The paradox of patient urgency

Good things take time, but do we have it?

Mar 19, 2025

landscape photography of mountains — Photo by Simon Berger on Unsplash

I've been thinking a lot lately about the state of the world, as many currently are. The complete and utter disregard a particular government administration has for science and the environment is staggering. I write this after reading news of the plans to fire more than 1,000 scientists in the US Environmental Protection Agency's research arm. I'm at a loss for understanding what the game plan is here. I just can't see a good ending.

I want the world to be a better place. I want climate change to be solved. I want the precipitous decline in biodiversity to be halted and reversed. I want multifunctional landscapes that balance food production with biodiversity and cultural benefits. I want rivers to roam free, and for fish and birds and trees and bugs to roam free with them.

And I want all these things now. Of course, this just isn't possible. I already knew that, but I'm beginning to worry that leadership around the world is hampering any progress in these spaces over realistic timeframes. We're already acting too slowly, collectively. We see targets being missed on the daily. Governments have signed up to countless initiatives only to watch the targets disappear in the rearview mirror. Smokescreens allow such news to be forgotten about for another year. Short-term thinking predominates.

As a scientist, the disconnect is jarring: the work I do often meticulously documents ecological change that unfolds over decades, while policies that could undo years of progress are being implemented overnight.

All is not lost though...

The dual reality: progress amidst setbacks

At the same time, so much progress is being made toward the environment in other areas. As I posted recently:

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Good things are happening!
Forests are being restored around the world.
Dams are coming down and native fish are returning to their ancestral rivers.
Wetlands are being protected, filtering water and slowing floods.
Urban gardens are bringing pollinators back.
Indigenous conservation approaches are gaining recognition and support.
Birds are being brought back from the brink of extinction.
Among all the doom and gloom and missing leadership, there are good news stories. And there's still time to make a difference.

So, yes, it's not all doom and gloom. I believe we have what it takes to limit the damage of the hole we've dug ourselves. But time is tight. And there's no hiding the disappointment when global leaders continue to steamroll decades of progress.

In short, there's progress amidst setbacks.

The question is: do we have time for these setbacks? That depends: Is it two steps forward, one step back? Or is it one step forward, two steps back?

This tension between progress and setbacks isn't just playing out on the global stage. It's mirrored in our individual lives and careers, especially for those of us working in environmental fields. How we personally navigate this push and pull can determine our ability to persevere in the face of seemingly never ending challenges.

Wins and losses

On a more personal level, those who constantly want more tend to frequently find themselves less satisfied. Just like kids getting upset when they can't have the shiny new thing their friends have, I get upset that the positive change I want to see is just not coming fast enough.

That's not to say I'm an unhappy person. But I get my joy elsewhere. The morning cuddles with my kids. Watching them grow into thoughtful, creative and caring little humans. Early morning surfs, feeling the hum of nature's rhythms. Connections to friends and family. Seeing my research group thrive, producing research of higher quality than I ever did at their stage. And this newsletter has provided a profound new source of satisfaction for me. I've connected with so many caring, passionate people and received so many positive messages in the past few months. It really has been eye opening.

There's a lot of wins. And you have to take them when they come. Because in a career chosen for its potential role in making the world a better place, it sometimes feels like there are so many more losses than wins. We're regularly exposed to these losses in ecology. Lost species, lost habitats, lost progress, lost leadership. It can be relentless.

This slow pace can be tough for us impatient, Type-A personalities. Everything has to be moving forwards, growing, impacting, striving. I’m blessed with the unfortunate trait of perennial dissatisfaction. It’s not a good thing. I achieve one thing and immediately move onto the next without really celebrating properly. I remember when I told my wife that I’d been promoted to Associate Professor a couple years ago and within 30 seconds I was telling her what I needed to do to make full Prof. Suffice to say, as she always does, she let me know how bonkers I was.

Personal victories like these sustain us through the challenges, but they don't resolve the fundamental dilemma facing environmental work today: Good things take time. But do we have it?

