Caption: excl: Extinction Rebellion spokesperson criticised by climate scientists after telling kids they may not get to grow up

An Extinction Rebellion spokesperson has been criticised by scientists after telling an audience of schoolchildren they may not get to grow up due to climate change.

Rupert Read, who has represented the green activists on Radio 4 and BBC’s Question Time, gave a talk at the Schools Climate Conference at University College London (UCL) in July.

Evoking the climate protest group’s ‘disruption’ by climbing onto a table, he told a 200-strong audience including children as young as nine: ‘This is about whether you have a future.’

‘People probably sometimes ask you, what are you going to be when you grow up? But we’ve reached a point in human history where the question also has to be asked: what are you going to do if you grow up?’




‘I’m really really sorry to have to say this to you, it doesn’t feel good, but this is the truth, and I think it’s too late for anything but the truth.’

The comments sparked criticism after Dr Tamsin Edwards, a climate modelling specialist and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) author reposted a recording of the talk on Twitter.

Rupert Read has represented the protesters on national radio and television (Picture: George Cracknell Wright)

Dr Edwards wrote: ‘Rupert, I am shocked at this talk. Please stop telling children they may not grow up due to climate change.

‘It is WRONG and deflects from the fact it is poor people who are at risk due to inequality exacerbated by shifts in weather.’

‘With these kind of statements you undo all the hard work of the scientists and pro-science XR people who I know are trying to keep to the (complex) evidence base, and be clear when they are citing outlier or extreme predictions.’

Dr Edwards, who frequently advises the government on climate issues, claimed not to be against XR and wanted to help them cite scientific evidence accurately.

A number of climate scientists supported her tweets, including Dr Kate Marvel of the Columbia University and the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York and Mark Maslin, a climatology professor at UCL.

Dr Tamsin Edwards regularly advises the government on climate science and climate communication (Picture: @flimsin)

Dr Maslin told Metro.co.uk: ‘I do not feel it is appropriate to try and burden young people with a personal apocalyptic vision of the future, which is not supported by climate change research.

‘The science is clear: climate change is scary and could cause a huge amount of disruption to life around the world – it does not need to be embellished or enhanced just to strike terror into the hearts of those young people who will inherit our mess.’

Mr Read, a philosophy professor at the University of East Anglia, defended the recording on Twitter, telling Dr Edwards: ‘It is not wrong. You are fab, but you have no expertise that can to show that it is wrong.

‘There is a serious risk of societal collapse within a generation. ‘Societal collapse’ means that MANY would die.

‘If we continue to shy away from these hard truths, we only [make them more likely].’

Boris Johnson’s father Stanley, Siobhan Benita, Skeena Rathor and Rupert Read address Extinction Rebellion suppoters at Trafalgar Square earlier this month (Picture: Nick Wright/REX)

Some academics went to Mr Read’s defence, including Caroline Hickman, a climate psychology researcher, who wrote: ‘We need to listen to what children are actually saying they feel. We are not frightening them.



‘They are afraid when they look at the evidence. They are even more afraid when adults fail to face their own fears and claim to be protecting children.’

Green activist Holly Gillibrand, 14, wrote: ‘The climate & ecological crisis scares me but I would rather know the truth than be told lies by adults to give me a false sense of security. Please do not think that children can’t handle the truth even if it’s not nice and rosy.’

Speaking to Metro.co.uk, Mr Read argued his claims had been misunderstood. ‘We can no longer rule out that our society will collapse within a generation. That is the truth that I was referring to.’

‘Society’s first responsibility is to protect its children. We have failed in that responsibility. We are no longer able to promise our children that they are definitely going to have a future: that they are certain to have careers, let alone pensions.’

‘They will only do so if we take responsibility as a society, fast, and actually start to protect them: by moving swiftly now, in the kind of way that Extinction Rebellion is urging, to transform our society.’

An associate professor at UEA, Mr Read has spoken at academic conferences on climate (Picture: Rex Features)

Henry Greenwood, founder of the Green Schools Project which organised the Climate Schools Conference, said: ‘The comments need to be put in the context of the whole day – one sentence is not representative of [Rupert’s] whole talk’

‘I was conscious that his talk would tread close to the line but I had faith he would do that appropriately – I think on the whole he did. The feedback we got at the end of the day was overwhelmingly positive.’


‘Green Schools Project does not go to schools encouraging them to join Extinction Rebellion.

‘The message we want to give young people is overwhelmingly an empowering one – you’re having an impact and have the power to change things.’