#rose abramoff

[n0thingiscool]

US climate scientist risks felony by chaining herself to pipeline drill

Rose Abramoff was one of two protesters who helped temporarily shut down construction of Mountain Valley pipeline

Two women climbed in the dark down the banks of the Greenbrier River in West Virginia on Thursday morning and locked themselves to a massive drill, stopping work on a controversial oil pipeline project. One of the women, Rose Abramoff, is a climate scientist and by participating in temporarily shutting down the pipeline construction she is believed to be the first American climate scientist to risk a felony in an act of climate protest against fossil fuel projects. “The stakes are so high,” Abramoff told the Guardian. “We cannot build this pipeline and meet our climate goals.”

[meteorologistaustenlonek]

Confronting the Climate Crisis with Scientist Activism: the Essential Role of Rule Breakers

It's no longer enough for climate experts to keep our heads buried in the science

Risk takers and rule breakers to the front. As Peter Kalmus has said, he and Rose Abramoff disrupted the AGU meeting that day because they “believe that climate scientists have a key role to play in breaking society out of the ’normalcy bias’ or bystander effect that still has most people thinking ’this is fine.’” I couldn’t agree with this objective more. And I see, in the price they have paid and the attention it has received, some small but perceptible movement toward it.

The bolder tactics of activism carry real risks—including for scientists the risk of eroded credibility as a widely-trusted messenger. Yet, the greater the risk, the greater the potential reward. If the reward is actually breaking society out of our collective trance and into a state of real, transformative action, what professional—and even personal—risk wouldn’t be worth it? Climate scientists, what would you risk for that reward?"