Chapter 39: An Education Revolution
For 40 years, scientists have been saying that making a peaceful transition to environmental sustainability is going to require radical social change. They’ve been saying that our economic relationship to the world—which means Capitalism—is a part of global environmental unsustainability. They’ve been saying that our decision-making structures—which means our governments—are a part of global environmental unsustainability.
The one question most of these scientists haven’t dared to ask is: When was the last time a new form of government replaced an old form of government without a revolution?
The global revolution is a war of ideas. A lot of intellectual children like President Bush think you can win a war of ideas with bullets. I don’t waste my time with bullets. I built the biggest weapon in the history of the world by weaponizing ideas. I teach people about science and show them specific ways they can put it to use. All I can do is to manufacture the weapons and distribute them to the people who are trying to make the world work in a way that can keep everyone alive. If videos start surfacing on the internet showing schoolteachers from Mexican villages standing in dirt roads behind barricades, surrounded by farmers with hunting rifles, teaching lessons on the socio-economic effects of the Laws of Thermodynamics to the government officials standing at the heads of the army regiments who’ve come to drive the farmers off their land, and people all over the world start realizing their politicians have betrayed them, that isn’t my problem.
The laws of physics don’t have any pity for people who choose not to learn about science. So I don’t have any pity for those people either.
At the beginning of this book I said I would show you how peasant farmers and their local supporters could hijack the education system of the entire world and destroy Capitalism at its source. This is another way that science and democracy are inseparable. By learning how to cooperate with the world well enough to win your revolution for democracy, you will be winning a revolution for science also.
In a war of ideas, every college, university, and high school in the world is a military base waiting to be occupied. Now that you know how the chemical reaction of the world works, you know the right questions to ask, and you already know what the answers are.
The easiest way to do it would be to get science teachers or professors to answer some questions publicly. This could be done at a large assembly in a lecture hall, or a meeting, or in an interview in a student newspaper, or wherever. If you could get a biologist and a physicist together, that would be ideal. A chemist and a psychologist wouldn’t hurt either.
If your supporters could conduct an interview like this and video it, that would be something else they could spread all over the internet. Then students at universities all over the world could see it and start having the same interview with their own professors.
Question #1: Is it true, or isn’t it true, that people require energy to live?
(It is true—that’s why we need to eat food. Any biologist or psychologist who tells you it isn’t true is lying. Scientists can’t afford to lie about science because it threatens their professional reputations. Professional reputations are one of the most important things scientists depend on for their livelihoods. One reason you’re able to sell the food you grow on your farm is probably because other people know you grow good food. In the same way—but a much bigger way—scientists depend on seeming to other people like they know a lot about science to be able to make their money.)
Question #2: Is it true, or isn’t it true that our entire global environment is one giant chemical reaction?
(It’s true. Meteorites crash into the Earth occasionally, and some molecules in our upper atmosphere might drift off into space, but otherwise matter doesn’t enter or leave our planetary environment. The fact that our atmosphere and oceans keep circulating atoms and energy all over the world makes it inescapable that our global environment is one gigantic chemical reaction.)
Question #3: Is it true, or isn’t it true, that the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics state that the amount of available energy in the universe, and consequently the world, is finite and decreasing?
(It’s true, but you’ll probably have to clarify this. Technically the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics state that the total energy available in the universe is finite and entropy tends to increase. The physical economy of the universe makes matter and energy move from areas of high concentration to areas of low concentration. Turning raw materials into anything that’s more useful to us depends on making matter and energy move from areas of low concentration to areas of high concentration. Making that matter and energy move opposite the physical economy of the universe requires energy, and making unlimited amounts of matter and energy move opposite the physical economy of the universe would require an infinite supply of energy. But the total energy available in the universe is finite. The technical statement of the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics says all of that, just not in terms the general public can immediately recognize.)
Question #4: Coal, oil, and natural gas are fossil fuels. Is it true, or isn’t it true, that the energy stored in them entered the global environment as sunlight?
(It’s true.)
Question #5: Is it true, or isn’t it true, that we are burning fossil fuels faster than new fossil fuels are being created?
(It’s true.)
Question #6: Is it true, or isn’t it true, that an economy depends on energy to function?
(It’s true.)
Question #7: Capitalists measure economic success by economic growth. Is it true, or isn’t it true, that unlimited economic growth would depend on an unlimited supply of energy?
(It’s true. Economic growth and economic development are two different things. It is possible for an economy to develop by people finding more efficient ways to use a limited supply of energy.)
Question #8: So to sum up, people require energy to live, we are making energy leave our global environment faster than it’s being added to our global environment, and we intend to be able to keep this up forever. Have I understood you correctly?
(You have.)
Question #9: Is there any scientific reason to believe that such a thing could be possible?
(There isn’t.)
Question #10: Barring divine intervention, is there any conceivable way that this scientifically impossible economic system you’ve described to us could survive indefinitely on its present course?
(There isn’t.)
Question #11: Is it true, or isn’t it true, that the purpose of public education is to teach children things they’re going to need to know as adults?
(It’s true.)
Question #12: Thank you for answering my questions. I only have two more and you don’t have to answer either of them if you don’t want to. First of all, without being taught these things, how were we supposed to solve this problem?
Question #13: Our politicians continue to tell us that economic growth is economic success, in spite of the fact that it is scientifically impossible for the economic system you have just described to us to continue indefinitely. Can you think of any reason why our elected government officials are not taking immediate and decisive action to solve this problem?
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This script is just one example of how you can use planetary biology to ambush Capitalists intellectually with minimal effort. This is half science and half a performance art.
You start with the general background of what your audience knows about a topic. From there you have to build up to the point you want to make.
You ask your series of questions to the scientists to extract information from them that will fit together in your audience’s minds piece by piece until you assemble what you want them to learn.
To do this, you use what you know about planetary biology to lay the foundation for the discussion. You do this by wording your questions in ways that the only piece of information you need from the scientists is a yes or no answer. This way, you assemble the pieces in your audience’s minds. The yes or no answer from the scientists make the pieces stick there.
If you word your early questions in ways that let the scientists give longer answers, you can’t guarantee that the scientists will talk about what you want them to talk about, in simple terms. All of those things give your audience the chance to selectively misunderstand what the scientists said, so that they can believe the scientists meant something else. Your enemies will seize upon anything the scientists say that seems to be unrelated to your topic, and will use it to try to make everyone else believe there was a flaw in your logic—even if there wasn’t.
Once you lay the foundation for your discussion, questions that give the scientists the chance to offer their own input will build upon what you’ve already forced your audience to realize, to make them realize it even more. You probably know more about science than your audience does, but the scientists know more about science than you do. Once you establish the foundation for the discussion and leave your enemies nowhere to run and nowhere to hide, anything the scientists say after that will hit your enemies even harder.
I know of a lot of scientists who would probably be grateful for an opportunity like this. As humans they want to put their abilities to use to make the best of their situation. But as scientists, their professional reputations—meaning their livelihoods—depend on their not being too critical of our political systems. If you can use science to make the point you want to make, take all the political risk yourself, and only depend on them to answer yes or no questions, the scientists won’t be able to take any responsibility for the political effects of their actions. If you present them with a series of simple yes or no questions, for them to intentionally give the wrong answer to any individual question would threaten their professional reputations even more.
A lot of scientists would like to be able to say more than they’re saying now. If you give them the opportunity to give long answers to questions after the political damage has already been done, some of them would probably take the opportunity. Some might decline to answer the questions, and some might say a lot less than they could say, but this way at least you give them the opportunity to say what they want to say. Some of them are bound to take it. However much they do say, it will be more than they could say otherwise.









