Carl Sagan once said: “We’ve arranged a global civilisation in which most crucial elements ... profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.”

And it has blown up. Our planet is in crisis, yet decades of scientific warnings have been ignored. Powerful interests like those of the fossil fuel industry and industrial agriculture have distorted truths and silenced voices, while governments remain slow to act, allowing the decline of Earth’s habitability to accelerate.

Yet in Scientists on Survival: Personal Stories of Climate Action, a moving collection of essays, Chris Packham finds hope and energy to carry on the fight. Together these stories speak of a profound love for our planet.

In each section, the scientists share their personal stories from a starting point of despair, but what emerges is a powerful blend of love, rage and fellowship – essential forces to confront denial, injustice, disinformation, repression, apathy and, at times, the hesitation of some within the scientific community itself to speak out unequivocally.

It’s not only the science that needs emphasis, but also the underlying forces driving environmental collapse: consumerism and the relentless pursuit of ‘growth’, which will lead us to breakdown just as assuredly as bacteria in a petri dish die once their environment can no longer sustain them.

In her essay, science communicator Viola Ross Smith avows: “I need to keep on hoping… So, I can look into my son’s beautiful brown eyes as the realisation of what’s at stake continues to dawn on him, and tell him honestly: ‘I did my best. I tried.’”

So, to end with a more hopeful perspective than the one offered by Sagan, Karl Popper offers a counterpoint: “As a matter of historical fact, the history of science is, by and large, a history of progress.”

As this book powerfully demonstrates, even amidst the dread, there is hope in transformation.

Scientists on Survival: Personal Stories of Climate Action by Scientists for XR. Michael O’Mara Books Ltd, 2025. ISBN: 9781789297324

This is an edited extract from the full review published on The Ecologist.

Tom Hardy has over 40 years of experience in education, serving as literary editor for the International Journal of Art and Design Education, a columnist for the Times Educational Supplement, and author/editor of several academic works on educational practice. He has worked as an education consultant for the Prince’s Teaching Institute and subject lead for the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency reporting to the Department for Education. Since 2018, he has been part of Extinction Rebellion’s media and messaging team.