Participants in the V Philosophy and Science Seminar. From the left: Antonio Diéguez, Anna Traveset, Maria A. Blasco, José María Rey Benayas, Cristian Moyano, Laura Menatti, Arantza Etxeberria and Alicia Puleo. / Laura M. Lombardía. CNIO.
The annual conference on philosophy and science held at CNIO with the support of Fundación Banco Sabadell brought together thinkers on the major issues that impact our current way of life.
“Biodiversity is irrecoverable, and we depend on it for our existence,” said philosopher Antonio Diéguez, co-organiser along with Arantza Etxeberria, also a philosopher, and Maria A. Blasco, director of CNIO"
We are facing “the massive destruction of the environment” while “suffering a crisis of truth, a relativism that is sparking confrontation with science,” said philosopher Alicia Puleo.
“Yes, degrowth is necessary,” said ecologist Fernando Valladares. “We cannot continue in an economic model based on extracting resources as if they were infinite.”
The annual conference on philosophy and science held at CNIO with the support of Fundación Banco Sabadell brought together thinkers on the major issues that impact our current way of life.
“Biodiversity is irrecoverable, and we depend on it for our existence,” said philosopher Antonio Diéguez, co-organiser along with Arantza Etxeberria, also a philosopher, and Maria A. Blasco, director of CNIO.
We are facing “the massive destruction of the environment” while “suffering a crisis of truth, a relativism that is sparking confrontation with science,” said philosopher Alicia Puleo.
“Yes, degrowth is necessary,” said ecologist Fernando Valladares. “We cannot continue in an economic model based on extracting resources as if they were infinite.”
As representatives of nearly 200 countries gather in the Arab Emirates for a new climate summit to try to avoid the worst consequences of ongoing climate change, participants in the 5th Philosophy and Science Seminar at the National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) discussed the “catastrophe” of biodiversity loss, a challenge they consider even greater because its advance is silent but unstoppable, with little social attention despite its unimaginable consequences.
Slowing down the current rapid rate of species extinction requires a profound, but possible, change in values, both philosophers and ecologists said. Their coinciding messages: nature is not a mere provider of resources, because people are also nature-; the health of nature is also our own health; it is essential that we reduce the consumption of goods and energy, because we need an economy that is compatible with nature.
“We must realise that biodiversity loss is a fundamental problem; we may be able to do something about climate change in two or three centuries, but species loss is irrecoverable, at least with the technology we currently have. And we must be aware that we depend on biodiversity for our existence,” said Antonio Diéguez, Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science at the University of Malaga (UMA) and co-organiser of the congress together with Arantza Etxeberria, Professor of Philosophy at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) and Maria A. Blasco, director of CNIO.
“We’re shooting ourselves in the foot”
The figures are overwhelming. As explained by Fernando Valladares, of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), and Anna Traveset, of the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies (CSIC-UIB), one million species of plants and animals are currently in danger of extinction. They represent 11.5% of our biodiversity, the product of 3.5 billion years of evolution of life on Earth, and now facing a sixth mass extinction.
When it comes to this phenomenon, the rate is just as alarming as the numbers: “This mass extinction is proving different from the previous ones in that it is happening very quickly,” insisted Valladares. “This means that, as a species, we are shooting ourselves in the foot, because humans need environmental conditions to survive, and the paradox, which is hard to understand, is that we ourselves are doing away with them.”
Protection, food, survival
Biodiversity provides us with food and breathable air, and protects us from physical and mental illness. The recent pandemic is directly linked to biodiversity loss, Valladares said.
Traveset highlighted the role of pollinating insects: “75% of our major crops depend on pollinators”, many of them currently threatened. “The industrial era, in the middle of the last century, ushered in a real biological holocaust. The loss of biodiversity puts us in a downward spiral; if we do not stop falling we will soon have serious problems for our survival.”
“We are suffering from a crisis of truth that induces conformity”
Philosophy is an important element to try to stop it, pointed out the philosopher Alicia Puleo, of the University of Valladolid (UVA): “The dialogue between philosophy and science is essential. Philosophy is also a guide on how to live better, how to be happy. And now we are out in the elements, facing a loss of hope; the ecological crisis is one of the causes. Philosophy is more necessary than ever to have a horizon that serves as a reference to our present.”
Philosophy also provides “critical thinking that helps move away from anti-scientific paradigms”, Puleo added. In her opinion, we are living in “a dystopian present”: we are facing “the massive destruction of the environment” and at the same time “we are suffering from a crisis of truth, a fairly powerful relativism that induces conformity and confrontation with science”.
“Degrowth is necessary”
Puleo defends a “return to Enlightenment, to science”, to face the problems of the 21st century by addressing the critical thinking advocated by philosophy.
It is a thought that leads to ecofeminism, a theory in which Puleo is an expert and which seeks to abandon the mentality of patriarchal domination applied up until now in the relationship of the human species with nature: “we come from a tradition in which nature has no purpose other than to provide us with resources; ecofeminism is the redefinition of human beings in nature.”
Is there room for optimism? One member of the audience asked. “Yes,” Valladares said, “but we have to work on optimism,” with profound changes in the economic sphere as well. “We have turned a living planet into a massive system of global production. But we cannot continue with a model based on extracting resources as if they were infinite: our planet is finite. We have to go to the origin of the problem and stop feeding that inexhaustible thirst for energy. Yes, degrowth is necessary”.
Maria Blasco recalled the Dasgupta report, a 2019 study on the economic value of biodiversity, which defends the need to compute the value of nature in our economy.
Escape from “extreme individualism”
“There is always hope,” Traveset said. “But we must act, act locally, while thinking globally. We have to compete less and cooperate more, we have to reduce our consumption of goods and energy, we need an economy that is compatible with nature.”
Arantza Etxeberria highlighted a final message: “Life is always interdependent and always heterogeneous; we are biodiverse within as well [we also depend on the millions of microorganisms in our body],” and that should make us move away from “extreme individualism” towards which philosophy and, perhaps, the prevailing values in society in general have been biased.