8 million educated people could foster a richer national heritage in Hungary than 12 million who are illiterate

Reading the book, I got the feeling that it was partly a polemical publication born out of emotion. What was your real motivation for writing it?

In a certain sense, the book is a cry for help. Its basic aim is to rouse the reader before they get tired of environmental problems and give up. We are now faced with major challenges that have to be resolved, and this "fad" mustn't simply die out. It contains some personal elements, emotions, and some strong phrasing. I see green messaging everywhere: banks, companies, universities, and institutions that are struggling to go green, but often it is just pretense and self-delusion. Most of this go-green is a communication ploy, or perhaps not even that much. As a researcher, one feels the need to speak out in such situations. You have to try to put things right. I want to help, in a somewhat provocative, snappy style, to explain the essence of ecology to those who are not really green-minded. When we talk about concepts such as biodiversity, invasion, adaptation or sustainability, it wouldn't hurt to understand them, at least in a sort of everyday language. Especially why ecologists are worried and what they have been harping on for the past few decades. If it contains a bit of temper, that's fine. It is saddening to see just how much energy and money we are willing to put in this when much of it is wasted or just a facade. Even if researchers say what needs to be done, hardly anyone listens to them.

Is it truly the case that nobody listens to them? They seem to be more present in the media lately.

It's true that people are listening more and more to them, but their message is also going through more and more filters. Sometimes it is easier to talk to school children: you can talk to them honestly, and they have no hidden agenda, just curiosity. It's not necessary to package scientific communications in such a way that by the time the decision-makers have signed off on them, they are barely even recognizable to scientists. With COVID, it was possible to see how many people were interested in science. Many researchers were in the spotlight: it turned out that they could talk, and maybe even set an example for children. On the other hand, the voices against science have also been amplified. It was terrifying to witness the reactions to Katalin Karikó's work, for example. I thought for a long time about who the target audience for my book would be. I had a different group in mind every single day. Perhaps the target audience is not ecologically minded, but rather technocentric. At the same time, their intelligence drives them to want to know something about what has gone wrong with the harmony between humans and nature, and how. And that's where you have to dig pretty deep.

In the book, you bring up many topical issues, such as the infamous canopy walk ordeal, the devastation of Lake Balaton, and so on. What was your aim with this?

This is not an abstract ecological textbook. It includes numerous examples, some of them international, but a Hungarian context can always drive the point home. Sometimes it is better to avoid using polar bears as an example. In Hungary today, nature conservation is on the decline. In fact, it is particularly important that green parties don't hinder progress in any matter. It is also frightening how casually we breach international conventions and rules, just think of the Natura 2000 or Ramsar sites. We plow and pave everything. It is of little comfort if, after the destruction of Lake Fertő, the activities of the protesting civilians are subsequently justified. In the meantime, the country is becoming a paradise for fishermen and hunters: it evokes feudal medieval thinking when a high-ranking politician wants to introduce the red-legged partridge because it is pleasant to hunt.

You give several examples of how nature conservation or communications concerning it are also disingenuous.

Conservationists are decent, honest, well-meaning individuals, but conservation as a machine has become entrenched in bureaucracy. It's a bit of a "let's make a tally and write a list" activity, and the emphasis is often on communication at the expense of essential scientific details. Some big success stories are well documented and get good press, but it is not clear that that's something we should be concerned with. Krill and worms deserve more attention than dolphins and pandas. Regardless, there is little that nature conservation can do in today's world. We now need a fundamental cultural shift: a deep reflection on what we are doing here on this planet and what we intend to do with it. It is no longer enough for kids to pick up litter at the edge of the forest.

That's not how researchers work?

Scientists are under less pressure to make compromises. Sure, there may be some magic words to help sell research, but the situation is far less serious. Basically, a researcher can design a project without compromise if they win a grant. Then they can work with peace of mind: their livelihood won't depend on communication again for another few years. And that peace of mind fosters creativity and innovation. That's how it works in the West. Nothing good ever comes when politics tries to keep science on a short leash and control it.

Today, when we talk about the future, the buzzwords are global warming and climate change. This topic appears in your book as well, but it is not the focus. You don't see it as the greatest threat to humanity.

