Press release -
Hundreds of Frightened and Furious Scientists Call For Global Academic Rebellion: March 25-28th
Scientists from around the globe take non-violent direct action to demonstrate the severity of the climate and ecological crisis, and ask scientists and the public to join them in rebellion.
• More than 100 scientists from over 10 countries to participate in direct actions including pasting to public buildings, teach-ins, and hunger strikes.
• Scientist Rebellion believes that if scientists do not act like this is an emergency, they cannot expect the public to do so. They seek to transform scientific institutions into hubs of resistance.
•They seek to compel governments to undertake equitable de-growth - paid for by the wealthiest, facilitating emergency decarbonisation.
Scientist Rebellion will engage in educational disobedience, in which academics deviate from planned learning to teach their students and the public about the climate crisis and the role of civil disobedience in countering it. Some academics will go on hunger strikes, which demonstrate willingness to give something up for the greater good, and highlight the hunger and suffering which climate breakdown brings. And as a third action there will be pasting of scientific papers related to the crisis to public buildings. They target scientific institutions to drive a fundamental shift from tacitly supporting government toward resistance.
Countries expected to participate in direct action: UK, Ireland, Spain, Switzerland, Portugal, Belgium, Denmark, Australia, USA.
Countries expected to participate in hunger strikes: Germany, UK, Switzerland, Portugal, Madagascar, Canada, France, USA.
Countries expected to participate in educational disobedience: Estonia, Australia, UK, Canada, Switzerland, Germany, USA, Spain, Portugal, Mexico.
Well known scientists to take part:
Charlie Gardner, Conservation Scientists and Lecturer from University of Kent
Demanding immediate action
Politics, economics and society needs to change dramatically, or billions face the prospect of drought, starvation, inundation and social collapse. Governments as the primary decision-makers in society, accountable to the people need to drive this change. “To choose to not rebel against those overseeing our extinction, and not make the kind of personal sacrifices that come along with that, will be seen with contempt and moral cowardice by future generations. And justifiably.” underlines Mike Lynch-White MSci, Theoretical Physics PhD student turned climate activist.
Civil disobedience as a last resort
“Scientists can no longer simply say that it’s an emergency, they must act like it. That means engaging in the most effective method for rapid social change: non-violent civil disobedience”, Dr. Tim Hewlett, Astrophysicist and Scientist Rebellion Member. If scientists tell people we are in a life-threatening emergency, but continue with business as usual, the warning rings hollow and the science is undermined. The most effective means in modern history of rapidly transforming society is through non-violent civil disobedience - Scientist Rebellion acts in that tradition to demonstrate the severity of the crisis and give others the confidence to resist.
Scientific consensus on climate change
Scientists have advised the government, written papers, used the official channels to try to steer society away from calamity: during that time emissions have soared and the natural world has been decimated. “All our science and innovations are ultimately meaningless if it only gives us a short term comfort followed by complete destruction of the civilisation. We need to act now if we want to save our Earth.” - Dr Kriti Mukherjee, Glaciologist.
Scientist Rebellion will continue to organise such protests in the future, with hopes that regular bold, disruptive actions will galvanise the wider society and force those in positions of power to enact the policies scientists have told them are necessary for decades.
Melanie Harwood, Founder of eduCCate Global, says, "We work closely with climate scientists, as the eduCCate Global Gold Award Schools are actively encouraged to interview scientists and to review their research papers in order to gain a deeper insight into the Climate Emergency and the potential solutions therein. We strongly believe that education is the most powerful and effective way to tackle the Climate Crisis, because soon, all schools will be expected to prepare their pupils and communities with the solutions and skills required to deliver the action that will be required to solve the problems, for example, Transition Engineering, International Environmental Law, Sustainable Business Management, to name but a few subjects that our schools are signing up for."
Related links
Topics
- Environment, Energy
Categories
- scientist rebellion
- climate rebellion
- extinction rebellion
Regions
- England
Scientist Rebellion is a global group of activists from a variety of scientific backgrounds, calling on our communities to stand in resistance to the genocidal direction of our governments, before it’s too late. If we scientists don’t act like we’re in an emergency, how can we expect the public to do so?
We believe scientists should be resisting on the front lines, but the resistance must be bigger than any one group. If you are not a scientist, you are welcome – behind every action is a whole community of people supporting, creating and organising. When scientists rebel it is powerful because it inspires others to rise up. By bringing scientist and activist communities together, both are empowered.
We work within the framework of Extinction Rebellion, following the principles and values, but adopt some new forms of organising and mobilising.
1) Technological decentralisation. We use open source and secure technology to connect activists with others in their areas, so they can plan and carry out actions locally, with all action details fully in the hands of activists.
2) Facilitated horizontalism. We provide action resources, guides and trainings to facilitate actions. This allows activists to completely own their actions, take initiative, and ultimately creates “mini-leaders” everywhere. It also allows for rapid growth of the movement, since there are no organisational bottlenecks.
3) The right to act. Action is how we make our voices heard, therefore we support any non-violent action unequivocally. Strategic disagreements can tear a movement apart: we refuse to be so divided. No one knows with certainty the impacts of any action. Through application of the scientific method to activism we will discern the most effective courses. Some efforts will backfire, and we will support those unsuccessful attempts as vigorously as we support the successful, secure in the knowledge that we are working to the same goal.
