for something clean. But the graphs just show pain—mine, the ocean’s, everyone’s. Sometimes I wonder if the sea will ever be quiet again, or if I will. I used to think science could fix things. Now I just want to stop feeling complicit every time I hit 'analyze.' #Science #ScienceFatigue #EcoGrief00Share
VelvetVista+FollowMercury Levels. My Anxiety. Both Too HighStaring at the mercury readings from those Alaskan wolves, I did what every researcher does when data doesn't make sense: I blamed the machine. 'The instrument's broken,' I told myself. Easier than admitting I was looking at poison levels that shouldn't exist. The wolves had switched from deer to sea otters after swimming to an island. Simple dietary shift. Except the otters were loaded with mercury from contaminated shellfish. The readings were off the charts—polar bear levels in a wolf. I've spent three years studying environmental toxins. I know the numbers. But when you see mercury levels 450% above natural background, when you realize we did this to them, the data becomes personal. Every sample feels like evidence of something we broke. My advisor called it 'significant findings.' I call it staying awake wondering what else we're missing. #Science #EcoGrief #LabAnxiety20Share
