Climate activists say scientists should use ‘trusted voice’

Norwegian researchers who faced criticism for participating in a climate protest at Oslo Airport have urged fellow scientists to use their “trusted voice” to speak out about the climate crisis.

Activists from Scientist Rebellion and Folk Mot Fossilmakta (People Against Fossil Power) blocked the fast-track check-in lane at Oslo Airport last month, displaying a banner reading “Fast track to phase out”. Researchers wore lab coats and spread academic research papers on the climate crisis over the floor.

“Scientists have a really important and trusted voice in society, and that makes it really important to speak up,” Linda Haaland, a geologist and PhD candidate at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), told Times Higher Education.

The academics participating in the protest faced criticism on social media, with University of Oslo professor Kristian Gundersen writing on X that by engaging in activism “in a research uniform”, they would “weaken trust in research in general”.

Speaking to the NTNU newspaper Universitetsavisa, he said of the protest, “I think it’s pretty silly to do this in a white coat.” He added: “You are welcome to be an activist, and you are welcome to be a researcher, but you should not mix the two roles together.” THE contacted Professor Gundersen for comment.

Asked about this criticism, Ms Haaland told THE: “We’ve been publishing reports and papers [on the climate crisis] and going to conferences for 60 years, and we’re still in this super-serious situation.” By engaging in climate protests, she said, scientists could give “legitimacy to the actions and to the message”.

“We can’t set ourselves apart in an ivory tower. We’re doing science for the people,” she said. “Often tax money is what’s paying for our research. It’s our job to make sure that the knowledge we produce is benefiting society.”

“People think it’s new that scientists are speaking out, and it really isn’t,” Ms Haaland said, citing as an example the 1955 Russell-Einstein Manifesto, in which prominent academics including Bertrand Russell, Albert Einstein and Max Born called for peaceful resolution to conflict in order to avert nuclear war.

Fellow protester Ina Nagler, a climate physicist and PhD candidate at the University of Bergen, told THE that through her research into ocean circulation, she was “confronted every day with the consequences of the climate crisis”.

“Global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions grew by 1.1 per cent in the last year. This makes it evident that our elected representatives are not sufficiently addressing this crisis,” she said.

“As a scientist, I understand these numbers and the processes that are used to generate them, and I can question the methods used. I see it as my duty to stand up and inform the public about what we scientists have known for decades.”

During December’s COP28 climate change conference, Scientist Rebellion published an open letter calling on fellow researchers to join their work. “If we are to create a liveable future, climate action must move from being something that others do to something that we all do,” the letter read. “As scientists and academics, we believe it is now necessary to step up and engage in collective climate action.”

emily.dixon@timeshighereducation.com