Organizing Reports
Volume 27, no. 1, Rethinking Science Communication
You can find previous organizing reports here. Contact secretary@sciencefothepeople.org to get involved!
Toronto
The SftP Toronto chapter coalesced at the Grassy Narrows River Run Rally, an event which took place on September 18, 2024. The rally was in support of the Asubpeeschoseewagong Anishanaabe First Nation and their fight against mercury poisoning of their water and environmental racism. Several active members of SftP from other chapters who relocated to Toronto met at the rally and worked to create this chapter, notably with the support of the Montréal and Ottawa chapters.
Meetings began in November 2024, but the name of the chapter was finalized in a vote on January 8, 2025 as Science for the People Toronto (SftP Toronto). The chapter membership at present covers the Greater Toronto/Hamilton area. Our chapter meets monthly. In addition to organizing planning and updates, we operate in a “film club” format, which functions as a place of critical discussion where members discuss documentaries covering various social issues related to science and technology.
We have already undertaken several activities, including postering for the Boycott Amazon campaign in collaboration with Amazon Worker Solidarity Canada; distribution of the SftP magazine to local booksellers and libraries; and recruitment for SftP Toronto.
We are currently recruiting new members using the submission form located on the SftP Canada website (sftp-canada.org) and through emails at sftp.canada@gmail.com. Looking forward to hearing from those of you in the area!
New Haven
At the time of writing this it has been roughly two years since the New Haven chapter was founded. We set out with the goal of developing a space for radical scientists to find each other, to study and grow political consciousness among scientists, and to put our theory and values into practice. Our first opportunity to do so was through a partnership with the Cargill Tenants Union (CTU) in Putnam, CT. These tenants were engaging in militant struggle against their landlord over unsafe living conditions, negligence, and retaliation. Most severe among these issues was the presence of extensive lead contamination that had caused the poisoning of a child. One of our members who was familiar with this fight suggested that we offer to work with the union, and we formalized the project in the Fall of 2023 with the creation of the Lead and Mold Contamination Working group. We were able to help in the expected “scientific” ways like interpreting lead testing data and literature for the tenants, but also provided other practical aspects of support, including integrating the lead data with CTU’s existing organizing spreadsheets and creating agitational communication materials. Throughout, we developed our thinking on what it means to practice “radical science,” the political nature of data and scientific information, and how scientists can be politicized by engaging in struggles against capitalism that are occurring outside of the academy. A more extensive description of this project was published in SftP as an online article, “Practicing Science as Class Struggle,” in May of 2024. Many comrades shared that they read and appreciated the article, and tenant organizers in other states have since reached out to collaborate.
Over the last few months, our Political Education Working Group had developed and led a multi-part series on “The Social Production of Science.” The course was held in-person and online. During each module of the class, all attendees listened to a brief introduction situating the readings and the conversation for that week. Then, the online and in-person attendees separated and discussed the readings and questions selected for that week. This series intended to raise some of the most difficult questions facing the Radical Science Movement like: What is Science? How is it produced? How does it circulate? In what ways is its production and circulation embedded in capitalist social relations, and how does it produce these relations? In what ways can we agitate for a different society and different science? To ground our conversations, the prepared readings have ranged from towering figures in the Marxist tradition like Harry Braverman to forgotten Marxist mathematicians/historians like Dirk J. Struik to contemporary environmental geographers like Judith A. Carney.
The genocide in Gaza and the fight for the liberation of Palestine brought antimilitarism to the foreground of chapter organizing in 2024. We presented a teach-in at the “Books Not Bombs” encampment at Beinecke Plaza, which was built to demand Yale’s divestment from the war industry. Around that time, interest was growing in the many relationships between science and militarism, from Department of Defense funding of academic science to the recruitment of STEM students as workers for the war machine. The Antimilitarism Working Group was formed as an organizing hub for these issues. In Fall 2024, we partnered with SftP-Boston to coordinate a flyering and political education action in response to an engineering career fair that hosted many companies that work to support war and U.S. imperialism. In Spring of 2025, we helped to organize a teach-in on weapons manufacturing in Connecticut along with members of the CT Palestine solidarity coalition’s Power Down Pratt campaign. The event was well attended by a broad range of community members including scientists, parents, college students, high school students, and more. In particular, it was focused on local jet engine manufacturer Pratt and Whitney. We presented on the history of weapons manufacturing, the health and environmental impacts, the recruitment pipeline and workforce development, and state support for the industry. Participants engaged in robust discussions in small groups and reported back in a large facilitated conversation. The event was a great success and we hope to replicate it in other parts of the state. Lastly, our members played a large role in organizing a Science for the People cohort for the 2025 “Organizing for Power” (O4P) training. Along with other SftP members across the globe, we learned fundamentals of organizing within the O4P model, practiced organizing conversations, and also provided a space for critical conversations about the strengths and limitations of popular organizing frameworks.
