Flashmob climate choir at Science Museum demands an end to toxic fossil fuel sponsorship NOW

October 7, 2023

Climate choir demand a fossil fuel-free Science Museum

A 100-strong climate choir staged a surprise protest inside the London Science Museum today (7 October) demanding trustees refuse toxic sponsorship money from the giant coal and gas producer Adani for the new Energy Revolution Climate Change Gallery.

The 100 singers, from nine Climate Choirs, came together in a stunning choral protest inside the Science Museum, their voices ringing out with the words “The Climate’s Changing.”

Huge banners were dropped from the Energy Hall balcony, unfurling to read “Science Museum, Stop ignoring Science”. 

The protest comes prior to a meeting of Science Museum Trustees later in the week, which will provide the opportunity for the sponsorship deals to be cancelled before the new gallery opens.

Co-founder of the Climate Choir Movement, Jo Flanagan said: “We are here to peacefully use our voices to challenge the Science Museum who are one of the last of our public institutions to accept fossil fuel money. 

“It gives their sponsors an unwarranted respectability and privileged access to their networks while sending the message that these fossil fuel companies are doing the right thing when quite clearly they are not. 

“When tobacco sponsorship became toxic the laws started to change.  We now need that shift with fossil fuel companies”. 

Burning oil, gas and coal causes climate breakdown. Coal is the dirtiest of all the fossil fuels and Adani has the largest coal expansion plans of any fossil fuel company in the world. 

Dr. David L. Clements, Reader in Astrophysics, Imperial College, London, added: “If the Science Museum is going to properly present the effects of fossil fuels and fossil fuel companies on the climate, it has to be able to speak truth to power.

“It’s willing acceptance of gagging clauses and greenwashing by Adani show it is more interested in sponsorship money than actually telling the scientific truth.”

Dr Sophie Renner, Lecturer in physics, University of Glasgow said: “Why is the Science Museum not presenting exhibitions about the role of fossil fuels in the destruction of our planet? Instead it is inviting fossil fuel companies to present themselves in a favourable light to children and families.

“The management of the Science Museum is complicit in delaying action to cut our emissions to a pace required by the science.”

The Science Museum enables its sponsors, which, in addition to Adani, include BP, which is rowing back on renewables and Equinor, which owns the controversial Rosebank field in the North Sea, to greenwash their continued investments in oil, gas and coal. 

Adani has been accused of violating the human rights of indigenous people, contaminating crops, and was called out for corruption and fraud after publication of the Hindenburg report.

 And, in taking this dirty money from Adani, Science Museum trustees have themselves become complicit in their murderous greenwash.

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