 Good morning everyone. It's actually really great to see so many of you here for what I'm sure is going to be a really incredibly exciting session. My name is Chloe Hill, and I am the policy manager for the European Geosciences Union, EGU, might have heard of it. It's my pleasure to be the co-moderator of today's session, which is The Science Activist, Should Science Get Political? Now, science is a key component of the policymaking process. It allows decision makers to consider the evidence and the potential consequences of any action or inaction. Furthermore, the growing complexity of the societal challenges that we face today require this constant interaction between scientists and policymakers more than ever before. But how far should scientists go when communicating with policymakers to ensure the most pressing issues that we face are not only understood but also addressed? In saying neutral and standing behind the science to get our message across, does it really work? Is it enough? Does scientists need to be more active in framing and communicating the implications of their research? And if so, how political should science and scientists be? Is there a line if, when crossed, we may threaten scientific integrity and the trust of the scientific community as a whole? So these are some of the questions we'll be asking today. But something that came up during yesterday's great debate on the climate emergency was how many scientists feel discouraged at the lack of action from the public and policymakers. So more than just debating these questions today, I think this debate will also give some practical steps, pathways and outlets for scientists who want their research to have greater societal impact. So that's all from me. I'm going to pass over to my co-moderator Kirsten to introduce herself and also our first panelist. Thank you very much, Chloe. Hi everybody. A warm welcome. On my side, my name is Kirsten von Elbefeld. I'm associate professor for geography at the Clarkford University here in Austria. But I'm also a scientist for future and I brought, sorry, in German, only some leaflets for you to take away if you're interested in that grassroots movement. And scientists for future is a super institutional non-party and interdisciplinary association of scientists in view of the dangers of the sustainability crisis, unabated climate change, and the ongoing extinction of species. We are committed to insuring that scientific findings are incorporated into political debates and taking into account when shaping a sustainable future. Our drive is the sense of responsibility towards future generations and democratic society. Until some years ago, I would have never imagined that what meant most joy for myself doing geoscientific research would ever become a burden for me, that knowledge indeed becomes a heavy, heavy burden. For me as a citizen, as well as for me as a scientist. I think that thanks to scientists for future. I'm not in this alone. And when I look around here today, and also yesterday's debate as already mentioned by Chloe, I think we can already say, none of us is in this alone, which is a good feeling. At this time, it is totally okay and more over even reasonable to cope with the situation in any other way you chose or will choose for yourself. In fact, we'll hear about many ways and many reasons to choose other roles as a scientist and citizen and I did, which is good because diversity is not only key in nature, but also key for society and we always tend to forget about that. As a spirit, I'm happy to introduce our panel to you, and I will start with Laura smiley, who is the project leader of the European Commission, a commission's enlightenment 2.0 research program, which aims to explore the extent to which facts, values, and social relations affect political behavior and decision making the floor is your and I'm happy to have you here. Thank you so much. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Can everyone hear me okay there's some reverberation is it okay lots of thumbs up. Excellent. Thank you. Really importantly, I'm going to get some framing right from the beginning. The European Commission's joint research center. We are what's called a boundary organization, something similar to the EU in the sense that it's trying to connect and bridge policy. In our particular case, we're actually an integrated part of the European Commission, but what I am not. And I understand last night discussions were quite lively, and I'm very sympathetic to that, but I'm not a representative of the European Commission on the DG environment or from DG climate. So I can't comment on policy content with regards to environmental policies, but what I am here to talk about is how we can facilitate science for policy we are. Our work is trying to understand the drivers of political decision making. I'm leading if you like a project very unabashedly called enlightenment 2.0, because we're looking at beyond rationality we're trying to understand how can we find the optimal and rightful place for the incredibly important uptake of evidence in the political decision making process. This obviously includes information on the climate crisis. I'm going to start today with what I consider to be what I hope will be a key takeaway message for you all. And basically underpin this with the fact that we are actually developing a huge amount of tools and resources in the hope that we can help and increase uptake and collaboration and cooperation with the scientific community. And that takeaway message is very simple that the concept of knowledge brokerage, this really important work at the interface between science and policy requires an entirely different skill set. And that being a knowledge broker is not being a failed scientist, and those people who choose to take that path deserve the respect of that warrants. And there's a failure on the side of academia to recognize that in the ongoing chase after impact factors, etc. But there's also equally a failure on the side of funding organizations to recognize the necessary incentives that that actually entails to have the amount of knowledge recognized in terms of being able to understand the science synthesize it simplify it to an extent that it is accurate, but also easily understood whilst at the same time managing communities of experts, managing stakeholder engagement, managing citizen engagement citizen scientists. These are all incredibly valuable skills and these are not the traits of failed scientists. These are the traits of new types of scientists that we need because we recognize that the traditional deficit model is dead. It is failed with simply providing more facts and simply saying that our science is objective. It's without values, because we know that trustfulness and is only based in part upon scientific excellence. It is also based upon perceived honesty, and very importantly a sense of shared values. And so when it comes to the topic of activism, we need to be thinking about how those particular values and I look forward to your comments today, how those values will then play out with the scientific content of your work. And of course this is where transparency is extraordinarily important. But just to get back to reality for a second, I'd like to share an anecdote. I'm the former, one of the former directors of a Agricultural Research Institute. It was a pleasure and privilege of leading a team that was looking at policy. We were looking at, I was heading the legal team, communications, all the external events, knowledge exchange, commercialization, grants and procurements. In the team we had projects in over 56 different countries, and when my team got involved in a grant had a 65% greater chance of being successful. And every single day that I went in to that research institute, I had to fight for the existence of my team, because there were the perceptions if only we could all just disappear and be replaced by 100 postdocs. Everything would be so much better, and we could just get on with the real science at hand. So importantly, what we need to be doing is not seeing this as an them and us. This is about a collective we, and I'm speaking from the perspective also of the European Commission here. As the policy partners, not just the Commission, also member state level, regional level, policy partners, we're a collective we in all of this. How can we ensure that these knowledge brokerage functions are a team sport. Technology is going to take orders of magnitude, the likes of which the Marvel Universe has never seen if everyone is to excel in all of these areas. No single person can do all of this. Nobody should feel that they have to do all of this. So how can we ensure that collectively we have the skills required in order to get the information to the people who need to get it in order to make optimally informed decisions to inform future policy. And with that, thank you very much. Yeah, thanks so much Laura. I think that was a fantastic thought to start this great debate. And I'm sure there's already a lot of questions in the audience which we will get to eventually. But before we do get to our next speaker, I'm actually have my own question. And that is you mentioned this role of knowledge brokerage and the importance of it. And I think it might be a new term to some of the audience members today. So I was wondering if you could expand on what this role of knowledge brokerage is specifically and also how can the scientists in this room engage with knowledge brokers. And what does that look like. Thanks so much. I think knowledge brokerage, but there's been an evolution from science communication, which is something traditionally many more of you might be familiar with to the needs to see the information in which your publications and your scientific data are being published into it as an information ecosystem, and that ecosystem. Sorry, for one of a bad pun in this particular context. But this ecosystem has many different stakeholders and traditionally it was more towards the audience, perhaps more for the general public. I'm now we're seeing the extent to which people need to be interacting with stakeholders which can obviously include NGOs, activist groups. It can be amongst others informing the general public but that requires different messages to different types of public. It obviously can be towards policy, and I'll be interested to hear about how we evolve today's debate about the difference between policy and politics, because I was just speaking with my with Christian with my German colleague, there's no distinction for example in German between policy and politics, it's the same word. So we're actually being restricted by our own linguistic framing, whereas in English language, the difference between policy and politics is wildly different. So how can work with policymakers so civil servants who are the pen writers with regards to actually putting regulation legislation laws in place that isn't a way if you like from the more highly charged political debate. That would be interesting. So the whole knowledge brokerage role is about understanding the complexities of these things the mechanisms of how policy as well as politics actually work. So that's some of the, some of the skills that are required. Hope that answers your question, Chloe. I wanted to say if it this was a cartoon or comic we would see all the clouds with the questions rising and or comments in the audience. And so just before we continue because there are some people standing standing at the sites here in the front are some seats left you're more than welcome to come here and sit down and be more comfortable hopefully. Next, I would like to introduce Anna metric who's online and maybe turns on her camera so we can see her. I'm Anna. Thank you. Anna is a legal analyst for stop ecocide international and organization that color color race with diplomats, politicians, lawyers, corporate leaders, NGOs, faith groups, influences and academics to make ecocide and international crime. Welcome, Anna, and the floor is yours. