Tag: Climate Scientists

1,500+ Scientists slam punishment of colleagues for peaceful climate action

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Tommaso.sansone91, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Tommaso.sansone91, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

“Climate scientists are citizens and humans too. As citizens, we have our own views of the world and we engage in the public debate in the ways we see fit. As humans, we have the inalienable right to express our opinions in a peaceful manner.”

By Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams

More than 1,500 scientists on Thursday released a letter declaring that they are “appalled by the recent retaliation against colleagues who dared to exercise their civil and human rights” with a peaceful protest at a December conference in Chicago.

Published by news outlets around the world in English, French, and Portuguese, the letter comes after Rose Abramoff and Peter Kalmus unfurled a banner that read “Out of the lab & into the streets” just before an art and science plenary talk at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU).

“As scientists, we make detailed observations and carefully design experiments and models to understand the causes, processes, and implications of climate change” the letter states. “We stick to facts and do our best to inform policymakers and fellow citizens, and train students in rigorous scientific methods.”

“Importantly, climate scientists are citizens and humans too,” the letter adds. “As citizens, we have our own views of the world and we engage in the public debate in the ways we see fit. As humans, we have the inalienable right to express our opinions in a peaceful manner.”

Citing scientific conclusions about the causes of the climate emergency and the urgent need to address them, the letter stresses that “more than ever, we need to engage actively as citizens-who-are-scientists in working for the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions and the swift transition to a low-carbon future.”

The AGU—which has over 60,000 members and 23 peer-reviewed journals— describes the annual conference as “the most influential event in the world dedicated to the advancement of Earth and space sciences.” The organization launched a probe into the protest.

While Kalmus still works at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, fired Abramoff over the demonstration, which she wrote about in a New York Times opinion piece earlier this month.

Abramoff and Kalmus—who have both been arrested for previous climate-related civil disobedience—disrupted the AGU event for less than 30 seconds. Someone swiftly ripped the banner from the scientists’ hands and AGU staff escorted them from the stage. Kalmus tweeted that “the AGU took our badges and kicked us out of the meeting.”

HEATED reported Friday that the day before the protest, during a grief circle at the conference that was asked to disperse to clear a hallway, “Abramoff said she gave her phone number to one of the AGU officials. HEATED independently identified this official as the senior vice president of meetings, Lauren Parr.”

The report added that “after being expelled from the conference, Abramoff said she received a phone call from Parr (Abramoff did not name Parr in the conversation with HEATED), in which Parr threatened arrest if the two returned; said their research would be removed from the conference; and that AGU would contact their work institutions.”

Parr declined to comment while an AGU spokesperson declined to confirm those details and “also attempted to prevent HEATED from naming Parr, claiming she had been receiving significant harassment and death threats,” according to the outlet.

The new letter—signed by members of the Earth system science community from dozens of countries, including several authors of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports—charges that “the response with which they were met was by far disproportionate,” calling out both “the AGU’s actions against them and the recent retaliation that followed.”

The letter continues:

We argue that the cost of silence in the face of such unfair and disproportionate treatment, for the scientific community and the planet, would be too high. The heavy-handed and unjust responses to a short banner unfurling not only threatens the careers of two scientists, it also discourages researchers—and especially early-career scientists—from engaging with their colleagues and society and to speak out about the urgent need for climate action. We are deeply concerned by a decision that tells scientists that they risk their careers if they dare speak out or engage in advocacy that is not formally approved. Employers should not punish scientific researchers for participating in nonviolent climate action. Academia and membership organizations like AGU should be safe spaces for freedom of expression.

We stand by our fellow climate scientists who express frustration with the lack of meaningful climate action within the scientific community and the public, who bring attention to the urgency of the moment in a nonviolent manner. We stand by Rose and Peter.

Scientists and others from across the globe have publicly shared similar sentiments since mid-December.

Erika Spanger-Siegfried, director of strategic climate analytics in the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Climate and Energy program, warned last week that “in the absence of a clear endorsement of the objective (not the means) of Abramoff and Kalmus’ actions, AGU’s response, coupled with Abramoff’s firing, may be seen by the scientific community as a strong, disapproving, and chilling signal to scientists to step back from climate activism—just when the world needs them to show up in new, courageous ways.”

An open letter addressed directly to the AGU—so far signed by over 2,000 people—says that “we as scientists cannot and must not tolerate this censorship and chilling lack of support from our scientific society and therefore urge AGU to: i) reinstate the scientific contributions of Rose Abramoff and Peter Kalmus to the program; ii) officially rescind any communications AGU may have had regarding this incident with Rose Abramoff and Peter Kalmus’ former or home institutions until after the AGU professional misconduct investigation has concluded; and iii) immediately close the professional misconduct investigation.”

