Scientists as active citizens: public engagement in sustainability

Registration link here

Third workshop – May 20th at 12 PM: “Scientists as active citizens”

Location: https://ucph-ku.zoom.us/j/67252330198

Duration: 2 hours

As the climate and ecological emergency worsens, scientists across Denmark are increasingly faced with questions about their behavior in the crisis: What is the role of academics in the climate and ecological emergency? Should we be passive bystanders, fulfill a purely informational role, or should we engage in direct action? What can we do as researchers, even if we don’t work directly on climate issues?

The workshop will serve to summarize and reflect on findings from history, social and environmental psychology that suggest that collective behavior matters a lot, even when performed only by a minority. It will present examples of concrete pro-climate actions in universities across the world, and how they were perceived by the public and politicians. The workshop is also meant as a way to exchange and develop new ideas for collective direct action carried out by scientists, to call out the inadequacy of climate policy in Denmark, as concluded in the latest report by the Danish Climate Council.

We will feature talks by Oriane Sarrasin – a researcher in social psychology at the University of Lausanne, and Frederik Appel Olsen – a researcher on scientist activism in relation to the climate change emergency at the University of Copenhagen.

XR Scientists Denmark: https://xrdk.org/en/science