Taking stock and marching on Earth Day

What do we want? Evidence-based science.

When do we want it? After peer review.

This will be the chant during the March for Science on Earth Day as protesters descend on Washington, DC, and around the world. The slogan may not roll off the tongue, but it has a precision that I can appreciate. I will be among the crowds saying those words on the U.S. National Mall on Saturday.

It’s a strange position for me. As an ecologist, I’ve thought of Earth Day as an opportunity to take stock of the state of the planet. That is especially true as our home moves farther into the uncharted waters of the Anthropocene — the new geological epoch defined by the actions of industrialized societies. And in the last 12 months or so, Earth has reached important milestones, both good and bad.

In 2016, for example, the Global Carbon Project reported that the growth of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel emissions around the world remained mostly flat for the third year in a row. At the same time, a second group of scientists calculated that one-tenth of the world’s remaining wilderness areas have disappeared since the 1990s. Roughly 30% of wilderness areas in the Amazon were lost. To learn more about these developments and more, you can watch this video or scroll through a new slideshow.

But, perhaps, the biggest milestone from this year that will affect the state of the planet has nothing to do with fossil fuel emissions or the clear-cutting of rainforests. It revolves around the rise of misinformation and the decline of evidence, in politics, the media and throughout society.

In 2016 and 2017, leaders in the United States, Europe and across the globe have challenged the integrity of scientists, and the evidence they produce, in ways that seem more aggressive and more disturbing than anything I’ve witnessed in my lifetime. In some ways, this is not new. The Harper administration muzzled Canadian scientists for years, and climate scientists in Australia have taken a bashing at the hands of politicians. But now, in an age where it has never been easier to check the veracity of a claim, facts and reliable knowledge are dismissed by our leaders like ill-informed opinion. This is not good for democracy. It is not good for our society. And it is certainly not good for our future.

That is because scientific evidence is central to human and societal well-being. Modern science and scientists aren’t perfect. For decades, however, they have generated a body of reliable knowledge that has helped to build the modern world. This knowledge has helped us to eliminate diseases that once plagued humanity, find new and cleaner ways of harnessing energy and use our limited natural resources more efficiently.

From time to time, some of this knowledge threatens vested interests like tobacco companies or the fossil fuel industry. These groups have used their influence to cast doubt in the minds of the public and politicians about the independence of scientists and the rigor of the scientific process. Today, the stakes of such misinformation could not be higher. The decisions we make now will determine the trajectory of Earth’s life support system for tens of thousands of years — shaping the planet’s land, ocean, atmosphere, ice sheets, waterways and diversity of life.

A fundamental role of government is to serve and protect its citizens, and the scientific method is often the best way of providing informed knowledge on a course of action. This is why I am marching. Because when political leaders deliberately ignore the best available evidence when making decisions affecting the health and well-being of their constituents, I think people should take to the streets.

For more information on how Future Earth is approaching Earth Day 2017, see the resource list here.