Much of what is said by Bill McGuire and Roger Hallam is true (Scientists prize neutrality – that doesn’t cut it any more. In 2025, they must fully back the climate movement, 9 January). Scientists do need to consider how they use their position to inform the public and influence the public policy response to climate change. Many of us already are, through working with the government and, where necessary, supporting litigation against polluters and political intransigence.
However, we cannot abandon the principles of a rigorous evidence-based approach; without that our voices are worth nothing. The main reason scientists do not more actively support the climate activist movement is that the leaders of that movement have a track record of saying misleading and false things around climate science: to be associated with them is to lose credibility.
