Carl Sagan once said: “We’ve arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements...profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. 

"This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.” 

And it has blown up.

Protest

Our planet is in crisis, yet decades of scientific warnings have been ignored. Powerful interests like fossil fuels and industrial agriculture have distorted truths and silenced voices, while governments remain slow to act, allowing the decline of Earth’s habitability to accelerate. 

BUY: Scientists On Survival: Personal Stories Of Climate Action

Chris Packham has found amongst this moving collection of essays some hope and energy to carry on the fight which together speak of a profound love of our planet, as he says in his introduction. This is true despite the despair at the escalation of the climate and biodiversity crises. 

Scientists for Extinction Rebellion is a diverse group of individuals, including astrophysicists, biochemists, ecologists, engineers, geologists, immunologists, psychologists and zoologists. 

What binds them is a shared passion for the natural world and a commitment to its protection through non-violent direct action. The book is divided into three sections: ‘Perspectives’, ‘Making Lifestyle and Mindset Transitions’, and ‘Scientists in protest’.  

Frustrating

In each section, the scientists share their personal stories from a starting point of despair but what emerges is a powerful blend of love, rage, and fellowship—essential forces to confront denial, injustice, disinformation, repression, apathy, and, at times, the hesitation of some within the scientific community itself to speak out unequivocally. 

As Emma Smart reflects in her chapter: "I used to believe that my place in fighting this battle, and it is a battle, was in a university, in a research lab, in the field and at my desk. I now know that where I stand right now and where I’m likely to go is the place where that fight must take place.”

Many of the contributors write of the difficulties in communicating the unfolding disaster, each from personal experience.

Nikki Tagg and Charlie Gardner, both wildlife conservationists, express their frustration at the apparent indifference toward environmental change. Charlie questions with exasperation how people can "carry on with their lives as if nothing will ever change," while Nikki laments that society seems to deem nature as "not as important as so many other day-to-day concerns.”

I found no space to challenge the hypocrisy in academic flying - attempts I made to do so were met with hostility. 

Indeed, professor of International Development, Jeff Waage and hydrogeologist Sophie Paul have found engaging with politicians frustrating either through intransigence or short-termism. 

Silo

Waage had served on scientific advisory bodies of British Government departments and UN programmes but concludes in his essay that grassroots community engagement is a more effective force for change. And Paul has discovered the power of localism in helping set up a Community Benefit Society in order to design and install a hydropower plant in Caversham.

Similarly, the focus of theoretical physicist Yaz Ashmawi’s piece is on the importance of citizen’s assemblies to engender ‘positive’ tipping points in public awareness: “...essentially the same science of systems I thought I’d left behind at Cambridge, except rather than causing collapse, these positive tipping points offer the promise of an alternative horizon.”

Equally frustrated at political indifference, immunologist Brian Jones suggests the government has learned nothing since its inaction during the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome outbreak of 2003 and is still not prepared for climate-induced new species of viruses, bacteria and parasites emerging from an imperilled environment. 

Space scientist Shana Sullivan sums up the challenge “that the power to change the world was in someone else’s hands. Someone more powerful than me. And therefore, the only solution was to convince them to change.”

Contributors also emphasise the need to make their voices heard above the din of denial, or beyond the scientific silo.

Agricultural

Jen Murphy, a science teacher, faces a dichotomy as to how to address the crisis in school. On the one hand, climate science is cynically labelled as party political by those in the denialist wing of the media, supposedly a no-go-area for teachers, yet on the other she knows it is her professional duty to safeguard and empower her students.

Wildlife conservationist Nikki Tagg describes the hurdles she faced when trying to communicate the urgency. “For many years”, she writes, “the world’s decision-makers have told me that my interests are no more than admirable, and that development and economic growth at the cost of the existence of numerous amazing species across the world – from wolves and turtle doves to salamanders and the rare, crocodilian gharials – is a given.”

Environmental scientist Neal Haddaway finds his favoured vehicle of persuasion in photography – ‘stories’ are an important tool and pictures are worth a thousand of them. Zoologist Tristram Wyatt relates his journey beyond his comfort zone as a climate science stand-up comedian.

Citing their various epiphanies, contributors testify as to how difficult it is to break habits of a lifetime be it food choices, travel or working in one’s own silo without realising that, as engineer Kara Laing concludes, climate is the lens through which all endeavours should be viewed.

