We live in a pessimistic moment, after a pandemic and in the midst of war. Helplessness.

-No, impotence would be to admit defeat. Put yourself, for example, in the situation of Europe after the Second World War, after Hiroshima, and yet Europe advanced and the second half of the 20th century was the triumph of science and technology and the application of knowledge to reduce dependence on the natural environment or suffering and the enhancement of life. With all the contradictions, while creating big problems. Since 1980, 1.9 billion people have been in extreme poverty, out of a population of 4,500. Today there are 700, a hundred because of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, but they are much fewer. Another thing is that with the means at our disposal, it is ethically unacceptable. Today the situation is difficult, complex, the solutions are perhaps no longer as simple as in the past, but we have the material and conceptual means to move forward. Not only science and technology are needed, but other branches of the human sciences, and I say this because science is also part of modern humanism. A knowledge-based economy is needed; science with awareness.

Is there less ability to cope with suffering because of the idea that existed of linear progress?

– We may have taken certain gains for granted, including democracy, and failed to realize that even maintaining what we have gained requires vigilance, democratic attitudes, behaviors on which you have to work. But I am not in favor of falling into anthropological pessimism. I believe that we have come out of the pandemic worse, especially the disadvantaged sectors which have been more affected, but we have also learned a lot and we have the instruments to move forward. Any past time was no better. Will we be able to maintain the levels of prosperity we have had for our children? We have the means. Will we know what to do? I do not know.

We live on a finite planet for a population that continues to grow in number and consumption.

– The catastrophic predictions did not turn out to be true. I have confidence in the growth of education. Science and technology have adequate means to produce energy, water, food and materials. The problem is that at least now it is very difficult to escape from fossil fuels. The four most produced materials in the world are cement, steel, plastics and fertilizers. We need human and political wisdom and a fair view of the end of life. I am optimistic, because pessimism is sterile, especially in public.

The summer confronted us with climate change, to which must be added the crisis and the energy transition.

I don’t know enough about it. It seems that global warming is a fact. Some of the consequences of which I do not know to what extent are true. And some of the proposed solutions are not as simple as some anticipate. If China and India legitimately want to have the same level of per capita consumption as the US, Canada or us, the problem may get worse. What needs to be done is scientific environmentalism. The precautionary principle must be used with caution. But I don’t want to come across as a Holocaust denier. Highly respected scientific societies have sounded the alarm and this must be heeded. The future cannot consist in an unlimited exploitation of nature, but in an ever deeper understanding of how it works, trying to learn to do more with less.

What role does journalism play?

–It must contribute to the achievement of a society that is scientifically informed, more cultured and therefore freer to make the right decisions that will shape the future. For this, basic knowledge is necessary. explain how science encourages critical thinking and a skeptical attitude, which promotes a self-correcting mechanism of understanding that science does not offer absolute solutions, but with the state of a given moment. The social and political implications must also be underlined. Decisions must be made by politicians, they cannot go against science, but science does not determine a single solution, and the collateral effects must be taken into account.

You were an adviser to the first government of Garaikoetxea in very difficult times.

– At 29 years old. It was a great time, with 27% unemployment, and yet we invested in R&D. We have protected environmentalism as much as possible, and also another environmentalism, cultural, with the Basque language. We respect freedom of education, we have created technological centres… I am very proud to have taken part in this government of a great lehendakari, which largely laid the foundations for Basque autonomy. And from those great colleagues in government, but I also believe that politics should be a two-way street. I am happy and grateful to have been and happy to have gone. Politics? If we do not respect an activity of people to whom we entrust the care of articulating our coexistence, our solidarity and our future, what horizon can we have? It is a noble activity that should not be reviled.