This is a download from the FM 89.9, the Business Station. It's not about being unrealistic, it's about accepting the scale of the truth, but looking for the good in the things that we're doing, rather than allowing ourselves to get overwhelmed by what we aren't doing or what we can't do. Right, is this a holistic movement or is it just a bunch of fringe outliers who want to try and derail the conversation? We hear a lot of talk about the climate change lobby as though it was a political movement, and yes there are a lot of social groups campaigning, there are political parties like the Greens, but by and large the scientists and scientists are actually a political.
And that's something that we do tend to forget. I think one of the reasons we get so much doom and gloom in our climate information rather is because the media tends to talk to scientists and scientists by and large excel at researching and generating information. So they're simply repeating the facts as they see them. Just the facts, man.
Just the facts. But I can understand where they're coming from. I was guessing on another show recently and I was talking about ways that we can take power back from tech companies. And I painted what I thought was quite a straightforward and rosy picture, an optimistic position for one for better term, but I was pretty much greeted with silence.
And later on, my co-panelist told me it was because the idea of it, that we are the ones who decided to create this world where the tech giants have so much sway over us, and that we also have the power to undo it. It was just too large in scope. It was hard for them to get their heads around. How does that relate to climate science?
Because scientists, with the exception of people like Neil deGrasse Tyson, Michio Kaku, they're not public relations machines. Their skill isn't in getting their ideas across to people outside the discipline of the sciences. Look at the number of books that have been written to help people understand how to actually read Stephen Hawking's book, A Brief History of Time. So when a journalist asks a climatologist what their forecast for melting ice caps is, and then they get some fairly dire predictions in return, you know, for example, we'll be up to our next in water by 2049 and every single one of us will have a penguin perching on top of his head.
Of course, the follow up question is going to be something that I like, well that's a bit frightening, isn't it? And the climatologists will usually reply something like, well it's not good. So very often the scientists are drawn into a value judgment, whereas when they're looking at the research they're trying to be objective and neutral. And then by comparison you see the much rosier picture that is painted by the anti-climate science camp, because the anti-climate science groups usually aren't fronted by scientists.
They're fronted by people who are very good at PR and they know how to frame an argument or a discussion point so that it appeals to a specific set of demographics. I get the feeling that we're moving slightly away from optimism here. Because I have the same issue as the scientists, I don't see things in terms of being positive or negative. I find the information generally neutral.
I get interested in it rather than scared. So if I hear that the polar ice caps are melting, okay, my reaction is what can we do about it? I'm pragmatic. If someone tells me my home's on a floodplain, okay, I'll move house.
If someone tells me that artificial intelligence is going to replace my job, okay, I'll figure out something else to do instead. Whereas for a lot of people, the enormity of this kind of discussion seems to trigger that fight or flight response. And those responses range from outright rejection that anything is wrong to this kind of fatalism, really, this kind of fearful and unfocused pro-action of people who'll jump on any fad that the media says will save the planet. So this movement that you're describing is renamed for it?
I mean, you may have heard or read about a movement called Earth Optimism. It has it on Twitter feed at Earth Optimism. Really? So, yeah, all one word, so you know it's legit.
I'm cribbing from the new scientists again this week. So if you want a bit more depth on this topic, head over to new scientists and that for an article called Is Positive Thinking, The Way to Save the Planet by Julia Brown? But Earth Optimism, yes, it is a movement and it was founded around 10 years ago by a marine biologist. She's actually a coral expert called Nancy Nolton.
And at the time she was running a master's course in oceanography in California. So given the dire warnings we regularly hear about, Marine Bleachinga, Reef Health, a coral biologist might be the last person you might expect to start a good news campaign. Exactly. So I will actually quote and paraphrase from the article here.
Nancy Nolton was actually getting sick of training her students to do what she says to write ever more refined obituaries for the planet. She said it didn't feel like an inspiring way to create future conservationists. So she launched something called the Beyond the Obituaries Symposium that focused on the kind of success stories that were making in conservation. That popularity led to its own Twitter campaign.
So that was under the hashtag Ocean Optimism. And that has kind of mutated over the years into optimism. So the idea behind the movement is actually to shift the narrative on the environment. They want to celebrate the kind of change in focus from problems to solutions.
And they want us to go from this sense of hopelessness and loss to a position of hope. And I think that that's something that no one regardless of their view on climate science could actually disagree with. Okay, we have to take a very short break here on BFM 89.9. But when we come back of course, we'll talk about the power of positive thinking with Culture Pops.
Matt Armitage will be right back after these messages. BFM 89.9. Breakfast for Masters. BFM 89.9.
And we're back and like a strip mall George Lucas, Matt Armitage is trying to bring us a new hope today. Is anyone buying the positivity platform? Okay, I'll get to the empirical bit in a little while. Obviously we live in a world of spin.
