Speaking Out of Place: TIM HEWLETT - Co-founder of Scientist Rebellion, Activist, Astrophysicist

In this episode of the Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liu interviews climate activist, astrophysicist and co-founder of Scientist Rebellion Tim Hewlett.

Scientist Rebellion is a growing climate activist group with 1000+ scientists and academics across 32 countries. Members range from science students and professors to IPCC contributors and leading climate-related scientists. Through disruptive nonviolent action, Scientist Rebellion demands emergency decarbonization via economic degrowth. During acts of civil resistance, members wear lab coats, and volunteers organize the vast majority of the campaign activity.

"I believe in the UK there have been over a hundred cases in the last year, many of them ending in jail, and that's a massive escalation in recent history. And yet we had one in February that was dating back to the founding action at the Royal Society, but we were being tried for there. And we did win that case. But I think all around the world, what we're seeing is a convergence of institutions of power to try to shut out truthtellers, to try to shut out activists and people who would hold those powerful actors to account.

I suspect it's because they recognize that they are committing heinous crimes, and if there were to be true accountability, they would be the ones being prosecuted.

We've seen top-down directives from the government which are blocking activists and people in court from making legal arguments. In our case, for instance, we weren't allowed to refer to human rights legislation. We weren't allowed to argue the defense of necessity that we're trying to avoid greater harm. There's a long-established principle in case law, but you're not allowed to make those arguments anymore because activists kept on winning. And that's extremely inconvenient to the government. So the government dictated they shouldn't be able to do that. And that's not something that's meant to happen in a separation of powers. So we're seeing this convergence, coalescence of these institutions to try to protect the powerful and to protect the status quo even though that status quo inevitably leads to the breakdown of society."

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