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here. So my name is Anna madrig and I work as legal analyst for stop aside international. We are an international advocacy movement promoting the adoption of a crime of ecocide at the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and all around the world. As you guys that don't know, ecocide is defined as unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long term damage to the environment being caused by those acts. To ensure all aspects of the environment, including its interconnections were included. The definition is based on an aspect system science of the five main spheres of the earth, therefore instilling an understanding of planetary boundaries and our common heritage. Anna circulated in academic and governmental discussions since the 1970s and recent years are highlighting the integral role that ecocide could play in working towards better global governance of the environmental climate crisis, such as a recent vote in its favor by the European Parliament. So this morning, I would like to shed some light on what I understand as the importance of law to this conversation with the focus on both the environmental crisis and the global ecocide movement. From a legal perspective at least I understand law, politics and science as intimately and necessarily bound together. And I hope to highlight how effective interdisciplinary relations in this crisis can find assistance with the criminal law. So to begin with, I think that many of the problems of existing environmental governance relates to legal articulation of environmental matters and such a way as to undermine their importance. The environmental law is notoriously complicated, piecemeal and difficult to enforce. It's rooted in a civil law framework that sees prosecution as largely ancillary to human action. An action in court is ordinarily dependent on the violation of a license or a permit. So there is an absence of autonomous protection. In this light, there's numerous reasons to argue for turning to criminal law with its uniform binding, powerful and enforceable status. Most obviously criminal law would denote a legal understanding that the environment is worthy of protection in its own right with damage to it being understood as a moral violation. By levying responsibility on individuals and not legal entities or governments, the cycle of destruction is targeted at origin. Instead of polluter pays with court, the new governing principle becomes the polluter does not pollute. As an effective mitigation action, this law could therefore leave greater room for adaptation efforts. However, the point that I wish to emphasize today is the ability of a crime of ecocide to foster cooperation amongst other disciplines environmental protection, and thus the crimes more indirect effects. There's a lot that I could say here. However, I wish to underscore the importance of preventative rather than reactive action across all value chains. The benefits of nonpartisan standards rooted in universal values such as justice, fairness, trust and accountability when politics is fast changing, and how recognizing the importance of environmental protection with a strong legal standard can influence our collective consciousness around the environment more generally. And the heart of an ecocide law is the protection of the earth and her resources as a common heritage, therefore envisaging a move from an exploiter versus exploity relationship to a natural commons approach, which denotes a relationship of alliance and mutual care. Real sustainable development in the environmental realm necessarily means further transparency and accountability for environmental damage, as well as wider cooperation with one another. I understand that this is not a new conclusion. So in consideration of further action, I can simply say that law must facilitate this shift for it is law's responsibility. The repercussions of environmental crimes and harms are global and relevant for present and future generations. And a strong commitment and law that synthesizes these considerations as ecostract law strides to do is arguably pivotal for the effective future action. I strongly maintain that in order to cooperate collectively, we must first collect rise around values and set our limits. While science and politics can debate the exact uncertainties of climate mitigation and adaptation actions, one thing is clear. Due to an indifference to nature and her weak protection by existing legal standards, there is a continued ruination of the fabric of our earth and outer space. Science, politics and law are all disciplines where the idea of certainty is absurd. However, law's very existence hinges on its ability to provide a fictional and objective parameter one guided by values deemed universal rather than for all their merit subjective opinions of the moment. This is the essence of laws legitimacy and our social contract. I advocate you coincide law in this debate today, not to instill fear, but remind us that we do have the tools to protect our natural environment and begin to work together. Even when the lines between disciplines become increasingly blurred and politicized. A parameter is useful while we figure out the complicated in between, as is a collective emphasis on the values that we wish law science and politics would promote. At the heart of this is an understanding of our mutual relations, not only with each other and by disciplines, also with our environment, its species and outer space. Placing a foundational and transcendent objective legal standard that affirms our commitment to and reciprocity with everything we could consider calling home. Can help us find some cooperation amidst the chaos when problems are numerous and we can do nothing but our best. I would say that place of gratitude and respect for our world is a good starting place. Thank you. Thank you and I think this was a whole new world for many of us in so far that science and a law connected very closely indeed. You've mentioned the importance of collaboration. Do you think scientists needs to need to start engaging with other sectors outside of academia if they want their research to have an impact. And I'm not so sure about into the extent of having an impact but I would definitely advocate greater interconnections. There's something I commonly talk about in my work related to eco-side law is moving towards a new form of governance which is more polycentric in nature, which essentially means that we move from this top down kind of hierarchy where we incorporate more explicitly bottom up processes. And criminal law in this kind of area particularly is very relevant because it specifically highlights concepts such as greater use of scientific evidence new practices such as restorative justice which is based more on cooperating with one another. So I think that absolutely there needs to be a complete interlinkages between the disciplines and as I said in my speech the first step to this is putting this framework in place. And something that we commonly say eco-side is that nothing stimulates innovation like their parameter and something which we find within our work is the difficulty of different organizations movements to cooperate with one another. I mean there's many, many, many organizations and individuals all over the world working together to protect the environment and prevent these fortress abuses which we're seeing but there isn't really that coordination yet. And for me this very much relates to the fact that we don't have this foundational piece in law like we do with human rights which affirms that the environment is something we should be protected as a by morality. And I think this is the first step and from from this, we can start to foster better dialogues and better cooperation between the disciplines because yes it's absolutely necessary. Thank you very much again and I couldn't agree more. The next speaker is Catherine Hayhoe who's also online joining us now. Thank you. And maybe you can both leave your cameras on to so that we can see you. And Catherine is an atmospheric scientist whose research focuses on understanding the impacts of climate change on people and the planet. She's a chief scientist for the Nature Conservancy where she leads and coordinates the organization's scientific efforts. She's a 10 year professor at Texas Tech University, and has received numerous awards and recognition recognitions for her work, including being named a United United Nations champion of the earth. That's great. And we are very happy to have you here as our champion. These the floors yours. Thank you so much. Can you just confirm that you can hear me all right. Yes, we can. Thank you. Thank you. So, I want to begin by highlighting the fact that as scientists, we are often taught from the beginning of our career to isolate what we study from how we feel about it, what we think about it, and what needs to be done about it. So if I can share my screen with you here just a minute. Here we go. Many years ago, when I was young, I read the science fiction trilogy by CS Lewis CS Lewis is a British author who is more well known for his children's fiction than he is for science fiction. In this series, there was a character that stayed with me for the rest of my life because that character was the image of who we often envisioned scientists to be that character was literally a brain in a jar. If we are a brain in a jar, we are coldly rational. We are entirely based on data, but we do not make the connections to the heart or the hands. In reality, our brains are not in jars. They are in our