We are a group of scientists who work on Earth System Science and specifically on the causes and impacts of climate change. Several of us have been authors of reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC. As scientists, we make detailed observations and carefully design experiments and models to understand the causes, processes, and implications of climate change. 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. 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.
The fact that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are causing global warming has been unequivocal for decades. That we are endangering the future of ecological systems and societies is also now unequivocal. To quote the IPCC, “any further delay in concerted anticipatory global action on adaptation and mitigation will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all.” 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.
Disproportionate response
We are therefore appalled by the recent retaliation against colleagues who dared to exercise their civil and human rights.
Dr. Rose Abramoff, together with her colleague Dr. Peter Kalmus, unfurled a banner that read “Out of the lab and into the streets” before an art and sciences plenary talk about climate change at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). Their action lasted less than 30 seconds. The response with which they were met was by far disproportionate: AGU immediately removed their scientific contributions from the meeting programme, thus erasing their work from the scientific discourse, and then launched an inquiry.
Consequently, Dr. Abramoff – an outstanding early career scientist – was fired from her job at a major governmental institute. Whether or not one agrees with the form in which Dr. Abramoff and Dr. Kalmus decided to protest, or even if they breached the decorum of the academic establishment, we cannot stay silent in the face of the AGU’s actions against them and the recent retaliation that followed.
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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.
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