ReviewBrain and neuroscience advances
Climate crisis and ecological emergency: Why they concern (neuro)scientists, and what we can do.
Review in Brain and neuroscience advances. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed.
- Article
- Neurosustainability: A Scoping Review on the Neuro-Cognitive Bases of Sustainable Decision-Making.Brain sciences · 2025Review
- Addressing environmental harms in the health sector: environmentality as a lens to expose (neglected) sites of knowledge/power.Humanities & social sciences communications · 2025Article
- Scientist engagement and the knowledge-action gap.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Review
- Comparing the carbon footprint of fMRI data processing and analysis approaches.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2025Article
- Measuring and reducing the carbon footprint of fMRI preprocessing in fMRIPrep.Human brain mapping · 2024Article
- The relevance of sustainable laboratory practices.RSC sustainability · 2024Review
- Operational greenhouse-gas emissions of deep learning in digital pathology: a modelling study.The Lancet. Digital health · 2024Article
- UK health researchers' considerations of the environmental impacts of their data-intensive practices and its relevance to health inequities.BMC medical ethics · 2023Article
- Green Labs: a guide to developing sustainable science in your organization.Immunology and cell biology · 2023Article
- Rethinking academia in a time of climate crisis.eLife · 2023Article
- Article
- The environmental impact of data-driven precision medicine initiatives.Cambridge prisms. Precision medicine · 2023Review
- Ten recommendations for reducing the carbon footprint of research computing in human neuroimaging.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2023Article
- Article
- Cognition in Climate Change: Is It Just a Matter of Time?Wiley interdisciplinary reviews. Cognitive scienceReview
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Our planet is experiencing severe and accelerating climate and ecological breakdown caused by human activity. As professional scientists, we are better placed than most to understand the data that evidence this fact. However, like most other people, we ignore this inconvenient truth and lead our daily lives, at home and at work, as if these facts weren't true. In particular, we overlook that our own neuroscientific research practices, from our laboratory experiments to our often global travel, help drive climate change and ecosystem damage. We also hold privileged positions of authority in our societies but rarely speak out. Here, we argue that to help society create a survivable future, we neuroscientists can and must play our part. In April 2021, we delivered a symposium at the British Neuroscience Association meeting outlining what we think neuroscientists can and should do to help stop climate breakdown. Building on our talks (Box 1), we here outline what the climate and ecological emergencies mean for us as neuroscientists. We highlight the psychological mechanisms that block us from taking action, and then outline what practical steps we can take to overcome these blocks and work towards sustainability. In particular, we review environmental issues in neuroscience research, scientific computing, and conferences. We also highlight the key advocacy roles we can all play in our institutions and in society more broadly. The need for sustainable change has never been more urgent, and we call on all (neuro)scientists to act with the utmost urgency.
Indexed as
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.