Rambo Amadeus: You Can Count on Science

PODGORICA, 5 NOVEMBER 2021 – Five centuries ago, the authorities persecuted scientists, and Giordano Bruno, a mathematician and astronomer, was burned at the stake for claiming that the Earth revolved around the Sun. The danger today lies in the fact that scientific evidence and scientific assessments are largely being ignored and misused, and our task is to change this state of awareness – said UNICEF National Goodwill Ambassador Antonio Pusic, better known as Rambo Amadeus, on the occasion of the release of his new video and song You Can Count on Science.

Pusic points out that the difficulties that humanity has fallen into – global warming, air, soil and ocean pollution, the COVID-19 pandemic – are caused exclusively by an insufficient reliance on timely scientific assessments.

This time as well, visual artist Darko Vlaovic has made an animated video for this song.

The song is about the importance of natural and social sciences for human development, from prehistory up to the present day, and it reminds that people can dream up, make guesses, ignore the facts, doubt, invent and believe in whatever they want, but only scientific methods can prove what is true. “You Can Count on Science” is the message of the song, produced with the support of the British Embassy in Podgorica and UNICEF.

Data from international research, but also research in Montenegro, shows how important trust in science is: citizens who doubt science more often believe in conspiracy theories and misinformation. In a recent Ipsos survey, 13 percent of Montenegrins confirmed distrust towards science, while one third of them believe in the conspiracy theory that man-made global warming has been deliberately fabricated to deceive people.

A report by the World Meteorological Organization published a few days before the start of the current UN Conference on Climate Change warned of the abundance of scientific evidence about the human impact on global warming and that, based on scientific data collected so far, 2021 is expected to be the warmest year ever measured.

UNICEF recently published the first comprehensive climate risk analysis from a child’s perspective to warn that the climate crisis is actually a child rights crisis, as it affects every child on the planet, although none of them are responsible for it.

This week, UNICEF released an analysis showing that plans to tackle climate change do not take into account the needs and priorities of children in two thirds of the 103 countries surveyed.

UNICEF is calling on governments and businesses to increase investment in tackling the effects of climate change and adapting the child and social protection systems to the new circumstances, as well as to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to actively involve children and young people in climate change decision making, because they are the ones most affected.