Jean-Paul Oury is a doctor in epistemology, history of science and technology, consultant.
He published
Greta resuscitated Einstein
(Éditions VA, 2022).
On March 14, during the Daily program, David Lisnard, mayor of Cannes and president of the Association of Mayors of France, spoke with Salomé Saqué, journalist and author of the book Be young and shut
up
.
According to the latter, the younger generations will face climate injustice and pay the price for the political decisions taken yesterday and today.
She added that when it comes to climate policy, we were not up to the ecological emergency:
“Scientists are starting to lie down on the roads and call for civil disobedience”
.
Finally, she quotes the recommendations of the High Council for the Climate, responsible for evaluating policies:
“We should do 2 to 3 times more, CO₂ emissions have fallen by 0.3% in 2022, they should fall by 5% (…) we are very, very far from doing what is necessary”.
Questioned on these remarks and taken to task, David Lisnard insisted on the need to
"deconstruct the militant statement"
and specified that we must trust the youth and ensure that the youth has confidence in scientific progress.
He then cited technological solutions such as methanisation, thalassothermy but above all reiterated the importance of nuclear power and recalled that there were scientific choices to be made before favoring degrowth.
It was then that Salomé Saqué questioned David Lisnard on the number of deaths during the heat wave of the summer of 2022 and on the absence of political action, David Lisnard, by the way, replied by saying that he was regrettable that we dismantled the nuclear industry and that we had lost ten years because of environmental activists.
Unlike scientific discourse, which seeks to define its object by measuring it, engaged political discourse is fond of excess.
Jean-Paul Oury
This exchange perfectly illustrates our analysis in the book
Greta Has Risen Einstein
, a work in which we deconstruct the mechanisms that allow certain ideologues to recover science.
The comments made by the journalist are part of the logic of the political instrumentalization of science.
They remind us of Greta Thunberg's comment following the COP26 who launched the slogan
“No more blah, blah, blah”
thus wanting to denounce the absence of radical political actions.
This recovery enterprise is done through a series of fallacies.
Here it is about
"the absence of measures"
.
Unlike scientific discourse, which seeks to define its object by measuring it, engaged political discourse is fond of excess.
This is how activists exploit the scientific argument by saying that climate policies are always insufficient, that we never do enough, that we must do more, that we must act now, always put more of means… vague remarks, which suffer from abstraction and a lack of substance.
Words also that are reminiscent of the logic of "zero risk", that is to say a concept that is not science.
It is through this kind of misleading discourse that politics has co-opted science and is trying to install a form of “climatocracy” (a fictitious regime based on climate science).
We should also note the journalist's affirmation of a "
climato-catastrophist consensus"
,
"the demonization of fossil fuels"
,
"the bias of experience maintained by the confusion of weather and climate"
and
"the reduction of our existential problems to the climatic cataclysm alone”
.
We also see that this policy is reduced to its only discourse and has no other proposals than to impose degrowth through legislation and prohibition.
It is symptomatic that the journalist who shared with us her commitment and her emotions while supporting the most extreme militant actions did not offer an ounce of solution.
It is for Ms. Saqué to promote the science of legislators while Mr. Lisnard, he trusts the science of engineers.
Jean-Paul Oury
On the contrary, the elected David Lisnard trusts science and technology a priori to provide concrete solutions.
He has the scientific culture that allows him to answer that it is because of environmentalism that we have sacrificed our nuclear industry and that we must relaunch it if we want carbon-free energy.
If the two protagonists have agreed on the need to promulgate scientific culture, it is clear that they each attach a different purpose to it: for Ms. Saqué it is a question of promoting the science of legislators while Mr. Lisnard, he trusts the science of engineers.
We see how essential it is for some elected officials to take an interest in science policy, have enough knowledge and still trust the science of engineers to provide solutions and not give in to environmentalism or fall into demagoguery yielding to the emotions of its militants.
This is the only strategy that can get us out of the impasse in which we have allowed ourselves to be trapped.
