Gianluca Grimalda is the first worker ever fired for having refused to catch a plane for environmental reasons. He did an act of civil disobedience to save 5 tons of CO2 and raise awareness on the causes of climate change. Was it worth it?

"After refusing to fly, climate researcher loses his job." Below the headline is a selfie of a 50-year-old man aboard a pirogue plying the sea of the tropics, his intellectual goggles contrasting with his Indiana Jones hat. By the time the news detonates globally from the pages of The Guardian and The New York Times on Oct. 13, 2023, Prof. Gianluca Grimalda, an environmental researcher at Germany's Kiel University, has been involved in filming for "The Researcher" for a year. To reach Papua New Guinea, the site of his research, Grimalda had traveled for 45 days, filming the 23,000 kilometers he traveled and the dozens of trains, buses, trucks, cabs, ferries and cargo ships that, emitting ten times less than a single, comfortable air trip, saved him 3.5 tons of CO2. And when, after six months of research in the remotest villages of New Guinea, the university intimates that he must return to his professorship within five days (i.e., by implication, get on a plane) he says no, becoming the first worker fired for refusing to fly. An environmental activist and member of Scientist Rebellion, Grimalda gave up everything - an enviable career and salary, a girlfriend, family affections, and a job he loved beyond all else - to raise the alarm about the now desperate condition of the planet, to provide an example and, perhaps, a possible way out. In this film of travel, of adventures, of individual moral principles and universal crisis, there is undoubtedly something crazy. Whether it is the story of "The Researcher", or the everyday behavior of its viewers, it remains to be determined.