Open letter to the American Geophysical Union
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We are living in a climate emergency. Examples of this emergency surround us daily with the catastrophic floods in California, Nigeria and Pakistan and the bare ski slopes of Europe just the latest, and by far not the last, examples. Anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have raised the average global air temperature by about 1°C above pre-industrial levels. Considering our current emissions pathways, the temperature increase could reach 1.5°C by 2030. As Earth and space scientists, we are intimately aware of the consequences of climate change and humanity’s inaction. It is thus our responsibility to advocate for the immediate massive reduction of GHG emissions at all levels. This is not only about generating fact-based knowledge, but also about communicating this knowledge to the general public, informing policy makers about necessary action strategies, and for some of us, taking direct action to advocate for policy change.
The American Geophysical Union (AGU) holds an annual scientific meeting with more than ten thousand attendees from more than 100 countries to share research and to network. At the 2022 meeting in Chicago, IL, scientists presented more than 19,800 abstracts, 13% of which contained the phrase “climate change”. AGU describes its mission on the website as follows: “Researchers, scientists, educators, students, policymakers, enthusiasts, journalists and communicators attend AGU Fall Meeting to better understand our planet and environment, and our role in preserving its future. It is a results-oriented gathering rooted in celebrating and advancing positive individual and collective outcomes.” For this reason, we find it incomprehensible that two very respected colleagues of ours, Dr. Rose Abramoff and Dr. Peter Kalmus, were sanctioned by AGU because of a minor action on climate change during the meeting in Chicago. At the start of the art and sciences plenary talk that was about climate change, they briefly held up a banner that read, "Out of the lab & into the streets" and left the stage immediately when asked. Rose and Peter wanted to draw our attention to the fact that reporting our scientific results to each other at conferences and in scientific papers is no longer enough to preserve our future. We acknowledge this action briefly disrupted the plenary, but the response of AGU has been disproportionate to the action. We are shocked that AGU then deleted their scientific contributions from the program, an action that amounts to censorship, excluded them from the conference, and initiated cases of personal misconduct against them, after which one of them was fired. AGU’s actions are in direct conflict with their mission “to galvanize a community of Earth and space scientists that collaboratively advances and communicates science to ensure a sustainable future.” We as scientists cannot and must not tolerate this censorship and chilling lack of support from our scientific society and therefore urge AGU to: i) reinstate the scientific contributions of Rose Abramoff and Peter Kalmus to the program; ii) officially rescind any communications AGU may have had regarding this incident with Rose Abramoff and Peter Kalmus' former or home institutions until after the AGU professional misconduct investigation has concluded; and iii) immediately close the professional misconduct investigation. To stand up for climate action in this way should under no circumstances be punished as professional misconduct – especially not by a scientific organization like AGU, which is a non-governmental organization dedicated to scientific exchange and discourse in the field of Earth and Space science. Sincerely, |
Signatures
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Scientists signing this letter do so in their individual capacities and not on behalf of the institutions with which they are affiliated.
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