Why is it important to deconstruct ‘Deep Adaptation’ now, in the midst of a global pandemic? In short, the fatal verdict handed down by '‘Deep Adaptation’' brings with it a bundle of personal and strategic implications with the potential to cripple us as a movement. In all of these regards, ‘Deep Adaptation’ mimics the practices that deniers of global warming have wielded for decades. Bendell defends himself by offering unsupported reasons for activists and the public to distrust mainstream climate science. In fact, ‘Deep Adaptation’ consistently cherry-picks data, cites false experts, puts forward logical fallacies, and disregards robust scientific consensus. It is therefore past time to show that ‘Deep Adaptation’ is wrong - not least because Bendell’s brand of doomism relies heavily on misinterpreted climate science that undermines the credibility of his claims. People have changed their life plans based in large part on this paper’s predictions. Hundreds of thousands of people have downloaded ‘Deep Adaptation’ and the paper has significantly impacted the ideology and strategy of climate movement organizations like Extinction Rebellion. The most influential example of such climate doomism is undoubtedly Professor Jem Bendell’s ‘Deep Adaptation’, a self-published 2018 paper which holds that accelerating climate change has guaranteed social collapse within the next few decades. In the past few years we have seen a troubling trend: a few figures in the climate movement using science - or what looks like science - to justify increasingly dire and prophetic, but ultimately unsupported, claims about the future. Such clarity is especially important now.

As scientists ourselves, we support our movement’s goal of halting greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity loss rapidly and equitably, but we also know that doing so successfully requires clarity about what science can and cannot tell us. Arrested Extinction Rebellion activists received support during their trials from high-profile scientists acting as expert witnesses. The need for peaceful civil disobedience has been explicitly supported by over a thousand scientists.

Many scientists support Extinction Rebellion or are active members, lending some immediate authority to our message of climate and ecological emergency.

As members of the science community, we have also found comfort in a movement dedicated to telling a truth that has for decades been obscured by corporate public relations campaigns and misinformation.

As members of Extinction Rebellion and other climate movements, we have been overjoyed at the success of our movement in ringing the alarm about climate and ecological breakdown, and in applying pressure to the UK government, as well as other governments worldwide.

Deep Adaptation by Jem Bendell