SCIENCE
FOTO | PHOTO: PATRICK-HENDRY / UNSPLASH.COM.
TEADUS
ME EI SAA ENAM EELDADA, ET TULEVIK ON TÄNASEST PAREM. We can no longer be sure that tomorrow will be better than today.
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teravamalt. Mõistetakse valusat vastuolu kahe inimkonnale eluliselt olulise vajaduse – üha kasvavast inimkonnast tingitud tarbimise suurenemise ja sellest tulenevate kliimamuutuste mõju vähendamise – vahel. Täna ei oska me esimest korda ajaloos ühiskonnana toimida eelduseta, et tulevik peab olema tänasest parem. Mis saab siis, kui tegelikkuses enam nii ei olegi? Kuidas poliitiliselt ja ühiskondlikult mõelda, kõneleda ja tegutseda, kui progressimüüt enam ei kanna? See on keskne poliitikateoreetiline küsimus. Lugu on valminud koostöös Eesti Teadusagentuuri algatusega „Research in Estonia“.
progressives, we are optimistic that we will eventually come up with solutions to all our present and future problems – we are confident that science will somehow solve the food-supply and environmental problems that come with the unprecedented growth of the Earth's population and with climate change, that the fears regarding artificial intelligence are exaggerated, and that since we have avoided a nuclear disaster up to now, surely we will avert one in the future. However, the 20th and 21st centuries are different from earlier times in one crucial respect: for the first time we have the means to completely destroy ourselves and much of the nature on planet Earth. While in earlier eras, everything that man did was somehow reversible, today we could potentially take decisions and actions that have irreversible consequences. In this context, blind trust in progress becomes particularly problematic. Acknowledging that humans are able to cause irreversible damage to both our civilisation and natural environment has toned down previous optimism. Especially in Western Europe, and to a lesser extent in Eastern Europe, where the lives of most people have indeed improved dramatically over the past few decades, there is an overwhelming sense that the younger generation will never experience the same financial security as the older generation, that social inequality and a sense of alienation have deepened, and that environmental problems are becoming more acute. There is more and more awareness of the contradiction between the imperative of economic and consumer spending growth on the one hand, and the need to tackle climate change on the other. For the first time in recent history, we cannot, as a society, confidently ascertain that tomorrow will be better than today. How should we think, speak and act politically and socially when the ideology of progress no longer holds ground? The article has been written in cooperation with the Estonian Research Council’s initiative “Research in Estonia”.