You know, one of the reasons we get so hung up on the idea of fake news is that there are so many people who are happy to take one piece of information and spin it to represent all sorts of different sides of an argument, whether or not it truly does. So the Earth optimism argument is not about spin. It is about positioning. It's very easy to look at some of the information coming out about the planet.
And as we've said earlier, just get overwhelmed by the enormity of it. So for example, the last in sea ice shelf carved off from the Antarctic ice in July this year. Now that's an iceberg that is 200 metres thick and it's roughly two thirds the size of slang on. So when you think about an iceberg, trying to imagine one that is bigger than the Clang Valley is a bit of a mind-bender, let alone figuring out what the impact of that much melting ice is going to have on the sea that it's sloshing around in.
So it's really easy to get lost in the scale of the doom and the gloom. The Earth optimism movement doesn't ignore or overlook the facts, but it brings our attention back to the successes that we are making, whether they're small or big, in fighting back against all of this environmental degradation. Alright, so wearing your view, are we actually winning in this battle? Well, fortunately, it's not my view.
I'm just this bloke who comes on the radio. My views and my opinions don't really matter when it comes to this science. It's the fact that the scientists are now doing their utmost to get us to promote and have us concentrate on these positive steps that is actually the big difference. It's like a superhero battle.
Exactly. We talk about the golden era of science back in the 1950s. And in those days, the scientists were superheroes in lab coats. But we've moved quite a long way away from that image.
And yes, there have been lots of scandals in the many branches of science over the years, but there's also been a concerted push to make a skeptical of science. Some of that is for political and economic reasons. Sometimes it's because science and religion have an easy coexistence. But those doubts, I think, are very dangerous to us as a society because science really is just about knowledge.
We don't need to be scared of it. Sizemologists don't cause earthquakes, but they can tip us off to brace for impact. But right now, despite the fact we have access to so much more knowledge than any generation has had before, we seem to be celebrating stupidity and stupid. Well, perhaps it's partly because scientists present something as facts.
And then a few years later, we're told that actually they discovered something else that turns it all on its head. You hear argument a lot. I know you hear it a lot, but one plus one is easy. And we expect everything else in the sciences to follow suit.
There's a reason that most of us don't have a clue about astrophysics or molecular biology. It's not like learning Pythagoras theorem at school. It's the difference between saying E equals MC squared and actually understanding what that means. Which, quite honestly, I don't.
And most people don't. It's really hard to get your head around. So when you talk about modeling what will happen as carbon dioxide and other gases increase in concentration in our atmosphere, of course, there's going to be some conjecture because we don't have past examples to follow. But we do have scientific principles to follow that will indicate the way.
There's so much that we still have to learn about this planet. We've been around for as a useful species for a few tens of thousands of years. In a few decades, we've gone from spitting the atom to landing on the moon. But overall, we're lightweight.
The planet has had billions of years to get us to this point. And it's wiped out a good few iterations of life on Earth along the way. It's not in the business of giving up its secrets really easily. I mean, this seems to have turned into a defense of the sciences as much as a pivot to optimism.
I know I've gone off on a bit of a rant again, but partly it's about trust and the optimism is also about trust. So we have to adjust our expectations. Science always has a lot more questions than answers. That's actually what it's for.
It's about asking the questions and searching for the answers. And that process is of its nature, a positive one. It's about progress. It's about moving forward.
It's not like taking your car for a service in the mechanics that says, you know, yeah, that knocking noise. It's because you left Jed's head in the boot of the car. Science isn't always fact. A lot of the time it's just exploration.
And theoretical science is precisely that. Theories are the way we push our knowledge further when we don't have the ability to observe and measure something. That's what we have super colliders for. To test theories and to try and observe and measure the particles that we believe to exist.
And to see if they have the properties that we believe they should have. So if we go back to the superheroes, yes, scientists really are still our superheroes. It's just right now they're a bit like the Avengers. The Avengers, you know, they've saved mankind, but everyone's really crossed with them because they've messed up Manhattan.
But the thing is people like us can fix up Manhattan, but we still need the superheroes to carry on saving the world. Well, maybe science has become normalized. It's not exciting enough for some people. And you're quite right.
And the people who are making science exciting are dressing it up in different clothes. If you look at space, for example, you've got Richard Branson, fronting Virgin Galactic, and you've got Elon Musk with his Mars projects and space X. His social media feed, you know, that he's posting up himself in the astronauts soon. It's very cool looking, right?
It's very cool looking and they're great front men for their projects. Would you seriously want to fly on a spacecraft that has been engineered by Elon Musk? You know, it would probably be one of his big tunneling machines with a huge firework on the back. And, you know, I'm not trying to poke fun at Elon Musk.
We need experts. I don't rewire my house. I get an electrician. I live in a link house.
