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Linus Pauling Videos: 1957 NSF Lecture 1
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The Scientist as Educator and Public Citizen: Linus Pauling and His Era. October 29 and 30, 2007
Video: “Advocates for Science: The Role of Academic Environmental Scientists”, Jane Lubchenco
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Abstract | Biography | More Videos from Session III
Transcript
[Chris Petersen] Our final speaker today is Dr. Jane Lubchenco, Valley Professor of Marine Biology at
Oregon State University. A member of the OSU faculty since 1978, Dr. Lubchenco leads an interdisciplinary team of scientists
who study the marine ecosystem off the west coast of the United States. Like Dr. Washington, Dr. Lubchenco has served on the
National Science Board. She also co-chaired Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski’s Advisory Group on Global Warming, and has been
either the founder or an active participant in numerous groups, including the Aldo Leopold Leadership Program, the Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment and the Communication Partnership for Science and the Sea.
Dr. Lubchenco is one of the "most highly cited" ecologists in the world. She is the recipient of numerous decorations
including a MacArthur Fellowship, a Pew Fellowship and eight honorary degrees. Her talk today is titled “Advocates for
Science: The Role of Academic Environmental Scientists.” Please join me in welcoming Dr. Jane Lubchenco.
[Applause]
[1:20] [Jane Lubchenco] Thank you very much. It was such a deep honor for me to be invited to
participate in this symposium. I’d like to thank Mary Jo and Cliff, and their wonderful team for putting together such a
stellar group of presentations. It’s really been a treat to listen to the talks and to meet many of the individuals. Thank
you both very much, and thank you to all of the great speakers who have been giving us wonderful information, food for
thought and insight into the past.
I’m not a chemist. I have never the pleasure of meeting Linus Pauling. Of course, being here at OSU, I’ve grown up with a
lot of the wonderful legacy that he left. My remarks today are somewhat of a different nature, and yet I think have some
interesting points of intersection, and perhaps some parallels.
This session is focused on scientists as public citizens. I’d like to share with you some personal reflections of
experiences that I’ve had, and use those to illustrate not just what I have experienced and how I have reacted, but how I
see
those experiences being mirrored, over and over, by a large number of scientists. I think there really is a change that’s
underway, especially in the culture of academia, that is changing the way scientists view their roles, and yet there are
many, many tensions that develop in this changing role. It’s those changes and tensions that I’d like to focus your attention
on.
I want to begin by giving you the window that I use to think about these things. I want to tell you what my experiences
are in terms of my background, focus on a way in which the changing world is changing scientists, describe what I see as a
new willingness on the part of more and more scientist to be public communicators, describe a little bit about the new social
contract for science that I challenge scientists with, and then focus specifically on this tension between being just a
really good communicator, and also whether one should be an advocate, publicly championing specific solutions, as opposed
to
simply providing information.
The window that I bring to this is very much that of a marine ecologist, as a practicing research scientist. I received my
PhD from Harvard in 1975, and was steeped in the culture of the ivory tower. My mentors, at Harvard, the University of
Washington, and a research group that I spent a lot of time with at the University of California at Santa Barbara, were
collectively the most stellar ecologists in the field. I have just really impeccable pedigree if you want to count those
kinds of things. My mentors were very much focused on doing your science, publishing in the scientific literature, getting
grants, and pushing the intellectual frontiers of the discipline.That was what we did. It was exciting, it was fun, it was
tremendously challenging, and it was very, very rewarding. I think this is fairly typical of a lot of scientists of my
generation. Over time, I had an opportunity to observe lots of other scientists going through some of the same things that
I
was going through, via my roles in various professional scientific societies - I was the President of the Ecological Society
of America, of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and most recently for the International Council for
Science – and I’ve been involved in establishing and running a number of scientific communications, either research programs
that have communications imbedded in them, or out-and-out communication programs, per se. I have had many opportunities to
play the role of public citizen via public testimony, participating in advisory groups. The lens through which I am sharing
these thoughts today is one very much of a research scientist, one having had that opportunity to view lots of other
scientists experiencing some of the same things.
