by Often, the media portrays scientists in both a positive and negative way. On one hand, we are portrayed as people who lack social skills but on the other hand, we contribute greatly to the health and knowledge of society. I can say from personal experience that I think both of these stereotypes are very limiting. Most scientists are not people who lack social skills and not all researchers contribute equally to society as a whole. For one, I am interested in doing marine biology research, not because of some greater cause, but because I am genuinely interested in the way fish and marine arthropods exist. However, a greater discussion arises from the portrayal of scientific knowledge itself in the public and media. From the perspective of a scientist like myself, the public discourse of science is very ‘watered down’ in order to explain it at the most basic form. Therefore, I believe that scientific knowledge has a special status, in relation to the general public, when it comes to truly understanding research that shifts societal constructs and actions.
Many in academia would disagree with my thesis. Examples of public interactions with the scientific community are all around us, and I agree. For example, summer camps at a nature center or a famous scientist hosting a panel for a public event could be argued as a way to integrate scientific knowledge into those who do not identify strongly with that part of academia. However, I would argue that this explanation of ‘scientific knowledge’ is not what I would consider scientific knowledge. Having a scientist explaining a very complex subject to the average person actually demonstrates how scientific knowledge is not parallel with someone knowing about something. For example, my friend Jordyn works for the physical chemistry department at Colby College. When asking her about her independent research study, she explains her methods, results, and conclusions in a short matter in which I would understand. However, that doesn’t mean I know anything about physical chemistry or anything about her work. My knowledge of physical chemistry is limited to what she told me, verbatim. If we treat science so simply as to say that a subject matter’s knowledge is taught and mastered by simple explanation, we would not be doing such amazing research here in the United States. Indeed, scientific knowledge is available to those that both listen to the opinions of other scientists as well as those who go out to accumulate more knowledge for themselves.
Outside of a theoretical explanation, climate change is a good example of how scientific knowledge has a special status. In the public view, there are two main perspectives and it’s actually quite rare for anyone to be in the “center” about this issue. On one hand, there are people who deny the involvement of human activity in climate change. On the other hand, there are people who claim net zero carbon emissions would completely solve all of our problems and is possible given the current political and technological standards. For my readers, many agree that climate change and CO2 emissions are caused by humans and that’s what 100% of current scientific research shows. However, there are also probably some that think net zero is possible right now and human greed in its entirety is the main problem of climate change. I would ask those people, have you looked into the factors that actually cause climate change? It’s a problem with many confounding variables and you’re almost as ignorant as the people on the other side by not doing your own research.
The collective CO2 emissions of humans can be explained by 4 main factors. 2 of them explain why it is impossible to stop CO2 emissions right now and 2 of them explain how we can mitigate CO2 emissions. The first factor is population size. The global population is growing, and it is said to cap off at 11 billion, 40% more than today. The only way to stop this is to introduce healthcare, education, and contraception to many exponentially growing third world countries. Even then, it would take many more decades for lower birth rates to become apparent and it would have a negligible effect on CO2 in comparison to the growth rate. The second factor is economic growth. Statistically speaking, richer countries and wealthier people contribute more to CO2 emissions in comparison to people in poorer countries. Despite one’s efforts to go vegan or switch to an electric car, the average person in the United States has a 50X larger carbon footprint in comparison to the average person in Uganda. Overall, growth is the standard protocol when coming to assess a countries success, and rich countries like Japan and the United States will continue to function under the terms of economic growth for many decades, no matter the political system. Even if 1st world countries gave up the economic ideology of growth, developing countries want to become rich as well and stopping this growth would mean staying in poverty for the majority that fall under these parameters. We can predict that the world will continue to pursue economic freedom and grow for the next couple. Overall, population size and increasing wealth contributes as humanistic qualities of the world that greatly impact CO2 emissions– which unfortunately is unstoppable given the numbers.
However, there are two other factors that can significantly mitigate carbon emissions, with the right change in culture and political perspective. The first factor is energy intensity– how efficient we are at using the energy. For example, using an LED bulb is about 90% more efficient when compared to using a florescent bulb– meaning it uses 90% less energy as an input for the same output. There are examples of energy efficiency all around us such as an electric stove versus grill or paper bags versus plastic bags. Unfortunately, there are two reasons why it takes a bit more than efficiency to solve climate change and CO2 emissions. First, the direct rebound effect states that if something becomes more efficient, people become more prone to use it and the effects of efficiency tend to minimally outweigh the effects of using an inefficient product. Second, the indirect rebound effect states that saving money on something more efficient means that one might use the money on something that is not as carbon free for the environment. For example, buying an electric car might save you from spending money on gasoline but in return, you could be using that money for something else such as a plane ticket, which outweighs the effects of carbon efficiency from the electric car. These two reasons explain why efficiency is not enough. However, the second factor we can control is CO2 emissions/ energy used which, when combined with a conscious efforts of efficiency, can mitigate CO2 emissions drastically. This is a metric that shows how much CO2 is released for anything that requires external energy, such as how coal plants release 20 times more CO2 for the same amount of energy of a solar power plant. The greatest problem with climate change in general is CO2 emissions and this is mainly caused by the use of fossil fuels. If we create economic policies right now that allow us to use nuclear power plants for longer periods of time or give more subsites to renewable energy companies instead of fossil fuel industries, it will drastically decrease our current carbon footprint to give more time for innovation for the future of the earth.
Overall, the following anecdote about climate change/CO2 emissions was used as an example of how some who claim to have ‘scientific knowledge’ of climate change lack what real scientists would consider to be knowledge. I had this exact same discussion with one of my friends and after my lengthy explanation, he just said we can still have a net zero carbon economy today– with no real explanation for his statement. In conclusion, I believe it is not enough to say one can patriciate in science or have scientific knowledge based on having interactions with media on scientific subjects or simply listening to someone who studies a specific branch of science. Scientific knowledge is rooted in individuals who are hungry and curious to learn more about the world for their own enjoyment and formulate their own thoughts based on readings and discussions of other scientists.
Sources:
https://climate.nasa.gov/
https://science2017.globalchange.gov/downloads/CSSR_Ch1_Our_Globally_Changing_Climate.pdf
https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/18281/1/Lth2008a.pdf
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0009281916300551
https://www.axios.com/why-climate-change-is-so-hard-to-tackle-the-global-problem-5035a6ec-2d92-4cf9-9926-f763d4481bb4.html
https://ourworldindata.org
https://www.gatesnotes.com/Climate-an…