In this ClimateGenn episode I speak with Dr Gianluca Grimalda, the researcher who shot into the limelight when he was sacked for refusing to fly back from Papua New Guinea. I met Gianluca at the Films For Future Festival in Zurich where his movie was getting an early screening.
He represents a growing number of scientific researchers who are prepared to take action to draw attention to what the science is telling us – namely that we are barreling towards total global climatic disaster. Grimalda is calling for a global strike by scientists in protest of decades of allowing special interests and profits to override what is best for society.
The Researcher documentary is now available for streaming and download on platforms including YouTube, Amazon, Vimeo and iTunes.
Full Transcript of the interview with Gianluca Grimalda:
[Nick Breeze – ClimateGenn]
Okay, Gianluca, thanks very much for speaking to me. I want to start by asking you what took you to Papua New Guinea in the first place.
[Dr Gianluca Grimalda]
Yeah, my first fieldwork in Papua New Guinea was in 2014 and the funding agency wanted to study the adaptation to climate change by people exposed to climate change from what are defined as small island development states. And so there was a specific interest in that.
[Nick Breeze – ClimateGenn]
Okay, and how, from your observations, how climate vulnerable is Papua New Guinea?
[Dr Gianluca Grimalda]
Yes, so there are many threats. One threat, of course, has to do with the sea level rise, which is compounded by a process of subsidence, so the land is sinking. So pretty much all the communities I visited living on the coast already had an experience of relocation inland because the place where they used to live is already underwater right now.
And now, because of increasing temperatures, there is also, I wouldn’t say that they are in danger of farming, but pretty much everyone is telling me that the yield of the crops they grow is shrinking. So more and more they observe that their sweet potatoes, which is their main staple food, is literally shrinking. So they say sometimes that they are empty, they are smaller and smaller, so that’s obviously a cause of worry.
And some people say that when the time of the dry season comes, since they don’t have water, they also don’t have food. So I don’t think we are close to the risk really of widespread famine because the land is fertile, the soil is fertile, being a volcanic island, but we are getting close.
[Nick Breeze – ClimateGenn]
Okay. And when you talk about this place, I mean, it’s quite remote, but it is a huge biodiverse ecosystem. How has this sort of biodiversity been impacted by the climate, by other subsidence and all these other factors you’re discussing?
Antique Bracket Clocks
[Dr Gianluca Grimalda]
Yes. I mean, I’m not really an expert of biodiversity. What I can say is that for sure there is a problem of deforestation.
So the population is very much aware that deforestation is bad for them and also for the world as a whole. And in terms of animal species, I must say that I was surprised because many of the animal species that we normally associate with the rainforest, like, I don’t know, monkeys, gorillas, these type of things, I’ve never seen them in the island. There are a lot of insects, I can say that for sure, a lot of birds.
I think that the forest has an incredible power of regenerating itself. So I don’t think that there, I haven’t observed that really species at risk of extinction. But on the other hand, I must say, I saw, I watched the documentary by the BBC talking about the high risk of extinction for the kind of bats, which really suffers from heat waves.
And the environment in Australia, in Cairns, where they shot the documentary, is very similar to the one in Bougainville. So I expect that some species are really affected. I go there to study humans, not to study animal species.
[Nick Breeze – ClimateGenn]
Okay, just to touch on areas like this are usually targets for big corporations, mining and so on, resource hungry corporations. Has any of this been a problem in Papua New Guinea?
[Dr Gianluca Grimalda]
Well, I mean, Bougainville has been the theatre of what many people refer to as the first eco revolution, because the local population opposed the mining practises of Rio Tinto, a multinational based in Australia, that went for flat out exploitation of the third largest copper mine in the world between 1990 and 1998. And the local population felt basically betrayed by the national government, because they felt that this company was not bringing any benefit for the local population, instead that they were damaging the environment with the pollution to water and other factors of which they didn’t care. And so they started some what we would call now eco sabotage actions.
And then this escalated into a civil war that ended up in armed conflict between the national army by Papua New Guinea and the local population. And as a result, between 5,000 to 20,000 people died. And the copper mine is still closed.
There is a debate inside Bougainville whether they want to reopen it or not. But at the moment, it’s closed. So I think any other mining activity has been suspended for this reason.
There are logging companies that are active in the island, but in terms of mining, at the moment, no company would go and exploit. I mean, recently, there have been, I’ve heard instances of people who have been killed. So they were the way employees of mining companies are coming from Papua New Guinea.
I think they were Papuan nationals. And the idea was to talk with the local communities to see whether they were open to exploitation, to opening of other mines. And they were killed because of some, let’s say, I don’t want to say extremists, but some people who believe that no mining activity should take place in Bougainville.
