• Reports, forums, pleas… For fifty years, scientists studying climate change and the erosion of biodiversity have multiplied alerts aimed at the general public.

  • Without much success, to the point that researchers no longer hesitate to move towards actions of civil disobedience.

    This is the case of the international collective Scientist Rebellion, which called for mobilizations in early April.

  • One of them, in front of a Californian bank, marked by the poignant speech of Peter Kalmus, researcher at NASA, was widely shared on social networks.

    But in France too, scientists are gradually taking the plunge.

Peter Kalmus updated his Twitter bio.

Next to "climate scientist" at NASA, he added "Arrested for protecting the Earth".

A reference to the video he pinned just below.

We see there, on April 6, the American researcher chaining himself to the front door of a building of JP Morgan Chase, in Los Angeles, to enjoin the bank to stop its investments in fossil projects.

“I am here because scientists are not listened to, I wanted to take this risk for our magnificent planet, for my sons, he explains in front of the cameras, his voice choking with emotion.

We have been trying to warn you for so many decades, we are heading for disaster, he continues.

(…).

We will lose everything.

We don't joke, we don't lie.

We are not exaggerating.

»

I'm grateful we tried.

Man, oh, man, did we try.

pic.twitter.com/TlYrwwGB8v

— Peter Kalmus (@ClimateHuman) April 11, 2022


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"I'm glad we tried"

Peter Kalmus and the few other scientists who took part in this action of civil disobedience ended up being arrested after a few minutes.

They can take comfort in knowing that the video of this sit-in has generated millions of views and numerous media coverage.

Above all, on this same April 6, other scientists took the risk of being arrested to warn of the ongoing ecological disasters, at the call of Scientist Rebellion.

This informal and international collective of scientists and academics says it is convinced of the need to “expose the reality and gravity of the climate and ecological emergency by engaging in non-violent civil disobedience”.

They are more than 200 to have signed the online manifesto, and the history of the mobilizations of Scientist Rebellion goes back, for the first,

Scientist Rebellion lists more than 1,000 activists in 25 countries to have mobilized on April 6, which the collective presents as a record for civil disobedience actions orchestrated by scientists.

They took place in New York, Portland, Quito (Ecuador), Muanga (Rwanda), Rome, Copenhagen, Berlin, The Hague, Lisbon…

Scientist Rebellion: twenty academics, environmental activists, disrupted the closure of the Natural History Museum in Paris.

They call for civil disobedience for urgent action against global warming #AFP pic.twitter.com/RPEBQB5K3j

— Taimaz Szirniks (@Taimaz) April 9, 2022


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Also at the National Museum of Natural History

No town in France is mentioned.

An action was however held in Paris, but on April 9, in the great gallery of the evolution of the National Museum of Natural History.

At 5 p.m., an hour before closing, about twenty scientists settled at the foot of the missing fossils, until three of them attached themselves to the support of that of the mammoth.

“The idea was above all not to deprive the public of being able to enter but, on the contrary, to offer them conferences on climate and biodiversity issues, says Olivier, one of the participants.

We had enough to last 5:30.

We were dislodged after four hours by the police.

"Without incident and without police custody", engages Xavier Capet, oceanographer at the Pierre-Simon Laplace Institute (CNRS).

A somewhat nice action therefore, with less media echo.

“The mistake may have been to have done it on the eve of the first round of the presidential election,” slips Olivier, who recalls the unusual nature of civil disobedience for scientists.

But he doesn't think he's wasted his time.

If we go back to March 1972 and the report by Dennis Meadows, a professor at MIT who questioned the limits of growth, scientists have been trying to warn about environmental crises for fifty years.

“We are not going to hide the face, it did not happen much, begins Olivier.

Hence this idea of ​​adding to the classic means of transmitting the scientific message – reports, forums, pleas, interventions in schools – new ones, including non-violent civil disobedience.

»

"You can't ignore us like a bunch of hippies"

Scientist Rebellion is categorical: “Academic research has shown that peaceful civil disobedience is one of the most effective approaches to bringing about rapid social change,” its members write to explain who they are.

Already in February 2020, in the columns of

Le Monde

, 1,000 scientists appealed to citizens, “including our scientific colleagues” for civil disobedience and the development of alternatives.

But this platform, which gave rise to the creation in France of a national network of scientists in rebellion, invited above all to join the actions of the historic generalist ecological movements (Friends of the Earth, Attac, Greenpeace, etc.) as new ( Extinction Rebellion, Youth for climate…).

With Scientist Rebellion, on the other hand, there is the idea of ​​creating “a truly global radical science movement, with the stated aim of conferring the necessary credibility on the climate movement at large”.

The collective regrets that public opinion and the press perceive “activists as extremists who overreact”.

But if scientists get into it, then "you can't ignore us like a bunch of hippies", continues the collective.

But Xavier Capet invites us to see beyond strategic considerations.

Sometimes it's just the heart speaking, he explains.

“That's the strength of Peter Kalmus' speech,” he says.

He takes to the guts because he expresses there all his distress.

Our professional lives consist of having our eyes riveted on alarming indicators every day, and yet nothing, or very little, has changed.

For the oceanographer, Scientist Rebellion "breaks the image conveyed in the past by people like Claude Allègre [renowned scientist and former minister], consisting in saying that climatologists, through their alerts, were above all seeking to obtain funding and to attract cover to themselves"

Scientists or activists… or both?

How many are these scientists ready for civil disobedience to make themselves heard?

"More and more," assured Peter Kalmus in his speech.

Olivier and Xavier Capet also think so, although this method brings back into debate the question of "scientific neutrality", which has already been much discussed in recent years.

“It's a concept that we often don't master, because few have philosophy and history of science courses in our courses,” says Olivier.

As a result, the principle according to which the researcher must not give his opinion, must not take sides, at the risk of falling into militancy and losing credibility, has long prevailed.

But it is increasingly questioned.

» « To remain kindly in his laboratory in the face of such a degraded situation as we are living in, is this to be neutral?

», asks Xavier Capet.

He ensures in any case that the sit-in of the Museum would have been strongly criticized by the scientific community a few years ago.

“That was not the case when I explained it to my colleagues the following Monday,” he says.

Does this mean that they will join the next action of Scientist Rebellion?

Not sure.

This is another problem for scientists that Xavier Capet points out, with a smile: "We find, in many people, this profile of 'top of the class' which often goes hand in hand with the concern to remain legal at all costs. .

»

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