Nature has survived without humans – it has its rules and logic. Then, not long after we came along, we decided to stop playing this game, and we no longer abided by the rules. The book is about the rules we do not follow, and the ones we have created for ourselves. And in a very fast-changing world, it raises the question of whether eight billion people can live according to rules that one billion or half a billion people had come up with. Laws, social norms, religious dogma, convoluted administration and many traditions constrain society at a time when flexibility and adaptability are more important than ever. This is the key to survival in nature, and we are no exception to it. We are stubborn and inflexible. We are incapable of reassessing our culture from the past.

We have gotten to the point where we are reproducing uncontrollably and are able to exploit all kinds of resources. We are bending rules that no other species can. We wear clothes and therefore our geographical range has expanded. We've figured out agriculture, which means we have a lot more food. We've made weapons, which has allowed us to wipe out almost all our predators. We've invented medicine, which has permitted us to keep pathogens pretty much under control. We are now our own greatest threat, and the remedy to internal conflict has proven difficult to find. And in our overcrowded global village, the number of such conflicts is on the rise. We are consuming about two planets worth of resources every year, and that won't lead to anything good.

When we talk about going green, we are not just talking about picking up the trash after ourselves and using solar energy instead of oil. These are also important, but it is a matter of making ourselves aware of the laws of ecology, and if we transgress these somehow, we should try to live as though we still wanted to be part of the game that is this big ecosystem. We shouldn't sever all ties. We can push the boundaries, but we have already overshot the mark in every way. We've settled every place, we've traveled everywhere, it's just a hop for us to summit Mount Everest, and the Mariana Trench is becoming increasingly littered with microplastics. Nature will always exist, even without us: some species may die out, but there will always be others to replace them. When we use the term 'success story' to describe how we have transcended the animal kingdom, we should always add that we have also destroyed everything around us in the process. No other species in the animal kingdom is capable of such a thing. We conquer and exploit everything around us. And the problem is not a new one: some researchers believe that excessive deforestation was one of the causes of the fall of the Roman Empire.

Are there any more encoded social collapses that are linked to the environment?

Yes, absolutely. But society has become so globalized that it is increasingly difficult to fail or succeed at a local scale. Humankind constitutes a single community, even if there are serious religious and cultural differences. And, by the way, this is bad because ecosystems coexist in nature: the more successful ones are more stable, while the rest are more inclined to transform. Nevertheless, we are one community – there is only one version – no plan B.

Invasive species of plants and animals are usually portrayed in a bad light: we see them as a threat, but you take a different stance.

Invasive species can have a big impact, often displacing the species that were already there. But it is worth putting this into a broader perspective. When conditions change, the functioning of an ecosystem can be impaired. For some species, conditions are no longer optimal – for example, the carbon cycle might not work as well as it had prior. In nature, the solution is the replacement of one species by another. Some species die out (or relocate), others appear (i.e. they arrive by migration or, if there's time, new ones may evolve). When the environment changes rapidly, the system has to adapt quickly. A few invasive species may in fact save the ecosystem, and the replacement of older species often indicates that they weren't suited to the new conditions. That is why they can be driven out by a newcomer. We can fight this tooth and nail, but sometimes all we are doing is not allowing the ecosystem to adapt.

We are not the ones to tell nature how to work. A conservationist or farmer might have a heart attack at the thought of cacti spreading throughout the Great Hungarian Plain. And yet these very plants are being cultivated in Tunisia or Morocco, for example, in order to combat drought because for the time being it is the only way to retain water. I don't want to take a bullet to the head over this – I'm not saying let's plant cactus in the plain, but it's worth a thought. We might even get to the point where we have to fight with cactus for the water balance of the otherwise dried up Carpathian Basin. It thrives and reproduces in an environment that is slowly becoming more desert-like and warmer. Of course, we can insist on the established species, but we may be doing it a disservice by not allowing nature – which is already in a state of constant change – to adapt. Things are changing very fast now, but nature can also change fast. It is not good when conservation efforts are the very thing that is shoving a stick between the spokes adaptation.

So we don't need to fear invasive species?

Not by default, but it is worth looking into what is happening on a case-by-case basis. At the level that the system is operating on. There is a measure for that, something like GDP in economics, but for some reason we don't use it because it's a bit more complicated than counting how many species there are somewhere. But that would be the right approach.

