Letters: Dr Ol Perkins says activists have no need to overstate the case, Michael Symonds thinks academics and students worldwide need to prioritise saving the planet, and Dr Tristram Wyatt says there are groups of scientists wanting to do more
Much of what is said by Bill McGuire and Roger Hallam is true (Scientists prize neutrality – that doesn’t cut it any more. In 2025, they must fully back the climate movement, 9 January). Scientists do need to consider how they use their position to inform the public and influence the public policy response to climate change. Many of us already are, through working with the government and, where necessary, supporting litigation against polluters and political intransigence.
However, we cannot abandon the principles of a rigorous evidence-based approach; without that our voices are worth nothing. The main reason scientists do not more actively support the climate activist movement is that the leaders of that movement have a track record of saying misleading and false things around climate science: to be associated with them is to lose credibility.
Roger Hallam, for example, has said that that climate change will kill 6 billion people by 2100. This is not supported by the evidence. My own experience of attending events by climate activists is that they systematically overstate the claims of climate science, and indeed frequently suggest that reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are deliberately downplaying the true scale of the problem.
There is no need to overstate the case. The evidence is in front of our eyes; from extreme flooding in Pakistan to the severe droughts in Botswana, to the current fires in California. If the climate movement wants the engagement of scientists, it must stop forcing us to choose between credibility and activism.
Dr Ol Perkins
Research associate in global fire modelling, King’s College London
• It is not simply scientists’ prizing of neutrality that holds back academic efforts to lead the required action on climate change; it is also a lack of urgency by universities. These institutions need to put climate breakdown and the fundamental changes in society needed to minimise its consequences at the forefront of all courses, irrespective of discipline. Such change could be funded centrally by offsetting tuition costs for all graduates who then enter professions geared to implement greenhouse-gas reductions.
Moreover, in addition to the 9 million scientists mentioned by Bill McGuire and Roger Hallam, globally there are approximately 25,000 universities and 254 million enrolled students, which together could provide a substantial taskforce to combat rising global temperatures. To achieve this, they all need to work together and put saving the planet ahead of any short-term gains that persist in maintaining the current status quo.
Michael Symonds
Emeritus professor, school of medicine, University of Nottingham
• Bill McGuire and Roger Hallam make an impassioned call to scientists to speak out and demand our leaders treat climate breakdown as the desperate emergency it is. Scientists reading their call need not feel alone: there are groups of scientists wanting to do more, including Scientists for Global Responsibility and, combining activism and science, Scientists for Extinction Rebellion in the UK and Scientist Rebellion worldwide. There are many ways to be involved and make a contribution in all these scientists’ groups. Join us and speak out.
Dr Tristram Wyatt
Department of biology, University of Oxford