The tension between ecological rhythms and human urgency

Ecology and climate change operate on long timescales, but policy and funding cycles demand quick results. This fundamental tension defines much of our work in ecology and environmental science.

Science can be a slow moving beast, but that's just the way it works, unfortunately. We submit grant proposals. If they get accepted (success rates are often around 7 or 8%), we hire PhD students or Postdoctoral Fellows. They do the research. We submit it to a journal for peer review. It gets rejected. We try again somewhere else. It gets revised based on reviewer feedback once, twice or three times, and finally it gets published. This process I've described from grant proposal to publication could be three years or more.

Suffice to say, research can be a very slow process, which can mean progress can feel very slow towards personal or collective goals.

But here's the cruel paradox: while our research inches forward, climate change accelerates. We're racing toward tipping points that, once crossed, cannot be reversed. Melting ice sheets. Collapsing ecosystems. Shifting ocean currents. These aren't distant threats – they're here right now. The restoration of a forest ecosystem might take 50+ years to mature, but we don't have 50 years to address climate change. We need action now. Yet, the full benefits of such actions may not be realised for decades.

The irony is that nature itself holds lessons about patience and resilience. Rivers carve landscapes over millennia. Forests recover from catastrophic disturbances over centuries. Evolution shapes species over even longer timescales. But nature also teaches us about thresholds and tipping points – moments when gradual change suddenly become catastrophic transitions.

Perhaps the greatest challenge in our work is learning to operate on multiple timescales simultaneously: addressing urgent threats while building foundations for long-term change. Persistent and adaptive like a river carving its path, all while responding with the urgency and decisiveness that looming climate tipping points demand.

Big impact comes from many small actions

It takes a while to realise this. I’ve now been around the blocks a few times. But the way we solve these things is by biting off little chunks and working towards some bigger goal. And by collectively progressing as a field.

It’s easy to feel like only massive interventions matter, but just like with compounding interest, incremental changes compound over time.

Research is a collective effort. The work of conservationists, scientists, and policymakers builds on each other through the years. Our collective knowledge of how ecosystems function is the result of thousands and thousands of research papers. A single paper or dataset might seem like a minor contribution, but it may contribute to policy shifts decades later. We need to trust in the process. Knowledge compounds. Progress compounds.

Some of the best research I've seen has been the result of years of fairly basic natural history research repeated lots of times. Any one of these visits only produced another data point. But the combination of years of toil, with scientists trusting in themselves and their process, led to phenomenal results (e.g. Doak and Morris 2010 Nature).

Those with the foresight and patience for connecting persistent short-term actions to long-term visions often have some of the most impressive scientific track records.

From the perspective of the environment, consider the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone. What began as a controversial release of just 41 wolves in the mid-1990s has, over three decades, transformed the entire ecosystem—altering river patterns, reshaping forest structure, and helping to bring back numerous species. This case demonstrates how a relatively small intervention, maintained with patience and perseverance, can cascade into system-wide ecological restoration.

Conclusion: the paradox of patient urgency

How do we hold both urgency and patience simultaneously? This is the fundamental question.

We need to act right now, but transformative change takes time. The best solutions emerge from deep thinking, long-term observation, and collective, iterative progress.

I don't have all the answers. This post is me thinking out loud, expressing the dilemma I wrestle with on a daily basis. However, we can achieve big things, collectively. Just look at the ozone layer.

Some might say it's all just a bit too late anyway, and that we should be planning for post-growth rather than trying to plug the leak. But I disagree. While I grapple daily with how to make the biggest impact—through research, teaching, or even this newsletter—I remain convinced that urgent patience is our most powerful stance.

At the end of the day, things need to happen right now. But big things take time. So let's embrace this paradox: act with the urgency today's crises demand, while cultivating the patience to see transformative work through. Whether it’s supporting local conservation efforts, adjusting your daily habits, advocating for policy change, or simply committing to the long-term work that matters, we all balance the urgent and patient in what we choose to do.

What helps you balance urgency and patience in your own work? I'd love to hear your thoughts!