Anaïs Tilquin
Researcher turned professional troublemaker
Anaïs Tilquin is a researcher turned professional troublemaker. She went from theoretical evolutionary biologist to applied restoration ecologist to full-time organiser of a climate civil resistance campaign. She’s been arrested 10 times in Switzerland, where she lives.
Meaningful climate activism in academia and beyond
"What is the most important thing you could be working on in the world right now? ... And if you're not working on that, why aren't you?" - Aaron Swartz
We live in a time of accelerating climate breakdown. The science is clear on the why. It’s also clear on a lot of what we, as societies, ought to be doing to stop it. But what I, personally, ought to be doing to make this change happen... is less clear. And as what ? As a scientist, a consumer, a citizen, a foreigner, an aunt, as an individual, as part of a collective…? I don’t have all the answers – I can only tell you where this question led me (spoiler: glued to a Swiss motorway alongside an IPCC author), and what I learnt along the way.
My talk will feature some Organising 101, the basic things that I wish someone had told me when I got started with activism. For when done right, specific kinds of trouble making tend to have remarkably predictable effects – and this, to quote a rebellious colleague, "warms my little researcher’s heart".
We live in a time of accelerating climate breakdown. The science is clear on the why. It’s also clear on a lot of what we, as societies, ought to be doing to stop it. But what I, personally, ought to be doing to make this change happen... is less clear. And as what ? As a scientist, a consumer, a citizen, a foreigner, an aunt, as an individual, as part of a collective…? I don’t have all the answers – I can only tell you where this question led me (spoiler: glued to a Swiss motorway alongside an IPCC author), and what I learnt along the way.
My talk will feature some Organising 101, the basic things that I wish someone had told me when I got started with activism. For when done right, specific kinds of trouble making tend to have remarkably predictable effects – and this, to quote a rebellious colleague, "warms my little researcher’s heart".