'I was counting dead trees': Scientists join climate crisis fight

Scientist Rebellion is a network of scientists that coordinates acts of civil disobedience to highlight the climate crisis.

Laure-Anne Gateaux did not train as a tropical ecologist only to end up sitting on a busy shopping street in her lab coat with one hand glued to the ground.

But that was where the 34-year-old French scientist found herself after giving up her job last year to focus instead on campaigning for more action on climate change.

"I don't want to be here, I'm afraid of the consequences... but we are desperate," she told AFP at a protest in Munich staged by a group known as Scientist Rebellion.

"I was just counting dead trees, I was counting droughts, I was counting floodings. I don't want to do that!" she said.

"As an ecologist, you just count deaths. You just count hectares of land burning. It is not possible, we need to stop it before our entire planet collapses."

Founded in 2020, Scientist Rebellion is a loosely federated network of scientists in more than two dozen countries that coordinates acts of civil disobedience to highlight the climate crisis.

With the urgency of the environmental catastrophe growing, the group has also intensified their protest action in recent months.