Guest blog by Suzanne Pyrch

I have asked people to submit guest blogs for this site. Here is a post by Suzanne Pyrch. Her post is about helping to grow the environmental movement by turning young people onto this field of study through the creation of CSI-like TV dramas that solve environmental rather than criminal cases. This is a really compelling idea and I think could work. Here is her rational and plan.

Planting in the Wasteland

Television has a vast influence on our lives.  How could it not?  According to the Census Bureau, the average American over the age of 12 watches 4.7 hours of television per day.  This was as of 2008, and reports suggest television viewing is on the rise.  The Main Four, a publication by Howell High School Students, in January of 2011, reported that the average teenager watches 4 hours of television per day – not counting the 2 hours a day spent on the computer playing video games.

While I don’t think the above information is healthy or heartening, I am not here to rant about the negative effects of television viewing.  I don’t want to credit television with making teenagers more prone to violence, promiscuity, or drug use.  That would take more copious research and abstract reasoning than I (a recently retired high school teacher) am willing to do.  Rather, I would like to report on the influence on teens that I was able to observe by asking a few simple questions of graduating seniors.

The first question I would ask was, “So, what are you doing next year?” The overwhelming answer was, “I am going to college.” This prompted my second question, “What are you planning to study?” The answer, with baffling frequency, was, “Forensic Science.”  The first time I heard this response, I think I literally stepped back a few paces.  I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why this lovely and bright young lady was opting to spend her life amidst the ick and the dead.  When forensic science started to be a regular answer, I realized that only television could make this most unromantic profession seem like it was not only a plausible career, but one with an allure.

In my rather unscientific way, I trace the trend (at least in the U.S.) back to Quincy, M.E.  The show starred Jack Klugman as a medical examiner who gave some glamour to the job of forensic scientist by staring, with a deadpan expression, into the camera and stating, “Forensic science is an exact science; it doesn’t lie.”  And, of course, he always caught the criminal.  Then, of course, the Law and Order franchise came along and used forensic science as part of their formula.   Today there are a proliferation of shows in which forensic science is at the center, notably, all the variations of CSI.  In fact, it is difficult to turn on the television today without seeing a latex clad hand holding a pair of tweezers; and the pair of tweezers is pulling something off of a bloody or jaundiced body.

This gives me an idea.  If television can make forensic science look glamorous, what can’t it do?  My particular proposal is for a show that would glamorize environmental science and scientists.  There are many causes and viewpoints I espouse, but without a planet to work things out on, what is the point?  I think it is our most important issue.  And it is definitely underrepresented on television.

All we would need to do to make this possible is to use the same formula from existing popular shows and apply it to this new venue.  Drama, of course, is at the heart of every successful crime show.  What greater drama is there than a dying planet?  There is also the drama of what happens when we don’t pay attention to the planet: numerous oil spills, nuclear meltdowns, hurricanes, earthquakes and tornados. And this is just the tip of the disappearing iceberg. Crime shows also invite in the viewing audience by presenting them with a mystery or puzzle.  What if we invited the audience into the current conundrums in environmental science?  Biofuel or solar power? How will we provide clean water to an overpopulated planet?  Will we let the pipeline dissect the United States even though scientists think this will be the beginning of the end?

The main thing that makes any narrative show work is the community we are invited into.  Every show from Quincy to CSI is a little bit of a soap opera with a lot of science thrown on top.  This is only natural as we are social creatures.  I have no objection to casting our new show (let’s call it 350) with handsome and adept actors.  Why not?  Then we invent enough of a complicated personal life for each character so that our viewers are enticed. Of course, we include characters of different ethnic and racial backgrounds as well as differences in outlook and sexual orientation.  This is not only to draw in all types, but to express what the world of environmental science looks like, or at least what it must look like if we are to survive.

Now I know that most of the students who told me that they were going to study forensic science will change their course of study. This will most likely happen when they find out that their real future looks nothing like what they see on television.  After all, most law enforcements units have nowhere near the budget they would need to provide all the equipment we see on these shows.  Most of these students will wind up in law enforcement, or as science teachers, or in a totally unrelated field.  But, by at least trying out this course of study, all of them will have a broader and deeper understanding of science.  And that can’t be bad.  I want the same thing to happen for environmental studies.  We will be lucky if we get a little swell in the upcoming crop of environmental scientists.  But wouldn’t it be great if a large sector of the public had an increased awareness of environmental issues?

So, how about it?  Any screenwriters out there willing to make this a reality?  The hardest part, of course, will be finding sponsors that have nothing at all whatsoever to do will big oil!

Suzanne Pyrch can be reached at supyr@earthlink.net