They are prepared to kill people who come with that reason.
[Nick Breeze – ClimateGenn]
Okay. And now we’re just switching over to more of a climate side. COP is starting and there’s been an article in the mainstream media about Papua New Guinea government withdrawing from COP29.
They’re saying that basically the promises thus far have yielded nothing. And so this is a kind of protest withdrawal from too many broken promises and breakdown of trust. What’s your view on that?
[Dr Gianluca Grimalda]
Yeah, to some extent, I mean, I was surprised to hear this strong action by Papua New Guinea government. And I mean, it’s understandable because we know that the COP has really failed to deliver. On the other hand, I don’t want to completely disband the COP as Salomon Hook, the late climate scientist, always said that the COP is the only venue where vulnerable countries can really meet and bargain face-to-face with the people from the developed world, the so-called developed world.
And so if we don’t have these institutions, we really have nothing. And I think, I mean, the exploitative companies would love a world with no COP. So I think we should really work to, in a way, bring a COP to the people and possibly ban fossil fuel companies.
Of course, that’s a bit utopian, but I would rather keep this institution and try to reform it rather than really disband it. But yeah, to some extent, I think what the Papua New Guinea government has decided to do is understandable because we know, for instance, that the Loss and Damage Fund has been formally set up, but there are no resources, there is not a process in place to actually permit countries to really have a say and to apply for compensation. And so, yeah, there is so much that is lacking that we can say that the COP is really failing people, especially vulnerable countries.
But yeah, I mean, I think we have to hope that with more public pressure the COP can be reformed.
[Nick Breeze – ClimateGenn]
Okay, and one thing I’ve noticed over previous years, in more recent years, vulnerable nations really almost fusing with the activists in terms of forming a stronger narrative, and activism is something that you’ve been involved in. And as a scientist, how would you say, and I’m speaking quite generally now, the gap between the science research, what the scientists are finding, and quite often scientists’ behaviour in the way that they communicate or engage with their research findings?
[Dr Gianluca Grimalda]
Yes, that’s a difficult subject in a way, because it’s down to individual morality, how far you want to go. And I think 99.9% of the scientists are frightened by what is going to happen. But I think most of them, I mean, I know many academics, and of course academics love to do their job inside their offices, inside their lab.
And I think it’s very difficult. I mean, I don’t want to do finger pointing and blaming people, but I think it’s very difficult to communicate the risks that we are facing, because the general public really is not, I would say, familiar with what is a probabilistic law, what is a model with uncertainty inside. And so it’s very, very difficult to communicate.
So that’s not an easy task. And most people expect from science something like, you know, when you go to a doctor and the doctor tells you a diagnosis and you take medicine. But in science, there is so much uncertainty.
And so we have to accept that there are many, many things that we cannot predict precisely. And that is precisely where I think there is a lot of margin for the industry to step in and basically to use this margin of uncertainty to say, okay, we are going to be fine in 2050 with the net zero. And so communicating the terrible danger without having a clear objective threshold is very difficult.
Of course, now the threshold that most people refer to is the 1.5. But I mean, nobody knows that 1.5 is associated with the global tipping point in which all the ecosystems will collapse. We are not even sure that there is one global tipping point at which all the ecosystems will collapse. So it’s very complicated.
And of course, up to one point, so I decided to engage with the civil disobedience because I realised that after the COP26 in Glasgow that we were clearly failing with very high probability to stay within safety levels. And so I said to myself that just writing reports, writing articles was not enough. And as a colleague of mine from Scientist Rebellion Germany says, I wanted to put not just my articles, but my body in front of this catastrophic future that we and the future generations are going to face.
And I’ve done it without knowing whether that was the right action or the wrong action. In principle, I should have gone one month in jail just for a purely symbolic action in which we glued ourselves at the Porsche pavilion of the Volkswagen car museum. So I mean, I would say that the penalty is very, very heavy.
I lost my job for… I cannot say that I lost my job for civil disobedience, but because I wanted to make a point that at this point in which we are catching a plane when it goes against your moral principles is something morally wrong. And so I lost my job for that reason.
So, of course, I can understand that very few scientists would be prepared to take these type of risks. I think we really need to do more. Of course, we always say that most scientists think that if they took this kind of radical action, they would lose their credibility.
But on the other hand, there are some studies who say exactly the opposite, that they say that people believe more in scientists who, so to speak, walk the talk and so are prepared, for instance, not to fly rather than keeping on with the business as usual.
