What grief for a dying planet looks like: Climate scientists on the edge

Desperate climate scientists embrace civil disobedience and specialised therapy to deal with their growing anxiety over global warming.

“I was scared as hell. … I remember feeling very nervous.”

On April 6, 2022, Peter Kalmus, a climate scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, got a ride into downtown Los Angeles, where he was about to handcuff himself to the door of a JPMorgan Chase bank alongside three fellow scientists.

“There was a moment,” he says of the decision to engage in civil disobedience when he “realised that I just had to do it, to find that courage”.

He was joining more than 1,000 activists taking to the streets in nearly 30 countries across the globe under the slogan “1.5C is dead, climate revolution now!” – a campaign led by Scientist Rebellion, an activist group of scientists, academics and students committed to disruptive, nonviolent action to raise alarm over the global climate emergency.

“I was really scared,” Kalmus reiterates over a call, about how his colleagues, the police and, especially, his employer would respond. “I thought there was a very good chance that I’d get fired, which was probably my biggest concern.”