Wayland Town Criwer 1/27/12: Packed house for Walden Forum on climate change. “People like to call us alarmists,” said Kerry Emanuel, professor of atmospheric science at MIT, speaking to more than 150 audience members at First Parish Meeting House in Wayland Center last Thursday at the Walden Forum. “I would say that history shows the exact opposite. Not just in climate science, but across science, we tend to be conservative.” Emanuel was pointing to a graph showing various projections of the rate at which arctic sea ice, already receding rapidly, will disappear in coming decades. He noted that even the most “liberal” (that is, alarming) predictions made by climate scientists are proving to be far too conservative.