A Note from DF: It has been a very busy spring with major family events, busy times at work, health issues, and more. Getting back to the blog with this open letter. I sent this by email about a week ago and have not heard back yet.
An open letter (email) to Damian Carrington and the Guardian Environment Desk
Hello Damian Carrington and folks at the Environment Desk,
I write to comment on your article of May 8, 2024, “We asked 380 top climate scientists what they felt about the future…They are terrified, but determined to keep fighting.”
I greatly appreciate this article and all the environmental and climate reporting you do. After my 30 years of academic study, research and writing, community projects, and activism for environmental sustainability, I know the value of the comprehensive reporting you do.
Here I share comments, alternative perspectives, and resources from my work in environmental sustainability. If you see value in this, I would be glad to share more information, write an op ed or letter to the editor, discuss collaborating on an article, or any other correspondence or cooperation you suggest.
I understand the motivation behind your May 8 article to be sincere effort to contribute in positive ways toward solutions for the climate crisis. Your survey of climate scientists is a creative way to ask scientists about their feelings. This is a great example of cutting across traditional boundaries and finding novel ways to understand problems and create solutions. I think you succeeded in making positive and powerful contributions with this article.
Below are some thoughts that may be unique contributions aligned with your creative approach. I address these topics:
1. Explaining the root cause of the climate crisis as the prevailing paradigm of reductionist mechanistic science and showing how this relates to your survey of climate scientists.
2. A proposal to envision two distinct human futures, two distinct directions forward, that are radically different but complementary. I also link this to your article.
1. Explaining the root cause of the climate crisis as the prevailing paradigm of reductionist mechanistic science and how this relates to your survey of climate scientists.
Your article, and the climate scientists you quote, point to many root causes and key problems, but none of those causes focus squarely on the role of science itself. Based on years of interdisciplinary research, I have written that the paradigm of science is a root cause of the climate crisis. Not only the climate crisis, but I attest it causes 10 or more interdependent existential environmental crises all co-occurring – mass species extinctions, nitrogen cycle disruption, toxins and pollution, food threats, and more. I call this system of crises the global ecological multi-crisis; others call it the polycrisis or metacrisis.
You do report that 4% of respondents in the survey mentioned “scientific understanding of the issue” as a problem and cause of “why is the world’s response so slow and inadequate”. But I imagine this scientific understanding of the issue refers to lack of understanding on the part of the public and/or government, policy makers, etc. Please correct me if I am wrong. My work suggests that the role of science itself, specifically the prevailing paradigm of science, is much more important than the role of scientific understanding on the part of the public.
The paradigm of science is an under-appreciated area with potentially great leverage for systemic change. I propose the paradigm of science is also more important than lack of political will, vested corporate interests, lack of money, and lack of green technology, all of which your respondents cited.
I want to state clearly that I am a lifelong student and practitioner of science and a strong proponent of the power of science for human knowledge and improving human quality of life. I believe my critique of science can make science even stronger and even more successful at serving human needs.
I co-wrote a book explaining this strategic approach, “Foundations for Sustainability: A Coherent Framework of Life-Environment Relations” (Fiscus and Fath 2019). The publisher page for this book is here:
https://shop.elsevier.com/books/foundations-for-sustainability/fiscus/978-0-12-811460-5
I can send you a PDF of this book if that would be of interest.
A summary of the main book topics explaining why the paradigm of science is the root cause of the global ecological multi-crisis is online here:
Mission Possible – ecosystemics.org
I can share many more resources on this if that would be of interest.
Your article reports on responses of the climate scientists, saying “The capture of politicians and the media by vastly wealthy fossil fuel companies and petrostates, whose oil, gas and coal are the root cause of the climate crisis, was frequently cited.”
From my perspective, it is important to see oil, gas, and coal as proximate causes of the climate crisis driven by deeper root causes. A deeper root cause is industrial technology in general, and this is driven by the even deeper paradigm of reductionist, objectivity-focused, analytical, mechanistic science (I call it ROAM science) that has prevailed for roughly 400 years. Our book describes related root causes, such as a misplaced value basis in science in which Life itself is not the primary value (Life here meaning Life as a unified whole in its organismal, ecosystemic, and biospheric modes all integrated). We cite work of Donella Meadows, renowned systems thinker and lead author of the book “Limits to Growth”, who wrote that the paradigm of the system has the greatest leverage for complex system change (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_leverage_points).
