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Cities have been described as essential to climate change solutions, but they can also raise the kinds of ecologists that will bring us into a more comprehensive biological future.

As a black wildlife biologist from Philadelphia, I stood out among my coworkers. My presence in ecology has challenged assumptions about not only what a biologist looks like, but also where a biologist comes from. In the U.S., ecology was and is mainly white and conducted in rural landscapes, but I had no history of camping, fishing, hunting or hiking. I had yet to recognize that Philadelphia, with its four seasons and richness of squirrels (松鼠), row homes and festivals, was actually my first ecological classroom. There I witnessed wild cats eating birds and rats, people shooting bats from their homes and snakes being killed by lawn mowers (割草机). This is as much ecology in action as anything we witness in fields and forests.

Urban wild animals exhibit many features and behaviors that set them apart from their rural twins: they may be bigger, eat more diverse food sources, are active at different times of the day, move differently and have different personalities. Some biologists argue they are even “smarter”. Besides, urban wildlife balances more risks—such as road chemical poisons and diseases from domestic animals—with rewards. Some of those rewards come from humans providing food and some from the distribution of our parks and water bodies.

In our professional lives as biologists, living with such wild animals can make us more tolerant of species diversity, which can benefit the natural world. Nature is no longer only primitive wilderness but includes sounds of human laughter and garbage trucks. We expect more biologists from urban settings because urban environments naturally train keen observers who are the future of ecology.

Chatting in her bright two bedroom flat, Shirley Meredeen, aged 91, doesn’t hesitate in describing the benefits of living here. “It keeps my brain going. We are all very active because there is so much to do...We’re really lucky to have such a supportive community.”

In 1998, Meredeen first heard of the concept of cohousing as developed in the Netherlands and decided to copy its model in the UK and create the Older Women Cohousing (OWCH) with her friends. But they didn’t imagine that it would be an 18-year struggle. The novelty of the idea coupled with the lack of data to prove the social and economic benefits made it difficult for them to access public money. Councils always compared their idea to sheltered accommodation and saw it as a burden for their already overstretched budgets.

In fact, the community-led housing is a departure from the conventional understanding of later life. Now, the community comprises 25 flats as well as a shared kitchen, meeting room, laundry, garden, car park and a guest room. People live together based on interdependence. They can take control of their future instead of relying on their families or care homes. All the neighbours look out for each other, not after each other, which means accompanying to medical appointments, doing the local shopping, having family contacts in preparation for an emergency... But the limits of such informal care among residents still need to be worked out.

OWCH has paved the way to alternative living arrangements in later life and the support for community-led housing is starting to emerge in the form of guidance and funding, according to UK Cohousing Network.

We live in an age when all scientific knowledge — from the safety of vaccines (疫苗) to the reality of climate change — faces organized and often angry opposition. Doubters have declared war on the consensus (共识) of experts. It seems that people have turned argumentative overnight.

In a sense, all this is not surprising. Our lives are affected by science and technology as never before. The world seems full of real and imaginary dangers. Though scientists agree that the Ebola virus is spread only by direct contact with blood or body fluids (液体), if you type “airborne Ebola” into an Internet search engine, you’ll find that some people believe that this virus has almost supernatural powers.

In this often confusing world, we need to rely on science to decide whether what we choose to believe has a basis in the laws of nature or not. But science doesn’t come naturally to most of us. Science has often led us to truths that are really mind-blowing. For example, although the roundness of the Earth has been known for thousands of years, some still feel it hard to accept.

Even when people become scientifically educated, most of them still try to make sense of the world by relying on personal experience, stories or emotions rather than statistics. When they hear a number of cancer cases in a town with a dangerous waste dump (垃圾场), they believe pollution caused the cancers. Yet two things happening together doesn’t mean one caused the other. Even when they turn to the Internet, they let in only the information they agree with to strengthen beliefs that have already been shaped by their worldview.

How can scientists convince doubters? Throwing more facts at people may not be enough. More efforts are supposed to be made.