These 16 scientists and activists, five of whom are Spanish, remain in police custody after participating in a “non-violent” climate protest in Germany. These same sources specified that the detainees would be transferred to the Stadelheim prison in Munich or to other facilities this Monday.
The arrests took place last Saturday, October 29, as a protest against BMW’s headquarters in the Bavarian capital. The protesters stuck to their cars and one woman was arrested for putting her arm through the wheel of a car and hoping to stop it from moving. Explaining the protest, the group said “our goal is to defend the truth against political fiction.”
The group has five members currently in police custody, according to the story. They are environmentalist Victor de Santos, Ph.D. Mauricio Misquero, engineers Fernando Rojas and Joseba Saenz de Navarrete, and artist and activist Marta Moreno, Munoz.
Recently, Scientific Rebellion Spain, a group of people involved with the scientific and academic community, published a video on its account. In the video, the detainees report that they are in custody while they talk about Climate and ecological catastrophes. “Climate and ecological catastrophe forced us to leave our laboratories and carry out non-violent civil disobedience in Germany,” he tweeted.
Open Letter
More than 1,000 scientists from around 40 countries signed an open letter asking their colleagues to “share with the public what they share with each other about the world’s responses to climate change and biodiversity loss.”
A letter was published by a group of world-renowned climate scientists after the recent IPCC report on climate change.
No viable option to stay below 1.5°C
Marta Guadalupe Rivera Ferre, a leading expert on food systems and IPCC lead author.
One of the signatories to the letter, Prof. Marta Guadalupe Rivera Ferre, food systems expert, and IPCC lead author states that this is a landmark statement from the academic world. It’s a signal that politicians and environmentalists have no viable option other than to stay under 1.5 degrees Celsius.
As a scientist from the global South, I feel it is essential that Northern scientists join in the dialogue. They’re pushing a narrative of climate change as an issue affecting North America and Europe, but this can be harmful to people living in the global South. The planet’s fate depends on people like me who don’t live in those North American and European regions, so we need our North American and European friends to speak up for us. We are almost at 1.5°C so this is more urgent than ever.
Scientists have acknowledged the fact that there is no plausible path to 1.5 degrees Celsius in the next few decades. This means emissions will have to peak before 2025 and then fall by 43% by 2030 if we want to stop the temperature rise by 2100. Even this will result in more than 1.5 degrees Celsius in the next ten years, meaning that if this scenario doesn’t take effect, it’s likely that over 2 degrees Celsius of warming could happen in 100 years!
He went on to say, “Continuing to publicly state that 1.5°C is still alive is already untenable, but politicians, leading scientists, and the environmental movement continue to do so.” In response, polluting industries and politicians are being urged to resist rapid decarbonization.
Academic, Dr. Bill McGuire, Emeritus Professor of Geophysical and Climate Risks at the University of London, who signed the letter, said: “Giving the public the impression that we can still prevent a wide-ranging climate collapse is dangerous and misleading. It suggests that we can still prevent a wide-ranging climate collapse yet politicians are going to keep avoiding taking the necessary steps to truly protect their constituents.”
Just this April, World Meteorological Day, the letter demands that the scientific community make a public statement about climate change at COP27.
“Although the IPCC says that it’s an inevitability that we won’t meet our emissions goals with current climate change targets, there are ways for industry to help lower the risk.”
“Second, aim to limit the temperature rise to ‘well below 2°C’ (in line with the 2015 Paris Agreement) using the most conservative assumptions about the potential of negative emissions technologies. This is to show the public the importance of reducing carbon emissions in line with scientific findings.”
Developed countries like the United States should deliver $100 billion a year to support developing countries efforts to mitigate climate change.