The testable hypothetical causal role of science paradigm arises logically, here referring to global ecological multi-crisis as GEMC:
1. The GEMC is caused by industrial cultures, not indigenous cultures.
2. Industrial cultures are driven by science, which drives core technologies.
Therefore:
3. The GEMC is caused by science – the dominant paradigm of reductionist, mechanistic science.
Evidence for this hypothesis includes the synthesis assessment that industrial culture has turned the world into a machine-like system. This evidence and outcome fit with a projection of the root metaphor – a human mental construct of the science paradigm in which everything is treated as mechanism – onto the real world through millions and billions of actions that ripple out from science through technology and culture. The Earth system is literally running out of gas, breaking down, self-degrading, and degrading the environmental quality necessary for Life. These are decisive observations of complex system behavior, because these behaviors 1) fit directly with what mechanical systems do, and 2) are the opposite of what complex living systems, ecosystems, and the biosphere do. Normal behaviors of living ecosystems and the biosphere serve to improve environmental quality for Life over time (consider the oxygen atmosphere, the way soils naturally grow in depth and fertility, maintenance of high biodiversity, etc.). These living system behaviors promote self-regeneration after disturbances and generate energy surpluses such as the biomass that led to creation of fossil energy.
This hypothesis is testable and falsifiable. One way to test the hypothesis would be to change the science paradigm, develop technologies and culture informed by and built up from this science paradigm, and monitor data for changes in key indicators of climate disruption and ecological crisis. In our book, we described what I now call holistic, organic, living system science (HOLS science), which differs from ROAM science in foundational principles. HOLS science is based on ecological network analysis of Robert Ulanowicz and Bernard Patten, theoretical and relational biology of Robert Rosen, systems science of Sally Goerner, and work of many other leading scientists we cite and build on. HOLS science values holism and synthesis and studies phenomena in ways that quantify and relate comprehensive sets of direct and indirect interactions in real systems like food webs. HOLS science shares many principles with indigenous knowledge and traditional ecological knowledge, such as the importance of humans living in reciprocal relationship with their land.
A suite of suitable key indicators for testing the science paradigm hypothesis was described in work on the Great Acceleration (https://ecosystemics.org/2023/12/15/solutions-worth-testing/). Some combination of their 24 environmental and socio-economic indicators would serve as measurable metrics of systemic change. A crucial test of the holistic hypothesis would be for all 24 of the metrics to plateau and reverse course in synchrony. The coordinated change of multiple metrics is crucial and would signal a unique type of transformative change.
Current efforts at so-called “solutions”, nearly all based on ROAM science and industrial technology, focus on isolated subsets of the global ecological multi-crisis. These focus solely on the climate crisis, or energy transition, or microplastics, etc. Most solutions of this type may yield progress and benefits in the isolated problem of focus only to shift the burden to other areas and create more and potentially worse problems elsewhere. For example, to propose wind and solar energy as solutions to climate crisis, while accounting only narrowly for carbon emissions at the final end-use stage of the energy, ignores a vast array of carbon emissions at many steps in the life cycle processes of wind and solar energy generation, transmission, storage, and end use. New problems are generated due to toxic waste, mining of non-renewable rare minerals, social injustice in countries where these minerals are mined, displacement of farmland where solar farms are cited, and more unintended and ignored side-effects. Electric vehicles, geo-engineering proposals, industrial carbon capture and storage, and related ROAM-science-based “solutions” should be scrutinized by accounting in comprehensive ways for all costs and benefits at all stages of process and far into the future.
Another test of the hypothesis would be to continue to monitor the 24 metrics of the Great Acceleration for those areas of industrial culture where no change in science paradigm occurs. The science paradigm hypothesis and underlying HOLS science principles employed predict two possible observations. First, progress in a single metric may be observed, but negative trends in one or more metrics will also occur that generate more overall harm than the narrowly achieved good. Second, none of the metrics may improve significantly; instead the full suite of metrics may continue their negative trends toward global catastrophe. If either of these sets of trends are observed, the results would support the hypothesis that the sub-crises making up the multi-crisis are all unified in some way. This unity could plausibly be that they all share the same underlying root cause. And this root cause is plausibly the ROAM science paradigm at the basis of industrial culture.
Including the climate crisis in these tests would help with understanding whether climate disruption can be solved independently or whether it must be solved as an integral part of a larger systemic multi-crisis.
If the climate crisis is successfully resolved, and/or if the multi-crisis is successfully resolved, while ROAM science remains the domain paradigm, then my hypothesis would be falsified.
2. A proposal to envision two distinct human futures, two distinct directions forward, that are radically different but complementary.
