Researchers brave the cold in Antarctica to protest against Donald Trump
Scientists across the world have demonstrated against Donald Trump. Including in its most inhospitable and deadly climates. Researchers at the Neumayer-Station in Antarctica lent their support to the March for Science demonstrations, which call on governments across the world – but particularly Donald Trump's – to embrace evidence-based policy and facts like climate change. The scientists stood outside in the dangerous Antarctic tundra to lend their support to the huge protests taking place across the globe. They carried a board that made clear the researchers supported the march and carried a quotation from Marie Curie.
“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood,” it read. “Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” Among other work, the German research station studies meteorology and atmospheric chemistry, tracking the vast changes that global warming has brought to the Antarctic.
They were just one group of thousands that marched across the world, including in Washington DC, in the
March for Science. The organisers of the march said that they weren't partisan. But many of the signs focused on Mr Trump and the organisers said that the decision to cut federal funding for climate research and other anti-scientific policies were among those being protested.
Mr Trump posted a tweet that appeared to be a response to those protests, arguing that he would work to preserve the environment so long as it didn't hurt jobs. “My Administration is committed to keeping our air and water clean, to preserving our forests, lakes, and open spaces, and to protecting endangered species,” he said in a statement released to mark Earth Day, on which the protests took place. He said that “rigorous science” is central to his administration.
A group of demonstrators in Antarctica also joined marches against Donald Trump in January, just a day after his inauguration.