Biologist Caroline Vincent had her eyes opened to the part food plays in the planet’s disease when first confronted with a vegan guest, especially. 

She found that: “Meat and dairy alone account for 14 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions [and are] not an efficient way to use our land for food. Their production utilizes three-quarters of all agricultural land, yet it takes almost 100 times as much land to produce a gram of protein from beef or lamb than it does from peas or tofu.”

Deplete

Activists often face harsh criticism at the slightest suggestion of hypocrisy, however unavoidable. In her piece, social scientist Laura Thomas Walters sums up the dilemma.

“My heart sinks when people bring up diets because I really don’t want to be seen as judging others. But I also felt like I’d be hypocritical if I tried to persuade other people to do what I wasn’t willing to do myself.”  

Yet of course the real hypocrisy lies with the airlines, the oil companies, the banks, and a host of other greenwashers, not least of all the Science Museum, which has, as cognitive psychologist Alison Green recounts, been subject to an ongoing campaign by XR scientists to cancel the sponsorship from coal baron Gautam Adani.

Pete Knapp, who holds a PhD in air quality, has had to contend with humbug from another perspective:  “I found no space to challenge the hypocrisy in academic flying: attempts I made to do so were met with hostility and in the latter stages of my studies had me banned from the university campus.” 

When it comes to travel, battery chemist Isabella Stephens found that the solution was not as simple as the development of electric cars, it was the consumerism that would continue to deplete the planet even with the much-trumpeted new green tech.

Burning

Conservation biologist Ryan Walker witnessed the dire effects of global consumerism even in his quest for a better balance with nature ‘off grid’ in Papua New Guinea  – the mining of extensive gold, copper and other metal reserves. And the dilemma of the lowly paid workforce: work for the polluters or starve.

Naturally, the book concludes with a powerful section on protest, highlighting the courage of contributors who place themselves directly on the front lines, even at great personal cost. 

Smart’s recourse to a hunger strike put her in great physical danger and Alison Green regarded the "killing" her own career in academia (she was formerly Dean at the Open University and Pro Vice-Chancellor at Arden University) a necessary trade-off. 

Astrophysicist Lucy Hogarth also gave up her career for the greater good: “I was looking to the stars, while the Earth was burning under my feet.” When discussing her shift to activism, she echoes Kurt Vonnegut’s warning: “If people insist on living as if there’s no tomorrow, there really won’t be one.”

Warned

Following her arrest, life scientist Abi Perrin found her courage in “the small, human moments of support, connection, compassion and humour."

She recalls: "I still find myself hearing the gentle drumming and singing of one of our supporters, feeling the warmth of the relative strangers who made it their job to take care of the arrestees.” 

She recounts being driven through Parliament Square in the back of a police van and finding inspiration in the realisation that at least three of the statues there honour individuals who achieved change through protest: “A much-needed reminder of what we can achieve if we stand together, challenge harm and injustice, and demand or create better alternatives.”

Ecologist Aaron Thierry also found courage from the fellowship of direct action. Forgoing his right to remain silent, he clearly explained his motives to his arresting officers. Even the police have a right to be warned about what's in store for their families.

Transformation

And it's not only the science that needs emphasis but also the underlying forces driving environmental collapse: consumerism and the relentless pursuit of "growth," which will lead us to breakdown just as assuredly as bacteria in a petri dish dies once its environment can no longer sustain it.

In her essay, science communicator Viola Ross Smith avows: “I need to keep on hoping, so I can keep going for as long as I have the power to do so and keep on pushing for the changes necessary for a better world. So, I can look into my son’s beautiful brown eyes as the realisation of what’s at stake continues to dawn on him, and tell him honestly: ‘I did my best. I tried.’”

So let us end with a more hopeful perspective than that of Sagan. Karl Popper offers a counterpoint: “As a matter of historical fact, the history of science is, by and large, a history of progress.”

As this book powerfully demonstrates, even amidst the dread, there is hope in transformation. Chemist Chris Jones’s aspiration to be “a good ancestor” reminds us that neither science nor history can exist on a dead planet.

This Author

Tom Hardy FRSA has over 40 years of experience in education, serving as literary editor for the International Journal of Art and Design Education, a columnist for the Times Educational Supplement, and author/editor of several academic works on educational practice. He has worked as an education consultant for the Prince's Teaching Institute and subject lead for the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency reporting to the Department for Education. Since 2018, he has been part of Extinction Rebellion's media and messaging team.

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