How do we talk about science in a world where information is increasingly filtered through partisan lenses and faceless social media algorithms? How do we understand that world when the systems we're trying to make sense of are changing at unprecedented rates in unprecedented ways? A few months back, I chatted with Andrew Merrie and Owen Gaffney of the Stockholm Resilience Center about the challenge of communicating science in the geologic fever-dream known as the Anthropocene. That conversation is now live as part of the center's ReThink Talks podcast series on resilience thinking and global change.
We talked about some of the most peculiar hallmarks of our planetary micro-epoch, including how man-made stuff now outweighs all living things on Earth and how pieces of plastic garbage are masquerading as rocks on U.K. beaches. We talked about why more experts need to step out of their ivory towers at this critical moment where public trust in expertise is both essential and fractured. And we talked about where science fiction fits into all of this — how it can serve as a vehicle for science communication and a creative space for prototyping different (hopefully better) futures.
Check out the full conversation below or on your podcast platform of choice. If you like it, please give it a share on social media! Thanks for listening, and enjoy your weekend pyrotechnics from a safe distance with a mask on.