Strategische Agenda 2022-2025

16 The final development to be mentioned here is that society itself is increasingly taking the initiative to ‘enforce’ sustainability, as in the case of the Urgenda lawsuit in the Netherlands about the climate objectives and the legal action taken by Mobilisation for Environment about the PAS scheme relating to nitrogen emissions. This is also a feature internationally. For example, in New Zealand, the parliament has granted the Whanganui River legal personality. In addition, more and more bottom-up initiatives are emerging in which organisations such as energy and food cooperatives work on achieving goals themselves. Science in a rapidly changing society The spread of disinformation and misinformation, either deliberately or not, means that science is also increasingly under attack as being ‘just another opinion’. Large amounts of easy-to-share content means that people spread false information quickly. With the social media as an unmistakable catalyst. Misinformation is incorrect information that is spread without the intent to deceive. Disinformation, also known as fake news, is information that deliberately falsifies the facts in order to disrupt the process of establishing the truth. Fake news has not yet had a major impact in the Netherlands. But we cannot assume that this will always be this the case. We are also seeing the media responding to the trend. For example, NU.nl no longer allows posts that deny climate change and Instagram is barring posts from anti-vaxxers with certain hashtags. This trend of misinformation and disinformation has been apparent for some time now. But increasingly, and also recently with COVID-19, it can quickly polarise the public debate and harden positions. That is also a feature of discussions about extreme sea level rise. It represents a challenge to which there are no easy solutions. It also puts pressure on scientists when they talk in public. It is difficult to make a positive contribution so that scientifically established facts at least are accepted as widely as possible. Citizen science with practical input from local residents can raise trust, acceptance and impact. Transparency in working methods and research results, and the interpretation of the facts from an independent position, are important. Scientific trends In the time to come, we believe there will be two important scientific developments that will affect our field. First of all, there are technological developments that are crucial now, or will be in the future, for how we work. In the years to come, we think that the increase in Earth Observation data will be the most relevant. The speed at which these data will become available in increasingly higher temporal and spatial resolution will demand considerable adaptability. In short: much more data will be available than will be actually used. We are also increasingly running up against the limits of our current computing models. Enhanced computing power Chapter 2 Trends and developments