[6:22] When I began my research career, the kinds of questions we were focused on were very much “How does a rocky
inter-tidal community work?” and "How does an ecosystem work?" There was tremendous interest in understanding how the
different parts work, what is the influence of predators, what is the influence of competition, how do seaweeds prevent
themselves from being eaten, what are their defenses against herbivores, what are the evolutionary factors that affect life
history of different species, how does that compare in the temperate versus tropical regions? Essentially, how does the world
work and how do things change?
Over time, many, many ecologists observed that the systems they were studying were changing before their very eyes.
Ecologists that would go back to the same places year after year after year started seeing changes that had not been
documented before. The changes were different, they were happening faster, and many more ecologists began to take note of
“how is it changing,” and “why is it changing,” not just “how does it work?” The next sort of step in that process was “what
are the consequences of these changes,” not just to the ecosystems but to the people who depend on them, and finally, “how
can we do a better job of managing activities that are causing the changes, or of mitigating the changes that are underway?”
Over the thirty years that I’ve been a practicing scientist, there has been a real revolution in the nature of the questions
that ecologists have been asking of the world, driven in part by larger-scale changes that they were observing.
I want to give you an example from the system that I spend a lot of time in, the oceans. I’m going to show you an
animation that was prepared for the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, which was an international scientific assessment, just
like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, except that the IPCC focused on climate, and the Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment focuses on ecosystems: what are the changes in ecosystems around the world, how do those changes affect
the delivery of ecosystem services, and how does that in turn affect human well-being? One part of the Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment focused on oceans - how are they changing? - and this animation uses data from the United Nations Food and
Agricultural Organization, data that is reported by countries year by year about fishing activities, and this is for the 17
major fisheries around the world.
The animation begins with a white ocean. Normally we see a blue, featureless ocean. This one is white and featureless.
What you’re going to see on here are data that show, in red, where the peak commercial fishing activity is, and then how that
peak moves to different places through time. Behind the red is a pink color, and you can see that we’ve got the pre-peak,
harvest peak, and post-peak. That post-peak may be completely depleted fisheries, which is the case in some places, or it
may
be fisheries that are no longer feasible to be fished and so the bulk of the economic activity has moved elsewhere, and in
some cases the pink represents fisheries that can recover.
[10:34] If you watch the lower left-hand corner, this is a year counter. It’ll start in 1951. It’ll count year by year all
the way up to 1999. This is a 50-year period of time. You can see the general pattern; that in the early 50’s most of the
peak fishing was along the coasts, and it has spread farther and farther to open seas, and farther and farther south, into
the southern hemisphere. We’re now up to ’99. I’ll run it once more. Pick a different spot, any coastal portion, and watch
the pattern develop over time.
This is a description of the fact that we have pretty much fished every place in the ocean where it is possible to fish,
that fishing is happening farther and farther away from coasts, and it’s also happening deeper and deeper. Indeed, we have
pretty much exhausted much of the oceans. The figure that is on the right here, are also UNFAO data; these are million metric
tons of fish through time. This is all of the fisheries together. Fisheries peaked in the mid 80’s and have been on the
decline since then. This represents, in part, the sequential depletion of one fishery after another, after another. We also
have data suggesting that 90% of all the big fish of the ocean are gone. The huge tuna, sharks, swordfish, marlin, and other
icons of the sea have been very significantly depleted primarily by industrial-scale fishing over the last couple of
decades.
There are major changes underway in oceans. In addition to that, more and more ocean ecosystems are undergoing very rapid,
abrupt change. They are complex, nonlinear systems that are characterized by tipping-points, and we’re seeing very rapid
changes, loss of resilience in these systems, loss of ability to cope with changes, and in fact very radical change as a
result.
