Dr Abi Perrin, who
was one of theadvised the presenters at November’s National Emergency Briefing kindly did an email interview. Her website is here. This post is especially worth your time. She is on Bluesky as @abiperrin.bsky.social.
1. Who are you? (where did you grow up, what contact did you have with ‘nature’ – how much unstructured play in natural settings – I ask because this is a common thread among adults who have become “campaigners”) and what was the path to becoming a scientist working on malaria?
I grew up near Manchester, without much connection to the natural world. I liked maths and science and did an undergraduate degree that covered lots of different disciplines. Having previously sworn that biology was ‘boring’, it was there I became really fascinated by microbial life. I saw a research career in infectious disease as a way to pursue that interest whilst also doing something useful, something that I thought had potential to improve people’s lives. So I followed a pretty traditional academic path and ended up working on malaria parasite biology for about a decade.
2. When and how did you first hear about carbon dioxide build-up as a “problem”, and if you remember your initial thoughts?
It still shocks me that I didn’t learn specifically about climate change at any point in my formal education. When I graduated from a Natural Sciences degree in 2010 I wouldn’t have been able to describe the greenhouse effect, a phenomenon that scientists had been trying to raise the alarm about since well before I was born. Climate change was mentioned in passing around me at work and in wider society but there didn’t seem to be much urgency or fear about it. I’d genuinely believed that world leaders were dealing with it. But that changed in October 2018, when IPPC’s Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5℃ completely dispelled the myth that it was all under control, caused a flurry of press attention, and started to activate a much broader range of people.
3. You mention a presentation by Hugh Montgomery in 2018 as pivotal. What was it he did and presented (was this the IPCC 1.5 degrees report)?
The way Hugh laid out the IPPC’s report felt absolutely brutal at the time, but all he did was summarise what was in that report and make abundantly clear what it all meant for people, including for us in that room. It’s rare to see scientists or most other professionals speak like this, with clarity and unequivocal urgency. To me this was as disruptive as the information he actually presented.
4. Do activists expect too much of scientists still working within academia? Do scientists working within academia expect too little of themselves?
It’s far from unreasonable to expect scientists and the academic community to act in line with their own knowledge and warnings, and I think it’s fair to say that (like most other parts of society) academia isn’t responding robustly to a world that’s literally and metaphorically on fire. I think my own frustration lies in the missed potential for academia to be part of really catalysing and facilitating a society-wide response. From the inside I know how futile it can feel to push against the inertia and how risky it can be to stick your head above the parapet in such a competitive, precarious working environment… but I also know that the stakes are too high for us not to try. My message to scientists is that we have more power than we often realise, and that there are many different ways to use it effectively – especially when we work together.
5. Best case scenario – what changes does the National Emergency Briefing make by the end of 2026? What needs to have gone right – and what do “we” (define as you wish) need to have done differently to make that best case come to life?
It’s an enticing thought that amongst the Briefing’s audience there could have been hundreds if not thousands of people who had a similarly life-altering experience to my own in 2018, and those now-activated people will share what they’ve learned and activate others, leading to vital social tipping points and cultural shifts. From often-bitter experience, I know it’s not that simple. I do think it’s realistic to believe that NEB and the ongoing work that stems from it can contribute to rejuvenating and focusing the climate movement and may already have broadened the range of people who participate. However, the ‘knowledge component’ that the NEB attempts to address is just one of a combination of factors needed to empower action: we need to make sure courage, community, and practical skills are cultivated in parallel.
6. How can people get involved in NEB?The focus for now is to get the information shared in the Briefing to as many people as possible. This involves building pressure on politicians and broadcasters to engage with its content and fulfil their obligations to inform themselves, their colleagues and the wider public, for instance via a televised National Emergency Briefing. A short film based on the briefing is currently in production, with plans for community screenings around the country this Spring. For more information and to get involved see https://www.nebriefing.org/take-action.