‘“Environmental research is inherently a social endeavor. We apply for funding through organizations that have various aims, engage with local community members while getting access to research stations, and often even directly study anthropogenic effects on ecosystems. Through the Marine Biological Laboratory’s Semester of Environmental Science program, it was evident that the relation between humans and natural systems are inescapably intertwined, be it from forest fragmentation in the Amazon Rainforest to the installation of PRBs to intercept wastewater in Falmouth. One of the greatest failures of the scientific community has been our inability to effectively communicate the urgency and relevance of environmental degradation and climate change. This has largely been because the perceived neutrality of the scientific method has often allowed scientists to feel justified in remaining quiet on the ways their biological research intersects with the social aspects of their work. However, this has the (often unintended) consequence of silencing the struggles that these environmental shifts have on vulnerable communities, particularly low-income communities of color.”
The brilliant Kyra Madunich and I felt the urge to speak up to the faculty heads of the Marine Biological Laboratory’s Semester of Environmental Science after spending 3 months in Woods Hole, learning from a star-studded faculty about the complexities of the global environment. The problems we identified weren’t with the science, rather what the science was avoiding and hiding under the guise of objectivity. The solution to this isn’t to ignore the grey areas, rather to grapple with them, bringing them to the light and, given this context, conducting our science accordingly. The exact specificities are availabile in this document we compiled, had signed by other alumni of the SES program and submitted to the faculty of the Marine Biological Laboratory to promote such conversations. To promote the scientific way of questionioning our actions and previously held myths.
The process of doing this was a difficult one because we were at the bottom rung of the scientific community, questioning the practices and teaching of globally reputed scientists. Applying the teachings of cancel culture was dissatisfying as we found it to create more divisions that useful collaborations. The most crucial point was also that the professors we addressed here were not evil or malicious - just unaware. Historically, the study of nature required scientists to remove themselves from the urban setting and live in the regions they were attempting to study. At the time, scientific study of the environment was focused on describing new species, understanding relationships between animals that did not involve the human intermediary. However, the focus of environmental research has taken a new trajectory thanks to climate change - it’s far more applied and seeks to understand the way in which us humans are influencing the world and vice-versa. If this kind of research is rooted in a high-income low-populated summer-getaway, like Woods Hole, the isolation from global human drivers like industrialising nations in India and China or far-superior environmental land management by indigenous groups might tend to cause dangerous assumptions fueled by ignorance that translate to harmful policy. This document hoped to point out some of these damaging assumptions that educational institutions tend to gloss over, not quite giving students the broader picture despite proudly claiming to offer a global perspective.
Looking back on this document after 2 years, there are definitely some visual elements that I would have tweaked but the message is important, suited specifically to the context of the Marine Biological Laboratory and something I still resonate with. I happened to be doing a Research Assistantship at the Marine Biological Laboratory when we submitted this document which allowed me to follow it up with personal conversations with different faculty members. Changes in educational systems is slow but the conversations between us and the MBL are still ongoing and their educational trajectory is being modified to be more appropriate to the current global context. ‘