bodies, which have hearts and hands. And with an issue such as climate change that connects directly to choices that need to be made today. I feel very strongly that we need our entire being, not only the brains that we use as scientists. So I want to begin just by briefly highlighting what I do myself, and then speak about the general perspective, the environment in which we are and then come back to how do we make individual choices as scientists to operate within this sphere. So very briefly, I study how climate change affects our human and our natural systems. I generate high resolution projections for weather stations and grids. And I translate those into what that means for heat waves, droughts, floods per degree of warming. I work with cities to help them plan for climate impacts and solutions. How is urban heat increasing? How can it be offset? I work with states to help them understand why climate change matters and why the decisions that they make, such as the state of California here, signing legislation to become the first state in the country to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, why that matters and how it affects their water supply, their agriculture and more. I work with cities and countries to become more resilient, training state hazard managers in India to incorporate climate change projections into their plans. And frequently I try to advocate as often as I can for people, especially those who have done the least to cause the problem, and for not only the impacts on nature, as we just heard about so compellingly from Anna, but also the role that nature can play in solutions. You may know, though, that I also spend a lot of time talking about why climate change matters, talking about it with my cat, who is currently playing with my headphone cord right now. So if you see my computer moving, which you do, that actually is the cat. And grading, for example, our federal parties climate plans, which interestingly, last time I did that for Canada, led to me having to block both the leaders of a far right party and one of the leaders of the far left party. And as I do this, I hear from people every day. And what I hear are things like this. Are you awake yet all of your predictions have been wrong. We know your overlords are just manipulating weather and climate. Use the science what can you do anyways here's where the doomers come in what can you do there's nothing we can do so why bother. But often, many of these comments connect directly to what not to science but to politics. For example, this one speaking out against net zero what does that mean. It means we would have to return to the stone age and that is why people are opposing these actions today. And of course, a thermometer does not give us a different answer, whether we vote blue, or red, or orange, or purple, or green, or any other color affiliated with a political organization or party. The numbers are the numbers. And they're very clear that the planet is warming. So when we look at polarized issues and I'm going to use the United States as an example right now but just a minute I will show you more in the United States which is very politically polarized. Climate change and environmental protections have been at the very top of the list of the most politically polarized issues in the country. This was in February 2020 just before the pandemic shutdowns. So after the pandemic shutdowns a year later what did this landscape look like at the very top of the most politically polarized issues you still had climate change, but then you also had the coven outbreak. Science is polarized. And we've already heard reference to the science literacy or knowledge deficit model, the idea that people are willing and able to process information if it's available so if people don't support climate action at the scale that is needed, they just need more information. Social scientists have been studying this for over a decade and what they found is very clear. Dan Cahan for example, in a 2012 paper so over 10 years ago, studied how public apathy over climate change is often attributed to a lack of comprehension people don't know enough science it's claimed to understand the need for action. So they studied that they found no support for it. In fact, they found that people with the highest degree of science literacy were not most concerned. Rather, they were most polarized. And this is in fact what the data look like when they asked people is there solid evidence of recent global warming that is due to human activity. There is a weak correlation between a measure that the researchers developed called ordinary science intelligence. A week correlation ranging from about 0.35 up to about 0.6 at the highest, but when they separated this out by one thing. Not education not intelligence not knowledge of science when they separated out by political affiliation. They found that the more educated people were the more divided they were. And the answer for that is clear in a 2017 study the researchers found and let me translate this into English here. We're all guilty of this being smarter doesn't make you more accepting of science. It just makes us better able to cherry pick what we need to validate what we already believe. Now I mentioned earlier I'm using the United States as an example and that is because that is where the signal to noise ratio is most obvious. But other analyses, one looking at 56 countries found that the role of education and experience and informing climate change beliefs was dwarfed by what by ideologies, worldviews and political orientation. And another study published three years ago found that when people who are liberal are more educated they're more concerned about climate change. But in high income countries where our large footprints would be I would have to change significantly in response to climate action right wing ideology attenuates the positive effects of education and the US as you just saw it actually reverses it. So when COVID came along. Climate scientists knew what was going to happen. And this was one of my sort of favorite or not so favorite cartoons. Here you have to COVID physicians saying as long as we just provide the facts to people they'll just do the right thing right and over here you have the climate scientists who have been doing this for decades. Why, why is the science so politicized. I think there's at least two answers to that. The first answer is found in the fact that although climate science is quite old denial is not. We know the names of the scientists who drew the connections between coal mining, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, a warming planet. The names of the scientists who calculated so fast the planet would warm if we doubled or tripled levels of co2 in the atmosphere. We know the names of the scientists who track the original warming of the atmosphere, and showed that the planet was warming due to human emissions from burning fossil fuels, nearly 100 years ago. We knew that the oil companies knew. We knew that the car companies knew, but it wasn't until the impacts became real here and now, which happened in the late 80s, that action became necessary. And when action was necessary, that is when the science became politicized. The science of dark matter does not require action. The science of expanding or shrinking universe that does not require action. The science of transmission of a virus didn't used to require action. But the last few years it has. And when science requires action. That is when it gets political whether we like it or not. Because our results have an implication for action, and that is where the science meets the politics, and that is what happened over 30 years ago. Back then, this is just a list for the United States of the richest corporations if you look at the global scale over 50% of the revenue made around the world in the 1990s was due to fossil fuel companies. The denial mechanism swung into action merchants of doubt the petroleum papers dark money, all kinds of analyses have highlighted the fact that when action became necessary, deliberate attempts and very successful attempts were made to politicize the science to delay action as long as possible. Now, these politicizations can be addressed through targeted messaging. This is something I invest quite a bit of my time at. And we've showed that it is possible if you get an army general and Republican congressman and messengers who people could respect from the conservative side of the spectrum that some of this can be addressed. But there's a little bit more to it. And a few years ago, I read a very illuminating book called scientists as profits. The Delphi Oracle and tracing the role of science in society to the present day. The author shared how philosophers of science for many years have articulated that although science can explain what the current state of the world is policy states what we ought to do about it. And the gap between is and ought cannot be bridged without our values. So no matter how much data we have values are always going to come into play. And as the author continued, she said, so even a simple statement like humans are causing climate change or wearing a mask prevents the spread of COVID implies a response is needed and is therefore perceived to be political. When we look at how science can inform policymaking, we have to understand is not just about the head, it's about the heart. We have to understand that values come into play. Providing people with simply the scientific information is not going to ensure support for effective policies. We have to figure out where people are already starting from and what they bring to the table. We have to realize that there is a fundamental tension since the days when people went to oracles to determine how to proceed in the future. And the fact that scientists have now taken the place of oracles in our society, there is and will always be a fundamental tension between what science says is or will be and what policy says should be. So what is the implication for us as scientists? I often hear people ask me, where should we be? And there's even a should in the title of this session. So I'm going to propose for argument's sake that I don't think there is a should. Some of us are best suited publishing our research and discipline specific journals. We might be doing more generalized science. We could be writing an essay for the conversation. We could be writing a blog for an NGO or giving media interviews. Some of us could serve as expert witnesses, engage in social media, speak at a school or a company, write a book, write many books. Some could lobby or endorse effective policies. Some of us are engaging already in civil disobedience. Some of us are even running for office. But what I would propose is that there is no should. We need science at every part