Alain Riazuelo, astrophysicist: “With climate denialism, scientists learned that we need to speak as loudly as those who deny it”

Between 1792 and 1798, in the turbulent years that followed the capture of the Bastille, two astronomers received a commission from the French Academy of Sciences that would give one of the most lasting fruits of the Revolution. Jean-Baptiste Joseph Delambre and Pierre Méchain had to accurately measure the distance between Dunkirk, in the north of France, and Barcelona, bridging the obstacles of the Spanish and French authorities, risking their …