There are multiple drivers of these changes underway. I focused on over-fishing as one of them and destructive fishing
practices, but indeed the oceans are affected by a broad spectrum of activities, on land, as well as, in the oceans. The
result of that is that oceans are changing very dramatically, especially in the last few decades. We are literally changing
the chemistry of oceans, we’re changing the physical structure and the biological composition of oceans, and that, in turn,
is resulting in depletion of oceans and disruption of ocean ecosystems so that they are no longer providing us with the full
suite of benefits that people want and need.
These changes have caught ecologists and others by surprise. This was not completely by surprise - some people have
predicted that some of these would happen - but the rate and the magnitude of the changes has really been powerful, and is
causing a lot of people to not just study how a system works and document the change, but say, “Okay, how can we do things
differently? This is clearly unsustainable.” This changing world, not only in the marine world, but similar experiences for
terrestrial and freshwater ecologists, has begun to change how ecologists operate and how they do what they do.
I was Vice President of the Ecological Society of America in 1988 when the society was challenged with crafting research
priorities - figuring out what kind of areas were most important to ecologists. That activity was an exceptionally
challenging one, as you might imagine, for any group of scientists to agree on what their priorities were. Something like
that had never been done by the ecologists before, and yet it forced us to really come to grips with the criteria that we
should be using to set priorities. The document that we produced was called the Sustainable Biosphere
Initiative. It was a landmark document for the ecological community. It really made a case statement for ecology and
said “These are the connections between all of these very basic things that ecologists like to do, and a lot of real-world
issues that people are struggling with, but where politicians and business people and lay-folks don’t understand that these
are really ecological issues.” We decided in the end that there were two criteria for setting priorities.
[15:57] One were areas where there were exciting intellectual frontiers, but that that alone was insufficient. The other
criterion that was equally important was, were areas where there was important benefit to society. The fact that a large
professional scientific society would acknowledge the importance of social relevance in setting research priorities was
really a remarkable occasion.
The Sustainable Biosphere Initiative put the Ecological Society on the map. There began to be a
much better appreciation by many others of the discipline of ecology as a legitimate science, more interest in using
ecological information in decision-making, increased funding for science, and many invitations to ecologists to come and talk
to groups about what it is that they do, and what’s the information that they have, and how might it be relevant. That led
to
the realization that, in fact, there weren’t many ecologists who could talk about their science in ways that other people
could understand. They talk in techno-speak like most scientists do. The jargon might be different from the chemists’ jargon,
but its jargon nonetheless. So I, who had been the lead author and chair of this effort and who had been doing much of the
public communication, realized that there was a much broader need to have many more scientists who were able to talk about
their science in ways that others could understand.
So we initiated an effort that led to the establishment of the Aldo Leopold Leadership Program. It was specifically
designed for mid-career academics who were in any kind of environmental science – social sciences, natural sciences,
engineering - and the idea was that scientists can and should be able to be better communicators of their science to the
world beyond academia, and that they could be taught to be better communicators.
The concept was to create and support a community of really good academic scientists – so first and foremost they had to
be really good scientists – who are also effective communicators, and to help infuse environmental decision making with good
scientific information and knowledge. Now, understand that just getting good information into the process is not necessarily
the end game, but that it was not happening, and needed to happen.
We were quite nervous when we created this program as to whether the best scientists would even apply, because doing a
program like this was so counter to the culture of academia. Scientists are worried that their colleagues will think they’re
just trying to get their name in the paper, they’re fearful of the press whom they think are deliberately going to distort,
or make them look really stupid, they’re very anxious about the time spent in doing that when in fact they are going to be
up
for promotion and tenure and need to be spending that time getting grants and writing papers. There are a lot of legitimate
reasons why scientists are very nervous about this.
In reality, we had the best and the brightest ecologists apply for this program and were just overwhelmed with
applications, which was a strong statement that this was a program whose time had come. The community was really ready for
it, despite all of the impediments, despite their fears, despite the culture of academia. People were interested in being
trained and being better communicators. The program has modules that teach leadership. It teaches scientists how to
communicate not just with the media, but with policymakers, with people in the private sector and with nongovernmental
organizations. These are just some of the modules of the program.