of the spectrum and for each of us at each point in our lives, there is a different place that is the right place for us to be. But the only place we don't want to be is continuing to believe that we're the brain in the jar. If we are going to make decisions with our science, we need to connect our heads to our hands to our heart and have those informed by our hearts. And I believe that is what we are doing today. Thank you. Thank you, Catherine. That was a very inspiring talk indeed. Thank you very much. I have a brief question which relates rather to the beginning of your talk. And the question would be what can scientific organizations do to better support and as you have indicated maybe even protect scientists who want to engage with different stakeholder groups. This is a very good question and that requires a revision of the way that scientists are evaluated, not only evaluated but supported. So traditionally scientists are evaluated on research, a little bit on teaching a little bit on service if you're at a university but primarily on research, whereas engagement serving as a boundary, not just a boundary organization but as a as a boundary person. That needs to be acknowledged and it needs to be included in how scientists are evaluated, but also supported and that requires a completely different paradigm in how institutions engage publicly as well as engaging with their researchers and that could be the topic of a whole session. But in a nutshell, it requires profound change in all of our perspectives beginning, I believe with our institutions. And I think that resonates well with yesterday's discussion I've been at, at least. So, thank you very much again Catherine. Our last panelist last but not least is a party who is a researcher at the in the advancing systems analysis program at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis here in Austria. Research interests include sustainability transformation, philosophy of science very interesting and the evolution of technologies. Please applause yours. Thank you for that kind introduction I hope you can all hear me well. And thanks also for the inspiring remarks by the previous speakers. I look forward to an engaging discussion about the role of scientific activism in society. In my remarks I want to focus more on science itself. The crux of my argument is going to be that in order for science to become more value neutral and less biased, it needs to transcend the status quo and existing social norms. In my sense, I do think that we need an activist science, but much of this activism relates to the scientific enterprise itself rather than projecting scientific authority, and it fits within the scientific tradition. Let us step back and reflect on the co evolution of science and modernity, because I think this context is important for our discussion today. Even in this room may be aware that scientists are on the verge of declaring the Anthropocene as a new geological epoch. The end with the point point of my point is that I don't need to elaborate to this audience how influential science has been in modernity for better and for the worse. In particular, the advent of reductionist scientific method, the isolation of cause and effect under experimental conditions has been extremely effective. This is why scientific objectivity is so profoundly and so seductively influential. It is quite convenient if you are able to avoid any value judgments, just shut up and calculate and again great insights again that can be applied to maximize utility. This view is sometimes referred to as scientism, and I'm afraid it's time to acknowledge this story is not true. Here's why science is an epistemology, which means it is a framework for acquiring knowledge. Every epistemology is underpinned by ontology of underlying assumptions, either explicit or implicit. I think we need to make a distinction between value neutrality and objectivity. If you are not explicit about our values, that doesn't mean they vanish. While we must strive to remain objective in our experimentation and methods, it's impossible to maintain value neutrality when it comes to framing the research question, research agenda, scope, what we choose to ignore. Not only in social sciences, but I would argue also in natural sciences and geo sciences, for example deep sea mining, geo engineering, fracking, is this value neutral. Furthermore, objectivity and reductionism have been overextended in domains such as political economy, and even our worldviews. This enterprise is often co-opted. And I would argue misused by power structures as a profit machine at the expense of ecosystems and against majority interests proverbial pie is not just redistributed while life support systems are being degraded. The backlashes that we see against experts stem from this with a strange combination of utility maximization for the few and misuse of scientific objectivity. We have grown to view nature as something separate from humans. Instead reanimate the world and recognize intrinsic agency and rights of ecosystems and different life forms. While drafting this I was reminded of the opening scene from the hitchhiker sky to the galaxy where they destroy earth to make way for a cosmic superhighway. I think to avoid absurdities, we should try to objectify and quantify everything. For example, it would be optimal to have policies where the central scenarios and tell a temperature increases of 3.5 to 4 degrees Celsius. That's 2018 Nobel Prize winning economies economy economies. The nature of our most pressing global challenges is demanding a very different form of science. Once again, we acknowledge the effectiveness of productionist scientific method. We have unbelievable material abundance. The problem is not about production. It is more about sustainability and just redistribution. In fact, it relates to the unintended consequences of previous applications of scientific discoveries, such as fossil fuel engines. We have to be skeptical about further unintended consequences and reliance on ever more powerful technologies such as geoengineering, net emission technologies, AI, e-fuels. Thunderfunder you notes in his book social sustainability that emissions are only one aspect of much more fundamental threat to the continuity of our current ways of living on earth. He calls it the crisis of unintended consequences and focusing on emissions alone is a form of escapism. This is why we need to be more activist in questioning the current norms that are responsible for exacerbating ecological crisis and social inequalities. We can be more value neutral by assessing a full range of options that conform to biophysical realities rather than the ones that fit the dominant ideologies. Let me also refer to Jurgen Ren, a philosopher of science and his remarkable book, The Evolution of Knowledge, Rethinking Science for the Anthropocene. He argues that production of scientific knowledge has indeed become an existential condition for our survival. But he goes on to write that just producing new scientific and engineering knowledge within the current knowledge economies will not suffice to cope with the Anthropocene. It would be in fact counterproductive. Much of the necessary knowledge does not fall within these categories. It may rather be described as a combination of systems knowledge that is the understanding of the earth system and its human components transformation knowledge that primarily concerns the role of human societies and raises the question of how our collective actions can ensure sustainable development and orientation knowledge that concerns ethics, politics, values, and belief systems. We need a combination of all three, because on its own transformation knowledge may encourage blind activism, while systems knowledge can lead to overly technocratic solutions. More concretely, I think this implies reductionism has to be complemented by complexity science and systems thinking. We need systemic humility with respect to our own abilities to predict the evolution of complex systems. Laplace's demon is dead, especially when it comes to social sciences, in addition to induction and deduction. We need to also present counterfactual scenarios with back casting rather than just projecting current trends to the future. Furthermore, science has to make space for other knowledge systems, including indigenous knowledge and participatory co-creation of knowledge with relevant stakeholders. We have to resist to the extent possible competition oriented structural aims and increasing commercialization. Jurgen Rehn evokes the concept of niche construction from ecology. Species shape the environment, which in turn shape the evolution. Science has recently become such a niche, shaping our evolution, and I think that implies a lot of responsibility. We can't hide behind the illusions of neutrality and pretend that AI will take care of everything. Thankfully, we even have solid international agreements to guide our normativity. Let me conclude by saying that passion, curiosity, and goal of improving the human condition were always the key drivers of scientific inquiry, at least that has been the claim. Just as it did at the onset of modernity, science may play a role in even reshaping our worldviews once again. Although this time, rather than letting power structures misuse science, we have a responsibility to be in alliance with the less privileged and the future generations. We should not typically conflict with objectivity where it matters. We should remain good basians and update our priors based on evidence while considering a full range of future possibilities. