Another intractable problem

I submit the intractable problem [Find a Problem. Solve It. Spring 2025 issue] of our geological age is climate change and world governments’ seeming inability to grasp its seriousness.  How can we enlighten governments to the daily increasing probability earth will enter a hot house condition similar to the paleocene-eocene thermal maximum 60 million years ago.? Once various tipping points are crossed there will be no going back.  While governments are playing brinkmanship in what they perceive as the zero-sum game of geopolitics, using wars and threats of wars for game pieces and after having spent over $4 trillion on renewable energy since 2000, global GHG emissions are still rising every year.  The 10 countries responsible for 60 percent of those emissions are the ones playing the zero-sum game that is endangering every life form on earth.

As a practical matter, the problem boils down to how the scientific community communicates its findings.  Around 90 percent of R&D in this country is funded by government, business, and higher education. All this money comes ultimately from the public, making all R&D accountable to the public. Scientific discoveries and progress are reported in timely fashion in scores of scientific journals as they should be but scientific journals do nothing to educate and enlighten the public and its governments. The media and education are also part of this failing.

New knowledge has always had to face formidable opposition from capital, as far back as Socrates. Can the scientific community afford to pay a battalion of lobbyists six-figure salaries to compete for the government’s ear with the capitalists? I hope we can find ways to get this knowledge into the hands of every citizen in engaging and understandable formats.

It’s especially urgent now since our government is doing what it can to Make America Dumber Again.

Steven Boyer
St. Paul, MN
(B.S. '77)