(caveat: I'm super tired because I'm trying to organise an international family move during a pandemic so I'm very likely to get things wrong and miss important stuff, which will definitely *not* help but wev). 2/
First point I want to say: I ❤️ XR. I consider myself to be part of XR. I managed to make it to London for the Declaration of Rebellion, I was so thrilled to be there. Since I have been involved on & off: not enough to my taste, but not absent either. I've made XR art even! 3/
Second point: I am immensely grateful to all those who put in the hours and work and creative thinking to get XR off the ground and to enable it to achieve so much already. You've changed the world for the better, in a huge way, I believe. 4/
One of the most important ways XR changed things for me is that it taught me how absolutely crap scientists (especially natural/physical ones) are at changing the world. We have information that desperately needs the world to change away from disaster, but we can't connect ... 5/
the dots to make that necessary change happen, somehow. I learned that it take communication, culture, art, creativity, central narratives, all kinds of things that scientists (and myself) are bad at. I learned that lots of people REALLY care and REALLY want to avoid disaster. 6/
But scientists weren't explaining to them how they could act to avoid disaster: XR was. Scientists weren't giving people permission to express their deep emotions in strong, simple language: XR was. This is a HUGE shift, tectonic even, for which I am so grateful. 7/
But then there was some weird stuff. There always is, but these things would come up again and again, enough even for rather dense me to notice a pattern.
- 'The IPCC scenarios don't take melting permafrost into account.'
- 'The IPCC doesn't consider tipping points.' 8/
- '4 degrees is locked in already'
And other similar statements. They just kept coming up. After a while, I understood that this misinformation seemed to have one central source: the paper on Deep Adaptation. And despite several critiques and much grumbling from scientists ... 9/
no one had ever really fully critiqued it from the perspective of being within XR, within the climate movement.
I thought "well it would be nice if someone did this" but was far too lazy and cowardly to do it myself.
Fast forward to the 2019 autumn rebellion. 10/
I met @TEGNicholas at the demonstration by @ScientistsX . He told me that he & @GalenHall4 (who I had previously met as a student and collaborator of @TimmonsRoberts ) were drafting a piece to correct the misinformation spread by Deep Adaptation. 11/
I thought this was a great idea, and asked if they would share it with me. I gave comments & feedback, as did many scientists listed at the end of piece. I thought they were doing a great job and really wanted to see it published. But Tom & Galen, then joined by Colleen ... 12/
were very cautious. They wanted to get everything just right in terms of the science, and were making huge efforts to get feedback from relevant experts. They were also very sensitive to the fact that this piece might cause dissension in a movement they are part of ... 13/
and want to strengthen. They were also very aware of the fact that the terrain is fraught due to emotional attachments and beliefs in those for whom reading the deep adaption piece was a life-altering moment: correcting the narrative at this level might be a shock at first. 14/
Tom, Galen & Colleen were also all super busy, Tom finishing up his PhD, Galen his masters and Colleen her studies as well. Because here's another rather astounding fact about the deep adaptation critique: its authors are young, at the very start of their careers. 15/
I believe it reflects extremely positively on these young and dedicated scholars that they were able to keep working on this article, integrate feedback from multiple directions, while in the stress of completing their own studies. But it's also true that ... 16/
regardless of the circumstances, it takes guts for early career researchers, let alone before they have their PhDs, to go up and openly critique a professor. So that is another aspect which deserves commendation. 17/
I'm really grateful to Tom, Galen & Colleen for their dedication, activism and work on this article. I'm really pleased to see so much praise for it, from so many quarters. It's actually really heartwarming. I believe it strengthens XR & the climate movement overall. 18/
BUT. I've also seen criticism & rumour-mongering that is absolutely beyond the pale: that Tom, Galen & Colleen are somehow highly paid industry shills, that they are unethical, that they are politically motivated, that they are saying only scientists can speak about climate...19/
that they are engaging in predatory delay, that they want to undermine or split XR.
Each of these statements is not only false, but assigns evil motives to three extraordinary committed youth climate activists and scientists. Think about that for a minute. 20/
To those spreading those rumours: think of how low you've sunk if this is what you are doing. We don't have to be perfect to be a part of the struggle for livable world, far from it, but we can sure as hell be better than this. End/
You can follow @JKSteinberger.
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