Translator: Liberty Johnke Reviewer: Elisabeth Buffard
“Spaceship Earth”
I’d like to share a quote by the inspiring architect, inventor,
writer, futurist, Buckminster Fuller.
“There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth,
there is only a crew.
And the most important feature of this spaceship is,
it was delivered without an instruction manual.”
It took me a while to appreciate the richness of Fuller’s metaphor,
that conveyed in a few words something that resonates with scientists,
that resonates with politicians, that resonates with all of us.
My contribution today will be to try to convince you
that you need to put this quote at the heart of your actions as of today.
But first, think about this singular spaceship
that has no instruction manual or destination.
Its destination may be the future we hope will bring progress;
Its instructions for use may be science,
from which we expect solutions and reliable procedures,
as procedures must be on a spaceship.
Now, think about the crew.
The crew isn’t just the people
we elect to be in charge
and we replace regularly.
The crew is also each of us,
because our collective behavior influences the trajectory of the ship.
Onboard, when you look through the porthole, you see unbelievable things:
new stars, unexpected phenomena.
Sometimes, with a lot of imagination and forethought, we can anticipate them.
The geometric shapes that compose matter,
nuclear reactions, black holes,
the kinship that unites all living beings,
the use of genetics and epigenetics in medicine,
algorithms that create new logical and graphic worlds…
Accomplishing all this took a lot of imagination from the passengers,
the scientists, the dreamers.
Today, researchers are working to restore sight to blind people,
to create self-driving cars,
to harness energy from kites.
It’s a world of magic transformed into reality.
After all, as Arthur C. Clarke said,
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Here, the spaceship touches the sublime.
And yet, scientists are far from unanimous about this future,
in which an enchanting world is perhaps far,
where robots work for us, where medicine protects us from disease,
where technological entertainment enchants us.
Maybe it’s much darker.
Listen to the IPCC scientists,
such as Valérie Masson-Delmotte, a prominent figure in our Saclay board.
Listen to the IPBES scientists.
What they describe to us is rather a prophecy of desolation:
a world destabilized by climate change,
a world struggling for the possession of water
and resources, which are increasingly scarce,
a world at war perhaps,
characterized by landscape destruction and species extinction.
We can see the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere
as recorded in the world archives,
the microscopic bubbles of Antarctic ice.
These curves have gotten more and more extreme in the last 800,000 years,
and our precious technology will be unable to shift our spaceship
in the right direction
if its crew doesn’t change its behavior.
Here, we have the evolution of biomass.
Clearly, we have monopolized the living world.
Human beings, domestic and farm animals.
Today, this represents more than 96% of the mass of terrestrial vertebrates.
And the four measly percents remaining,
that’s where we’ve reduced all wildlife,
in which our ancestors dreamt of in the caves of Lascaux or Chauvet.
Here are our global pollution curves.
They are increasing exponentially,
similar to the production of plastic, which continues to this day.
Scientific progress from brilliant minds, surely,
but not always from sound advice.
Certainly, knowledge is inexorably increasing,
but our use of it can be harmful or regressive.
Consider that DDT, plastic,
earned its inventor Nobel prizes.
Today, they are symbols of pollution and death.
What about a standard vehicle?
When I was a kid,
I had a fascinating book on all the innovations
that led to the automobile.
Fascinating, certainly, but forty years later,
we have to face the facts:
humanity seems unable to wean itself
off the ravages caused by their uncontrolled use.
Even in math,
the only science where statements are true for eternity,
sometimes we go back to the drawing board, reasoning becomes obsolete,
theories go out of style.
I’ve spent a lot of energy myself
redemonstrating what was already known,
scorning the shortcuts
that brought fame to my thesis director,
explicitly rejecting the axiom of choice, which was once described
as the best way to build mathematical objects…
convinced that in this field, as in others,
progress is often not in the invention of more sophisticated tools,
but in the harmonious arrangement of elementary ingredients.
What about the economy?
Could we be on the wrong track there too?
The opening ceremony of the London Olympics
was celebrated with great pomp,
reminiscent of the greatest event in the history of mankind:
the industrial revolution, initiated in the 18th century.
