Science failings

Greer in http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2016/07/scientific-education-as-cause-of.html provides sound insight into how decisions are made by all levels of society about the wide range of fields. In particular, he noted that physical science, in principle, is based on the gathering of evidence to improve understanding of what happens. He noted, however, that the contributions of scientists about issues in their fields are often biased by vested interests. He also points out that the findings of science often do not influence the decisions being made by various levels of society because of lack of understanding of the consequences of not taking the findings into account.

However, Greer does not take into account the failings of science to provide convincing arguments on how many aspects of natural forces always have and always will operate. Of course, sometimes exceptional scientists come up with understanding of specific issues that are gradually incorporated into the body of scientific understanding as a prelude to acceptance by society at large and influencing the decisions being made. Albert Einstein is now renowned for his contributions on the theory of relativity but that renown only came decades after his original findings were made known to the scientific community. Galileo Galilei made a major contribution to science five hundred years ago but his findings only slowly became widespread understanding of some fundamentals long after his death. This slow acceptance of novel scientific findings is understandable in view of the fact that there were also many proposals that were slowly proven to be unsound despite the arguments (and even demonstrations) by their proponents. Perpetual motion machines is by one example of the furphies that have been foisted on the community only for a while because convincing demonstration could not emerge despite attempts by scientists who did not understand the fundamental physical principles that govern these operations. They did not take into account the fact that in operations, energy does positive work while friction does negative work. 

The proposition that the emissions from the combustion of coal and other fossil fuels were having a harmful impact on environmental operations was initially made by a scientist over a hundred years ago. Slowly sufficient evidence has been gathered by dedicated scientists in many countries to prove that proposition. These peer-reviewed findings have been sufficient to convince some prominent people to support moves to deal with climate change as much as is physically possible and to introduce measures to cope with the consequences, such as sea level rise and impact on farming. This failing of science at large to recognize the consequence of the combustion of the hydrocarbons (which natural forces took eons to produce using energy from the Sun) to provide the energy to drive the technical systems while producing carbon dioxide and other emissions will continue to blight developments for a long time. It is not surprising that many people who do not understand even rudimentary physical principles are take in by how the operation of society is very largely governed by monetary decisions. The failing of physical science to educate society about the stark reality of the irreversible consumption of a vast range of limited natural resources, including the fossil fuels, together with the production of irrevocable material wastes, the irreversible aging of the vast infrastructure that provides the services society had become so dependent on and the degradation of the environment means that industrialized civilization is doomed without society understanding why. Climate disruption and ocean acidification and warming is just one emerging manifestation of nature's response to the bad decisions made by all levels of society partly because of the failure of science to foster understanding of fundamental physical operations.

These views are by a physical scientist who after a career in aeronautical research has gained understanding of the fundamental physical principles that govern all operations (including how friction allows birds and airplanes to get lift as they fly)

A worrisome diagnosis

Some people consider it to be a funny world as they strive to cope with the behaviour of the economy and what the pundits have to say about what the future holds. Those who consider what is actually happening rather than the hype of politicians, economists and the media see nothing laughable about what society and its tools are doing to the natural support system, the terrestrial and marine environments. These rationalists have no doubt that decisions based on the flow of intangible money will continue to dominate the decisions, often unwise, being made about which possible tangible operations will be implemented. The elite in society will ensure that their leverage of money will largely support their agenda despite the cost to the rest of society or the natural life support system.

This is the way society, especially in the developed countries, has operated for centuries with innovative technology increasing the production of goods and the provision of services as well as the construction, operation and maintenance of the vast infrastructure that society has become so dependent on. Many of the millions who live in cities enjoy comfortable living and working conditions and the convenience of virtually unlimited land, sea and air travel. Ironically, this development is only one side of the balance sheet! The ecological cost has not been offset against the financial cost. Even worse, society has deemed it has the right to consume many irreplaceable natural resources, including the fossil fuels, without paying for the divestment of natural material wealth. Freely using these resources has been and still is the dominant policy. The mining , shipping and processing of these resources is a major application of technology at an energy, material and environmental cost of this unsustainable process in the long term, despite the contrary propaganda.

 The current volatility of global financial markets are the main concern of investors who have made money, often out of thin air rather than by physical effort, and they lust for more. The employed public continues to strive for a high material standard of living even though it means going into more debt. And industry is only too willing to oblige as it makes more money for their management as well as for the investors.

However, governments have the range of the usual political, economic, ethnic, military, territorial and resource problems to deal with as best they can. They are only slowly coming around to understanding that there are irrevocable symptoms that nature is fighting back. Climate change is now on their agenda but it is still not given the warranted treatment by even the media. The cries of the scientists are still largely falling on deaf ears due to  the rustling sound of dollars. Knowledgeable online groups are sounding out about the numerous other symptoms of what civilization has and is doing wrong but they are also being drowned out, but by the online social media revolution.

So ocean warming and acidification continues to devastate the marine  ecosystem. Soil fertility continues to decline as nutrients continue to be flushed into rivers and oceans even as the more common floods add to this devastation. Fracking to extract oil is not the only process that is deleteriously affecting ground water in many regions. Rapid species extinctions are causing concern in many communities but few understand what that is doing irrevocably to biodiversity.

These symptoms of what the operations of civilization are doing to nature are bad enough when all the dots are joined to provide the holistic view. But that is only one side of what is irrevocably happening. As noted, society is very dependent on the infrastructure of industrialized civilization. That infrastructure is irrevocably aging as its sustenance declines. The skyscrapers  that are now dominating so many cities around the world will become very vulnerable as electricity becomes scarce because of the demise of the generating  stations and the associated grids. Trade globalization will decline as the fuel oi used by container vessels inevitably becomes very scarce. But how will tourists, scientists, politicians and business people cope with the inevitable  loss of airline services. The public at large will find it hard to get over their love of the convenience  of using cars for commuting and leisure  but the elite will welcome the disappearance of traffic congestion.

These symptoms of the intractable disease of the current industrial civilization  provide a worrisome diagnosis that society will have to try to cope with.