How climate scientists keep hope alive as damage worsens

Gill examining a cone from a western pine at the Sawyer Environmental Research Center in Orono, Maine. Gill says her work as a paleo-ecologist and climatologist has given her hope for the Earth's resilience despite global warming. Photos: Robert F. Bukaty/AP

In the course of a single year, the United States' University of Maine climate scientist Jacquelyn Gill lost both her mother and her stepfather.

She struggled with infertility, then during research in the Arctic, she developed embolisms in both lungs, was transferred to an intensive care unit in Siberia and nearly died. She was airlifted back home and later had a hysterectomy.