Another aspect of systems thinking is to connect the processes taking place at different scales. The success of a small coral polyp is strongly correlated to that of a whale, although the animals take up very different amounts of space. Many important ecological processes cannot occur properly if nature is confined to a small space. And the amount of natural habitat is dwindling. In Europe, there is hardly any truly natural habitat left: it's all dominated by human environments (including vast expanses of agricultural land). There is simply no place for nature any more, and without a healthy, functioning nature, there is no healthy society, or at best only for a while. When a bear or a wild boar comes into a city, it is really a case of people invading their habitat. The wild boar does not poke around the beaches of Lake Balaton because it loves to go to the beach, but because it has nowhere else to go. Nor does the bear turn over the garbage cans at the edge of the forest because it is prone to vandalism. We are constricting nature into tiny spaces. It can no longer function as it should, it is no longer stable, and its capacity for resilience is diminishing. And from there, even minor disturbances can lead to more serious problems.

In what way can people feel the benefits from a well-functioning system?

For example, a well-functioning forest can capture large amounts of rainfall and then slowly release the water. The roots of mature trees hold the soil together, which helps to prevent landslides. In a well-functioning field, a sudden insect outbreak cannot cause as much damage as it would otherwise. When a marine ecosystem works well, we can catch more fish. I don't like the term 'ecosystem services', but at the end of the day, if something works well and we don't extract too much from it, it can regenerate the elements that we might already be using.

Scientists are often concerned about the loss of biodiversity, but a layperson might not know why it is a problem to see fewer flowers, trees, or insects. What do we gain from having an abundance of species?

Such diversity may seem like a luxury in the short term, but when the environment is changing, it is important to have species that thrive and do their jobs well (by pollinating plants, for example). Diversity boosts resilience. If there is no diversity, it is as if we are putting all our money on one number on a roulette wheel. If instead we spread it out over several numbers, we won't get such a high payout, but it's a safer bet. There are examples of this in modern agriculture. In the 19th century, for example, Ireland went all in on potatoes, but then a crop blight struck and millions of people died of starvation or emigrated to America. I don't think it's a good idea to mess around with this, even though we know that agriculturalists can think up almost anything.

You mentioned earlier that greenwashing really irritates you. What makes you think that we are only witnessing communication gimmicks and not forward-thinking achievements?

It's not "going green" to simply paint the concrete green. We need to take a good, hard look in the mirror and make some serious cultural changes. We need to create a simpler, more transparent and more adaptable society. This would be the real green transition: the success of nature-based solutions and a truly ecological approach. But instead, the green goals are mostly just a series of mandatory tasks to be ticked off. And when they conflict with short-term business interests, they are immediately given lower priority. If we are serious about sorting out our relationship with nature, we would have to eat a considerable slice of humble pie. A significant reduction in population, dramatically curbing consumption and "rewilding" would be the three cornerstones if we were serious about anything and wanted to go beyond just slogans and communication. All of this comes at a heavy loss, but there is also plenty to gain from it: benefits and success for those with a bit of creativity and brains.

What is your reaction when you hear the expression 'sustainable development'?

It's a meaningless concept. Nor is sustainability simple, but at least that is something worth talking about. We are free to make use of nature, pick fruit, catch fish, but only to the extent that the next generation will still have enough. Our grandchildren should be able to catch the same amount of fish or pick the same amount of mushrooms. It's just like how foxes eat rabbits but don't wipe them out. Nowadays the label "sustainable" is slapped on everything. If a little bird flies across the boulevard, people say it's a sustainable city. The concept is so broadly interpreted that it has become a buzzword. It is meaningless and nonsensical.

Classical economics is dominated by the image of constant growth, although even a kindergartner can see that the Earth and its resources are finite, that continuous growth isn't even possible in principle – in other words, it's nonsense. In response, many people say that you can also improve in quality, not just quantity. I haven't seen many examples of this, except that the ecological footprint of an activity is not created locally, but somewhere else. Here we have examples of this, and we have mastered it in Europe. Our mobile phones do not weigh very much per kilo, but they are made up of heavy metals for which we are deforesting the African rainforests. We might call this qualitative progress, but self-delusion is a better word.

A recurring theme in his book is that there are too many of us, and the problem is that we have not changed the rules, even though humanity has grown from a few hundred thousand to eight billion.

