Activism as a tool for education and societal outreach: making action attractive and accessible for scientists and effective for a greater audience.

Abstract

The current state of the climate and environmental crisis calls for science to be able to have a deep impact on society, and to have it quickly. Here we propose to discuss how scientists engaging in climate activism can contribute to educating the general public and press for urgent action, as well as under which conditions such scientific activism can be most effective. The classical way science has been interacting with society has mostly consisted in making scientific results public, without interfering in how politicians, business and the general public would make use of them. Similarly, the role of science educators has been often limited to spreading knowledge to students and broader audiences, independently from how this knowledge affects society. However, such a dynamic is clearly not enough for nowadays climate and environmental science education. Despite an overwhelming scientific consensus about the trajectory of the Earth’s climate and about what is going to happen in the coming decades unless humanity drastically changes its use of natural resources and cuts greenhouse gases emission, too little is still happening. As a result, many scientists, both within and outside academia, have been looking for other ways to communicate the urgency of the climate crisis, including outreach to policy makers and the general public. Notably, communication efforts have been increasingly extending to the public support of environmental action movements and the joining of protests and civil disobedience actions. Since it is good practice to adapt educational methods to both the audience and the message, we argue that activism can be seen as the result of a search for methods that produce viable results and the desired impact on society. Using recent examples of civil disobedience by scientists, including actions we joined and/or supported in national or international groups, we discuss how such activism can be complementary to classical approaches to public education about the urgency of the climate and environmental crisis. We also present the reception and reaction from other actors (politicians, companies) and how such actions are received, supported or criticized by the scientific community. We specifically discuss the relation between activism and the broader scientific community, since we believe that scientific activism can only become an efficient way to communicate science and enhance policy-makingif (i) it finds a way to be accepted and respected within the scientific community, and (ii) it follows some rules allowing such communication to maintain (or ideally increase) scientific reputation and position in the broader society. We also stress the important role of universities and research institutes in making possible, especially for early career scientists, to engage in such activism. Scientific institutions need to make clear that climate activism and advocacy is welcome among both researchers and teachers, that their freedom of speech is protected, and that such activities are recognized as valuable. Finally, we will show some examples of how scientists engaging in climate action can build networks of support, contribute to normalizing such activism in the scientific community, and valorise this form of engagement.