 and searching online for either climate honesty or climate brightsiding. To end, I want to talk to you about something we're calling the scholar's oath to the future. The climate science consensus over the last years failed to predict the levels of volatility and damage that we're seeing. The most concerning science was sidelined, yet it's proving to be closer to reality than the past consensus. Now, the reasons why this establishment climatology, we could call it, failed to prioritize communicating bad to worse scenarios must be learned from as we're entering this new troublesome and scary to quote the Guardian time. And that learning must include scholars like myself and climate scientists, climate communicators and journalists, reflecting on the past choices we've made about being cautious and reticent and pushing away the information that we don't want to consider because it's too troubling to us and the choices we've made. There is a risk that massive new funding is going to distort this sense-making process. We definitely need more radical approaches. So I want to tell you about something that 165 scholars have signed to launch here today. They come from 34 countries and it's called a scholar's oath to the future. So I'm going to read it publicly for the first time today. This is an apology and an oath of renewed commitment. It's an apology from me and my fellow scholars to you, the younger generations whom we are meant to serve. It is also an oath to learn from our past mistakes as we seek to better contribute in future. That future is bleak. You amongst the younger generations are clearer on that than many older people. You know that the total pollution and devastation has exceeded the planet's capacity to cope. You know that today's dominant economies compel that destruction to continue. You have a clearer sight of the situation than most people older than you because you are less compromised in how you assess this bad news. You are less likely to assume the future will be like the past. You're less likely to keep quiet about uncomfortable ideas for fear of hurting your income, reputation or influence. You are less likely to try to believe something because it might numb your own pain. That is because you must live in the future that will exist, not one that many older people prefer to imagine when they dismiss your negative thinking. Scholars from around the world in many disciplines have known for years that the trends are in the wrong direction for humanity and life on earth. Whatever corner of the world we live in, we have seen how our efforts to reverse worrying trends have not been working. We ignored all of that to allow credible lies to be put to policy makers, senior leaders and the general public. We justified our complacency to ourselves with a variety of explanations that put our needs, pleasures and fears first. And we blamed powerful others rather than our own part in this charade. Today, the rich countries, large corporations, elite institutions and mainstream media all support the credible lies that subdue us so that we do not rebel against the global economic system. These lies form the modern face of processes of domination and exploitation that have existed for centuries. But today we promise not to compromise anymore. When there is unsettling analysis, we will share it. When there is injustice, we will name it. When there is distortion by national or corporate interests, we will challenge it. If we fear a backlash, then we will both name that fear and overcome it. Then if you within the younger generations are critical of our efforts, we will respond with curiosity and seek to make amends because we recognize that our role is to contribute to your future. So myself and my fellow scholars are sorry for our own part in not helping enough in the past. We promise to learn with you about how to reduce harm, uphold universal values and enable futures that may still be possible. Therefore, I will tell others of this apology and oath and promote mutual support. Then every year, I will publicly reconfirm this commitment to you. That's the end of the scholar's oath to our future which also Dr. Ye Tao has signed along with 165 of us from 34 countries. And we're going to be looking forward to engaging young people in how we make real on that renewed commitment. And Ye is already doing a lot of that. I know with young people playing a key role in getting you to this far and with the experiments and research you're doing.