[Nick Breeze – ClimateGenn]
I was going to say that there is this research that in the public’s mind, scientists are the expert cohort. And when they actually live and when they take action, it moves the dial. When they go to things like the World Economic Forum, it looks like they’re part of the club.
And it’s almost like, are you part of the club or are you really walking the walk? When you mentioned Scientist Rebellion, and I’ve interviewed people in the UK from Scientist Rebellion, when you have internal discussions, especially now, where we in the UK, we’re seeing people really getting locked up. This is happening around the world and it looks like a trend is going to continue.
What are the internal discourses like in terms of, you know, how does it feel when you’re talking to people about the risks you’re taking?
[Dr Gianluca Grimalda]
Yes, so inside the Scientist Rebellion, not because inside other movements, but particularly inside the Scientist Rebellion, there is the so-called right to action in which basically every, even small groups, have the right to take action as long as it is non-violent. And I think there is a good side in this because it really adds freedom to the power of people taking action. But I think the cost is to lose unity.
And personally, after, let’s say, two years of civil disobedience, I think that we might lose people precisely because the tactics have become maybe too radical. And of course, I have the utmost respect for everybody, you know, risking their life, their future and possibly going to jail. But I think at this point, what we should do as activists is not to alert the people about climate change because pretty much everyone in the world has understood that the temperatures are rising.
There is also a survey saying that. So I think what is missing is really to make the link between burning fossil fuels, deforestation and temperatures increase. And I think what those surveys say is that people are massively underestimating what we must do in order to, in a way, enter into a safe climate zone.
So I think in terms of tactics, what I would now prefer, what I would propose is to have less radical tactics, but with a clear and targeted message. And so I was thinking, I think that will be my next campaign would be to at least try to set up a global strike by scientists and even non-scientists in order to send a strong signal. I think that would be unprecedented.
It would be the first time that scientists go on strike to protest the fact that writing reports is meaningless if these reports are ignored. So I think the image of a scientist leaving their labs and leaving their university’s office, go to the street and share their knowledge with the people, if done by many scientists around the world, could be potentially a strong message that would make people think that we are at the stage that is really unprecedented. And so a much more urgent action needs to be taken than waiting to be net zero in 2050.
[Nick Breeze – ClimateGenn]
Okay, and a global strike from your day job, from writing papers, and you mentioned scientists worried about losing jobs within their institutions, as you have, and the situation you’re talking about with your personal story, and which is about the film that we’ve watched last night, it’s a perfect illustration of the disconnect of this whole thing, is that you get fired for not doing something the way we know is intrinsically wrong. How do you see institutions altering or to become more aligned with better values?
How does this play out so that people like you could be happy with going to work, with working within these institutions?
[Dr Gianluca Grimalda]
Yes, I think something is moving, so I must say even my institute has always allowed me to go on slow travel, counting the days I was travelling as working days, so in a way they have always been accepting of my practises. I know other institutions did not allow their researchers to do that, so I mean, in a way, with my personal action, one of the things I’m trying to do is really to enshrine into law the right to, in a way, a conscientious objection to catching planes or to do things that go against your climate morality, so to speak, and I think something is moving. I think here in Zurich there is at least some openness at the ETH, that is one of the largest institutes in the world, I think, studying also climate issues, so they are setting up some guidelines, in a way, encouraging researchers not to touch an aeroplane when they fly to conferences, etc., so something is moving at the institutional level, but in the end, I must say, I still see 99.99% of my colleagues catching planes to go to their destination, and of course, I mean, this is just one minor thing that we can do, but I think scientists are still the most trusted, let’s say, public figures, maybe second only to medics, as far as I know, so what we do and what we say really has some amplifying power, as I said before, there is a research making that point, so even small actions like not catching a plane, of course, many scientists are doing that already, but yeah, if more and more scientists did that, then I think that would be one of the actions that would really transmit the message that we are not in a normal situation and that we must really do extraordinary things to face with the future that will be extraordinary if we don’t act.
[Nick Breeze – ClimateGenn]
It’s almost like a better aligning your behaviour with what your own research is telling you, or your community’s research.
[Dr Gianluca Grimalda]
Yes, yes, exactly, so I mean, as I said, there are papers that make this point very clearly, so if as a scientist you don’t catch a plane, you are more credible than a scientist who instead catches a plane, and also we know, of course, we are well aware that in the end we want a structural change, but I think a structural change comes from individual action, and of course we need these individual actions to be conveyed into a social movement, otherwise they will just be seen as ephemeral actions, so we need more social movement, but I also want to be, in a way, optimistic. I know that many of my colleagues in social science have, in a way, developed the idea of social tipping points, and we know this is not just a theory, but we’ve seen many, many instances in which activists had to campaign for ages, I mean, take the suffragette, they started in 1830 and in the end the women’s vote was obtained in 1918. Of course, we are desperate for change and we would like a much quicker action, but yes, sometimes, you know, you have to really work very, very hard, and when change comes, it happens in one night, maybe, I mean, look what happened with the COVID, so I think we should just be persistent, resilient, and stubborn, and go on with our activism, even if at the moment we don’t see any tangible change at the scale that would be required.
