What rules should scientists be breaking, repercussions be damned, to help solve the climate crisis?
What followed is a set of repercussions that are predictable in some cases, shocking and arguably disproportionate in others. In keeping with AGU’s code of conduct, Abramoff and Kalmus were forced to leave the conference, the work they were to present was removed from the agenda, and they were told they would be arrested if they returned.
AGU’s response, though upsetting to many, is what made Abramoff’s and Kalmus’s action effective direct action. Though they may not have intended things to unfold as they did, AGU’s response brought attention and visibility to their effort and call to action, rather than it passing as a quite minor activist moment with little attention. Again, direct action requires resistance; AGU provided that by forcing them out.
AGU’s stance at least has become somewhat clearer — their CEO issued a letter on January 11th acknowledging the incident, invoking their ethics policy and code of conduct as the basis for their action, and pointing to their track record of having “a very proactive stance on aggressively addressing the urgency ofAGU does have a track record of supporting science advocates in valuable ways, and the CEO could have voiced support for the important role that scientists and the scientific community...
Our main concern is that, in the absence of a clear endorsement of the objective of Abramoff and Kalmus’ actions, AGU’s response, coupled with Abramoff’s firing, may be seen by the scientific community as a strong, disapproving, and chilling signal to scientists to step back from climate activism—just when the world needs them to show up in new, courageous ways.In this all-hands-on-deck decade, it will not be enough for climate experts to keep our heads buried in the science.
Most UCS staff scientists are not yet independently engaging in direct action or civil disobedience, and our organization hasn’t stepped into this sphere in a big way . But how we can increase our impact, as individual scientists and as an organization, is increasingly on our minds. I don’t have a theory of change for how scientists help drive the societal wake-up that’s needed, but some essential elements my colleagues and I see are these:.
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