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Patrick. I think we heard today in every speech if I recall correctly that values are important and play a role in our research. Despite our efforts as natural scientists to be totally impartial and so on, but values are always at play. And we always, as scientists have to make decisions about what to include and exclude from our research and our presentations. I don't know how this resonates in the room, but can you maybe tell us and practically whether there are cases in which value driven research is problematic. If you can call it value driven. Well, I think this is why it is useful to make a distinction between values and objectivity and experimental methods right. I think we as human beings that after Catherine I think I don't need to give a better analogy than a brain in a watt right. So, and I think it's even if it is concerning natural sciences, say for example if I'm astrophysicist study Moons of Jupiter, Europa. I would I would be studying it because I have some interest in it right and and still if I'm if I'm trying to assess whether or not there's life on Europa I need to be objective at the same time so we are going to open up the panel for a discussion slash debate now there has so far been quite a lot of agreement and we're going to see if we can change that. It's a debate after all. So I will say, we are as moderate is going to ask a couple of our own questions but then we will be turning to the audience. So if you are in the audience either online or in person please start thinking of questions that you would like to ask, and we'll get to you shortly. Similar to yesterday's great debate and we'll be keeping a timer on it though. So, my first question is actually, we've heard a lot about the importance of scientists engaging and why we need to collaborate more with others. But I would also like to hear from the panelists about the potential risks that scientists face when they engage with politically charged topics. We heard a little bit about the online backlash you can get from Catherine but I think it goes deeper than that. And I think each one of the panelists could actually either tell an anecdote or actually just more broadly what they what they see as a potential risk for scientists who want to engage in these political issues. I will turn to Laura first. Thanks a lot, Chloe. I think that in part goes back to what I was saying in the beginning about the incentivization, and the fact that the various institutions haven't got this right. And the importance of actually recognizing. Yes, our whole gave a really beautiful example of the range of different initiatives that different scientists can under be taking and she made this incredibly important point that it's not and or it's all of the above. And the fact that all of the above are not recognized in the same way can potentially have negative impacts and effects upon scientific careers. We really need to be looking at the fairness and recognition of some of these knowledge brokerage skills and having these accurately and fairly recognized as an important component of the scientific process. Thanks Laura. I might turn to, I'll actually turn over to Catherine online first. Catherine, I know you've already outlined a couple of the risks of from your personal experience, maybe you want to expand on these. The risks to our scientific careers are very real in terms of first of all for just spending time on things that are not being recognized, but sometimes even we are actively, actively penalized for engaging further down that spectrum. When this is an issue that requires urgent action, but there's also two other challenges I would like to point out and one of them is simply physical safety and the other is mental safety. So when we speak out and especially if we are speaking out as a member of an underrepresented minority, whether it is a woman a person of color somebody from the global south. When we speak out, the more strongly people stand against us or the more people see what we say as a threat. The more strongly they respond, and that brings with it concerns of physical safety that have dated back to IPCC authors like Ben Santer and in 1995. The impact that it takes on our mental health to be standing up. But how can we not because if we remain silent I would argue the the the impact on our mental health is even stronger, but really recognizing that there are these challenges is so important because if we just try to sweep them under the carpet. They're just going to get bigger and bigger, whereas if we can acknowledge them and bring them out, then we can stand together. Yeah, great. Thank you Catherine. I'm also going to turn to Anna, our other online speaker. And Anna, I know that stop ecocide they obviously engage in a lot of political issues, but they try and stay out of politics. And maybe you can talk about why this is, and where you see the risks of engaging. Yeah, of course, I mean, I think it's very important to understand from the off that there's a big difference between political partisanship and political engagement. So an anecdote I often think about is that it's not indoctrination to tell a child to brush their teeth. You know so we can promote particular values without being political about it. So, I mean, it can be difficult working in this sector to remain non political but in this kind of context something which I tend to draw attention to is the idea of a just transition. And something about ecocide law which we're very conscious of is that we don't want to get to a point in the future where we suddenly have to say to a particular industry that they have to stop all the production because we know that absolutely any kind of industry has environmental impacts and we need to be very careful about how we do reformulate this because for example, it might be actually more environmentally beneficial to have one major industry producing lots of goods and it is to separate down to lots of smaller industries for example. But so I think it's, it's very important to ensure that we do try to keep some kind of difference and I mean as I said in my speech, this is why I really do see the role of law here. And you know law stood for the test of time to unite us around universal values recognizing that no politics is there to kind of hammer out the in between but if we don't have this unification in a non political way then I think that any kind of political decision itself is very difficult. Thanks very much Anna. Now, I think I know you've sort of already addressed this question so I'm actually going to change it up a bit also for a bit more of a debate and ask you to talk about the benefits. What do you potentially have from this increased engagement maybe personally or as in their professional career. Yeah, I actually have slightly different views on this point, maybe, because I really hesitate to wear my researcher hat, if I'm participating in public event or climate protest. I think it relates to the fact that we really have a lot to do within the scientific enterprise itself. And the other fact is what Catherine mentioned polarization, right. So we have to be very careful I think, in particular, I'm afraid the green movement has not paid enough attention, in my opinion to social inequalities and some of these social issues so I feel like if we are going to be prominent we should be really careful in what kind of message we are giving. It has to be actually consistent with biophysical realities again. And that means we have to point more to the fact that who it is that is actually causing this problem it's not everyone. It's not, we have to be more specific, for example, we have to call for banning private jets and things like that if we choose to become more vocal about it. It needs to be done very carefully. Any of the panelists check in to see if any of the panelists wanted to respond to that additional thoughts. And then I'll pass over to Kirsten. And I would like to encourage you first to come to the microphones and pose your questions you have a fabulous panel here and it's might be a very good chance. Yeah, go ahead please. Sure. I would like to ask a question about values and we talked about implicit and explicit values. And I wonder, should implicit values be made explicit sometimes and I'll give a very brief example I'm working on the energy transition. So my understanding my research is that I think we should reach a net zero energy sector by 2050 so I'm only interested in researching scenarios where we reach this, and that value underpins on my research should that be made explicit, or can it remain implicit thoughts. Laura first. Absolutely. In my work when I'm synthesizing science from many different areas to share with policymakers. I always include a normative statement at the beginning of my work. So where the science cannot speak for itself or I want to go further. I actually share the framing of for example of why I'm doing this. And in my discussions with policymakers, they've appreciated it tremendously, because the understand often share actually the same understanding of the framing, but by actually drawing into it, explaining where values are taken into consideration so basically if you if you make that inferential leap towards recommendations or advice. It's really appreciated. And that's something I would certainly say you can actually use to your advantage. Very quickly. I think it is also very important and useful to refer to the international agreements that we have that provide very strong normativity for us right, a good guidance for our values. So, thanks. To any of our online speakers want to contribute to this particular question or should we go to the next. Okay. So we are keeping an eye on the time so 30 second questions is ideal. Alright, next one. I can keep the question short if the answers also short is not up to me I guess I'm inspired by the example critique that you gave that really made it concrete where if I can translate it I think you gave an example of where activism may have gone too far out of the specific enterprise you would call it and I would like to hear maybe also to stir a bit of debate and maybe the census from the other participants if they have anecdotes examples of where they think that practically science went too far into activism. Thanks. Also 30 seconds questions questions so who wants to answer this. I can come in with an anecdote. I mean when I was in the agricultural Institute, we had a publicly funded GM crops that were growing. And our crops were invaded by a number of activists, and we lost an excess of 4 million pounds worth of publicly funded research. We chose to, we were obliged to basically replant the crops redo the experiments but really importantly, there was a lot of protest from fellow scientists and there was a petition that was signed by over 10,000 scientists from many different disciplines basically all saying that that this is not really okay. And what we did the GM study in question. We didn't actually deliver the results that we'd hope that it would, but we wrote to the 10,000 petitionist basically thanking them for their support explaining what we'd learned although it wasn't what we talked to we were going to learn from the science. And kind of let them know that, you know, keep on championing because without these also these failures, we're never actually going to be succeeding and that that's also an important part of the scientific process. But that's an important note as well. Thanks Laura and actually before we get to the next question, I'm going to build on that question a little bit more. I'm quite curious, and this is the question I actually have a lot. A lot of scientists want to, for example, engage in a climate march. Can they do that and still provides scientific advice to policymakers while remain maintaining their scientific integrity as an unbiased source of information, and if so, how can they do that. I'm going to turn back to Laura but then I also want to hear from my online speakers and also practically on this as well. But