This new scientific language that softens the impact of the destruction of life
THE ESSENTIALS
- Fashion isn't just about clothes or music; it also extends to scientific language.
- Scientists select, promote, or discard certain words. Those used to describe the causes and consequences of biodiversity loss are no exception.
- For the past thirty years or so, a series of terms have thus become part of the vocabulary used by scientists, presenting the ecological situation from a managerial perspective. This serves to align scientific findings with the demands of capitalism.
Vincent Devictor, University of Montpellier and Laurent Godet, University of Nantes
Find the mistake in these two sentences:
"Our goal is to make food a solution that preserves and restores nature while strengthening the resilience of agricultural systems."
"Protecting an artificial savanna is a nature-based solution for restoring carbon and biodiversity."
First clue: these two phrases are full of promise. “Regenerating nature” or “restoring carbon and biodiversity” sound like little miracles. Another clue: both phrases use somewhat technical and mysterious terms, such as “resilience” and “nature-based solution,” which deserve an explanation.
These two statements have something else in common: they could easily appear in a greenwashing speech. But the first is a press release from the Danone Group, while the second is the title of a scientific publication. These similarities are not all that surprising.
We tracked the emergence and evolution of 30 new terms that have become widely used in scientific publications on the ecological crisis: carbon credit, ecological compensation, win-win ecology, green corridor, rewilding, One Health…
Result: When analyzing 60,000 articles published in 19 leading scientific journals focused on biodiversity conservation between 1990 and 2024, we find that the vast majority of these terms (26 out of 30) show a significant upward trend. For example, the term “ecosystem service”—which portrays nature as merely a reservoir of resources to be managed—is now 50 times more frequent, proportionally, than it was in the early 2000s.
ECOSYSTEM SERVICES
- The term “ecosystem service” is used to refer to all the goods and services that human societies derive from biodiversity and the functioning of ecosystems.
- By viewing nature as a source of ecosystem services, we divide it into what is useful and what is not. Using this term allows us, for example, to view pollinating insects as providing services that promote good harvests, while considering other insects—which do not perform this function—to be useless or harmful.
- This expression is the cornerstone of the development of market-based instruments dedicated to biodiversity conservation. However, not only does the use of this expression reinforce the instrumental view of living organisms—a view that contributes to their destruction—but it also turns a blind eye to all the ecological processes involved in interactions between species, whether they are considered useful or not. This ethical and ecological oversimplification has not prevented the widespread use and adoption of this term by many stakeholders.
This veritable semantic assault is no trivial matter. It establishes a newspeak that downplays the destruction of life. These terms reinforce the image of a capitalist system full of promise and committed to protecting nature, even though that very system is largely responsible for its destruction.
Habitat destruction, the leading cause of species extinction, stems largely from an economy based on growth and accumulation: when land and seas are exploited to generate ever-greater profits, transforming them is more profitable than preserving them.
It is therefore necessary to decipher and demystify this politically correct scientific language.
Words: Tools of Power
To do this, let’s start by looking at where all these words come from—words like “adaptation,” “resilience,” “competitiveness,” “natural capital,” “interpersonal skills,” “kindness,” “moderation,” and “governance.”Most of these terms originate from the field of management and have gradually begun to permeate our daily lives.
Finding these words in scientific research may therefore seem trivial. After all, they are just words, and they are now used in many different fields. One might also think that by adopting the language of management—which companies and decision-makers speak fluently—it will be easier to raise their awareness of environmental and climate issues.
Yet this strategy remains ineffective: not only has the destruction of life accelerated since the rise of this newspeak, but its use prevents us from thinking differently.
That is why the choice of words and figures of speech used by scientists is a crucial step in their work. For example, a metaphor is a figure of speech that helps make a concept easier to understand through an analogy. An “ecological corridor,” for instance, evokes the image of a habitat that facilitates the movement of species. “The erosion of biodiversity” draws an analogy between the heterogeneous reality of species extinction and a geomorphological process.
