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Channel / Source:
TEDx Talks
Published: 2017-08-30
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIFHkXUM98Q
good evening well I recently started a blog I wanted to talk about my work is a PhD student not last very clients but the very first blog I posted was actually cold climate stakes why scientists should be more like local butchers and why would I want to do like local butcher especially as I am studying climate and you know about the greenhouse gases and I'm a
vegetarian well I remember when I was small in Mexico now I would go with my mom to the local market and there were local butcher usually my mom would be there to buy liver and chicken hearts when all this we are organs to feed me she kept saying it was against anemia but the butcher was there to help us to give us advice recommendations you know
a recipe or two he knew his sweet and we trusted him but not only because he's an expert at what he does but because we built a relationship with him and this is the role that I see the modern scientist to have why well if you want quality food you go to your local market but what about the formation they are consuming what is the quality
and what is the source of that information well here's where scientists can come in and we're lucky in that society already placed high level of trust in the scientific we just have to work a little bit on that bilateral relationship so what should we bother why is this important well I'm sure most of you have come across a headline like this at some point we're inundated
with sensationalist headlines where the aim is to sell nukes rather than simply informants so if science also if it's quite often the topic of the news but it is often taken out of context or a business use to or at best the stories too simplified so if consumers about information you have to be critical but you also have to have a reliable source to that information
so for that scientist we have to step out and we have to step it up so let's take some breaks frequent keywords that you hear when you talk about the climate time use Greenland polar bears sea level rise I would just go a little bit beyond that a little bit look behind those words I was very lucky that I could go to Greenland last summer it
was part of a course to see how climate change is affecting our two societies and when we landed there so this beautiful rocky landscape something I've never seen before there are no trees in Greenland there are no roads connecting one town from another so if you want to travel you have to go by ear by water or by ice the biggest lesson I got from that
course but actually what I learned after talking to the local Greenlanders and after I got just a little bit of a glimpse agreement from their perspective so we had coffee with the labor union representative Julie and she said it beautifully she said to us Greenlanders I guess it's like a huge highway but what happens when that highway is melting well just like for polar bears the
Greenlandic Inuit which make up at least eighty percent of the population depend on that ice to move around for hunting so no I believe that they can have access to territories where the count full of their there were %HESITATION their animals their hunting the same for fishing thinner I since I can go out it's endangering their livelihood their traditions and their cultural identity but on the
other hand green this also seeing new opportunity surfacing because of this changing environment so they have tourism for example is blossoming we saw a couple of %HESITATION touristic ships coming in with all the camera mining agriculture is surfacing so it's opportunity for Greenland to become more prosperous and more independent but at the same time this change in lifestyle it's also bringing a really high toll on
the local people so you're taking your taking them from being in small towns and bring them in this urbanized precedential buildings they're going from fishing to be contained in this office jobs and that's really difficult for them so we won't have to juggle when it looks at its opportunities but also the challenges that it's facing and of course together world the no historical and political aspects
that come with it and we talk about sea level rise actually grew that may not have that immediate problem chief of melting watered the warming water will be displaced and it will fly and affect millions of people in coastal areas elsewhere so we hereby Greenland polar bears in the headlines it's a lot more going on behind those words it's it's like a huge complex network of
both local stories and a bigger picture this is not just limited to climate talk of course I'm talking about climate because this is related to what are you work on but we can talk about something else vaccines are they going to make your child sick how would you most what does genetically modified even need where is biotechnology or a I taking us public deserves to have
a direct source too bad information and that source should be us not only because as taxpayers their funding or research but because keeping her science apolitical and objective does not mean that we're not also citizens of that society and university walls do not make casino to whatever decisions or actions cited takes now some of my colleagues well I've heard from other scientist fear or voice concerns
that people just don't care about what we do a scientist but I find it boring or that he just can't connect with us or that we should just stick to doing fine from that's all people do care otherwise they wouldn't be marching around the world for science clearly they know it has an impact in their lives and it is our job to communicate three reasons the
first because no one knows our research better than we do talking about our work is good for our fields for careers and it's a service to that society it reminds us of why we're doing science in the first place we want to understand the world around us we want to take human knowledge limit further so why would we want to share that with the rest of
the people course it also means that we have to work on being better communicators but science is a team effort and a sort of team quality control so we have to be good at talking to each other anyway now the beginning of my peach deals very excited and I went to this conference and I saw a senior scientist who my admire very much so I went
up to him I asked him what do you think it's our responsibility a scientist in this whole climate talk and he said we should be doing the best possible science we can so we can pass that on to policymakers and then they'll take it on from there and that's that's where our job and but I've always been a bit restless with that answer because what happens
when those policymakers or a certain government becomes disinterested or even worse finds that goes against their interests to follow environmental policies who do we a scientist turned to them two weeks only van turn to society and say guys yet we should talk society should be our main stakeholder and for that reason we need the second point science literacy because science is everywhere it's in how we
produce our food it's making healthy longer living humans it's taking us to space but only a very few percentage of us can actually talk and read science and even that is clouded but scientific jargon or it's locked behind pay walls of scientific journals in a democracy we all have the right to each but how can we choose or propose solutions were innovative over not completely aware
of the state of our society its needs or where it's going science and technology are everywhere so we have to we have to help give the tools to our society for them to also be participants because if they choose to be only consumers another active participants of it it should be a choice not an impost disadvantage the third point critical thinking scientists were trained to make
observations to test our hypotheses and to adjust our knowledge based on that result we are push to ask questions and be skeptical but also to receive criticism and we're willing and open to modify what we presently know that's the way that science can move forward so what if we as a society could listen to politicians or read headlines in the same way society art large is
the ultimate decision maker and the scientists we can contribute by providing the tools and information they need to make the best which is why I'm standing here and I'm calling on my fellow scientist to rethink our role in society we can be promoters of discuss we do this every day already we do this over lunch so let's take those discussions outside the academic setting and into
the rest citing science communication should integral part of our curriculum she part of a researcher straining Carl Sagan said not explaining science seems to be perverse when you're in love you want to tell the world and we've lost our jobs I haven't met a scientist of just accidental became a scientist willow what we do so let's let it out you can use your hobbies to make
your research more accessible if you don't want to write type you know try photography take us into that scientific journal through photographs tweet saying I doubt the topic of my PhD Novato I'm actually I learned a lot more about the basics of my topic only after that that so it really helps to see it from different angles engage with their community with citizen science me up
with artists and if the general public is just not you you don't don't be audience if that's okay too and take it to your family be that cool aunt or uncle that can answer the kids' questions wife the sky blue we can promote roundtable discussions we have scientists natural and social we have students and teachers fisherman all gathered at the same table and talking and that