demonstrating the fundamental democratic value. And you're trying to, I mean, and, and if you're wanting to strengthen democratic processes on the one hand. Why would these not be compatible, I would say yes. I don't know if any other speakers have anything to add to that but I will ask to any speakers want to add Catherine. My opinion is also yes, but I would qualify that by saying that the opinion that matters is the person or the people who are interested in receiving what we have to share. And so much of whether this or that is acceptable is incredibly subjective. I think we just heard a very good example of something that was not so objective in terms of the destruction of the research, but often we ourselves hastened to judge what someone else is doing because we say well I wouldn't do that myself. So that can't be right. What it really is is that again, when we connect our heads to our heart to our hands that leads us in different directions and it does not have to compromise the integrity of the science we do when we express the urgency of action based on our science. Fantastic, thank you for taking anything. Maybe I would want to make one qualification is that there is, and I find it also interesting slightly the framing of this whole debate that we are we are thinking or the question before is, is if scientists should be social activists but then we should also not think of the subliminal biases again, when it comes to scientific collaborations with private industries and charities and, you know, advertising weapons industry military industry complex and so in a sense I do see also like a lot of activism as maybe or some of it balancing the biases. Next question, briefly, please. Hi, I have a question regarding focusing on climate denial, and I'm kind of a bit afraid that sometimes putting the bar a little bit too low by just asking politicians to actually recognize that there is a climate crisis, because I think the, like maybe the situation is a bit different in Europe and in the US, but in Europe we also have politicians who say they have the priority of keeping 1.5 degrees alive that they want to be like to make the planet great again, but then they're still accepting new permits for new fossil infrastructure. We also have fossil fuel companies that are showing off. There are new investments in renewables to the point that you will not forget there was a fuel company. So I'm wondering, when we see that what is the role of science is do we need to call out this brainwashing do we need to say there is this big gap between these pledges and this action like do we have a role to play there. Thanks. Who wants to start. Catherine, yeah. I think that's something I think about quite a bit. And we have to recognize that the purpose of any of these arguments or statements is to delay action. So when a politician or organization goes from saying it's not real to it is real. Often people say, oh, that's wonderful they've made progress. If they are saying it's real, but it's not serious or it would cost too much to do it or it's just not practical to act right now. What is the end result the end result is exactly the same. So, again, the point of all these arguments is to delay action and if action is not happening this inconsistent with the goals that the country has agreed on. And we as scientists are able to evaluate whether that action is consistent or not, and we are able to make fact based statements on whether the actions is occurring that would be consistent with the goals that that country agreed to, which are again science and value based goals. So that is a role that we can play and we cannot be deceived by people who say, yes yes it's real and it's us, but they continue to say oh we can't make change right now. Thank you very much. Any other opinions on that. Yeah, maybe yeah maybe the next two questions in a row but briefly please. Thank you Catherine for presenting the study which explored the ability of cherry picking based on your convictions. I would include myself in that I'm pretty convinced that climate change is the thing and I can pick studies to support that. But someone from the climate skeptics I could do the opposite and discuss with me and my question to you would be what can I really do in my daily life I try to make a spectrometer work in the Arctic. What do I know about climate models, and I feel that even as an early career scientist, I can only cherry pick. Next one please thank you. Yeah, my question is concerning the idea of expert informed climate councils by citizens. I wonder, like, what do you think, what can it achieve and like what kind of, how can it bring it added value. Because like sometimes politicians say they want to imply more policy, but it's not possible. And what if I'm correct in France it kind of worked on a national level that they had kind of result from this council and then they did it so like what step process. Okay, Catherine, I think he was, you were directly asked. What is that. So a few years ago, residents benefit who many of you may know led an effort with with the few of us to address the biases that we have to look at whether there were any scientific papers published in the last 10 years that had arguments that were valid as to either why climate was not changing, or why humans were not responsible. So we published that study a few years ago is a quick picture of it here if you can see it's about eight years old now. And we re analyzed 38 studies that we found in the literature, of course, compared to hundreds of thousands that say that yes climate is changing and humans are responsible. So we re analyzed the 38 that found that it was not. And in every single one of them. We found at least one error. Sometimes a simple mathematical statistical error sometimes leaving out a factor they should have included or making an assumption that was incorrect that if you corrected the air it brought them into line with the scientific consensus so that is a way that we ourselves wanted to address our own tendency to cherry pick to see if there was any chance that we had missed something that they had caught. And the answer was no. But when we look at where people are on the spectrum. Most people are very quiet about the issue. In the United States, about nine, eight to nine percent are dismissive, and eight to nine percent are activated and everybody else is in between. So I'm really convinced and I've written and spoken quite quite a bit on this and I even have a Twitter thread on this that engaging with people who are dismissive. With the scientific arguments that will just bounce back and back and back again that are entirely inconsistent is not the most effective use of our time rather so many people who are not activated. Who are worried but they don't know what to do they feel helpless and disconnected and disempowered they have no sense of efficacy. That is where we can really engage and I think one of the most powerful statements from scientists came from the IPCC after the 1.5 degree report in 2018, where they said, every action matters, every choice matters. That statement empowers people who are worried but don't know what to do so when we as scientists engage with people. We must carry that message of risk that we communicate so well, but we must also carry a message of hope in that if we choose to do something it will make a difference. Thanks Catherine. I think that actually is an excellent answer to that question. I would now turn to the question on the expert informed climate councils. I think Laura you were writing some notes during that question. I was writing down the question but I'll have a go. And I think actually I can hopefully quite elegantly linked to what Professor here who was just saying about the importance of working with the disenfranchised. And how we're linking if you like to things like the condo about that took place and climate change in France for example. I'm not going to comment on what happened at the national level but it is a word of warning and why we need to be understanding how citizen engagement participatory democracy how these different formats play out because often what we're seeing is people who are really keen to talk about climate change will be attending these kinds of initiatives and people who are disenfranchised are not. So we really need to be looking at the design and we're seeing increasingly interesting and importantly. Really strong results coming from the use of things like mini publics and so that could potentially be a very interesting way forward with regards to citizen engagement initiative. Just very quickly, yes, I think this transdisciplinary science is very important aspect of it and I would also mentioned like some colleagues at our Institute as I engaged in this climate noise site project with participants in Starmark and one of the more interesting results they find is like this is also helping to reduce polarization and maybe this is more effective way for scientists to engage with people and common public rather than you know top down dissemination of policy prescriptors. Thanks very much so we'll take another two questions from the audience. I think the panelists for highlighting that if we if we want scientists to engage and participate in the change we cannot leave it to heroic individuals but we need institutional change. And so my question is given the urgency what are the immediate next steps that you're going or you are over research institution can take to one better recognize the political engagement as long as we conserve scientific ethics and to for example favor a decoupling between science and productivist or extractivist industry as it was highlighted a lot that if science participate in scientism it's a problem it's not helping. Thanks. Given that science is inherently quite an expensive process and so is sort of implicitly held in thrall to moneyed interests. And as I think you already mentioned a lot of the polluting is done by those moneyed interests. How can we as scientists start to deal with those power imbalances where we're potentially arguing against the interest of the people paying us to excellent questions. I'm actually going to throw to Anna online, because I know Anna works with a lot of different institutions, primarily, and yeah, thoughts on this. Well, and in terms of the first question about the urgency I mean immediate step is to support our movement to get your side into law I mean this would be the first time that we're seeing an autonomous offense that would ensure that companies and individuals can't hide hide behind the corporate bales so I mean something we know very well is that a major reason it's so difficult to regulate the environment is because companies very often they will have a profit duty to maximize profit for their shareholders but not a parallel obligation in order