The challenges of the program are quite substantial. It’s hard to lose all of that technical jargon. The jargon is there
for a reason and it actually means something, and those nuances and the qualifications have scientific meaning. Learning how
to speak in understandable, non-technical language and still be accurate is a real challenge and it takes a lot of work on
the part of scientists. Simplifying information without losing the accuracy is really hard to do, but it’s possible.
[21:09] Becoming public is not valued by peers or by academia. Universities love to have their faculty be in the news, but
the reward structure of academia actively penalizes, not rewards, scientists being public. Scientists have the fear of losing
their credibility. If they are being public and being quoted and giving public testimony, are they going to lose their
credibility? This big scarlet letter of the academic world: advocacy. In being public, does that mean you are an advocate?
Can you be an advocate just for science, and not be advocating some particular policy solution or an outcome? These are real
challenges.
There are now some 120 Leopold Leadership Fellows that have been trained, in six classes of 20 each. They represent
natural and social environmental scientists, and they are stellar individuals in academic institutions around the world that
are really making a difference in terms of being very effective communicators. In addition to that, many of the Leopold
Fellows have gone back to their home institutions and created their own courses where they are replicating the training they
received and sharing that with their students. The fellows are also helping one another, providing that safety net so that
when one of them is involved in some high-profile controversy, there are others who are sort of stepping in and coming to
that person’s defense or providing moral support. We shouldn’t underestimate the importance of that kind of social
network.
The program is beginning to change the culture of academia. More and more universities are beginning to appreciate that
this is an important role for scientists, and also not just give lip service to that, but reward it as part of the promotion
and tenure process.
The success of the Leopold Leadership program reflects the changing values and priorities of large numbers of
environmental scientists, and we’re really seeing a remarkable change underway that is driven in part by an awareness of
environmental changes, an understanding of what’s down the road if something doesn’t happen, and a moral obligation to be
part of the solution. It’s unconscionable for many scientists to just watch passively. They feel a moral obligation to be
engaged, to be at least sharing what they know in ways that are credible and accurate and honest, but in ways that are unlike
what most academic scientists used to do, at least when I was growing up, with the few stellar exceptions, like Linus
Pauling.
Not just the environmental science community, but in fact all scientists now, I believe, are beginning to be more engaged.
The president of AAAS gives a presidential address each year. When I was president, and gave my address in 1997 at the annual
meetings in Seattle, I chose to issue a challenge to all scientists. I suggested that times were such that all scientists
needed to reexamine how they were spending their time, how they were choosing the problems that they were working on, whether
they were sharing it, etcetera; that we needed to rethink and renegotiate our social contract with society. The title of my
talk was “Entering the Century of the Environment: The Need for a New Social Contract,” and the paper was published in ’98
in
Science. It really focused on the urgent and unprecedented environmental and social changes underway
and the obligations of scientists to commit themselves to pursuing the most urgent problems of the day and to help society,
that the obligation that comes with public funding is to return back to society. Now, this does not mean that everyone has
to
do applied research. I firmly believe that there are very fundamental questions that one can pursue, and that many scientists
are pursuing, that have relevance to society, and that it’s possible to be doing very fundamental research that is also
useful and helpful to society. In addition to that, we need not just this research, but much better communication of this
knowledge to the broader world, new technologies, new tools, and new options for society to be doing things differently, to
move to a more sustainable trajectory.
[26:36] This brings up what is the role of science and what is the role of scientists? Historically, and if you go talk to
members of Congress, and you say “Why do you think it’s important that the country invest in science?” you will get this
answer: improve human wellbeing. Health is usually the primary focus there, but there are other ways in which human wellbeing
is improved by investments in science such as assisting national defense security and enhancing national prestige. Science
as
an engine of economic growth is often cited as important. I think there is another aspect to improving human wellbeing that
is not often appreciated, and that is the important role of science in informing the decisions that people make, whether
they’re made as individuals or by institutions.
