To stop the greatest destruction in human history, these scientists are going to civil disobedience

This is just a new example. Among the demonstrators who turned out this weekend in Tarn to protest against the Toulouse-Castres motorway project, there was Christophe Caso. For this climate scientist, director of research at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), co-author of the sixth report from Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Giec), getting involved in this way is a first.

“Everywhere The world as we enter the hard are witnessing the criminalization of climate activists, He explains. It is our role as scholars to defend the freedom to challenge certain projects.”. Christophe Kasso appeals to science, explaining that IPCC reports show that non-violent civil disobedience movements can accelerate awareness of “climate issues” and decision-making.

global movement

Christophe Cassou is not the only scientist who has taken this step. It is a global movement, one of whose figures is called Peter Kalmos. The American NASA climatologist went even further: last year he chained himself to the door of a bank, JPMorgan Chase, which generously finances gas and oil projects.

He explained tearfully that scholars are not listened to. He speaks of this procedure as having risks: a legal risk, and the risk of prosecution, since his arrest. But risking his career, perhaps, too. “But we’ve been trying to alert you, for many decades, He said. We will lose everything. We’re not kidding. We don’t lie. We don’t exaggerate. Peter Kalmos predicts that more and more scientists will share his example.

200 scientists banded together in the ‘Scientists’ Rebellion’ group

Today, a year later, the Scholars in Rebellion movement claims to mobilize 200 researchers and academics. Peter Kalmos is one of them. The fifteen people who got their hands on a car on display in Munich, at BMW’s headquarters a few months ago, too.

And this transition to work is often a matter of conscience. “Will presenting myself as an ‘activist’ diminish the credibility of my work as a scientist?”And “I thought about it a lot.”. “I wish I didn’t have to do that”, are phrases that appear frequently. These scientists, who are sometimes accused of abandoning some form of duty of impartiality, explain that their job is not just to research, but also to alert, disseminate, and defend scientific knowledge.

‘We can make a difference’he explains on the collective their website. We are located in centers rich in knowledge and experience. We are well connected around the world and with decision makers; We have great platforms from which to inform, educate, and mobilize others around the world, and we have implicit authority and legitimacy, which is the basis of political power. We must do what we can to stop the greatest destruction in human history.”. This message can be passed, at a conference of course, but also on the street, on the sidewalk. The format changes, but the content of the letter, in the end, is not so much.