[Nick Breeze – ClimateGenn]
Okay, and you mentioned the social tipping point, and there is, again, in research that even when activists from civil society go out and do stuff, like throwing soup on a painting, for example, it moves the dial in the moderate space, it has reverberations through behaviour patterns among people who are concerned and become more concerned. So, as the sentences get harder, harsher, and more severe, and I would say there’s an increased sense of desperation amongst activists. Young people are not becoming activists less because the sentences are getting harder, they’re becoming more resilient in a way to the system, but the impacts are getting much worse, so more people are becoming affected, but the politics are getting worse, you know, there’s these constant sort of contradictions.
How do you see the activism, I mean, I’m not asking you to sort of condone autism, but in terms of this more extreme sort of behaviour, do you think that that is a natural part of a system that’s trying to warn itself, for example?
[Dr Gianluca Grimalda]
Yeah, I mean, of course, it’s despicable that activists take five years for this, of course, disruptive, but completely non-violent and with a clearly, I would say, moral intention, and I mean, just to give a reference point, five years is what one citizen of Uzbekistan would take by criticising the president of Uzbekistan. So, I mean, at that point, our democracies are really turning into a kind of a dictatorship in terms of power of expression, freedom of expression. So, I would say, of course, it’s complicated and also we don’t have to forget that we are speaking with the different publics, so according to the Yale Centre for Climate Communication, there are at least six publics, and so ideally, we would like to have one different type of action for each of the six publics, that is, of course, very difficult.
So, I think many people would say that after we have seen this clampdown on activists, we should become even more radical, and some people, I mean, even before this clampdown, were suggesting eco-sabotage. I think there is a big problem with the eco-sabotage, which is that you cannot communicate, because almost by necessity, you would have to do things in a clandestine way, so you couldn’t put your face behind the action. I think that would be very bad in terms of the ability to communicate.
You know, at the basis of civil disobedience, there is really communication. There is the fact that, yeah, you accept to go to jail because you really wanted to make the point that the law is wrong, and you wanted to reform the law in a democratic way from within. And so, these communication aspects would be missing from eco-sabotage, and so I think it is, I mean, I cannot say it’s the wrong tactic, but in my view, it’s something that I wouldn’t do precisely because I think it would be very easy by the industry to manipulate eco-sabotage, to say, okay, we have eco-terrorists, we have to strengthen the law, we have to restrict even further freedom of protest. So I think, personally, it’s a party that I wouldn’t pursue. Personally, I think at this point, maybe paradoxically, but we should practise less radical tactics.
So that’s why I was thinking of a strike. A strike could have an element of civil disobedience when, in particular, the institution does not accept the strike. So I would still invite people, as we also did with the scientist rebellion, so I would still invite academics to go on strike, even if there isn’t, you know, even if the strike has not been legally and formally accepted.
So then, of course, it would be down to the individual. But I think this type of tactic would be more understandable by the people rather than throwing soup on a painting that, personally, it’s something that I wouldn’t do because I think that something can always go wrong. So I wouldn’t really, I mean, if by chance something goes wrong and we damage irreparably a Van Gogh painting, I think then the label of ecoterrorism would be with us for eternity.
So that’s why, personally, I didn’t do that. So I think we need less disruptive tactics that enable us to talk about the subject rather than talk about the value of a Van Gogh painting. And, of course, this means that we need to be many more people involved because, of course, that is what is called in the literature the activist dilemma.
So if you do something that is not disruptive, nobody takes care. You know, in my experience, the first thing that a journalist asks when you are into action is how many people have got arrested. So in a way, journalists want blood, they want to have something to report.
So if you do something that is not disruptive, chances are high nobody’s talking about it. But if you do something that is too disruptive, then people think that you are a better person. And so, yeah, as you mentioned, there is a radical flank effect.
So you tend to increase the support for more moderate movement. But I’m not sure that overall, yeah, probably overall there is an increasing support, but really, really marginal. So that’s why for my future as an activist, I think that we need to be less radical in terms of tactics, but really work on numbers, try to expand the movement, in my case, of a scientist being active.
And in that way, I think with a larger participation, we could still enter the news, but with a clear message to the people.