I use the word “inform” deliberately. I don’t think that science should dictate what society does and I think many
scientists either have been or are thought to have been pretty arrogant in suggesting that they’ve got the answers. I think
the reality is that decisions are going to be based on a broad spectrum of things - people’s values, politics, economics -
but if the science isn’t there, if it isn’t informing the decision, then I would suggest that those decisions will not be
as
good. Science shouldn’t dictate, but it should inform decisions.
Now what does that actually mean? Well, I think of informing in these four categories. Informing means understanding how
systems work: how natural systems work, how social systems work, how coupled natural systems are working. It means
documenting how those systems are changing through time. Those are both descriptive; they are anchored in the present and
the
past. The next one is looking ahead, anticipating the likely consequences of the changes underway, given our understanding
of
how the systems work. What are the likely consequences of doubling or tripling CO2 in the atmosphere, given our understanding
of how the climate system works? This is not making precise predictions, mind you, this can be generating scenarios and
making forecasts, but it is looking at likely futures given business-as-usual. Fourthly, developing and evaluating options
-
not necessarily recommendations - for other possible pathways. I think that should be the role of science: informing societal
choices.
If decisions are to be informed by science, decision-makers should have access to information that they can understand,
use and believe is credible. As all of you know, and especially in areas like the environmental sciences, the science is in
fact very complex, nuanced, and difficult to communicate simply. The uncertainties are real. We don’t know everything. On
the
other hand, scientists often focus on those areas of uncertainty because that’s what we get excited about, those are the
research frontiers, and we forget to communicate to the public at large or the policymakers, all the areas where there
actually is a lot of agreement. We oftentimes lose perspective when we’re communicating and we need to regain that
perspective.
Vested interests, then, often spin, cherry-pick and distort information. The result is what we have seen play out over the
last decade in many different arenas. Decisions are made without good science, or science is seen as a weapon, not as useful
knowledge. Now, this doesn’t serve anyone well. Changing this requires a number of things. One, clarifying the role of
science - scientists don’t think they should be dictating - they should be informing, they should be helpful. Training and
empowering scientists to communicate more effectively is a critical element of changing this situation. Organizing our data
and information to make them more accessible and useable to others, having more scientific assessments like IPCC, like the
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (the MA was a one-off - it needs to be done on a routine basis like the IPCC) and increasing
openness in the conduct of science and opportunities for citizens to participate.
[31:36] This is a very complex landscape. There is vigorous opposition to scientists communicating publicly, by vested
interests, and we’ve seen that play out initially in the ozone dialogue with CFCs, later in the climate dialogue, now in a
lot of the areas that I’m active in, in terms of fishing, marine reserves and lots of other areas. There are very
sophisticated smear campaigns by vested interests. Decision making in an era of uncertainty is, in fact, challenging, and
ambivalence by other scientists make all of this very challenging.
I think the landscape is changing. Scientists are willing to be more public, willing to be trained. I think that we’re not
there yet, but I think there is good movement in that direction. There are still some very real tensions that individual
scientists struggle with and this is a topic of many of our discussions with graduate students, Leopold Fellows and others.
The question is whether an individual should simply become a really good public communicator, and/or whether he or she should
actively cross that advocacy line and publicly advocate for certain solutions. Now, most scientists would say “The former’s
just fine, that’s great, I support that. I’m not going to do the latter. Or, shall I describe trade-offs and likely
consequences of choices and, by inference, let policy-makers know what I think the right answer is, or do I come out and say
what that answer is. Do I serve on policy bodies? Or not? Should I, as an academic citizen, serve on the governor’s advisory
group on global warming, or even worse, co-chair it? Is that an appropriate thing for a scientist to do?" Some scientists
would say no, others would say yes. This is a policy-making body - not making, but recommending. We were asked to make
recommendations to the governor. What should the governor and the state do to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions? What is
likely down the road for Oregon and what are the options? The point here is simply that there are real tensions underway that
Pauling undoubtedly wrestled with, and obviously he came out on one side driven by his moral convictions, aided significantly
by Ava Helen in terms of what is right, and what is an obligation, what is the responsibility of a scientist. I’ve been
involved in some very controversial areas having to do with marine reserves as a possible solution to recovering some of the
lost bounty in oceans, in climate change, in the Pew Oceans Commission, in the Governor’s Advisory Group on Global Warming,
etcetera. I’m sure that many scientists in the room know of many examples in their own lives.
