Scientist Rebellion Australia says: Tell the truth. We must admit failure. There is no viable pathway to staying under 1.5°C global heating. We are going to overshoot that in coming decades. We are not safe!
MELBOURNE, 19 January 2023: Scientist Rebellion Australia launched a new campaign, with an open letter warning ‘We are not safe” outside the venue for the Australian Tennis Open in Richmond. The ANZ Bank, a major lender to fossil fuels, is a sponsor of the Australian Tennis Open. This action was part of a series of actions being conducted by Extinction Rebellion in Melbourne this week, protesting fossil fuel ‘greenwashing’ in sports sponsorship.
Scientist Rebellion is a climate action group with over one thousand members across 32 countries. Our members are science students to senior lecturers across a wide range of scientific backgrounds. We all believe scientists must take non-violent direct action to gain credibility with the public. During acts of civil resistance we identify ourselves wearing lab coats.
Scientist Rebellion Open Letter: We are Not Safe!
In Australia, we clearly see that our governments have failed to warn us about climate failure. Just this past week Canberra ‘celebrated’ its 20 year anniversary of the first film recording of a fire storm. Fire storms which travel at up to 250 km/hour, and no CFA team can either put out or even slow down. All the fire fighters can do is make sure you evacuate in time. This fire storm film footage barely saw the light of day before the Victorian 2009 fires, where fire storms terrorized and killed nearly 200 people in just over the short period of 24 hours. Without the knowledge and correct warnings of these fire storms people believed, ‘People save houses and houses save people! If you are going to leave, leave early!’, and people died. Kinglake local Jenn Clark and her husband probably even believe they caused the death of their three grandchildren, when in fact a more than trivial portion of the blame needs to lie with our institutions, which failed to warn them that their house was not a safe house with these fire storms.
After the 2009 Black Saturday, we admitted failure and all that changed, we warned people, ‘Just Leave’. In the 2019 2020 “Black Summer” of many fire storms in many states over many months, the advice was ‘pack up and just leave! This is an emergency!’. With our brave CFA risking their own lives to save as many people as possible, we only lost 30 people directly, because we were warned!
Scientist Rebellion is here to warn you, ‘First Admit Failure!’, Staying under 1.5oC is not plausible!’ and ‘We are NOT safe!’.
1.5oC may mean unlivable summer temperatures of 60C in Sydney. Heatwaves leading to longer fire seasons with more fire storms. Drying soil and more water in the atmosphere causing water runoff to be higher and quicker, meaning more frequent 1 in 200 year Lismore flash flooding. In the words of António Guterres, the UN General Secretary, ‘We are on a highway to Climate Hell with our foot on the accelerator!’ The gas pedal!
Also, in the 2019-2020 fires saw the dark ash settle on ice around the planet further accelerating the melting ice giving us a taste of what cascading climate collapse looks like.
No one in their right mind would wish this on their worst enemy, in António Guterres words, this ‘Collective Suicide’, by our inaction is being silently accepted and wished upon ourselves, our children and all future generations.
Australia is at the forefront of this Climate Breakdown and rather than speak only about verified facts and watch with a front row seat, we need to obey the recommendations of the UN and step in the way of failure with our bodies with non violent civil disobedience, if needed. Just like Greta Thunberg in Lutzerath, Germany. We need to stop our only liveable home from being pushed by the powerful greedy few ‘criminals who abdicate leadership on climate’ (António Guterres) into the state of centuries of unstable climate failure. Centuries of fires, heatwaves, droughts, rising sea levels and conflict. Something no sane, knowledgeable scientist can silently accept. Instead we shall warn people and use all the tools of social and physical science to stop the man made cascading climate collapse.
We call on all academics, scientists and the public to join us in civil disobedience to demand the urgent decarbonization of our economy and the protection of the living world. The wealthy few need to be stopped from preventing us living sustainably and justly on this planet.
OUR DEMANDS
Tell the Truth: Governments, the media and the IPCC must admit and communicate climate failure. We will miss around missing the global 1.5°C warming limit, and we must move into emergency-mode.
-To keep trust and faith, They must shall communicate to the public the urgency for change because we are not safe from the consequences of catastrophic climate collapse.
– To keep trust and faith, Our governments, and media must prevent any new fossil fuels extraction, stop all expansionary subsidies to fossil fuel industries shall and remove Coal, Gas and Oil companies and support of fossil fuels from Sporting events.
Act Now: Measures to protect us must be implemented now; that means reaching zero greenhouse gas emissions and stopping biodiversity loss as quickly as possible.
Citizens’ Assembly: Governments must create and be led by the decisions of a Citizens’ Assembly in the first instance on climate and ecological justice, as well as other important and intractable issues such as Genders Equality, realising the Uluru Statement from the Heart, State Capture, and affordable housing and food security.
Source- Extinction Rebellion via ActionNetwork.org, Jan 20, 2023,
