Rapid Response Action Team: RRAT - Scientist Rebellion Turtle Island

About our Rapid Response Action Team

Scientist Rebellion Turtle Island launched RRAT, the Rapid Response Action Team, to fight media silence and make the connections between catastrophe, climate and cause when bad things happen. We are creating a library of videos, press releases, facts and talking points we can use in this struggle for truth.

Sadly, scientists have been saying for a while that we can expect more disasters as climate change intensifies. Now the consequences of climate disruption are emerging all around us:

It seems like every day there is a new, extreme, and unnatural disaster barreling into people’s lives. Yet the media and those in power avoid linking these events to climate change and the burning of fossil fuels. That needs to stop now!

RRAT was created to fight the silence and the mis & disinformation that divert attention from the truth: this is climate change!

Rapid Response Action Team:
A CALL TO ACTION

We call on all SRTI rebels — especially those with knowledge and experience in the climactic, social and economic drivers of these catastrophes: we need your help in building this repository of information and media assets. It’s critical that we have pre-prepared material so we can respond immediately, as and when these events happen. Later is too late in the news cycle controlled by big money algorithms.

This button will take you to a page with more info, and a secure survey to let us know the ways you want to be involved.

Rapid Response Action Team Survey

What RRATs Can Accomplish

Rapid Response actions can include video, photo and written assets that the SRTI Communications and Media Team can use to bring attention to the particular crisis. These can

offer meaningful responses (evacuation or health warnings for example)
point a finger at those responsible for the situation (broadly – fossil fuel & extractive industries, government policies)
promote our work as activists (calls for protests and direct action at villains).

Our calls to action could include asking that people sign the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty to make the threat to life on Earth, and one of its most critical solutions, absolutely clear.

These RRAT actions can be serious or amusing, theatrical or documentarian, scientific or emotional, visual or written – you can absolutely be creative!

Picture yourself as a RRAT…

You are preparing these materials in advance of events. We all know from experience what the fires, floods, storms and droughts look like and how they impact us and our planet. Write your content in the present tense as the materials will be used in the first hours/days of the cataclysm. Our Comms team will use the material for press releases to mainstream media and also widely on social media and our newsletter, emails and website.

Roles you could take might include:

Expert (media or press interview, quotes for press releases)
“Lightning action” team member (spokesperson, planning, art builds, media outreach, and/or deploying for actions)
Videographer/documentarian
Writer (press releases, talking points, scripts)

The power of RRAT storytelling

Narrative: tell us the story (What happened? Who is affected? Who has/needs ot respond? Who is responsible? What can people do to help? What is the cause? What is the science?)

Here’s a simple outline to help you get started:

The problem – just a few sentences summarizing the problem your action is responding to.
The villain – who is the primary responsible party for the crisis you’re responding to?
The solution – (big picture! #EndFossilFuels!, #TheScienceIsClear, #ClimateJusticeNow! Etc…)

Please provide references for any factual information you include in your narrative (the whole point is that we are scientists, so academic credibility matters). For videos please use portrait format, and don’t worry about editing if you’re not a pro; we can do that for you.

For fires we could look at causes like drought, deforestation, water scarcity, or the air pollution and health impacts of the smoke. Post fires, the biggest danger is rain and the mud and landslides that are triggered on denuded ground.
For floods we could point to changes in rainfall, weather whiplash, poor infrastructure planning, and the difficulty of remediation. Flood prone areas are also expanding not decreasing, not all will be able to adapt or mitigate.
In coastal areas we have sea-level rise and massive storms wiping out whole communities, talking points include rises in water temperature, melting ice and glaciers.
With drought we can look at water scarcity caused by agriculture or the profligate use of water for lawns, swimming pools and massive data centers in arid regions like the south-west USA.
For heat waves, we can look at the death tolls and disproportionate impact on the poor and elderly.
Non-humans are also massively impacted and the impact on animals, plants, birds and fish often go unmentioned. They need us to be their voice too.

A hypothetical RRAT example

A powerful hurricane is predicted to produce a huge storm surge somewhere. We have science experts on, say, hydrology, marine biology and epidemiology, all ready to talk to the press.

We have a plan for easy-to-stage actions, a script for videos, a template press release, and a media contact list ready to go. We’re prepared to get these out in real time, while there’s abundant coverage of the crisis, so we surf the media wave.

Hurricane, Typhoon, Cyclone - Eye of the Storm Image from Outer Space
Photo via Pixabay

An Early RRAT Response: Los Angeles Fires, January 2025

In two weeks, SRTI members made awesome responses with significant impact. Our social media posts went viral, with well over 100K views between them. We pulled these responses together quickly, to respond in real time. For future (sadly predictable) events, we’d love to have more prepared content ready-to-go, so we need only add in the details of the specific climate-crisis amplified disaster.

We also saw how differently the media responded to the LA fires than they did to the back-to-back hurricanes in October. While the storms affected many thousands more people, the misinformation negating climate impact was huge. With the LA fires we see, perhaps truly for the first time, the media connecting with scientists and making the climate link to the massive, ongoing damage. SR member Peter Kalmus wrote RRAT pieces for the NY Times and The Guardian. He was widely interviewed by both progressive outlets like Democracy Now! and traditional ones like CBS news.

RRAT on the blog

Our most recent blog posts by and/or about our RRAT

Federal Grant and Loan Freeze Puts Science in Jeopardy
On Monday, January 27, the acting Director of the US Office of Management and Budget tried to put a freeze on grants and loans that many researchers rely upon. The new federal administration in the US is apparently attempting to suppress the ability of scientists to speak the truth.
The Impacts of Agriculture on Water Policy in California
A tiny fish, the Delta smelt, became a misunderstood symbol of California water policy. A California-based scientist who studied the impacts of dairy farming on water and air quality explains why the smelt is significant for understanding water quality in the Delta, and a major driver of California water shortages: Big Ag.
Rapid Response Action Team Activates
RRAT, the Rapid Response Action Team, was created to fight the silence and make the connections between catastrophe, climate and cause when bad things happen. RRAT is creating a library of videos, press releases, facts and talking points we can use in this fight for truth. We have decades of science predicting these climate-change-intensified disasters to back us up.
Calling on Leaders to Speak Up about Climate Catastrophes
On January 6th, we sent our petition to President Biden, calling on him to declare a climate emergency before he leaves office. One day later, the climate emergency came to the people of Los Angeles county, in the form of unprecedented wildfires. We again call on President Biden and the Democratic party to make a very clear and public statement connecting the ways climate change has made catastrophes like this more intense and more frequent.
Scientist Rebellion Creating Rapid Response Action Team
You can help us build a Rapid Response Action Team to speak with expertise about climate-related crisis situations when they arise. The idea is to have people with scientific expertise, event specific talking points, pre-planned actions and video clips ready-to-go when a climate disaster or climate-related event occurs.