This proposal relates to your article section:
“All of humanity needs to come together and cooperate – this is a monumental opportunity to put differences aside and work together,” said Louis Verchot, at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture in Colombia. “Unfortunately climate change has become a political wedge issue … I wonder how deep the crisis needs to become before we all start rowing in the same direction.”
In our book (Fiscus and Fath 2019) we proposed a scenario with two branching paths into two distinct human futures, aligned with two complementary science paradigms, as an empowering vision that can facilitate systemic change to solve the global ecological multi-crisis.
This vision of the future suggests the importance to understand and “start rowing” not in the same one direction, but with groups cooperatively rowing in two distinct directions while agreeing to cooperate and support each other.
We proposed two hypothetical groups of people, two cultural types – the Sustainers and the Transcenders – each with a different environmental trajectory into the future. This connects to point #1 above because Sustainers are imagined to focus primarily on HOLS science and Transcenders would value and work with ROAM science. Thus we proposed something different than Thomas Kuhn’s theory of regularly occurring paradigm shifts he described in the history of science. Instead of a shift where one prevailing paradigm is replaced by a new one, we propose a bifurcation or co-emergence of two complementary science paradigms, each best-suited for a distinct human-environment relation.
Sustainers are much like indigenous peoples whose cultures have been self-sustaining over millennia. In addition to actual indigenous peoples, Sustainers could include descendants of Europeans, Asians, Latin Americans, Africans, and any other groups now in industrial culture who choose to live truly sustainable lives. Sustainers are people who choose to live within the known environmental limits of the Earth system, operate their local culture using 100% renewable energy, live in mutually beneficial reciprocal relation with their land, and improve the quality of soils, air, water, biodiversity, and the environment through their impacts on the environment. Sustainers see HOLS science as the primary paradigm of science.
Transcenders are a generalized hypothetical group of people who choose to use all available resources, technology, and human ingenuity to explore space, and who work toward eventual travel to other planets to help Life of Earth disperse to new homes beyond Earth. Transcenders see ROAM science as the primary paradigm of science, and rely on energy intensity, precision, control, and computational power to achieve extra-terrestrial feats no other species can achieve. ROAM-science-based technology cannot be sustainable over the long term on Earth, and it is mostly not necessary for human survival, meeting human needs, and quality of human life. However, ROAM science is fully required for the Transcender mission, a different kind of human endeavor, which does not need to be sustainable to be valuable and beneficial to all Life.
Despite their radically different relationship to the Earth environment, Sustainers and Transcenders share 1) the primary value of Life as the basis of science and culture, and 2) the necessity of a win-win, mutually beneficial Life-Environment relation. These two are equally important on Earth and for any mission that hopes to sustain Life beyond Earth. In both branches of human futures, the climate crisis and other related environmental crises would be resolved because the values, science, technology, and culture are all inherently focused on long-term survival of Life including human life. We know from the history of Life on Earth that sustained Life requires maintenance and regeneration of all environmental Life support systems and capacities.
If more info is of interest, I can share plans and projects with high leverage for systemic change to solve the climate crisis, with added power to solve ten or more interdependent environmental crises of the global ecological multi-crisis. My recommendations for holistic action for systemic transformation include 1) clarifying, differentiating, and harmonizing dual complementary paradigms of science, 2) developing science facilities with truly sustainable operations so science can lead by example, 3) reforming science education at all levels including development and teaching of a revised scientific method, 4) convening discussions of indigenous and space communities to find common ground and shared values able to unify divergent environmental futures.
In closing, I emphasize again that I am a lifelong student and practitioner of science and a strong proponent of the power of science for human knowledge and improving human quality of life. I believe my critique of science can make science even stronger and even more successful at serving human needs.
However, unless scientists are more self-critical and have the courage to examine our own roles, and the role of the underlying values and paradigm of reductionist mechanistic science, I am concerned that we will not succeed in our current challenges. Perhaps just as bad, I am concerned that people will lose trust in and respect for science. Unless science can lead the way to solving the climate crisis and linked multi-crisis, science risks becoming irrelevant and ceding moral, intellectual, policy, and practical action authority to other sectors of society.
Thanks again for your insightful survey of climate scientists and excellent article. Any replies, comments, or opportunities for correspondence or collaboration would be greatly appreciated.
Best wishes,
Dan Fiscus, PhD
Links to my video presentations and peer-reviewed science publications at www.ecosystemics.org
CV available on request
ecosystemics.org 
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