The Role of Data in Defining a Sustainable Future

0:00 I'm Justin Jacque I'm the data 0:01 visualization librarian here at the 0:03 University of Michigan but I also study 0:05 and research data media and philosophy 0:08 and how they interact with society data 0:10 has been super important in how we 0:12 understand sustainability it's told us 0:14 so much about climate change how it 0:17 interacts with society and production 0:19 economics and politics and what we 0:22 should expect in the future as these 0:24 issues continue to arise but I think 0:27 there's also a risk that as we sort of 0:29 trust in data and these models more and 0:32 more that they sort of predetermine what 0:34 the possible outcomes are and sort of 0:36 make us feel as though you know we have 0:38 no other options and that that this sort 0:41 of this future that's been prophesied in 0:44 a certain way can't be changed and it 0:46 can conserve the demoralizing making it 0:49 harder to to sort of confront climate 0:51 change and advocate for sustainability 0:53 in the future I think it's really 0:55 important to understand what data can 0:58 tell us about the world and to trust 1:00 some of the things that it's telling us 1:02 and warning us about but we also have to 1:04 be aware that as we collect data about 1:07 the world and build models it's 1:09 impossible to to model everything to 1:12 understand everything that's going on in 1:13 the world and that we have to be sort of 1:16 prepared for the possibility that there 1:17 are thing unexpected sort of feedback 1:19 loops things that we didn't think about 1:21 looking at that can really affect the 1:23 way that data sort of predicts the 1:26 future and tells us about sustainability 1:28 I find really interesting this story 1:30 about Barry Marshall and Robin warand 1:33 who were two medical researchers in 1:35 Australia and in 1982 they became 1:39 convinced that helical dr. Maori was 1:42 responsible for stomach ulcers but a lot 1:45 of the scientific community didn't 1:48 really didn't really take this this 1:50 theory seriously because it was widely 1:52 accepted that no bacteria could actually 1:54 live in the stomach gut I mean of course 1:57 we know now from all the research about 1:58 microbiomes that our stomachs are full 2:00 of different bacterias but in the 80s it 2:03 was pretty widely accepted that that no 2:05 bacteria could live there and so one of 2:07 the things that dr. Barry Marshall did 2:09 was once he was convinced that this 2:11 bacteria could cause stomach ulcers he 2:13 at 2:13 drank a vial of the bacteria and gave 2:16 himself stomach ulcers and then cured 2:19 them with an antibiotic and I think it's 2:21 such a compelling story because of the 2:23 fact that it wasn't very hard to see 2:25 that this bacteria had this sort of this 2:28 effect but because it was such common 2:30 knowledge that no bacteria could live 2:32 there nobody really thought to look and 2:34 so I think this is an important story 2:35 about the way that data functions in the 2:38 world that data can tell us all sorts of 2:40 things about the world but if we don't 2:41 think to look for something or it's 2:43 common knowledge that something exists 2:45 or doesn't exist then there's a tendency 2:47 for people not to go and look at the 2:49 data and so data both has this ability 2:51 to sort of reveal the world to us but 2:54 also to sort of foreclose our ability to 2:56 see certain things and so I think when 2:59 we're thinking about sustainability and 3:00 the climate and our future we have to 3:03 both sort of trust the data that we have 3:06 and the models but be open to the 3:08 possibility that there are things we 3:10 don't even know to look for yet 3:11 I think that there is a possibility that 3:13 data can either be used sort of to model 3:17 an accelerated world to sort of show us 3:19 the world as it currently is and in a 3:21 certain sense kind of lock us into that 3:22 world in a way that we can't possibly 3:24 transform it and so I think the real 3:27 challenge of using data not in some sort 3:30 of skeptical or cynical kind of way is 3:32 that we have to think about the ways in 3:34 which we can we can ultimately use data 3:37 to both understand our current world and 3:39 imagine different possible futures and 3:42 think about the ways in which data could 3:44 tell us something different and 3:45 ultimately be open to the possibility of 3:48 things that we don't yet know or that we 3:50 aren't yet able to model and and be 3:52 willing to sort of integrate those into 3:54 our model as M data so I think data has 3:57 a tendency because it's only data 4:00 gathered about things we already know to 4:01 look at to sort of tell us about the 4:05 world that we already know so it has it 4:07 forecast things it's based art already 4:10 on our sort of assumptions about the way 4:12 the world works in the way that the 4:13 world will continue to work and so it's 4:16 difficult to use data to predict 4:18 alternative futures or a future that 4:20 could be different than the one that 4:21 we're sort of already on the track to 4:23 and so I think the real the real 4:25 challenge of using day 4:27 for sustainability is both to allow it 4:30 to inform us about the world that we 4:32 live in now but to think about the ways 4:35 in which we could produce different 4:36 futures so on the one hand 4:39 sustainability is a question of 4:41 balancing the competing forces in 4:43 society and economics which is 4:46 ultimately a question of justice but at 4:47 the same time sustainability also 4:49 requires an openness to what we don't 4:52 know what we haven't predicted to what 4:54 could change sort of Beyond and outside 4:56 of our models and the data that we've 4:58 gathered