[ Oak Ridge National Laboratory fired the talented and prolific
climate scientist Rose Abramoff for displaying the banner “Out of
the lab & into the streets" at a science conference.]
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I’M A SCIENTIST WHO SPOKE UP ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE. MY EMPLOYER
FIRED ME.  
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Rose Abramoff
January 10, 2023
New York Times
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_ Oak Ridge National Laboratory fired the talented and prolific
climate scientist Rose Abramoff for displaying the banner “Out of
the lab & into the streets" at a science conference. _

Hemlock trees are dying because of a pest that now survives the
warming winters., Photo: Desmond Picotte for The New York Times

 

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. —

Shortly after the New Year, I was fired from Oak Ridge National
Laboratory after urging fellow scientists to take action
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climate change. At the American Geophysical Union
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speakers took the stage for a plenary session, my fellow climate
scientist Peter Kalmus and I unfurled a banner that read, “Out of
the lab & into the streets.” In the few seconds before the banner
was ripped from our hands, we implored our colleagues to use their
leverage as scientists to wake the public up to the dying planet.

Soon after this brief action, the A.G.U., an organization with 60,000
members in the earth and space sciences, expelled us from the
conference and withdrew the research that we presented that week from
the program. Eventually it began a professional misconduct inquiry.
(It’s ongoing.)

Then, on Jan. 3, Oak Ridge, the laboratory outside Knoxville where I
had worked as an associate scientist for one year, terminated my
employment. I am the first earth scientist I know of to be fired for
climate activism. I fear I will not be the last.

Oak Ridge said it was forced to fire me because I misused government
resources by engaging in a personal activity on a work trip and
because I did not adhere to its code of business ethics and conduct.
The code has points on scientific integrity, maintaining the
institution’s reputation and using government resources “only as
authorized and appropriate and with integrity, responsibility and
care.”

When Dr. Kalmus and I decided to make our statement during the lunch
plenary session, I knew that we risked being asked to leave the stage
or the conference. But I did not expect that our research would be
removed from the program or that I would lose my job. When I began
participating in climate actions with other scientists in 2022, senior
managers at Oak Ridge asked that I make it clear to the public and the
media that I spoke and acted on my own behalf. I followed these
guidelines to the best of my ability, including at the A.G.U., where
Dr. Kalmus, a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and I
did not mention our institutions in our statements.

The retaliation I faced from the A.G.U. and Oak Ridge ultimately
highlights a disappointing reality: that established scientific
institutions will not even support scientists interrupting a meeting
for the climate. I’m all for decorum, but not when it will cost us
the earth.

I used to be a well-behaved scientist. I stood quietly on melting
permafrost in Utqiagvik, Alaska, and measured how much greenhouse gas
was released into the atmosphere. I filled spreadsheets and ran
simulations about how warming temperatures would increase the carbon
emissions from soil.

To do my job, I dissociated the data I was working with from the
terrifying future it represented. But in the field, smelling the dense
rot of New England hemlock trees that were being eaten by a pest that
now survives the warming winters, I felt loss and dread. Only my peers
read my articles, which didn’t seem to have any tangible effects.
Though I saw firsthand the oncoming catastrophe of climate change, I
felt powerless to help.

I did, however, believe that if scientists told the truth about the
climate emergency, our scientific institutions would get out the
message to policymakers, government officials, the media and the
public. But they didn’t — at least not sufficiently — even as
carbon emissions continued to rise and the climate continued to warm.

A few years ago, Scientist Rebellion, an international network of
scientists [[link removed]] concerned about climate
change, began a series of strategic acts of nonviolent civil
disobedience. After years of waiting in vain for meaningful public
action to address climate change, I decided to join them.

For my first action, I chained myself to a White House gate
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demand that the Biden administration declare a climate emergency.
Since I locked that first chain around my waist, I have been arrested
three times in nonviolent actions. My superiors at Oak Ridge warned me
to be careful but did not discipline me.

But I was motivated to continue because these scientist-led political
campaigns have attracted positive media attention and contributed to
major policy wins. At the end of last year, a group of us protested
the impact of luxury travel
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more than a dozen private airport terminals in 13 countries; within a
month of our actions, the Podemos party of Spain submitted a request
to the European Commission to take measures to reduce the use of
private planes
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When scientists take action, people listen.

The scientific community has tried writing dutiful reports for
decades, with no reduction in greenhouse gas emissions
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fossil fuels to show for it. It is time to try something new. We must
work to change the culture of our institutions, be honest about our
values, advocate climate justice and experiment. Great experiments
push at the boundaries of knowledge and propriety. They are risky,
volatile, blasphemous. But when they work, the world changes.

Scientific institutions should support activism and advocacy,
especially by experts. The A.G.U. should do more to publicly support
policies informed by its members’ science, such as declaring a
climate emergency and ending fossil fuel extraction and subsidies.

I did not make the decision to become an activist lightly; I
recognized that my actions would have consequences, and I knew that I
could face retaliation. But inaction during this critical time will
have far greater consequences.

_[ROSE ABRAMOFF is an earth scientist who studies the effect of
climate change on natural and managed ecosystems. She is also a
climate activist, working with Scientist Rebellion and other groups.]_

* Science
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* scientists
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* Biden Administration
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* Climate Crisis
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* scientific research
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* Global warming
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* greenhouse gases
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* Scientist Rebellion
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* Activism
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