Today I saw an add coming from Greta Thunberg. In it, she remind us that plenty of people hear what she says. There were two hilarious Trump’s and Putin’s videos talking about her. Then the camera goes back to her, and she says: “but I don’t want people to hear me. I want people to hear the science”. If you ask me, quite a nice add. I like that too, hear the science. But then I get to think about it. It is kind of weird that we ecologists are asking to hear the science. Is it that science gives advice on what to do?
Obviously not. Science is an exercise in understanding, not in advising.
And yet here we are. Most of us, people committed to ecologism (whatever that might possibly mean) tend to frame our opinions in scientific terms, or in reference to “scientific established truths”. Which is, again, kind of stupid. It is not at all the task of science to establish facts, or truths. Science, actually, starts after facts are established as such. Only then begins the task of the scientist (which is to connnect facts in coherent frameworks, or theories).
But ok, theories are predictive. And pretty much every other theory of the environment tells us that if we keep on going as we go, lots of damage will be done into ourselves. Probably those predictions are the ones Greta was refering to. Yet, it is a fairly recent development that science and ecologism are going together. Up to few decades ago, science and technology were almost synonyms. Faster cars, bigger factories, better ways to extract oil, bigger boats with bigger nets to fish more fish… you name it. For quite a while the powerful tools of science were used to develop ways in which we could abuse nature faster. There wasn’t a single moment in which “science” said something like “you should use your resources without exhausting them”. That is not a scientific statement, or a scientific fact. That is bloody common sense.
If you prefer, politics.
Here an obvious fact: nowadays politics are in crisis. Just take a look at percentages of trust that the people of one country, any country, have for their government. Choose democracies, dictatorships or whatever else. People do not trust their leaders, and if they trust them, they trust them for a very little while. How many kids wish nowadays “to be president”? Not so many. How comes? Why is it that the will to serve by leading is suspicious? I believe that politicians themselves have been trying, rather successfully, of de-politicize pretty much everything they do. This is what actually shocked me, when I got to think about it, about Greta’s add. Seriously, the Thunberg lady is one of the most successful politicians alive. As she herself says it, pretty much everybody hears her. And what does she has to tell? hear the science. Really?
If there is one thing you need not to do in our troubled times, is to hear the science. Even if you would take (or already have) the years of study and training necessary to understand a scientific paper, don’t. In our troubled times of untrustworthy politicians and climate change, a scientist have nothing urgent to bring to the table. Instead of hearing them, hear the politicians, actually. Understand what is it that they want to do. And support them, or not, accordingly. Don’t let them get away easily, don’t allow them to hide themselves behind experts, or scientists, or else.
About fifty plus years ago, a bunch of hippies wanted to be in closer contact with nature. They sounded deranged at that time, the time of an expansion in the creation and use of technology never seen before. Most of them, actually, were deranged. But they did manage to change our opinion. We got to recognize that our crazy use of science to create exploitative technologies is flawed and dangerous. What the hippies didn’t do was “to hear the science”. What they did do was to show us another direction to develop.
So don’t excuse yourself in the science. Choose your direction, and walk.
History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.
Quite a statement here: "There wasn’t a single moment in which “science” said something like “you should use your resources without exhausting them”. May I remind you of the report "limits to growth" published by the Club of Rome in 1972? Or "Our Common Future" , published by the Bruntland Commission in 1987? Sure, the scientific foundation of both has been criticized, but both exactly are moments were science said why we should use our resources with some care, why we should use common sense.
Something more we also seem to have forgotten. These days we are bombarded with info and advertorials and what not that we should insulate our houses, reduce the heating, get double windows, choose public transport over private cars, put solar panels on our roofs. Again, not new. Similar campaigns, same intensity, were done in the early 1970's. Now maybe more deep: get rid of the internal combustion motors and gas fired heating systems. Although that does not really safe energy, just uses another energy carrier. The reason now is different from the 70's. Now it is climate change, back then is was because of the oil boycott from OPEC. Campaigns kept on going, with some periods low, some periods high. Motivated by science, economics and maybe by the campaigns, I put PV solarpanels on the roof of my house already in 2020.
How come we keep forgetting? Do we only act if there is a crisis? When we get kicked in the behind? Hear the science, hear the politicians. Better not to hear, but to listen to the science and hear the politicians and make them listen.
Last but not least. Science gave us bigger cars, the opportunity to fly around the world but also this thing I am hitting on, the keyboard of my laptop that connects me to the world. And I never want to go back to nature, as the hippies back then and some new deranged varieties promote these days. It is not the science that damages things, it is the way we use it.