to protect the environment and I mean we know that the only way to stop offending is to make the risk of punishment greater. So I mean in terms of urgency I think that this is a very very easy first step I mean the framework is already there there's multiple supports various governments putting it into law now the European Parliament just voted in favour of it so really mobilizing and and collectivising around deco side law I think is absolutely fundamental not only because it reflects all of the values which we've discussed today but also that it is as somebody just mentioned it's not the role of the individual is the role of law it's the role of institutions and we need this institutional change. So putting in this fair parameter the very very top level can help out with the rest of it. So this is the first step and to me it's very very difficult to conceive what's going to happen after this without this step because I know from my work and my negotiation negotiations with lots of different people and lots of different organizations. I think as I mentioned before. I mean there's fantastic ideas but it's just, there's no there's no coordination and this is why we need enforcement. And in relation to what somebody said before about having an expert climate council. I mean the use of experts and use of science forces absolutely fundamental but something we do need to be very aware of is that we don't want to keep investing money into initiatives into schemes into legislation which isn't going to work because it doesn't have that strong enforcement in place. So to me this is very obvious common sense and this has to be the absolute first step. And the second question was, sorry can you remind me how scientists deal with what was it. Oh power imbalance sorry about the power imbalance. Yeah, again, it got working within local communities, you know throughout all of history up until the industrial revolution communities were the safeguard guardians of the environment. So, starting with your local processes making as much noise as you possibly can within your discipline about the necessity of interdisciplinary relations about open dialogue about communication. So a frank recognition of that we need a certain, we need a certain level of naivety here, and we shouldn't overestimate ourselves, and we should do what what we can with what we have, which for me is very much using the law which is already there and many side laws I talk about it's not meant to be seen as a radical disjunction and I don't want to talk about it and give this impression is specifically designed to be supplementary to what is already there. So I think to incorporate this sense of individual and criminal responsibility to go to the ordinary civil framework. So, and dealing with power imbalance absolutely mobilized behind the law support initiatives like you go sides and continue to have engagements within your disciplines and attend events like this, you know. Thank you. Yes, I mean you mentioned a lot of things that brought up more questions for me but that's okay we'll keep answering the ones we have. Does anyone else from the panel want to answer either of those two questions. We still have a lot of questions to get through, maybe very quickly on the second one on the power balance. Professor Heather Douglas has done a very philosopher science has done a very interesting initiative that's basically has a sort of court that is actually debating where the money should be going in terms of investment for the future with regards to the climate crisis. For example, they were looking at fusion and seeing how much time was actually necessary versus, for example, the number of degrees that potentially could be saved and then looking at is this in terms of long term billions of research funding actually going to make a difference in time. And so that's quite an interesting initiative but of course, these kind of course should also be coupled with input from the citizen engagement initiatives. And obviously, you know, a shared vision as to where we actually want to go society is so incredibly important and these ideally should be coming together. Fantastic. So again, for those speakers online and the participants online we do have quite a long line of people wanting to ask a question. So we're going to keep moving. The next two questions please. Hi, there was a mention of human rights law as a reference for climate change or you can say laws human rights are codified but they're violated all the time and only enforced when it's convenient for enough political actors. Do you think it can be different for climate change and I guess more generally, I do think existing institutions are adequate at all to tackle climate change. And if so, how Thank you for this 22nd question. Next one. Yes, hi. So my question is, I actually shouldn't all scientists be activist how can we expect people to take the climate crisis seriously. Who know so much about it and look at the data every day and know for sure that that not enough is being done about it. Don't take that serious enough to become activists. Thank you. I think Anna you will stop maybe. So about the, yeah, it was me that mentioned human rights and I said that a huge problem with the environmental crisis is that we don't have a foundational piece in law like we do with human rights which affirm that the most agree agree to harm against the environment are very very serious Yes, human rights are violated all the time. Absolutely of course, but something is very important to bear in mind is that this debate as as has been very very evident today it's also about fostering a consciousness which we don't have yet. And criminal law has been used historically throughout society to in order to facilitate this consciousness and in times of the International Criminal Court, it is proper functioning it's not supposed to be seen as a one stop international laws in itself is not supposed to be seen as the first solution. It's meant to be a backstop, leaving, leaving the actual mechanisms to the country themselves. So, I mean, we advocate Ecosite Law as an international crime because it would provide this uniform standard across countries but we're not just talking about it in terms of punishment or also talking about it in the sense of actually giving this kind of global understanding that to harm the environment is a moral prohibition. And I mean we can talk for a very long time and I could talk for a very long time about the likely procedural issues or different ways of defining the offence and such but I think that these questions overlook the urgency with which we need to act. The merits of Ecosite Law is that it's very, it is grounded in law that's already there and we already have a definition that's already a parallel vision and the Rome Statute in the context of war. So, I mean, but in terms of the human rights debate specifically I think the first thing we need to do is understand that the environment is very very intimately tied to all of these and something which I say commonly when people aren't listening to me is that, you know, we have no human rights without planets to live on. So, this needs to be the first step. I think that's a great quote. That's going to turn up and quit it Twitter for sure. But I will actually I'll cut you off there because we are already running out of time, unfortunately. But I will get to the second question which I think gets to really the heart of this great debate and that is shouldn't all scientists be activists for all panel members I think who wants to go first. Catherine. I want to highlight two words there. How do we define activist first of all, do we define it by the actions that we deem as an activist actions such as civil disobedience or we did do we define it as someone who is motivated to action, which could include doing research because of their levels of concern about this issue. So others have mentioned and I know to scientists who have changed what they study and I have done that myself, because of their concern about climate change. I specifically became a climate scientist because climate change is a justice issue, and I viewed the science I do and I still do view my science as activism in addition to all the other things that I do. So first of all we have to realize that the definition of activist is not necessarily as as narrow as it's often used, but the second thing I want to emphasize is what I ended my own remarks with which is the word should. When we judge each other. That's the beginning of a slippery slope to divisiveness rather than unity. So for any given person at any point in their life there could be things that they can or cannot do things that they do or do not feel comfortable doing things that they are or are not better suited to doing. For example, I do a lot of speaking publicly and I know some scientists I will name no names who I don't think should ever speak publicly to other people who are not scientists. They can be activists of course not they can be activists in their way. And so when we start to judge each other which comes from our sense of fear, when we and that that is real because we know what's happening to this planet. But often when we feel that fear and anxiety we we we desire to control others. So when we try to control others that is again the pathway to dividing each other rather than bringing each other together. So focus on, on the fact that as a human body we have so many different parts. Somebody needs to be the liver somebody needs to be the hands somebody needs to be the brain cells or the nerves. We each have different roles to play and my question to myself always is not what what should I try to try to persuade others to do who are scientists but rather how can I best support their unique abilities and their unique contribution to the dialogue and to accelerating action. I think that's a very comprehensive answer and unfortunately, one that's very difficult to debate. Unless any of the speakers want to take a go at it. Yeah, great. It's very confusing this word activist right much of the activism, I would say in terms of the actual biophysical effects is also going on when people are doing things like AI research it's just that it's more hidden right it's it's an active shaping of a particular right. So, we shouldn't judge people who are very vocal about being socially active. And at the same time, of course, as Catherine mentioned, different people have different competencies and some of us can be great at publishing papers, and that's also needed. So, very quick to next questions please. Hey guys thank you for a great panel I think one of the most shocking things that I saw was that polarization that increases with education, depending on political alignment. And I think the institution of climate change and climate science tends to be liberal. Do you