Listen to the scientists

Listen to the scientists

The Danish government sells itself as being a “climate government” while at the same time expanding fossil infrastructure: creating new gas pipelines, continuing extraction of oil in the North Sea for the next 20 years, and advancing a massive highway expansion project throughout the country. They have also defunded their own Climate Council, demonstrating they have little interest in fulfilling their obligations under the 2020 Climate Law, let alone taking meaningful climate action. Thus, they are lying to the Danish public. Despite decades of scientific warnings, we remain on track for an unlivable world. In this campaign, we demand honesty about the Danish government’s failure to protect us from the worst consequences of climate breakdown, and take emergency action on climate.

On October 25th, 2021, scientists rose up to say we had had enough. We held a “Teach-In” at the Danish Climate Ministry: a roster of 10 professors and lecturers from universities across Denmark and Southern Sweden met in front of the ministry. They delivered lectures on the climate and ecological crisis, and the failure of the Danish government to address it. Meanwhile, an audience of students and members of the public was on the street, blocking traffic while listening to the talks. In the words of one of the journalists who covered the event “the street became a classroom; the bike lane became a black board”.

The climate minister’s response was to say he’d be open to listen to solutions by scientists. The solutions to the crisis have been there for the last 30 years, but politicians (including the climate minister) have refused to listen. So on April 6th 2022, we returned to the ministry holding scientific manuscripts on the need for immediate decarbonization of our society, while reading the IPCC report and again blocking the road. Many of us were detained and arrested by the danish police, showing the government is more interested in criminalizing protestors than actually listening to the science.

In 2022, we joined efforts with other climate movements, including Extinction Rebellion and the Green Youth Movement at Vendepunktet - the “Turning Point” / “Vendepunktet”. We demanded the government follow the recommendations of the non-binding Citizen’s Assembly on Climate Change and take urgent climate measures, including a massive carbon tax on the most polluting industries in Denmark.

The Danish media is also complicit in plunging us deeper into disaster. There is little to no coverage on the factors driving climate and ecological breakdown in most major danish newspaper and TV channels. For this reason, we also joined the global “Statue Sunday” campaign, blindfolding landmark statues in Copenhagen, Aarhus and Odense each Sunday morning, to show how the public is kept largely blind about the crisis and its root cause: fossil capitalism.

Selected media coverage