Science has much to offer social movements in the face of planetary emergencies

To the Editor — Ecologists Gardner and Wordley1 recently argued that in the face of “interconnected planetary emergencies threatening our climate and ecosystems,” information on the severity and urgency of the problem is insufficient to promote the necessary social and political change. Thus, “scientists should join civil disobedience movements to fight these unprecedented crises”. That the realization that facts alone may be insufficient is only now making headlines in the context of climate change is not the fault of the authors, but rather symptomatic of a long-standing disconnect between the natural and social sciences. While we support their ambitions, we argue that Gardner and Wordley neglect one of the most important, powerful and unique avenues for scientists to contribute to social movements — that is, with our arduously accumulated knowledge about processes of social and political change