think that a lot of climate science is under or laden with these liberal values and that is leading to polarization. And do you think there's opportunity for conservative institutions that have good science that can close that polarization, or do you think it's something that's just inherent and climate science always lead to this polarization. I would like you to comment on the added value that more research and natural sciences can bring because I often ask myself, don't we know enough from a natural science perspective. Should we all become full time activists full time politicians or at least researchers in social science to understand better how the knowledge we already have can lead to social change. Thank you. Thank you very much. Another two great questions that I think Laura will have some answers to if I can. Okay, if I, if I can, if I can start with the with the second one actually. So the value, the added value of more natural science that it could be that the framing of the initial questions are not responding perhaps to the needs of the citizens or the needs of the policymakers who need to be doing something with the science. And we know just how important it is to actually co create horrible word and kind of collaboratively agree upon the question, and if you get a stake from your different stakeholders in your research upfront. Then perhaps this is more what is needed to actually see through to the end the fact that you're going to be having the results then implemented into policy. We know that the policymakers are liking to have concise results that are transdisciplinary. This is often a challenge given the diversity of disciplines that are at hand in the geo in the geo sciences area, but perhaps moving forward, this area of collaboration, certainly from a policy perspective is definitely something that would be highly welcomed and needed. So perhaps not more but different. Excellent. Thank you. Anyone else on the panel want to answer either of those two questions. Well, regarding the second question, maybe I would say that it's rather that I would like to live in a society where I can be a conservative. It's just that I think right now the moment is that we need to change so many things that we, we, it's not the time to change in that sense. So I really want to be a conservative but it's always, we should, we should always be context dependent. I think, maybe on this second question, it was about, I had something to add there. I think different forms of sciences can inspire differently and for example astronomers. I mean, astronomy is very awe inspiring and we need some of that spirituality back right. So, I think different sciences can definitely contribute in different ways. There's an old joke from back in the days when cars had one long seat in the front, and there was a couple driving down the road, and the one spouse said to the other, we used to always be close together when we drove, and the person who was driving looked at the other person and said, who moved. So, when we look at the politics on climate change, who moved. There's another study that Elaine Eklund, a sociologist at Rice University did of scientists and faith. And she found that although many scientists are spiritual people who believe that there is more than science can detect that scientists don't attend conservative churches in the US because those churches have decided to reject science. So the question as to as to whether there can be conservative liberal scientists of course what is more conservative than conserving our planet. What are the choices made to politicize the science question is who moved. Thanks Catherine and just before we finish up I will throw to Anna as well. I will comment a little bit on the first question so I am something which I found in this when my communications with this. I'm talking with somebody that I know isn't particularly sympathetic to the climate change conversation. Usually I try to get to them in some way and some kind of common sense. And recently I was in England and I was talking with a guy who absolutely zero interest in the environment couldn't tell us. And, you know, he was asking me what I did and I started to talk about my work and I could see I could kind of sort of losing interest a little bit. And he asked me why I did it and then I said something very, very, very simple through just an apartment I just said to him. Do you not do you not think it would be better to protect trees and animals and the seas and you know I can see him just kind of thinking in his head and then he says, Oh yeah you know I like my little walk in the woods like you're right. Yeah, my point my point in this thing is that there are ways to transcend the politics of this. And I mean, of course I talked a lot today about the use of law for this but I mean an ecosystem law is proving successful in this actually I mean, recently we've had major support from the business and corporate sector which is giving us a lot more visibility with governments but I think in this kind of situation I mean as today has shown in the boundaries between science and politics are slimming so much that it's, it can be very, very useful just to, as I say either appeal to some kind of common sense or really just to highlight the values which underpin this because I think liberal law conservative. There are values which unite us all and these are really, really need to be appealing to communications. I'm going to circle here with the values. Very important. Unfortunately, we are running out of time. We're going to take one more question. Big apology to everyone else who's still standing up. But there is a short course actually after the lunch break which you can attend called researchers as informed citizens taking part in the public discourse without risking our scientific integrity and it's in room 2.61. Please come there and ask your questions there and discuss with us, but we will take the final one. So, off you guys. Hi, thank you. So, I say maybe science should not get political and rather take a different strategy I don't know such as religion. Many studies indicating a D grows past to limit warming to two to two degrees Celsius or below. How do you think the girls could be fit within the policy measure that advocating constant improvement in quality of life that requires increasing energy and non energy sources. So that question will take about an hour and a half to answer. It was a good question. We only had about 5 minutes to answer it though less than 5. So who wants to take a go at it. Yes, it's very tough one. I think we have to be. We have to demand rather economic democracy. There could be different ways of framing it. We have to talk about material D growth and and we have to also make it more positive. And I think not, but I would say actually in fact that is even more political right then than just calling for serving the emissions or something like that. So, and I do think it is, yeah, something that's needed and I should say that there is a big, you funded project now to, to figure out the post growth pathways so I think some of the some good research is happening in that orientation and yeah, thanks. Thank you. Yes, I'm very sorry that we are running out of time I could spend here some more time with you hours actually. I want to conclude now with the last question and it's leaning on a Peter Maddowar who was a biologist, biologist, biologist who wrote an interesting book, advice to young scientists. I would lean on that and ask all the panelists. What would be their advice to early career scientists on scientific activism should or not should without a shoot, whatever, what would be your advice. Maybe practical you will you start. Well, as an early career scientist myself I find it a bit uncomfortable to answer that question. But let me let me maybe quote something I read in the time magazine earlier this week. That I will stand for climate action, the better more peaceful and sustainable world for you and all generations that you and all generations deserve that is UN Secretary General and tenure materials. So I think we have some good advice in that regard. Thanks. Thank you. And Catherine, what would you say, what would your advice be. I probably know I advise people to follow their hearts, but I would also encourage us when we share the information we know about the fact that this is real. This is human cause this is serious and it's our civilization. And many of the other living things that share this planet with us at stake when we share that information. We must also share the information that what we do can make a difference because to quote the neuroscience. These are hardwired to move towards something positive, more than to run away from something we fear. So when we include that message of genuine hope that if we do something it can make a difference. That is what motivates people to act. Thank you very much. And what would you like to add. I would simply say that there are enough people making the wrong kind of noise. So go forward and make the right kind of noise as much as you can. Let's get loud. Yeah. Well, this is where I'm going to do some PR for the EU, because what's really important is that young, early career climate scientists don't feel alone and when you've got amazing organizations like this. You need to be working together and not feeling isolated sitting staring at your model or your data and thinking the end is now and I'm the only one who feels like this. An organization has created an extraordinary community and you should draw from that and from each other. And if you want to be taking the next steps. Start and understand how policies are made. Start and understand what a political debate looks like and very gradually there's lots of tools out there will be explaining some of these things how you know you can you can get more information you can train you can learn etc. In order to develop that particular area should you be interested in it so not isolated share with others and train as you see fit. So yeah this has been an incredible great debate. I would like to thank all of our speakers for joining us here in person and also online. Particularly Catherine it's very very early you wouldn't have guessed it by her energy, but she is currently in the US and it's very early her time so thanks to Catherine for setting an alarm. I'd also like to thank all of the participants in the room today. You asked some really excellent questions. You were very strict on that time limit which we really appreciate it as well. And as Laura finished on actually there will be other activities throughout the EU general assembly that you can participate in other sessions other activities. Common ask your questions. Currently there is the science of policy help desk at the EU booth. So that's my plug. All right. Thanks everyone.