HILTON TROLLIP: Mantashe, like Mbeki, uses science denialism for political machinations

Science denialism and misinformation are scourges of our era, everywhere. One of Joe Biden’s first actions as US president after Donald Trump’s destructive assault on US scientific institutions was to publish a report titled “Protecting the Integrity of Government Science”.

The report states: “For science to inform policy and management decisions it needs to be understood and actively considered during decision making. This requires having scientists participate actively in policymaking ... Violations of scientific integrity should be considered on par with violations of government ethics, with comparable consequences.”

In our technological world it is crucial to decide what is scientific and what is not. It is not a simple matter. I’ll try to explain what I can in 1,000 words directly relevant to the SA energy crisis. But I will start in another area of policy, the well-documented SA HIV/Aids policy tragedy.

In 2000, then president Thabo Mbeki opined that HIV did not cause Aids, a direct contradiction of scientific studies. He could not reference credible scientific analysis because none supported his view. Such analysis is found in published scientific studies that are distinguished as such by the quality control of being conducted according to the rigorous methods of relevant scientific disciplines and being transparently governed by reputable scientific communities and organisations.

Instead, Mbeki challenged science in general, using methods that have become familiar in the contemporary world of anti-scientism, conspiracies and misinformation. He selected a few maverick scientists who supported his views and used their opinions as part of his “proof”. He attacked biomedical science in various ways. He invoked legitimate and sensitive issues of colonial injustices, false patriotism, fears of foreign intervention, anti-Western sentiment, anti-South Africanism and anti-Africanism.

For those unfamiliar with the rigour of valid scientific analysis, it can be difficult to distinguish between the robust debates in scientific communities and the sort of populist polemic Mbeki deployed. These difficulties are exploited in the rhetoric of populism, anti-scientism, conspiracy theory activism and political manipulation.

Long before 2000 scientific studies had shown conclusively that HIV causes Aids and that Nevirapine would significantly reduce mother-to-child  transmission. However, as president, Mbeki could influence government policy, and as a result government clinics did not make the HIV/Aids medication Nevirapine available to HIV-positive pregnant women to prevent their babies from being infected with HIV at birth.

From 2000-2002 hundreds of thousands of babies born in SA contracted Aids unnecessarily, resulting in terrible suffering. The SA scientific community took government to court, challenging the Mbekian travesty, and got a court order that Nevirapine should be administered to HIV pregnant women, consequently saving millions of babies from infection. This was not the full extent of the Mbeki HIV/Aids tragedy, but is enough to demonstrate the example about science, technology and policy and the consequences of science denialism for political purposes.

Apart from the science, what we also learn from this example is that politicians can force policies on us that are based on an understanding of science that is regarded as ridiculous if checked against existing scientific analysis. Mbeki has not apologised. In September last year, he reiterated his views in a formal speech. In response, the Academy of Science of SA rebuked him in a formal statement endorsed by bodies such as the SA Medical Research Council and the SA Committee of Medical Deans.

Scientific institutions remember, but has government learned anything from this? Former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld famously said there are known-knowns, known-unknowns and unknown-unknowns. Scientific analysis is far from providing an understanding of everything. But it does provide a good understanding of some important known-knowns.

SA is now being ravaged by another policy being forced on us by another politician, also based on an understanding of science that is nonsensical. The known-known in this case is the role wind and solar power can play in almost completely alleviating load-shedding. Like HIV/Aids policy, the policy failure behind load-shedding translates directly into widespread human suffering and tragedy in the context of SA’s economic decline and poverty.

The known-known of what solar and wind can do is captured in a June scientific study that found if an additional 5GW of wind and solar power had been connected to the grid by 2021, 96.5% of load-shedding could have been avoided that year. This research is integral to a body of published work and SA scientific expertise built up over decades.

To make this finding, large amounts of technical data about the SA electricity system had to be used in a computer model that simulated the system. Yet in November, mineral resources & energy minister Gwede Mantashe said in a television interview that “we can give 101 permits to renewable energy and [it] will not solve the [energy shortage] problem”. This directly contradicts the findings of the scientific study.

I watch this space closely, and this statement by Mantashe is consistent with other communications from him and his department dismissing the role renewable energy can play and, most importantly, excusing their failures regarding their legislative mandate to get renewable energy onto the grid.

Much public debate has focused on trying to debunk the belief captured in the above quote from Mantashe. This is the same fool’s errand as trying to engage constructively with Mbeki and the administration he manipulated into kow-towing to his ridiculous beliefs about HIV/Aids.

Analyses of the intricate details of the science behind the respective complex systems (biomedicine and large electricity systems) are not amenable to the available modes and methods of popular public debate. Findings such as the one quoted from the Meridian study are meaningful only because they are an integral element of a scientific system of institutions, expertise and quality controlled processes.

Like Mbeki, Mantashe does not and cannot reference a credible scientific study to give meaning to his statement. This is because such a study does not exist. Instead, like Mbeki, Mantashe uses the tactics of anti-science, misinformation and conspiracy theories. Mantashe’s chief expertise is in populist rhetoric and political machinations.

As Mbeki should have, Mantashe should stay out of electrical power system analysis. Instead, he should use his R10.4bn departmental budget allocation to bolster the scientific establishment, which is designed to do such analysis in public — not mount personal attacks on individual members of that establishment.

Mantashe does not refer to scientific studies. Instead, he has made serious unsubstantiated claims that researchers at the University of Cape Town and the Council for Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR), SA’s two most prestigious and accomplished energy systems modelling research organisations, were acting to undermine him personally, stating that foreign funding is being used to undermine him via these organisations.

Mantashe thinks he can dictate and prescribe the physical reality of the world of contrary-to-scientific analysis, and he has got SA scientific institutions, Eskom, the president and our rule-of-law in his sights. Mbeki succeeded with such tactics, with tragic results. We will soon find out whether the ANC government learned from this.

• Trollip is a research fellow in energy at the University of Cape Town​’s Global Risk Governance Programme.