“I’d like there to be something but what we do with that
information when we ind it is a completely different question.
Because you have to ask yourself: ‘Would you like to be us?’
And the answer would be: ‘I wouldn’t trust us’.
“I mean, ask the Aboriginals in Australia. It wasn’t a good
thing for them. With every single meeting in the history of
humanity on this planet there’s been a winner and a loser, and
I’m not particularly wanting to take a 50/50 chance with some-
thing out there.”
“Why do you think that humans are always looking, then?”
“It’s much easier to explore and ind uncharted territories that
haven’t been raped and pillaged by our previous activities. It’s
probably genetic, a survival thing. It’s not just us. Animals do
it as well. Think of us as a herd going through life eating kanga-
roos. There are lots of them, so you’re able to have many chil-
dren and you end up in a large group of people. Eventually all
the kangaroos are gone.“So, you have a choice. You can develop a big way of becoming
sustainable or just move onto the next place. Humans have
always found it easier to move on.
“The challenge we have is that Earth is less than 13,000 km
across. It seems really big but we have more than seven billion
people. It’s soon to be eight, nine. The space between each
person will become pretty small. There’s no real place to belong.
“So we have to ind another planet, and Mars isn’t really
hospitable. Or we learn to live in our current patch of the
universe.
“I don’t think we have a choice. We have to live on Earth,
and for the next 100 years that’s the big challenge for humanity:
iguring out how to live, all of us, on Earth in a sustainable
way.”
As he answered, I wondered why the leaders of the world
don’t follow the knowledge that is so simply explained by our
inest minds. So I ask him exactly that. This time he takes a
breath before he speaks.
“That’s an interesting question,” he muses. “They do listen
to me. The question is why they don’t act. Some of my colleagues
truly do not believe in the effects of global warming. It’s very
complicated. You can suggest things to people that are not true.
That’s why you don’t want to rely on just one brain.
“The problem, of course, is that science is never black and
white. There are a lot of people who believe I should not have
won the Nobel Prize, and that what I’ve done is rubbish.“So how do you deal with the fact that scientists are human,
and that there are going to be distorted views? In the end I
believe you have to take a consensus approach. Other people
disagree. Well, I’m prepared to say: ‘Give me an alternative’.
Because when you’re trying to set policy you need to say: ‘Here’s
the facts and here’s the uncertainty’. The consensus tries to
give you the facts. Occasionally its wrong, but it’s very rare.
“If you’d actually put a gun to the head of a consensus in
1995 about the universe accelerating, they would’ve actually
said: ‘We don’t know’. Now, if you point a gun at the consensus
about global warming or climate change, the answer is: “We’re
99% sure about what’s happening, and it’s related to CO 2
coming into the atmosphere. We’re even more certain that
what’s going to happen in the future will be even worse than
what’s happening at present.
“You see, there’s a really interesting selection effect. Lots of
people predict things in the future, and the ones who we revere
are the ones who got the answer right, probably out of dumb
luck. The future is really hard.”
Schmidt has recently been appointed Vice Chancellor of
the Australian National University. “Would you consider a
career in politics?” I asked. He took his time to answer.
“No,” he inally replied. “There have been a few Nobel Prize-
winning politicians who haven’t been very good. I’ve seen politi-
cians and political processes up close. I’d like to interact with
them but I’m someone who wouldn’t survive a week. I absolutely
speak my mind. I’m very pragmatic. Ultimately I have funda-
mental boundaries of what I believe is right and wrong, and
I’m unprepared to make the sacriices to my own values as
required by politics.”
He pauses.
“I’m not saying that politicians should be like me. They’ve
always been a certain group of people, and we force it on them
to make compromises that are necessary to move forward
between intransient positions.
“My way of working works with people who are rational
and not intransient. So I stick to what I do, and when I meet
someone who doesn’t work within my framework I end up just
going around ignoring them.
“The best thing for people like me is to try to make sure that
the best possible set of outcomes happens amongst the political
class. I’ve gone into various political oices and said, ‘Your
policy on this front is lawed for the following reason,’ and they
say: ‘I can trust you to keep a secret. You’re right: it is lawed,
but we’ve made an announcement and we’re sticking with it
until the next election.” And you know, they’re the people who
win.
“So, I know where I’m meant to be in life. I’m in very good
relations with politicians, and even the ones I disagree with I
always respect. Sometimes it’s hard to but I do.28 | MAY 2016
“There are a lot of people who
believe I should not have won the
Nobel Prize, and that what I’ve
done is rubbish.”