Rewiring myself would not only put me at risk of being toasted, but my neighbours as well. Look at how ridiculously accident prone someone like Richard Branson is. He's crashed cars, cycles, you name it. He's not the guy who's out building airplanes in a shed.
He buys them from Airbus and Boeing. Companies that are full of engineers and scientists. And that's why we need to restore our faith in the experts and the jobs that they're doing. Because it's about acknowledging what these people are doing is exciting.
All right. So what should we be excited about? There is literally so much, but I will come back to the climate aspect. As I said before, go and check out the new scientist piece if you want to know more.
Now we mentioned on the show a few weeks ago some of the successes that were happening in the environment like rewilding in Central Asia and the removal of a number of species and mammals from critically endangered lists. We've slowed down the rate of deforestation in the Amazon, especially in Brazil, where it's down by as much as 80%. We're returning a lot of farming land to nature. Ask yourself why Donald Trump is jumping up and down and bringing the US coal industry back to health.
Well, it's in ill health because global demand for coal is slowing. It's collapsing in some countries as we either use other fossil fuels more efficiently or we switch to renewables. One of the stories that we're actually covering gigs this week is about an incredible solar powered family car, which is one of the latest developments. And even though we still have a long way to go, it does seem that our emissions of greenhouse gases have reached some kind of plateau, even if they aren't actually falling in.
Is that enough, though, Matt? It's not about enough. Enough is already verging on the negative. You have to look for the hope and the inspiration.
One of the things that I've said a lot on the show, and again, it's not an original thought by me. As a species, we often go right up to the brink before we get that flash bulb of inspiration or that momentum that saves us and moves us away. And we are doing some amazing things. Perhaps those things are only chipping away at the hole, but chipping away has incremental effects.
And one of those effects is to bring in other actors and other innovators, which again swells the number of people and projects and technologies that are all being brought to bear against this problem. Okay, you did promise, though, some empirical proof and we're suddenly running out of time. Yeah, wouldn't do any good to tell everyone to trust science and then leave the proof out of the big right. Exactly.
So I'll paraphrase from you, scientist again. A guy called Robert Gifford at the University of Victoria in Canada and another chat, well, a lady called Louise Como of Royal Roads University. They've studied the effect of optimism on a test group of a thousand people. Participants were made to read statements that were either sacrificial in nature, like, I am going to have less freedom to make the choices I want if we are going to solve climate change, or positive statements such as, my neighborhood will be a healthier place to live if we work more to cut greenhouse gases.
They were then asked how likely they were to take action to help the environment over the next 12 months. Oddly enough, those in the motivational group were significantly more likely to say that they would reduce their car usage or install energy efficient windows than people who were in the sacrificial group. Fair enough. Yes.
A lady called Mariah Ojala of Oribro University in Sweden. She's also found that people who feel more hopeful about our ability to combat climate change were more likely to cut things like their home energy use than others who simply had knowledge of climate change or had altruistic values. And one question that often gets asked is, does this mean we could use optimism to change the mind of people who are against the idea of climate change who don't believe that mankind is involved in it? A guy called Paul Bain at the University of Queensland in Australia, he surveyed 347 people.
Now 128 of those did not believe climate change was happening or that humans were actually linked to the cause. And although the deniers were still less likely to take action than people convinced of this idea of climate change, those who read messages that were framed in terms of warmth or development, optimistic messages, said they were more likely to act than those who simply read about the risks and the fear of climate change. Fine. All right.
Leave us with some reasons to be cheerful. Well, people have different motivations. For some people, the fear works. It gets them out of their seat, it gets them moving.
For other people, the fear that vastness just makes them shut down and want to do nothing. One of the stories we talked about last week, for example, the cooling paint, which it's hoped, will be able to reduce air-conditioning using countries like Malaysia. So when that comes to the market, that's something that a lot of us could do to reduce our air con use. And as we mentioned last week, using air-conditioning actually creates local hotspots and temperature fluctuations.
It's not just about energy consumption. So you're actually reducing the amount of heat that you're pumping back into the atmosphere. Nobody's asking you to swim out to the South Pole and tow last and see back and try and staple it back onto the glacier. Concentrate on the things you can do.
Don't leave the fridge door open or the shower running, recycle by sustainable by fair trade. If you need to give yourself a pat on the back for the good things you are doing rather than getting hung up on the things that you aren't, if you're optimistic that the things that you do will actually have some kind of effect, then you're really helping to make those changes, no matter how small. Fun Friday here. Optimism, Matt style.
Optimism, Matt style, of course there. That was all about the incredible piece of technology, cheap, accessible, the power of positive thinking. Of course, with Culture Pops and Matt Armitage. Matt, thank you very much.
Thanks, Richard. I've been Rich Bradbury, you all listen to BFM 89.9, The Business Station. Thank you for listening to this podcast. To find more great interviews, go to BFM.my or find us on iTunes, BFM 89.9, The Business Station.