Scientists in more than 25 countries staged protests in April to draw attention to the climate crisis.

On a May morning in Kaurna/Adelaide, Annie Bond and a colleague put on their lab coats. Annie — Dr Bond — is a scientist, and in a way, she was about to conduct an experiment. But she wasn’t in a lab. “We were wearing lab coats to identify ourselves as scientists — an easily recognisable symbol of a scientist, even though not all scientists wear lab coats,” she says. “I put some superglue on my palm, and pressed my palm against the glass window.” Dr Bond has a PhD in applied ecology and economics. In her day job, she monitors and evaluates natural resources with the Northern and Yorke Landscape Board in South Australia. But she wasn’t representing her employer on this day, as she glued her hand to the glass window of the Santos building in downtown Adelaide.

Other activists had superglued their hands to the street outside, blocking traffic. “We targeted Santos because they make a huge contribution to climate change and global warming. “They also have proposed fossil fuel expansion in the Barossa gas fields and the Narrabri region, which are being challenged by First Nations traditional owners.” Dr Bond says she was a bit anxious, but not as anxious as she might have been in New South Wales, where recent law changes mean blocking streets or other “illegal” protests carry a jail sentence of up to two years. Police used acetone to free her hand from the Santos facade and she was arrested and charged with property damage, but the magistrate didn’t record a conviction. In that sense, Dr Bond’s experiment was a success. And it probably won’t be her last.

Dr Bond is part of a growing movement of scientists taking direct action to demand governments step up to the climate challenge.

More than 1,000 scientists marched in global protests earlier this year.

Around 1,000 scientists from more than 25 countries, including Dr Bond, took part in protests in April and May this year, under the Scientist Rebellion banner. Scientist Rebellion are calling on more colleagues to join their fight, and there’s a good chance they’ll get their wish.

Back in 1988, NASA’s James Hansen testified before a US senate committee that burning fossil fuels was causing climate change, and that “… the greenhouse effect is already large enough to begin to affect the probability of extreme events such as summer heat waves.” About two years later, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its first report, warning that the evidence for human-caused climate change was unequivocal. Outwardly at least, it seemed the message was getting across and that we’d soon start to see the wheels of change turning. But in the 32 years since that IPCC report, we have put as many emissions into the atmosphere as in all of industrialised human history before it.

Or if you want to put it another way, half of global emissions have come when the world knew what was happening to the planet.

We’ve released as much greenhouse gas since 1990, as in all of our industrialised history.(

Speaking to scientists who have chosen to take the leap into activism today, there’s a common theme. The science has been settled for 30-odd years, but climate scientists aren’t being listened to.

Peter Kalmus is a former astrophysicist, now climate scientist, at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in California. Like most scientist activists, Dr Kalmus is quick to point out that he’s speaking on his own behalf, not his employer’s. You might recognise him from a viral video earlier this year, where he chained himself to a building occupied by JP Morgan Chase — the world’s largest financier of fossil fuel infrastructure projects — and delivered an emotional plea for climate action.

Dr Kalmus says it’s more than a case of scientists not being listened to — there’s been an aggressive campaign by the fossil fuel industry over the past 30 years to spread misinformation about climate change. “I feel that there has been no greater betrayal of humanity than by fossil fuel executives,” he says. “They’ve known they’re taking us to the brink of irreversible catastrophe — all the wildfires, the floods, the rising seas, the lowering crop yields, and crop failures, they knew all of this 30 years ago. “And they made a conscious decision to obfuscate, to sow doubt, to stop action, to buy politicians. “They colluded with each other. They hired some of the best PR people in the world to make this happen. And they were very successful.”

Before he blockaded the JP Morgan Chase building on April 6 — his first real frontline protest — Dr Kalmus says he and the scientists who stood beside him had reached a point that was “beyond frustrated”. “I was feeling desperate for the sake of the planet that I love, and for my kids and for myself.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2022-09-09/climate-change-scientists-activists-demanding-action/101392282