[Nick Breeze – ClimateGenn]
Do you think, in a way, whether you like it or not, there’s almost a risk curve, and you choose to be at this level on the risk curve, which for many might be quite high. And for the radical flank that you’re talking about, no, actually, we can go much further out than this, regardless of whatever research says. And in terms of these recruiting events, there’s a march in Valencia today against the authorities for the way they didn’t warn people despite having the knowledge.
In a way, you could see that that becomes an engaging event where people say, no, I’m going to do something. And then they choose where they are going to sit on this risk curve. And in a way, again, it becomes the system, like a tipping point from nature that brings more people in, in a way.
[Dr Gianluca Grimalda]
Yeah, it’s really down to the individual. And I know that some individuals are not comfortable with chaining themselves in front of an airport. And as a social psychologist, I know that the best thing for people not to act is to tell them what they should do.
So it must come from inside. I mean, in my personal case, it’s really I got into civil disobedience gradually. And in the end, it was the natural thing for me to do, but it has taken time.
And so I think the only thing that I can do personally is to go on with my personal action, hoping that this maybe inspires more scientists to join in what I think is the right thing to do. And then I may be wrong, I don’t know, but I think it’s fair to try. And let me also add that in order not to send pessimistic messages, I think, I mean, it’s crucial to me.
I mean, of course, politicians are not acting in the way we would like to do. But I think it’s also I mean, I believe in what Max Weber said in the last century. So in the end, the politicians want to be elected.
And I think we have to be fair. If the politicians enacted a climate programme that would be coherent with the keeping us behind 1.5, they would get 0.5% of the votes. I think, I mean, maybe I’m wrong, but the people are not ready.
I think we have to face it. So I think that my theory of change is still that we need to engage, we need to talk with the people. I think we have gone to the point that most people in the world, as I was saying before, most people in the world that are aware of that the temperatures are rising, but they still don’t understand very well what is needed and what are the causes.
And so I think that is where I would go. And I think as people will realise that the situation is getting worse, first of all, and the real causes, then there will be a shift in demand by the general public in the direction of, let’s say, climate sustainability. I don’t like the term sustainability personally, but just to make myself understood.
And so we have to be ready for that moment in which the people click. Of course, I may be wrong. Maybe people will be so bamboozled by fake news and social media, and they will prefer to stay in a denial situation, and maybe they will not click.
But I think at least a large portion of the population will click. And so we have to be ready for that moment, and we have to insist and get on and speak with the general public as much as possible and also in different ways. But I think our task is not ready.
[Nick Breeze – ClimateGenn]
Do you think that’s been largely the failing point so far is the articulation? I mean, science research gets published in paywall journals quite a lot less so maybe now, but previously. And how that filters down through journalists or whatever into the public mind has been very tricky.
[Dr Gianluca Grimalda]
Yes, of course. I mean, I’m not so naive not to suspect that there are clearly vested interests by the industry, by the fossil fuel industry, that in a way silence the media or spread fake news. And I mean, we all know the massive amount of lobbying by companies like Exxon, Shell to silence the climate reality.
But yeah, of course, there are also media that are already vocal in that sense. And I think in the end, I mean, even the most conservative and the most corrupt media will not be able to deny that. I mean, in Valencia, they had hundreds of people dying because of a major and criminal failure of climate adaptation.
And so it will be evident to the people that really things are turning very, very bad.
[Nick Breeze – ClimateGenn]
Okay. And in terms of this idea of a social tipping point, the idea that we can bend the curve and preserve as much as we can, how do you feel about that? Are you possessing positivity in that?
[Dr Gianluca Grimalda]
Yes, I mean, I think that is something that is always in the back of my mind. And so, I mean, many people say among activists, okay, this tactic has not worked, that we should change tactics. And sometimes I think, no, we should be persistent with the tactic if we believe that the tactic is right.
So we cannot expect that things change in a few months. Although, of course, we are desperate for hoping that that would happen. But yeah, I think sometimes we just have to be persistent and get on with our business and keep on knocking at the door.
And in the end, it will be the last straw that breaks the camel’s back. And we don’t know which the last straw has been. But yeah, we need to get on with the work.
And I mean, we know, again, there is empirical evidence that shows that even this individual action that does not seem to really make any major social change. But we know that they shifted public opinion, maybe just by a little bit. And that has been shown for Germany, it has been shown for the UK.
And so, yes, I think we just needed to be persistent, to be stubborn and to get on with the business we are doing.
[Nick Breeze – ClimateGenn]
Okay, well, it’s a great place to finish. Thank you very much.
[Dr Gianluca Grimalda]
Pleasure.