In response to AGU CEO Randy Fiser’s January 11 statement about the demonstration and subsequent investigation, Aaron Thierry tweeted that such protest “is both necessary and justified,” and pointed to an August paper he published in the journal Nature Climate Change with four other climate scientists and a political scientist who focuses on civil disobedience and social movements.

According to Thierry, rather than sanctioning and investigating Abramoff and Kalmus, the AGU “should be backing them in their efforts!”

This post has been updated with HEATED’s additions clarifying that the news outlet independently identified Lauren Parr and Rose Abramoff did not name the AGU official.

UK court acquits climate scientists who glued their hands to government building

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Photo by NOAA on Unsplash
A calving glacier. Witness to global warming. Photo by NOAA on Unsplash

By Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Climate action advocates around the world on Friday celebrated a London-based court’s acquittal of five scientists who in April glued research and their own hands to a U.K. government building.

The members of Scientists for Extinction Rebellion (XR) faced charges of criminal damage for their nonviolent civil disobedience at the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) building to stress the danger of new fossil fuel exploration.

“The rush for new oil and gas being enabled by the U.K. government is completely at odds with what the scientific research is telling us needs to happen,” defendant Stuart Capstick said Friday. “The consequences of ignoring that science will be devastating climate impacts that threaten the lives and well-being of people around the world.”

“Under normal circumstances, the last thing I would want to do is glue myself to a window, be arrested, and put on trial,” he added. “Unfortunately, this type of action seems to be one of the few ways left to draw attention to the urgency and scale of action needed to tackle the climate crisis.”

XR highlighted in a statement that the scientists, who also wrote messages in chalk spray, “took great care not to cause any lasting damage by using easily washable and removable substances,” and “the prosecution could not produce any evidence of the alleged damage or actual costs” to clean up.

Four other scientists who participated were tried separately and found guilty in September. One of them, Colin Davis, said Friday that “the chalk I sprayed on the windows of the publicly owned BEIS department building needed only a damp cloth to wipe away, unlike the millions of tonnes of greenhouse gas pollution that will be dumped into the atmosphere if the U.K. government proceeds with its plan to license new oil and gas fields in the North Sea.”

“Those gases will persist for hundreds of years and will heat our planet even more, directly contributing to millions of deaths from heatwaves, flooding, extreme weather events, and crop failure,” he warned. “We need the government to start listening to the warnings coming from scientists and bodies such as the United Nations and the International Energy Agency.”

Defendant Abi Perrin, who was acquitted, said that “when governments ignore the warnings of the world’s scientists and even their own climate pledges, it’s hard not to feel desperate. I took part in this peaceful and nondestructive protest action in the hope that it would help raise the alarm about policies that exacerbate the loss, suffering, and violence already being experienced around the world.”

Similarly noting that “scientists have been sounding the alarm for decades but have been ignored by governments,” fellow defendant Emma Smart declared that “with knowledge comes responsibility and more and more scientists are mobilizing in civil disobedience around the world as we are running out of time.”

In a series of tweets about the court’s decision, defendant Aaron Thierry said that “if there are scientists reading this who are considering taking part in civil disobedience, or still uncertain but want to know more, then please check out our recent article” in the journal Nature Climate Change, which argues that the time is now for experts to join activist efforts.

The court’s decision comes as world leaders prepare for the COP27 climate summit in Egypt next month and as the U.K. government is in turmoil following the Thursday resignation of Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss.

The acquittal also comes as British policymakers crack down on protests, from the recently enacted Police, Crime, Sentencing, and Courts Act 2022 to an ongoing push for the Public Order Bill.

“In worrying echoes of the tendency towards authoritarian suppression of protest in countries like Hungary and Russia, it is unclear what will happen to the ability of citizens to make their concerns heard, when the only form of protest allowed in the U.K. will be obedient and approved marches on the street,” XR said.

Defendant Caroline Vincent also recognized that reality, saying that “with a raft of oppressive laws against legitimate protests being adopted in the U.K., it is becoming more and more difficult for the voice of reason to be heard.”

“The government would rather prosecute scientists and suppress legitimate protests than… act on the advice they receive from scientists and their own advisers,” she continued. “But today, the magistrates acknowledged that we were expressing our right to protest, which should be the cornerstone of any democracy.”

The same day as the BEIS protest, XR campaigners also occupied the London headquarters of oil giant Shell. Five people arrested for aggravated trespass in connection with the latter action had their charges dropped on Friday.

“I am glad that our attempts to inform Shell employees of the danger that their employer poses to our collective future, and to encourage them to take action, have resulted in all criminal charges against us being dropped,” said Dr. Elanor Lewis-Holmes, a clinical psychologist.

“Shell is a criminal organization, who have been found guilty of numerous climate-related crimes such as destructive oil spills in the Niger Delta and highly inadequate reductions in CO2 emissions,” she added. “If left unchecked, 1.6% of the entire world’s carbon budget will be used up by this one company in the next eight years.”