But certain terms serve a purpose that goes beyond the simple desire to describe and make oneself understood. More seriously, their purpose is to alter a reality that is uncomfortable. This is the case with euphemisms. For example, “culling” for “regulation” purposes in hunting plans are ways of avoiding talk of killing. Similarly, the term “ecological compensation,” used after the destruction of a habitat, avoids addressing the causes of that destruction by hiding behind the promise of restitution. A promise, incidentally, that will never truly offset what has been destroyed: a newly planted hedge, for example, can never compensate for the destruction of an old one.
Language that depoliticizes the ecological crisis
Beyond the use of individual terms, it is their common characteristics that are particularly striking.
First, environmental newspeak is techno-solutionist. This aspect is particularly evident in expressions such as “nature-positive,” “win-win,” “biodiversity gain,” “eco-friendly,” “nature-based solutions,” “adaptive management,” and so on. These expressions suggest that environmental problems are merely technical issues to be solved. A“nature-based solution,” for example, conveys the reassuring idea that nature holds the solutions within itself—we just need to find them—but says nothing about the structural problem we face.
Second, Newspeak is compatible with market logic. It is rife with terms such as “carbon credit,” “ecosystem services, ” “offsetting,” “natural capital, ” and “net biodiversity gains”—which suggest that biodiversity can be easily measured, quantified, traded, or offset, in line with a purely accounting-based and instrumental approach to the destruction of life.
However, not only do these terms perpetuate the logic of exploitation and commodification, but they are also largely ineffective in curbing the destruction of life or the climate crisis. In this regard, “carbon credits” are one of the most well-documented failures: the commercialization of carbon emissions has done absolutely nothing to prevent or even curb greenhouse gas emissions.
Finally, Newspeak also seeks to bring everyone together with terms such as “local knowledge,” “community-based conservation, ” and “environmental justice.”Invoking the participation of local communities or concepts of justice helps garner immediate support, but often masks the root causes of inequality and domination.
For example, despite the much-touted merits of so-called “community-based” conservation projects—which are supposed to be “co-developed” with “local communities”—these claims often turn out to be greatly exaggerated. Structural inequalities and limited community participation in decision-making persist, as do funding issues and the causes of habitat degradation.
Of course, the use of a single term does not in any way allow us to prejudge the authors’ intentions; it may reflect a genuine effort to promote inclusivity and respect for life, or it may be part of the development of a critical perspective. To help you choose your words carefully, here is a simple method for identifying terms that might resemble this managerial newspeak.
Four Questions to Combat Environmental Newspeak
Step 1 Many words in Newspeak carry promises. “Win-win ecology” and “rewilding,” for example, conjure up a vision of a happy and peaceful coexistence between human activities and wildlife.
But why so many promises? Asking this question is a good way to filter out practices that, as a matter of principle, avoid hard-to-hear truths—such asthe incompatibility between certain human activities and the survival of many species.
Step 2: Are living entities taken into account? Newspeak is fond of abstractions or ambiguous concepts that avoid getting bogged down in observable, living entities. For example, referring to black, green, or blue “patterns” in the landscape to describe areas without light, covered in vegetation, or crisscrossed by waterways says nothing about the actual movements of wildlife on the ground.
Step 3: Are the proposed solutions or actions compatible with the logic of destruction and commodification of life, or do they propose approaches that would have a place in a post-capitalist world? Must the protection of life always be guided by the logic of exploitation, capital, profit, debt, or compensation—logics that capitalist actors can absorb without changing anything?
Step 4: Is the use of a term justified solely by human well-being, or does it make it possible to protect living things that do not provide a direct, immediate, and quantifiable benefit to human societies?
If a term fails to easily answer at least two of these questions, we should be wary.
Biodiversity conservation does not need new slogans, but rather words that clearly identify the destruction of life, the logic behind it, and the resulting conflicts. Refusing to spread managerial newspeak is a form of resistance.
Vincent Devictor, Research Director at the CNRS in ecology, University of Montpellier and Laurent Godet, CNRS Research Director in Conservation Biology, University of Nantes
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Readthe original article.