The historical convergence

In 2015, three relevant portions of society agreed upon a crucial issue: our impact on nature affects our chances of survival and we must be more responsible in the way we interact with both biodiversity and ecosystems. The scientific community engaged in the study of complex natural phenomena has been saying these things for a very long time; it is on its position that the other two portions of society have converged. In fact, the head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis, published a powerful message about the urgency of preserving nature from what we are doing to her: the Encyclical Laudato Sì. Shortly thereafter, almost 200 states, at the Paris Conference of the Parties (COP 21), signed an agreement aimed at reducing carbon emissions to combat global warming. The representatives of both policy and religion do agree with ecologists and biologists. I think this has never happened before, in the history of mankind. There is still a fourth portion that does not want to listen: economics. Economists invented the practice of externalisation to take environmental costs out of cost-benefit analyses. The only important issue, for them, is the growth of the economic capital, and they want it to proceed to infinity, since they complain whenever growth stops. The natural law that implies that if something grows, something else degrows is irrelevant to them. They do not care if the growth of the economic capital erodes the natural capital. This vision implies that nature is present on one planet and we are living on another planet, where we live in isolation. I know that this is irrational, but there are even scientists (usually astrophysicists who evidently know just a little of ecology, such as Stephen Hawking) who advise us to abandon this planet on a fleet of spaceships and fly away, to colonise other planets. A portion of the scientific community evidently presumes that after having destroyed this planet we might pass on to destroy some other celestial body. The demonstration that this is an absurdity is, paradoxically, in the Bible. The book says that God became nervous due to some misbehaviour of our species and decided to wipe us out, with a timely deluge. S/he wanted to give us a chance, though. So s/he called Noah and told him to build an ark. The ark is the spaceship that, according to Hawking, among others, should bring us to other planets. However, Noah and his family were not enough to ensure the continuity of our species. God told Noah to put a couple of all animal species in the ark. The message is clear: we cannot survive without the rest of nature. Astrophysicists probably do not know this little detail, ending up associated with economists. Naturalists presume that the importance of nature is so obvious that it should be taken for granted. This assumption is simply wrong: people do not care about nature. The reason is cultural. Nature is seen as something that decorates our environment, and we look at documentaries to say “ohhhh”, but then we forget about nature when “serious” issues are discussed. The number of people becoming aware of this truism (that nature is important), however, is increasing. We have just to convert economists and physicists, the most powerful communities in the civil and the scientific arena. I fear that adult individuals with a degree in economics or physics will not change their beliefs, so this process is to be encouraged in schools, in order to imprint young individuals with the fact that nature is to be respected. If in the first 16 years a person is exposed to a vision, then the rest of his or her life is marked by this vision. Sure enough, we are now backed by very important allies and we must not disregard their power: there are more people who believe in God, out there, than people who believe in science. In a democratic system, the majority prevails. We must convince the majority that our concerns are serious: it is useless to produce solid science if it does not have an impact on society and culture at large. We had a great impact, in 2015, and this is just the beginning. The fight with irrational optimism is giving concrete results, and we can be rationally optimistic that our message will lead to a change in the way humans interact with nature. Holy books contain unexpected supports to the study of natural systems. Reading how the Bible deals with nature, Italian Journal of Zoology, 2016, 1–2 Vol. 83, No. 1, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/11250003.2016.1147805