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| Earth From Space, collage, Alyce Santoro, 2017 |
When the public sector is at the
service of the private sector, the economic interests of the few are bound to
trump the needs of the many. In places throughout the world – regardless
of political framework – Earth’s inherent elements have been utilized by humans[1]
in ways that are gravely shortsighted.
Indeed, it is now amply evident that practices that have prevailed around the globe for eons have caused cumulative harm, putting at risk the continued viability of all life on Earth. While it could be argued that many humans are complicit by (wildly varying) degrees, dependence on current systems is often by carefully orchestrated design; continued concentration of wealth and power depends upon it.
While we can speculate on the extent to which figures throughout history have been aware of the damage they were wreaking, specific examples of full awareness can now be easily sited. Of one thing we can be certain: on the path to domination, awareness, however acute, could always been justified away through dehumanization and abstraction of those and that which require oppression, exploitation, and extraction.
Given overwhelming current data, it is impossible for anyone acting today to not know.
Indeed, it is now amply evident that practices that have prevailed around the globe for eons have caused cumulative harm, putting at risk the continued viability of all life on Earth. While it could be argued that many humans are complicit by (wildly varying) degrees, dependence on current systems is often by carefully orchestrated design; continued concentration of wealth and power depends upon it.
While we can speculate on the extent to which figures throughout history have been aware of the damage they were wreaking, specific examples of full awareness can now be easily sited. Of one thing we can be certain: on the path to domination, awareness, however acute, could always been justified away through dehumanization and abstraction of those and that which require oppression, exploitation, and extraction.
Given overwhelming current data, it is impossible for anyone acting today to not know.
#ExxonKnew #ShellKnew #AlexanderVonHumboltKnew #BuckminsterFullerKnew #RachelCarsonKnew #TrumpKnows, #EverybodyKnows
“…we can make all of humanity successful through science's world-engulfing industrial evolution provided that we are not so foolish as to continue to exhaust in a split second of astronomical history the orderly energy savings of billions of years' energy conservation aboard our Spaceship Earth. These energy savings have been put into our Spaceship's life-regeneration-guaranteeing bank account for use only in self-starter functions.” – Buckminster Fuller, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, 1968
“The most alarming of all man's assaults upon the environment is the contamination of air, earth, rivers, and sea with dangerous and even lethal materials. This pollution is for the most part irrecoverable; the chain of evil it initiates not only in the world that must support life but in living tissues is for the most part irreversible. In this now universal contamination of the environment, chemicals are the sinister and little-recognized partners of radiation in changing the very nature of the world – the very nature of its life.” – Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, 1962
“By felling the trees which cover the tops and sides of mountains, men in all climates seem to bring upon future generations two calamities at once; want of fuel and a scarcity of water.” — Alexander von Humboldt, Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America: During the Years 1799-1804
In the interest of keeping the
wheels of progress greased, theses voices and those of many others who espoused
similar sentiments have been meticulously avoided, shunned, and marginalized.
Not knowing is no longer a valid
excuse (if it ever was).
Coal mining, alternating current,
fast food, commercial airline travel, plastics, factory farming, nuclear power,
the atomic bomb, the internal combustion engine, vaccines, antibiotics, Agent
Orange, hydraulic fracturing, petrochemical agriculture, weapons systems,
rockets to Mars. Are these technologies good, evil…or some of each? While we
may at least be able to agree that scientists (people with specialized
expertise, interests, and expectations) used science (a system designed to
remove bias to the greatest extent possible) to create these technologies,
science cannot tell us whether its products are ultimately constructive or harmful
or how, when, and whether to use them. Science and its revered “objective”
method do not contain ethical components. It is the people practicing science who
are now, and who have always been, responsible for determining what research
questions are appropriate and worthy of exploration. What is considered
conscionable may change over time. The debate about what forms of research are
moral and just must be an earnest, ongoing, and inclusive one.
There is not now and there has
never been any legitimate question as to whether science as a tool for
gathering knowledge is necessary and important. In light of recent data
(produced by science) and our growing awareness of the direness of current
circumstances, science as an instrument can and will be vital in crafting
solutions to problems that science itself, when wielded with a lack of emphasis
on possible consequences, had a hand in creating.
Said another way: if we are using
science to further our “progress”, and our definition of progress is problematic,
science as a vehicle is bound to deliver us to an undesirable destination (case
in point: Earth’s biosphere circa 2018).
As we gather to march for
science, this can be an opportunity to become clear on our collective definition
of progress and unified in our vision of the kind of science (humanitarian,
ecologically sound, and just? Or devoted to profit over people and planet?) we
are marching for.
Whether and when “science” is
revered or reviled and by whom has everything to do with that entity’s
interests (self or otherwise). If those interests are primarily economic, then
any science that hinders financial gain (i.e.: anthropogenic greenhouse
warming; sea level rise; water, soil, and air contamination by toxic effluent,
etc.) will be vigorously opposed. At the same time, any science that furthers
the entity’s agenda (i.e.: fracking, offshore drilling, weapons development,
etc.) will be embraced, promoted…and well-funded.
In the case of the current
administration and its advocates: it is not science per se that is being
attacked; rather, these groups seek to quell any challenge to the top-down
social and economic paradigms upon which their radically self-serving agendas
depend.
As scientists, we can take into consideration the impact of our efforts, and ask ourselves to what extent our skills and resources are being devoted to humane outcomes. We can, like Buckminster Fuller, imagine what an anticipatory design science would look like.
As scientists, we can take into consideration the impact of our efforts, and ask ourselves to what extent our skills and resources are being devoted to humane outcomes. We can, like Buckminster Fuller, imagine what an anticipatory design science would look like.
As concerned citizens and advocates, we can be discerning about the kinds of science we defend.
Richard Levins, geneticist/ecologist and prominent member of Science for the People, suggested the following rule of thumb, “…all theories are wrong which promote, justify, or tolerate injustice. The wrongness may be in the data, its interpretation, or application, but if we search for that wrongness, we will also be led to truth.”
May our shared love for science and the world it examines
lead us to truth.
[1]
The Anthropocene is being proposed by some scientists and
philosophers as a term to define the current geological epoch. While the word
accurately identifies humans as profound influencers of our planet’s
biogeophysical systems, it must be constantly stressed that not all humans are
equally complicit.
