Abstract
Abstract. The threat posed to humanity by global warming has led scientists to question the nature oftheir activities and the need to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from research. Until now, most studieshave aimed at quantifying the carbon footprints and relatively less works have addressed the ways GHGemissions can be significantly reduced. A factor two reduction by 2030 implies to think beyond increases inthe efficacy of current processes, which will have a limited effect, and beyond wishful thinking about largenew sources of energy. Hence, choices among research questions or allocated means within a given fieldwill be needed. They can be made in light of the perceived societal utility of research activities. Here, weaddressed the question of how scientists perceive the impact of GHG reduction on their discipline and apossible trade-off between the societal utility of their discipline and an acceptable level of GHG emissions.We conducted 28 semi-directive interviews of French astrophysicists from different laboratories. Our mostimportant findings are that, for most researchers, astronomy is considered to have a positive societal impactmainly regarding education but also because of the fascination it exerts on at least a fraction of the generalpublic. Technological applications are also mentioned but with relatively less emphasis. The reduction ofGHG emissions is believed to be necessary and most often reductions within the private-sphere have beenachieved. However, the question of community-wide reductions in astrophysics research, and in particularthe possible reductions of large facilities reveals much more contrasted opinions. In conclusion, semi-directiveinterviews appear as a powerful tool, complementary to quantitative surveys, to understand the attitudes ofscientists with respect to the trajectories and the choices that need to be made by scientific communities inthe context of global warming.