Fête de la science – Science café with François Pompanon on the place of biodiversity in debates on the climate crisis | echo

On the occasion of the Science Festival, we were able to meet François Pompanon while studying coffee sciences on the topic of resources and global warming. An opportunity to exchange with him about the place of biology in global warming and mediation between scientists and the general public.

Science cafés between conference and discussion

As part of the Science Festival 2022, my team and I were able to attend the “Science Café” on Tuesday 11 October at the Café des Arts in Grenoble. We attended the event in the coffee room on a very specific topic: “Climate, Biodiversity, Resources: Potential Conflicts?”. Organized by Cafés Sciences and Citizens of Grenoble Agglomeration, the session was built into two parts: the first in the form of a conference, presented by three speakers: François Pompanon, Olivier Vidal and Patrick Cricky, who each provided an approach across related disciplines, from evolutionary biology to economics Energy and mineral resource management. The second part gave the floor to the audience present in the room, where everyone was able to put their questions to the researchers on the topic of this science café.

And so, at the end of the session, we had the honor of giving a short interview with one of the evening’s speakers: François Pompanon. Research instructor at Grenoble Alpes University and responsible for the first year of the Master’s “Biodiversity, Environment and Evolution”, brought that evening his expertise in biodiversity on the occasion of the topic in honor of this year’s Science Day. He is also a researcher at the Laboratory of Alpine Ecology, LECA in Grenoble, and his research focuses on the genetic processes involved in the mechanisms of animal domestication, and thus on the mechanisms in the origin of biodiversity.

The place of biodiversity in the fight against the climate crisis

Great biodiversity forgotten from global warming

“Do you know the pulpit?” This is the question that François Pompanon is happy to ask, especially this evening during the session in the introduction to his presentation. The IPBES Report is a report of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), which is equivalent to the IPCC report but is about biodiversity, which takes stock of country knowledge, use, benefits and solutions to preserve ecosystems. In response to this question, only two hands were raised in the room.

I always ask the question: Do people know about the pulpit? and then [la fin de la séance] There was a guy who seemed interested who came to tell me “Is it Grenoble IPBES?” I say “Ah no, it’s like IPCC, it’s global!”

Francois Pompanon

This makes it possible to establish a note: the issue of biodiversity is still quite fresh in people’s minds. And when people worry about global warming, it’s often the same topics that come up: Politics, economics, and nuclear power were the evening’s dominant issues, but none related to biodiversity. However, its questioning is fundamental: Threatened by the climate crisis, it is directly all ecosystem services, services provided by ecosystems that are beneficial to humans, and which may disappear.

Why such an omission?

There are several reasons to explain this lack of representation in the discussions:

It’s been 40 years since scientists said there’s a problem with climate change, and then it’s only been 5/10 years since there’s been awareness at the community level, biodiversity issues, it’s been a lot less time since then on the carpet

The first is the very belated media treatment it has been given: If the issue of biodiversity is getting more and more prominent in the media today, it has been overshadowed for far too long by other, more “sensitive” and more rooted topics. In culture like politics, economy and not forgetting nuclear power, which was very present on the evening of October 11th. If the subject is underrepresented, it is in particular due to the lack of knowledge of the population in this area. François Pompanon explains:

When they think of biodiversity, and ecology, they think of naturalists, i.e. the person who is going to conduct a census as a botanist, or as an entomologist, and so they see more of the “stamp collecting” aspect, […] Already […] There is also an interesting aspect, but in the end the real functional aspects behind it are the things that are difficult for people to understand

Combined with this incomplete and overly simplified view of the complexity of biodiversity and interactions within and between types of ecosystems, which are still unknown in the scientific world and make their understanding of the general public more difficult.

The role of scientific communication

To overcome this problem, it is necessary to inform and enhance communication between the world of scientists and the general public on these new questions.

There is a culture around these issues, both economically and also in terms of resources, where people really do have the basics, and when we attack biodiversity issues, well, people don’t have the basics, so I guess my job is there.

In his desire in the scientific mediation to provide these bases and to allow the general public to develop their thinking on these questions, François Pompanon recommended to us that he and his colleagues founded a participatory observatory, OBIGA (Observatoire de la Biodiversité Grenoble-Alpes) at the beginning of the year which aims, on the scale of the city of Grenoble, To highlight the need to protect biodiversity even if it is only for human survival and thus raise awareness among the general public on these issues especially in the context of the climate crisis. .

We asked François Pompanon about the potential difficulties for scientists in this role, and he replied:

From the moment we commit to wanting to communicate with people who don’t necessarily have the scientific grounding, I would say that it is up to us to tailor our speech so that this is part of the job, and indeed what I find interesting.

Thus researchers must explain the role of communication in order to better inform the general public about these questions in order to develop their interests. Hence the importance of the researcher/public interface and today’s promoters who are being especially honored thanks to the Science Festival. The event is effectively focused on these meetings and allows the general public to develop their interest in various fields of science that can only enrich the development of thinking in our world.

Bo Gilhome