Science, well sort of....possibilities that create reality

So often, both as individuals and as a society, we look to science for certainty. What does the research tell us, predict, confirm? How can we avoid the possible risks or ensure the potential benefits of any given innovation? In that quest for certainty, we often miss a key point. What science can offer us most is not to give certainty, but rather, create possibility.

In the conversation (I’m consciously rejecting the use of the term “debate”) about human induced climate change, much of the time we hear declarations of certainty from all voices in the “dialog”. Predictions of consequences, whether articulated in temperature increases, sea level rise or socio-political impacts, are questioned. The sheer complexity of the overlapping emergent systems and variables at work make accurate projections impossible.  The daily thrum of Twitter and news feeds alternately alarms and numbs us.  We wring our hands over the feeling that forces aligned against the call for action are slowing needed progress. Governments alternately overreach or refuse to act, and the conversation is being driven by ideological imperatives rather than scientific data.  I often hear the plaintive cries of “If they would just get it!”  However, when I ask folks to describe exactly what it is they want “them” to get and do, I am often met with an uncomfortable silence, or at best half formed demands for unified action, carbon pricing or an imagined post carbon future now.  The point is we are frustrated by where we are, but seem to lack the ability to articulate a cogent vision of where we want to go…..but we’ve been here before.

Not so long ago, another generation faced a future of extreme uncertainty, one also characterized with the possibility, if not likelihood of an impending apocalypse.  It was the cold war.  We rehearsed our first moves after the air raid sirens sounded.  We secretly eyed the civil defense caches of crackers and 50 gallon drums of water hidden under the school auditorium stage, wondering how we were going to open them, and how long they would last.  The media and popular culture were littered with signposts of impending doom…and yet, we also held another parallel vision of the future. One in which we’d be bouncing along on the moon with our dog Astro, wearing cool bubble space helmets, and experiencing the strength of our legs against the low gravity of the lunar surface, bounding ever higher, with the Earth as our backdrop.

On September 12, 1962, President Kennedy gave his now famous speech at Rice University, laying out the case for why we should go to the moon by the end of the decade (You can see it in full length here…a great 17 minute history lesson.) What I find most interesting about it is that at that moment in time we were well behind the Soviet Union in the  “space race”, and we didn’t have the knowledge, materials, systems, technology and resources necessary to accomplish the objective.  However, the creation of the possibility that we might do so, ensured that we did.  There was no data or research predicting the outcome.  We embraced the possible rather than the certain.  And in doing so, we found another vision of the future that allowed us to both cope with and ultimately transcend the apocalypse of the moment.

So, what is the positive vision of the future that we are now offering up to our children?  How are we framing the possibility of the future today with the current apocalyptic challenges before us?  Frankly, I think we are failing miserably.  Too often, even our language seems to portend only negative outcomes…reduce and reuse can lead to or evoke regret, regress, and retreat.  We are asking ourselves to think smaller, safer, simpler…all good outcomes to a point, and certainly attractive if you are already highly educated and secure, but hardly inspirational or aspirational.   The metaphor of a 21st century moon-shot is often invoked to suggest a sense of common purpose and focus that will be needed to overcome the slow creeping horror of climate change.  But this really misses the point.  I don’t think we need to get more organized, I think we need to create a vision, a possibility of wild fun and adventure, full of risk, drama and reward, that our children will embrace.

Jules Verne imagined the possibility of a trip to the moon in 1865, and in less than a century, that possibility came true.  But for the creation of that possibility, one could argue we would never have done it. So, what challenges and dreams can we offer our children today?  What do you believe we should be offering as a compelling possibility for their future?

Note: I must acknowledge Saul Griffith, (who if you don’t know, you should, and can read about here) for posing these questions to me several years ago.  As you can see, I’m still searching for an answer.