In addition to our working groups, we continue to hold monthly chapter meetings. If you are near us and want to get involved, send an email to nhv@scienceforthepeople.org or fill out the onboarding form on the SftP website!
Bloomington
SftP Bloomington launched with an open house on Oct. 24, 2024. The chapter was founded out of the desire to cultivate deeper thought of various specific intersections of science, ethics, and policy among organized graduate researchers at Indiana University.
Since the late summer, a core group has met weekly or biweekly to discuss the desire for change in the science research scene of Bloomington. We have also coordinated a reading group covering specific topics chosen by members, including farm subsidies and agriculture, the racist foundations of genetics, and the question of who decides what counts as “science.”
One of our first forays into local science discussion as a group involved attending and dissecting the “Roads to Removal Indiana” symposium. The Roads to Removal conference was part of a series based on the paper of the same name released in late 2023. The report and its 60+ authors aimed to provide suggestions of feasible atmospheric carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies at the county-level nationwide. Conveners tailored the conference state-to-state, previously visiting California and Pennsylvania. For our first chapter report, and to align with the theme of radical science communication, we wanted to present some thoughts and reflections on our experience attending this event.
In late October, four SftP Bloomington members—graduate students from Indiana University Bloomington representing public health, evolutionary biology, and earth and atmospheric sciences—piled into a car to make our way to IU Indianapolis. Our journey began with casual debates over music and the setting of beautiful autumn colors in peak foliage, but also with a shared commitment to reducing our own carbon footprint by carpooling. The two-day event covered the potential of CDR solutions to be tailored to Indiana’s unique agricultural and industrial landscape. The conference was free to the public with an agenda that catered to community leaders, local farmers, and other stakeholders, with the ambitious aim of linking CDR directly to regional economic and agricultural goals. It was a meeting point for science, policy, and practical solutions, all in our backyard.
As a group, we brought highly-relevant experience in geologic carbon capture techniques, air quality and pollution, forest biology, and public health to the discussion of viable CDR pathways in Indiana. While we can’t remark on how favorably the public accepted the messages presented, we want to show the ways the conveners attempted to make the message easier to swallow—and possibly, in the process of doing so, went from sugar-coating to sugar pill.
The symposium emphasized appealing to local farmers with promises of profitability, while subtly distancing the conversation from conventional environmentalist framings, as though attempting to appeal to a skeptical or resistant audience. The language used underscored this approach, framing CDR as a largely hassle-free, profit-friendly alternative to “climate-smart” technology that wouldn’t require lifestyle or regulatory shifts.
The panelists were mostly corporate representatives for for-profit climate tech organizations, with some economists and government employees thrown in. Though it is true that many of these people were also scientists, it was apparent that the primary goal for many speakers was to advertise their companies. The scientists present who had authored the report were relegated to panel moderators, asking low-ball questions and accepting answers without critique.
Significantly to us, there was a lack of transparency or detail about the feasibility of many of the climate solutions proposed. Projections relied heavily on the most untested and overestimated technologies, namely direct air capture and storage. When it comes to the details of forest and agriculture management (a more feasible route than direct air capture), speakers constantly conflated increased photosynthesis with increased carbon storage, to the point where we were unsure if they thought that would be simplest for the public to understand or if they actually believed it was that simple (it is not: fast carbon capture could mean fast growth and then death, where carbon is returned to the air through decomposition or burning). We heard no mention of natural ecosystems like natural-growth forests, wetlands, and savanas—only monoculture tree stands. This not only brings issues with the conference presentation, but possibly the scientific basis of the report itself relying on wishful metrics and incorrect inferences. Such an approach ultimately serves policy interests and corporate profit over public understanding, encouraging investment in incomplete or impractical technologies. In this setting, real dialogue and transparency were secondary to persuading the public.
