When someone tells you, with regards to any particular instance or topic, that “you can’t trust the science”, that “science doesn’t know”, or that “the science is incomplete”, you should immediately begin to doubt the sincerity of their motivations.  What they’re usually doing is making an attempt to avoid accountability, either for their past actions, or for those they intend in the future.  They’re attempting to have you cast doubt on what you believe you can know.  They are certainly not hoping to enhance your mutual understanding of the subject.  

The truth is that science is how we know anything at all about how the natural world operates.  

Whether we’re talking about climate or COVID, planetary orbits or rights for nonhumans, we’re best able to make an informed judgment via referral to the best available knowledge.  Science is how we continuously improve upon what that is.  It isn’t  a data set that can be reliably ignored for any given topic until “the science is complete”.  That simply isn’t how it works.  There is no arrival date to tell you that now, and only now, you can begin to trust the results.  We’re not going to arrive at a place where our knowledge is complete, and there is nothing left to learn about that particular subject.  Pretending to wait for that blessed event before adjusting one’s actions is really just a smokescreen for people who’d prefer to avoid having to change their behavior.

Also, rarely (or possibly never?) do we make a breakthrough that overturns everything we thought we knew up to that point.  Relativity significantly enhanced our understanding of the universe, but it still left intact more than 95% of what we’d learned from Newtonian physics.  Or we may learn that yes indeed, we were wrong, and DNA evidence now shows there are two species of African elephants, not one.  It doesn’t overturn everything we thought we knew about elephant genetics.  Those who delight in pointing out these so called ‘errors’ in science want you to doubt the tenability of your present position.  Again, usually a pretense for their hoped-for avoidance of unpleasant facts.  

Of course we should always be critical of what we think we know.  Watch for confirmation bias (often the most deadly of sins), and continue to grow your knowledge and understanding.  But science is precisely what you’re going to need to do that.

Since early 2020, the world has been given a really good lesson in why we ought to listen to scientists.  We’ve learned a lot about human behaviour too though, haven’t we?  What we’ve observed is that there are fundamentally two ways you can approach a crisis like COVID-19, and these are entirely driven by what you believe about the world around you.  More specifically, what you believe about the reliability of science and its expert practitioners.

If you doubt the efficacy of science, you can be convinced that what you’re seeing is your government seizing an opportunity to take away your rights.  So you will resist and act accordingly.  Or, if you are of the opposite view, you’ll be much more likely to accept that when you’re asked to mask, socially distance etc., it’s because you need to do so to protect others around you.  And you will generally demand that they do the same for you.  Your perception of what threatens you is quite different.  At worst, you may believe that your government is doing a poor job itself of listening to the guidance of scientists.  In which case you’ll want to preserve the sanctity of scientists’ (and everyone else’s) rights to speak out.  That’s your protection.

So what does all this tell us about how we inform our decisions?

Let’s see if we can gain more insight into this by looking at an issue which is both immediate and important – the plight of the Southern Resident Killer Whales (SRKWs).  The questions surrounding this topic are multi-faceted and complex, and with a large number of stakeholders involved. 

How do we ensure their survival? vs. Is ensuring their survival worth the cost?

Here, in a nutshell, is the situation for the Southern Residents.  This population of orcas has been under enormous pressure for a number of years now and their survival is highly threatened.  The essential problem is that they are starving, as the salmon they depend on are themselves in decline and threatened with extirpation.  Fisheries experts have been pretty clear for years now that the number of salmon in the Columbia Basin where the orcas live would be dramatically increased by breaching 4 dams on the lower Snake River in Washington.  To date, no decision has been made on whether to act on that proposal. 

Additionally, plans are being considered for the expansion of terminals at the Vancouver ports, which could result in up to a seven-fold increase in traffic for tanker and container ships through the orcas’ primary habitat.  Scientists argue that the disruption to the whales would be more than this population could take in their present circumstances.  Not to mention the risk of boat collisions.  The situation is so bad that it’s even been recommended that we ought to suspend whale-watching excursions for the time being, at least until the SRKWs have had a chance to recover.  This is despite the enormous benefits  to the whales of building a more aware public.  But when the recommendation comes from people like Lori Marino, we ought to be listening.

