“Climate scientists are also citizens and human beings”

Ne are a group of scientists from all walks of life working on Earth system science, and more specifically on the causes and impacts of climate change – several of us are authors of reports for the Intergovernmental Panel on Evolution (IPCC) – and as such we make detailed observations and carefully build experiments and models to understand the causes, processes and impacts of climate change. We stick to the facts and do our best to inform decision-makers and our fellow citizens, and to train students in rigorous scientific methodology.

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But climatologists are also citizens and human beings. As citizens, we have our own vision of the world and we participate in public debate in the way that suits us. As humans, we have the inalienable right to express our opinions peacefully.

For decades, the fact that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions cause global warming has been unequivocal. It is also established with certainty that we endanger the future of ecosystems and societies. And to quote the IPCC, “any further delay in concerted and preemptive global action for adaptation and mitigation will miss a brief window of opportunity, which is rapidly closing, to secure a livable and sustainable future for all”. More than ever, we know that we must actively engage, as citizens and scientists, to work towards the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions and the rapid transition to a low-carbon future.

Disproportionate reaction

We are therefore appalled by the recent reprisals against colleagues for merely exercising their civil and human rights.

Ahead of a plenary lecture on the arts, sciences and climate change at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) fall conference, Rose Abramoff and her colleague Peter Kalmus unfurled a banner that read « Out of the lab and into the streets » (“get out of your labs and hit the streets”). Their action lasted less than thirty seconds. The response following this nonviolent action was disproportionate: the AGU immediately removed their scientific contributions from the conference program, thereby erasing their work from the scientific community, and then launched an internal investigation.

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