The transparency of the science in question is paramount to trust between experts and the public. Though this government-funded report was not officially a policy recommendation, it seemed very much to want to be, and to present a truth not inconvenient at all. We can call it optimistic, but what one may call optimism, another may call obscuring reality—two things that are not mutually exclusive. In the great machine that is scientific research in the United States, the questions that get answered are the ones that get funded by any means. For a science of the people, transparency is required of scientists as to the feasibility of their work in producing a tangible outcome.
The Roads to Removal symposium, under the guise of informing the public, sought to establish a united middle-ground between climate-concerned environmentalists and the conservatives and capitalists of Indiana. The result was a minimization of emissions-based climate change mitigation and constrained and limited scientific explanations of under-researched and under-tested carbon drawdown techniques. The most likely outcome seemed to be to bring profit to investors of private sector climate technology.
Other activities that our members have been involved with include joining the Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition to protest Indiana University’s “Expressive Activity” policy, a new addendum widely decried for limiting free speech on campus through intimidation and other means.
In January–May 2025, our chapter deepened its roots in local organizing, with new efforts and partnerships that reflect our long-term commitments. We’ve initiated a scoping effort on food systems in Indiana, hosted a movie-night followed by thoughtful discussions, and launched a community Permagarden project.
We also participated in the Stand Up for Science rally in Indianapolis, bringing with us a message from the greater SftP that we felt compelled to amplify: standing up for science isn’t enough—science must stand up for people. This sentiment, we believe, reflects a more transformative vision than the rally’s central messaging.
Following the rally, we connected with the Citizens Action Coalition (CAC), a local civil society organization, and are exploring collaborations in community organizing—particularly around public consultation and awareness of the unchecked expansion of carbon sequestration technologies and data centers across Indiana.
We extend our sincere thanks to all our active members and organizers who continue to build momentum and solidarity. As we cultivate new alliances and coalitions, we remain hopeful for even more impactful organizing in the coming months. We are also grateful to the Episcopal Campus Ministry for generously offering us space to meet and organize. For anyone interested in joining the Bloomington chapter, contact us at sftpbloom@gmail.com or on instagram (@sftpbloom).
Italy
The Italian project “Scienza di Classe” (Class-based Science) emerged in early 2023 as a hub for researchers, doctoral candidates, and students from diverse scientific and humanities backgrounds, united by the conviction that science is inherently political. Early on, we set a vision for the group as a space to critically interrogate how societal, political, and economic forces shape scientific production and to work toward a science that supports the oppressed. In the spring, we launched our activities with a series of online seminars under the banner “Why Science Is Not Neutral,” where participants delved into how funding mechanisms, internal hierarchies, and the pressures of “publish or perish” undermine scientific autonomy. We also ran the “Science: Feminine Plural” series, which explored gender dynamics in scientific work, setting the stage for our commitment to a democratized research process. During the past year, our collective organized and participated in eight online seminars and two in-person events. Notably, we hosted an international interview with the editor of Monthly Review, John Bellamy Foster, and led discussions on themes such as “Diseases of the Rich and the Poor” with Nicoletta Dentico, “Malnutrition in Gaza” with Claudia Penzavecchia, and “Artificial Intelligence and Society” with Jacobin.
In-person meetings took place in Milan in October 2023 and in Florence in June 2024, providing valuable opportunities for face-to-face exchanges and reinforcing our local presence. Our efforts also extended into the literary realm, as we contributed the introduction to the newly republished book by Ortothes from 1976 “Inquinamento, Sfruttamento, Guerra” (Pollution, Exploitation, War) by Jean Fallot—a project that further underscores our commitment to critiquing the ways in which capitalist imperatives permeate scientific inquiry. We became affiliated with the international network Science for the People in December 2024. This collaboration was further strengthened by our participation at the Marx in the Anthropocene conference in Venice in March 2025, where we hosted a roundtable discussion that enriched our dialogue on the political role of science. Looking ahead, our future projects include further expanding our presence across Italian universities, deepening the structure of our collective, and enhancing our internal and external training activities. We remain dedicated to building a worker-oriented science that is democratically controlled—science that is truly for the people. To join us or learn more about our initiatives, please contact us at scienzadiclasse@gmail.com and follow us on our Instagram account, @scienceforthepeople.it.