Today, for climate advocates,
this is perhaps the root
of today’s destabilization:
this revolution wrought with overproduction
and overexploitation of raw resources.
Agriculturally, progress a few decades ago
meant intensive, more productive farming.
Today, caring about tender life
is the worst practice in agriculture and animal husbandry.
Indeed, we did not receive an instruction manual.
We also find ourselves today in a delicate situation,
as if the sword of Damocles were hanging over our heads.
The answer hangs by a thread and depends on our collective behavior:
will we conjure the sword
or will it split our spaceship?
So, given these conditions, what choice is there?
If you’re a scientist, it’s difficult. If you’re a politician, even more so.
50 years ago - 50 years already - American statesman, Adlai Stevenson,
declared, elaborating on the spaceship metaphor,
“We are preserved from annihilation only by care, work,
and dare I say the love we offer our fragile spaceship.”
An inspiring quote
we can use to illuminate the task
of understanding today’s politicians…
but first and foremost, to keep us up to date in the art of science.
Science often hesitates and sometimes fails to provide the right solution,
but do we have anything better?
This is what I have tried to accomplish at various institutions,
at the crossroads between science and politics.
Today, I chair the Parliamentary Scientific Office
within the French Parliament.
Our latest reports focus on polar research, plastic pollution,
new GMO plant techniques,
Covid treatments, scientific integrity,
the efficiency of hydrogen,
phages - the viruses of bacteria -
all kinds of topics which are important
for scientists to enlighten democracy.
Another political duty
is to work on the ship’s maneuverability…
that it be flexible, independent.
For me, this is the meaning of the European construction,
an indispensable basis of debate and political action,
which will only become an effective reality
when it becomes a real space for debate, discussion, and exchange,
between citizens and institutions.
The duty of politicians has always been
to affirm and rely on the love
we must show our spaceship,
our fragile, threatened Earth.
Politicians’ duty is to verify that all passengers are on board
and to make sure that they are aware of their responsibilities,
of their responsibilities as crew members,
because our footprint on Earth depends not only on our collective choices,
but also on our individual choices.
If you are a citizen who cares about your health, about life,
concerned with ending the use of pesticides,
with ending factory farms,
the good news is that this is possible.
Researchers are working on it at INRAE, CNRS, IDDRI,
and it certainly won’t come
from sophisticated tools,
but from the harmonious arrangement of elementary ingredients.
And it will be a great upheaval.
It will come with lower productivity and margins to review.
Biodiversity is worth it.
It will come with economic upheaval.
Our breeders, our farmers, are worth it,
those who are being exploited by the system.
When we change our habits as consumers -
and it can’t happen otherwise -
one target is a reduction of at least half
of our meat consumption.
We must remember:
these are individual choices to be made as a whole.
This is the path I’ve taken -
I became a vegetarian late in life -
by aligning myself with my politics.
And remember this: if you don’t go this way,
don’t wait for some politician to solve the problem for you.
He can’t do it without the crew.
Those who want to stay put
will be all too happy to exploit the citizens’ inconsistent behavior
for their wishes, aspirations, and behavior as an advertisement
of their consumer behavior.
If you are a patriotic entrepreneur,
or an engineer proud of his trade,
and you lament economic backwardness
in technology, AI, algorithms,
from our continent onto others,
remember this:
the solution is also within you.
If you wait for the politician to solve the problem,
you’ll be part of the problem.
You must be the change you wish to see.
And that means trusting our engineers,
schools, laboratories.
Hire them. Take risks with them. Trust them.
It’s for the best.
Whether it is in technology or politics,
we enjoy the changes we know how to harness,
that we knew how to attain.
Women might still not have the right to vote
if they hadn’t rallied but had waited for the perfect politicians,
if they had feared society’s reaction.
So, it’s simple.
Spread the word:
we are the crew.
No one has the instructions;
it’s about doing the best we can.
And given our perilous search in the dark
for Damocles’ sword,
here is my message to the crew:
we need you, all of you, now,
on deck, with your own talents, and your own skills.
Thank you.
(Applause)