Tearful NASA Scientist Speaks on Climate Crisis in Los Angeles Protest

Climate scientists are making desperate moves to find something that may actually make an impact and "moves the needle", amidst the current climate crisis which calls for serious urgency.

In a viral footage last week, a group of NASA scientists chained themselves to a JPMorgan Chase building in Los Angeles in an active climate protest, demanding the government and warning people around the world of how we are heading towards a global catastrophe. JPMorgan Chase is an investment banking company that has invested and contributed more money towards fossil fuel industries than any other bank, according to Forbes.

"We've been trying to warn you guys for so many decades that we're heading towards a f*cking catastrophe, and we've been being ignored," said Peter Kalmus, a biological systems and climate change scientist at NASA who was among the group of scientists arrested last week for the activism.

"We're going to lose everything," the NASA scientist said. "And we're not joking, we're not lying, we're not exaggerating."

"I'm willing to take a risk for this gorgeous planet, for my sons."

Making the Message "Out into the Mainstream"

In a phone interview, Dr. Kalmus, who is an author and has more than 220,000 followers on Twitter, spoke to The Independent on his own behalf and not as a NASA employee to make the message of climate urgency "out into the mainstream". For him, civil disobedience is the only efficient medium to emphasize the seriousness of his convictions, he said, "like a home catching fire while a family is eating breakfast."

The scientist, among others around the world, wants the public to know where we actually stand in terms of climate emergency caused primarily by burning fossil fuels, and asks leaders to actually act on it than claiming to listen.

"Every day that we continue to expand the fossil fuel industry and add more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is going to lock in additional levels of heating in the future," he says.

"And that means additional levels of death and suffering. So that's what the stakes are."

Paradigm Shift for Scientists

For so many decades, scientists have been warning us of the consequences of burning fossil fuels, but when the time came for them to resort to dramatic civil disobedience, they get arrested. Along with scientists who got arrested for demanding climate action were physicist, an engineer and, a science teacher, Huffpost reported.

According to soil scientist Rose Abramoff, who was also arrested last week after chaining herself to a White House fence alongside other protesters, the "paradigm is starting to shift for scientists". While she had previously taken pains to "remain unbiased", she said that concerns regarding the habitability of life on this planet "is not and should not be a political issue."

An estimate of around 1,000 scientists organized the LA protest as part of their wave of action. The movement engages in civil disobedience to highlight the climate crisis mainly due to global greenhouse gas emissions, making them feel hopeful.

Both scientists and nonscientists from 25 countries actively took part in the protests "to try and get the attention that we need to wake the public up," a statement from an ecologist.