I’ve gone through a series of points for you and I want to just recap now. The window through which I have described a lot
of this to you is very much one as a marine ecologist. I described how a changing world was changing ecologists and their
ability and their willingness to wrestle with setting priorities, and to become more public and be more politically involved.
I described a new willingness of many scientists to be public through the communications program like the Leopold Leadership
Program, a challenge to scientists to re-think their responsibilities as scientists, given the state of the world today, and
finally, this continuing tension between being just a really good communicator, or an advocate as well.
My bottom line is simply that society desperately needs information from scientists, that scientists have a responsibility
to communicate their knowledge as broadly as possible and that the academic culture still actively discourages scientists
from doing this. Driven by their consciences, however, more and more scientists are becoming public nonetheless, but they
are
still struggling with this tension to find the right balance.
Thank you very much.
[36:23] [Applause]
[36:33] [Chris Petersen] Okay, we’ll do a couple questions for Dr. Lubchenco and then we’ll bring the
whole panel up. Bassam?
[Bassam Shakhashiri] Thank you, Jane, for a very powerful presentation. I just wonder if you would
agree that the undergraduate curriculum across the nation needs an infusion of the ideas that you are presenting. I don’t
have any documentation, nor have I studied, but I want to share a general observation. Over the past thirty plus years, I
find scientists who have gone to a liberal arts college, or have had a strong liberal arts education, are the ones who are
not only communicators, but are advocates, unlike people who have gone through a technical training early on. I just wondered
if you think that the undergraduate curriculum really requires advocacy, not just communication.
[Jane Lubchenco] Interesting observations. I would note that the there’s huge interest, in the
undergraduate population across the nation, in environmental sciences and environmental science programs are just sort of
growing by leaps and bounds. I think the students are expressing interests even ahead of the faculty’s response. There is
interest on the part of students in knowing this broader landscape. I find students who actively want to know “What can I
do?” They are ready to do something and they want the information. I went to a small liberal arts school. I think that
liberal arts are incredibly important and that all scientists need to have strong liberal arts training and that that should
be part and parcel of the curriculum. It is always a challenge to figure out the right balance of courses and I’m not sure
we
have it right.
[39:00] [Chris Petersen] Steve.
[Steve Lyons] It seems to me that oftentimes the intersection between scientific endeavor and the
public is media. My question to you would be, how do we encourage more accuracy and breadth and depth in scientific
journalism in the news media?
[Jane Lubchenco] The media is an incredibly diverse group of individuals and organizations. One of
the things that we do in the Leopold Leadership Program is to give the fellows a better sense of what the culture of the
media is, how it is incredibly diverse, how to know more about an individual journalist that you’re interacting with so you
can both be helpful to them as well as make sure that you can get your messages across to that person. At the same time, I
think there is active interest in the part of journalists, especially many that I interact frequently with, in trying to be
more responsible All journalists want to be accurate - no journalist wants to be making mistakes. The time frame that they
have to operate under and the knowledge base that they start with varies hugely across the map from one individual to
another. I see a lot of active dialogue underway in the community of journalists, not just scientific journalists, but
environmental journalists, really struggling with how they covered climate change, for example, and the whole issue of “Were
we part of the problem because we tried to do this balanced thing, and in fact that was a misrepresentation? Was that really
communicating to our audience what is known by the scientific community?” So I see that that’s happening, and I think there
are programs like the Leopold Leadership Program that encourage dialogue between journalists and scientists. I think that
dialogue is helpful to both communities.
[41:16] [Chris Petersen] Okay, one more.
[Audience Member] I think that your scheme is complicated but excellent for your branch of science.
