RePercussion Section: Tigers Abroad—Scientists Call for an End to Fossil Fuels on the Streets of New York
by Sandra Steingraber, SEHN senior scientist
Ask a question. Make observations. Make a hypothesis. Collect data. Analyze data. Make a conclusion. Communicate results.
I first learned the seven steps of the scientific method in Mr. Huey’s fifth grade classroom, along with an introduction to inductive and deductive reasoning, hypothesis formation, experimentation, objectivity, and importance of changing your beliefs about how the world works in light of new evidence.
I was gleefully all in. None of this lined up with the Sunday School lessons and sermons in my Very Serious Church where I was being groomed to develop an unshakeable faith in things unseen, ignore contradictions, and evangelize others to do the same. I started a fossil collection during the same summer I went to Rapture camp.
Biologist Sandra Steingraber with earth scientist Rose Abramoff before the March to End Fossil Fuels in New York City on September 17, 2023
Years later, I revisited the steps of the scientific method in a PhD-level biology seminar and studied their historical origins. It turns out they are not as pure, immutable, or uncontested as Mr. Huey had implied. There was Occam’s Razor and the importance of parsimony. There were Karl Popper’s admonitions about the pitfalls of too much inductive speculation. And then there was Thomas Kuhn with his theory on paradigm shifts and discontent over Popper’s falsificationism.
And then came statistician George E.P. Box who tried to put it all in perspective, saying, “since all models are wrong the scientist must be alert to what is importantly wrong. It is inappropriate to be concerned about mice when there are tigers abroad.”
These arguments were philosophically exciting to me. But despite all the debate about how science should be practiced that has played out over centuries, few have questioned the value of its final step: communicating results. Within the scientific community, the idea that science is a public act enjoys broad, long-standing acceptance. Science isn’t done until you share with the world your data, your methods, and your conclusions. Go tell it on the mountain.
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It’s worth thinking about why the communication of findings is inherent to science. The final stage of the scientific method, in fact, serves two roles. First, by communicating results with colleagues—via peer-reviewed publications in journals and presentations and posters at scientific conferences—scientists establish their results within the larger scientific knowledge base that future research will build upon. And because science is a team sport, they also open up the possibility for future collaborations to do that work.
Second, by communicating our findings to the public, we scientists can shape public policy, inform our systems of government, and generally make the world better. From a recent science blog: “The scientific research we do often can have profound impacts on our field of science and on society, and yet if we do not share our results, how will anyone ever be able to benefit from the results of that hard work.” [Emphasis added.]
In other words, the duty to communicate our findings arises from an unspoken social compact between science and civil society. We don’t just set out to discover things about the natural world because they are personally fascinating to us (although don’t get me started about the operatic beauty of photosynthesis). We do the work because science is supposed to make life better. But the benefits of science are only realized if governments deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed listen to the science and, so informed, respond to the results.
In other words, last and most important step of the scientific process is co-authored with civil society. It becomes becomes moot—and mute—if no one is listening and willing to act.
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Dr. Steingraber's poster for the scientists’ hub at the March to End Fossil Fuels
On September 13, 2023, 400 scientists sent a letter to President Biden that essentially addresses his failure to uphold the final step of the scientific method when it comes to the findings of climate science. Here is that letter in total. As one of its drafters and principal signatories, and with a big assist from Food and Water Watch, who knows how to finesse these things, I submitted it directly to White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients.
Dear President Biden,
On your first day in office, you issued an executive order pledging that it is “the policy of my administration to listen to the science” in tackling the climate crisis. We welcomed this message. And yet more than two years later, it’s clear that the crisis is spiraling out of control and the policies of your administration with regard to fossil fuels fail to align with what the science tells us must happen to avert calamity.
As scientists, we remind you that a broad scientific consensus exists. Namely, we need to leave the vast majority of fossil fuels in the ground and stop expanding drilling and fossil fuel infrastructure. And yet, rather than ratchet down fossil fuels, your administration has approved drilling permits at a rate faster than the Trump administration, opened up huge swaths of land and ocean to leasing, expanded exports, approved new pipelines, and embraced industry greenwashing ploys like carbon capture, which further entrenches our reliance on fossil fuels. Even as the U.S. is on track to set new summertime records for heat, the U.S. is also on track to set new records for oil production. This is a formula for disaster. These trends are deadly for the American people and harmful to global security.
We have written you longer letters in the past, but today our message is short and urgent. With the climate crisis raging all around us - in the form of fires, floods, hurricanes, drought, heat waves, crop failures, and more - we call on you directly, clearly, and unequivocally to stop enacting policies contrary to science and do what is needed to address the crisis. Embrace the demands of the March to End Fossil Fuels:
1. Stop federal approval for new fossil fuel projects and repeal permits for climate bombs like the Willow project and the Mountain Valley Pipeline.
2. Phase out fossil drilling on our public lands and waters
3. Declare a climate emergency to halt fossil fuel exports and investments abroad, and turbo charge the build-out of more just, resilient distributed energy (like rooftop and community solar)
4. Provide a just transition to a renewable energy future that generates millions of jobs while supporting workers’ and community rights, job security, and employment equity.
Sincerely,
And then, on September 17, dozens of us, wearing white lab coats and carrying signs saying SCIENTISTS TO BIDEN: END FOSSIL FUELS and walking down Broadway behind a banner saying THE SCIENCE IS CLEAR: NO SURVIVAL WITH FOSSIL FUELS shared the conclusions of our research with 75,000 other members of civil society on the streets of New York.
Of all the groups that turned out for the March to End Fossil Fuels—faith communities, labor, youth, elders—our contingent might have been the most awkward one. We never really got the hang of marching in formation while chanting, for example, and needed some help figuring out how to stick together. But we talked with lots of media and provided an informal, open-air seminar on the state of the climate crisis right across the street from the Ed Sullivan Theater.
I answered a lot of questions that day about objectivity. My main talking point was that objective analysis takes place during scientific method steps 4, 5, and 6. Step 7, by contrast, is ultimately a political act—as is all public speech. Scientific objectivity, I said, is not the same as political neutrality. And science takes place within a code of ethics.
When scientists objectively analyze data, see in the results signs of unfolding calamity, communicate those results to our political leaders, and then are ignored, we can’t ethically remain neutral.
When tigers are abroad, scientists will march.
