It’s shocking that in the twenty-first century the anti-science brigade are on the march. The reason is clear. Scientific research conducted across many earth-system science disciplines is our most powerful instrument exposing the threats and damage to the environment and social justice due to capitalism. Capitalism is the enemy of nature. The anti-science policies and rhetoric of Trump are no surprise, and have provoked strong opposition among American scientists.
Trump’s decision to withdraw the US from the Paris Climate Accord of 2015, has met widespread condemnation. The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) accuses Trump of methodically diminishing the influence of independent science in the federal government. The Department of the Interior has halted the work of committees that advise on scientific matters. Trump has signed resolutions against science-based air, drinking water, and workplace protections. Officials have apparently been banned from using the terms ‘evidence-based’ and ‘science-based’. UCS calls this a ‘war on science’.
Science is not politics, but it is crucial that our politics are informed by science. All Green Party policies are evidence-based and consistent with the science. Our policies against global warming due to human activities are rooted in overwhelming scientific evidence. Applied science can be a scourge or boon for humankind. It’s not long since the purpose of applied science was believed to be about ‘conquering’ nature, a sort of quasi-colonialist vision, leading to human supremacy over all life on earth.
Science and technology should not be seen by Greens and the Left as an intrinsic threat to ecosystems. Ecosocialism identifies capitalism as the enemy of nature (1), bringing together social justice and the environment crisis as linked and interacting concerns. We must recognise the fundamental importance of this linkage based on analysis which is underpinned by a scientific, evidence-based approach.
Ian Angus (2) has argued that we need to unite the latest scientific findings with an ecological Marxist analysis in a socio-ecological account of the origins, nature, and direction of the crisis. A partial view of the science, without recognising and exploring the fundamental causes of the crisis, ie the capitalist economic system, is biased and not evidence-based.
Population is still blamed for the environmental crisis. It is an important issue, but the fundamental cause of the crisis is the capitalist economic system, dependent on ceaseless growth. Angus (2) cites Barry Commoner’s view that trying to fix the environment by reducing population is like trying to repair a leaky ship by throwing passengers overboard, instead of asking if there isn’t something radically wrong with the ship.
The risk of ‘accidental’ nuclear war, causing a nuclear winter to rival the impact of climate change, continues to grow. The 2018 Doomsday Clock statement by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has advanced the clock to two minutes to midnight. The closest the Clock has ever been to Doomsday, even at the height of the Cold War. The nuclear rhetoric of Trump, the situation on the Korean peninsula, military exercises along NATO borders, and nuclear weapons developments all increase the threat yet Tegmark (3) says these never become election issues and tend to get largely ignored.
He has also discussed the risk of a major extinction event caused by an asteroid hitting the Earth. It’s not a question of ‘if’, but ’when’. Science and technology could warn against and avert such a catastrophe, given sufficient time and resources. Last year scientists discovered a new elongated asteroid in the solar system. It’s the first known interstellar asteroid, originating in a planetary system around another star in our Milky Way galaxy.
It is deeply disturbing that in 2018 we need to ask ’what about the science?’ I remember C.P. Snow’s lecture in 1959 on ‘The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution.’ Not only does the gulf between science and the humanities still exist, it is being deepened by the captains of capitalism.
References
- Joel Kovel: The Enemy of Nature, Zed Books, 2007
- Ian Angus: A Redder Shade of Green. Monthly Review Press, 2017
- Max Tegmark: Our Mathematical Universe, Penguin Books, 2015
Photo Andromeda, our closest galactic neighbour : Peter J. Garbett
iecosoc.net 
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