Overpopulation is at the root of almost all the problems: for eight billion people, there is no really good solution to the environmental problems, no matter what we come up with. It is obviously a touchy subject and one that is difficult to discuss, for example, and is therefore increasingly eschewed in forums, but doing so is unlikely to lead to a solution. If economic disparities were to be reduced somewhat and international relations significantly improved, it might be possible to create a framework within which a global dialogue on the issue could be established. It is not necessary for Europe to dictate here too. But first we need to sort out our thoughts here at home. Women are still seen as birth machines not only in some cultures in Africa and Asia but even in some European countries. There was a time when it was a good strategy for everyone to have as many as they could. But today it's suicidal. If we take Hungary, for example, eight million people who are more highly trained and better educated can certainly foster a richer culture and national heritage than 12 million people who are illiterate.

If we don't control our own population size, will something else do it?

This is what COVID was all about. It's heaven for a virus when areas with very high population densities are connected. It spreads quickly and is easily transmitted. And there are even nastier contenders in the mix. Even if we do learn something from COVID – although it doesn't look that way now – we could be in for a much bigger blow in the future. We are numerous, densely populated, and intermingle extensively. No virus could ask for more.

We have to step out of nature or away from it, you say, but how can we do that?

I am very fond of the white wild horses of the Camargue in the south of France. I love them so much that I don't go there to see them. I don't travel there, I don't stay at a nearby hotel, I don't eat or litter there, and I don't buy wild horse refrigerator magnets either. I'm happy for them to have a little less disruption in their lives. Anyone who cares about nature, who cares about their relationship with it, can get all this in the back of a garden, listening to a golden oriole instead of a wild horse. We don't have to stick our faces in every place. We used to be able to do it, and it was fine, but we shouldn't these days. Everything has changed because we changed everything. We have to live by new rules if we are not to give up hope completely that we will ever have a truly sustainable society on this planet.

Since we are on the subject of individual actions, I'm going to be a bit of an instigator. We're sitting here, both pouring our drinks out of PET bottles. Is it problematic at all for your conscience that this is not really environmentally friendly?

The world isn't black and white. It won't give me nightmares, but, for example, I hardly go anywhere by car any more, I don't own a summer cottage, and I eat less meat than I used to. You don't have to live the life of a hermit, sleeping naked in a cave and drinking water from a puddle. If we all dial it back a bit, we'll see just how much it's worth. If that's not enough, we'll have to dial it back even more. But the important thing is to keep improving our resilience and adaptability. This works at the level of the individual, but it can also help from above.

I believe I am not wrong in saying that several of your claims are going to be challenged. Are you expecting any uproar?

Many agree that we are living in a crazy world, and some believe that humankind's hours are numbered. On the other hand, when a novel thought or a bold idea comes along, most people resist it vehemently, because preserving our comfort zone is more important than anything else. It's okay – we don't have to survive: in fact, it is perfectly compatible with the rules of ecology for us to become extinct due to our inflexibility. It doesn't bother me. The book is about what we should do if we want to avoid it.

I'm quite sure that people both within and outside of academia will argue with me. There are a lot of claims in the book that are provocative even among ecologists, but I think they are all backed up. I'm in the minority with a lot of statements – that's evident – but if you go with the majority opinion, not much change will come out of it. Moreover, I'm also venturing into areas where I'm far from an expert. Sometimes we have to admit that we say stupid things, but we should still try to engage with each other. Today's global challenges dictate that. This is becoming all the more necessary as really fast and breakthrough solutions can only come from very innovative ideas. And these are usually brought about by people who are somewhat outsiders, but not completely crazy. In order to get off the beaten track, more than just "paragraph two, section forty of Act VI" needs to be rewritten. That is not enough.

You state in the introduction of the book that you don't intend to offer the reader a solution, nor do you wish to provide them with positive or emergency escape plans – but with that said – what might the future hold?

My position is completely schizophrenic. I think we are capable of achieving a great deal, and the situation is not so tragic. But at the same time I suspect that we are not going to achieve anything because I see the way we tend to operate. Our entire culture is extremely inflexible and close-minded: we are bound by our habits. Everything is changing very quickly around us, yet we are not able to adapt to the changes we ourselves generate.