I’m not sure how good it is for the fish. It’s the depletion of the fish population that the public is concerned about. I’m
wondering if it has had any effect in reducing the amount of fish that people and other animals eat. Isn’t that really what
we need in order to replenish the sea? It’s to convince people, and their animals, in effect, to eat fewer fish. Is that too
simple an idea?
[Jane Lubchenco] Yes it is. [Audience laughter] I do think that when you go to a restaurant, or when
you go to your grocery store, there are plenty of fish to be bought. There’s a disconnect between what people are seeing and
experiencing and what they might hear from scientists. The reason for that disconnect is, in part, aquaculture. There’s more
and more seafood that is being grown and that is an increasing fraction of what we’re seeing in grocery cases. There’s a
little bit of a disconnect, and what people don’t really understand is that there are actually intimate connections between
demise of wild-caught species, and aquaculture. The fastest-growing kinds of aquaculture are salmon and shrimp, and it takes
3-5 pounds of wild-caught fish to grow one pound of salmon. So, many people have the impression that aquaculture is relieving
pressure on wild-caught fisheries, but the reality is the way it’s practiced now for the farming of carnivores, like salmon,
aquaculture is contributing to depletion of ocean ecosystems. This is a fairly complex landscape. The reason that I think
your suggestion that we eat less fish is not exactly right is that it’s possible to have a world in which we can recover much
of the bounty that has been lost. We can have our fish, and eat them too, if you will. [Audience laughter] If one establishes
areas of the ocean where you may not fish, they’re called no-take marine reserves - these are areas that are completely
protected from any extractive or destructive activities – the scientific evidence shows that those areas can rebound
impressively and can become lush with a lot of fish and invertebrates, and that can be exported, especially when you allow
fish or invertebrates to get really big, they have huge reproductive potential, and that can help recover depleted
populations outside. Now, the oceans used to be replete with no-take areas, places that were too deep, too far away or too
rocky to fish. We’ve now pretty much eliminated those. There’s active interest on the part of some to reestablish networks
of
marine reserves that are these little havens that can act as natural hatcheries, and help recover the bounty. That is an area
that is extremely controversial right now, that is anathema to most fishermen because it’s taking area away for them and so
they’re actively resisting it. The scientific evidence for it is actually very powerful, and it’s a controversy that we’re
seeing play out. I mention it only because it is a solution coupled with better fishery management, with smarter development
along the coast and with addressing the climate change problem. These are all interrelated and they’re all affecting oceans.
I think that it actually is possible to not only recover the bounty, but to have healthy, productive ecosystems on land as
well as in the oceans. But it means doing things very differently from what we do now, and that requires better public
awareness, and political will. Hence the importance of communicating the science about all of that.
[46:20] [Chris Petersen] Thank you Dr. Lubchenco.
[Jane Lubchenco] Thank you.
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Ana Simões - “Textbooks as Manifestos: C. A. Coulson after Linus Pauling and R. S. Mulliken"
David Kaiser - “Zen and the Art of Textbook Publishing: Quantum Mechanics and Counterculture in the 1970s”
Kenneth Krane - “Making a Modern Physics Textbook: The Collision of Full-Time Commitments”
Session II. Popular and Public Science
Cliff Mead - Session Chair, "Popular and Public Science"
Robert Anderson - “Circa 1951: Presenting Science to the British Public”
Bassam Shakhashiri - “On Bonding with the Public”
Steve Lyons - “Bringing Chemistry to Prime Time”
Dudley Herschbach - “Linus Pauling as an Evangelical Chemist”
Session III. The Scientist as Public Citizen
Chris Petersen - Session Chair, "The Scientist as Public Citizen"
Tom Hager - “The Scientist as Celebrity: Pauling, The Media, and the Bomb”
Lawrence Badash - “Science in the McCarthy Period: Training Ground for Scientists as Public Citizens”
Warren Washington - “The Evolution of Global Warming Science: From Ideas to Scientific Facts”
Jane Lubchenco - “Advocates for Science: The Role of Academic Environmental Scientists”
Session III Speakers - Panel Discussion of Session Topics
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