Day 296: The Earth Is A Process, As Are We

nola.com: Rebuilding Needs Science, Report Says

[A 20-person panel of the American Geophysical Union, consisting of earth and space scientists] recommended improved hurricane and storm surge forecasting and a reliance on high-quality scientific data to guide the rebuilding of New Orleans and other hard-hit areas of the Gulf Coast.

The report also recommends … periodic scientific assessments of the reconstruction effort … and that residents be educated to understand “that the earth is dynamic and that life-altering changes can and do occur in human time scales.”

Full AGU report on Hurricanes and the U.S. Gulf Coast: Science and Sustainable Rebuilding

As a geoscientist, as with any profession, it is easy to forget that there is a vast gap between what you know and what laypeople don’t.  It wasn’t until this morning at the auto mechanic’s that I fully appreciated this gaping void.  As Mark pointed at various parts of my engine and went over the work he is to embark on, I wondered if people stare at me with an “Ok, sure, whatever, good for you” look when I explain to them the finer nuances of plate tectonics, coastal subsidence or the water table.  Can the requirements for living sound so abstruse?

If I chide people for failing to learn about their immediate natural environment and the consequences of that failure, they have every right to snarl back at my ignorance of the workings of a fuel injection system and the fallout from that.

However, as a scientist, I know that the brain isn’t simply a memory bank, it can also learn how to learn … anything.  If required to understand the functions of a distributor cap or a bellows boot, I am confident in my ability to absorb that knowledge.  Additionally, I actively trust and rely on my mechanic to educate and warn me about things going awry. 

Therefore, the success of a car depends on a dynamic process, a give and take – a competent mechanic who communicates with a concerned customer who in turn is willing to learn and do his/her part.

Reading the above article, I felt that same need for a give and take relationship, this time between earth scientists and the people who occupy hurricane-threatened coastal lowlands.  Scientists cannot talk until we are blue in the face, while the citizenry ignores us and hurtles towards sure failure.  Conversely, talking at the layperson and telling them to take certain measures, even via policy, is equally futile and disrespectful.  There are several reasons for this:

• Environmental / natural hazard awareness is not a social value in all American communities.  Until these communities and their leaders find value in the value, science-based communication and laws will find no purchase.
• It dawned on me (thanks to a cogent discussion with Jim Davis) that the true cost of any natural or manmade hazard is that it is borne by the public sector, not that laypeople don’t know anything about earth sciences.
• Science-fueled policy is met with distrust when said policy reeks of decision paralysis, incomplete solutions, ineffective compromises and priority problems, thanks to politicians and their attendant bureaucracy.

I reiterate my original question: Can the requirements for living sound so abstruse?  Yes, they can.  Earth science communication will miss a social target if not presented in a utilitarian manner and if the infrastructure of that society does not promote sustainable living options.  It is the earth science imperative to educate young, old, lawmakers and ourselves alike, explain why that education is necessary and recruit educators from the pool of laypeople.  Once they understand, who better to spread the message?

My new approach to teaching earth science or answering geology questions is to forget the theory-followed-by-practical-application linearity of science.  But, that’s what science is, isn’t it?  What are we if not theoreticians who then conduct experiments to (dis)prove our theories?  And what isn’t tremendously cool about that?  While it is simply thrilling to discuss the various forms of subsidence and the opening of the Gulf of Mexico and the overburden of deltaic and turbiditic sediments and faulting and structural collapse … STOP.  You’ve lost your audience.  In earth science education, the value of the learning precedes the concepts and definitions.

This is what I mean: Start by standing at a collapsed levee against the backdrop of a badly-flooded neighborhood.  Hold up moldy teddy bears and water-warped photographs if necessary.  Why did this have to happen?  Explain the collapse process, the I-wall, the type of soil that underpins this area, where that soil came from (marsh drainage), overall subsidence of the area and then the time over which these earth processes occur.  Finally, point again to the collapsed levee and to all of the destroyed homes that decay further in the hot noonday sun of the New Orleans summer and say, “This is why curiosity towards earth science can help you.”  Notice that I don’t say knowledge of earth science, but instead promote an inclination towards learning.  Help your audience own the science.

If the earth is dynamic, so are we.  As the earth does not remain static, so cannot our attitudes towards our relationship with it.  This understanding then spills over into how we as scientists educate ourselves and pass on the knowledge to the communities in which we live, work and raise our children. 

For if we are unwilling to listen for a rattling sound in the engine and take the car into the mechanic’s immediately so that he may replace the water pump before the car kicks the bucket, how are we to spread a broader understanding of and responsibility towards earth science?