 So we have some decisions to make.  How are we going to make them?  And a corollary question is, which experts are we listening to?  You’ll hear a number of assertions made – many of them will be true.  Let’s assume that all of the following are essentially factually correct.

• The dams produce electricity that people use, and breaching them would not only cost money but would destroy a productive resource.
• Breaching them would at least double, and possibly triple the number of salmon in the basin, which would be the single most helpful thing we could do for the orcas at this time (given that this population isn’t hunted or captured for captivity any longer).
• We need the oil and container traffic that would flow through the area.  This is legitimate economic activity, delivering products people want and need, into port facilities which are conveniently and sensibly located, from an economic point of view.
• The orcas are fundamentally important to the biomes of the region, and their removal would bode poorly for the future health of the ecosystem.
• Many good jobs will be created by the development and subsequent operation of the new facilities, should we go ahead and build them.
• Regulating the speed of the ships through the area would help reduce the risk of collisions, but of course time is money.  As well, we may be able to route the shipping lanes in such a way as to further reduce the risk, again at added expense.  Either way, a seven-fold increase is going to have a profoundly negative impact on the whales.
• Orcas are an iconic species in the region.  It’s difficult to imagine the totality of what their loss would mean, but we can be certain that the admission of failure that this would entail would be hugely damaging to our national psyche.  There is much more at stake here.

So, you need to decide what to do.  And to make that more difficult, you’ll generally only hear one side at a time, and the argument will tend to skew one way or the other.  For example, the electricity produced by the dams is often described as ‘low-value, surplus’ power.  But to the people who use it that may not seem an apt description.  Personally, I think that it doesn’t much matter to me what the value of the electricity is – perhaps only insofar as it can help to persuade lawmakers.  Ultimately, putting more salmon into the basin so that the orcas can eat is infinitely more valuable to me.  

So ask yourself, what is it that’s really valuable to you.

And on a related but important side note, don’t buy into the false dichotomy that asks us to choose between a strong economy and a healthy environment.  Not in this or any instance.  The reality is that in the long run one will not be able exist without the other.  I want my descendants to be able to enjoy the benefits of prosperity, and I believe that the only way I’ll be able to give them that is by protecting our natural world.  So when it comes right down to it, I need the Southern Residents much more than I need the oil.  Or the electricity or the freight.  

In the end, what’s going to matter is what you really value most.  If you want to expand the existing port facilities, presumably you’ll go through a reasonable series of steps to assess the impact of increased tanker traffic.  Maybe you’ll uncover every way you can to do it as safely as possible, and have minimized the risks to the orcas to as low as it’s possibly going to go.  The question then becomes, if a threat to the whales remains, are you prepared to go ahead anyway?  Also, if you’re on the other side of the question and the whales are your priority, is there an acceptable number of losses, or do we need to seriously shoot for zero?

I think that the whales are considerably more valuable to us than any economic benefits we might possibly be talking about here.  So I proceed from that basis.  And okay, I get it – later today I’m going to get in my car and drive somewhere to pick up things I need.  I can’t do that if there’s no way for someone to provide the gasoline for my car.  I understand that making it more difficult for them to do that will carry a premium – one which I’m going to have to be prepared to pay.  But at least we’ll have done what we can to ensure that we still have killer whales living in the Columbia Basin.  To me, that’s not a difficult choice.

So get the best available facts, choose what matters most to you, and decide.

Now more than ever, survival of the SRKWs depends on us listening to our marine mammal experts.  The scientists who understand best what needs to happen if we’re to save them from the cumulative consequences of human action.  If we prioritize the economic side of the equation, the whales will have little to no chance of surviving their ongoing contact with us.  

We need to ask the right questions. 

For The Orca’s Voice, 

Anna, Canadian Cetacean Alliance