Millions fan out to support science
Earth Day marches held worldwide to counter scepticism about climate change.
WASHINGTON: The world saw brain power take a different form on Saturday.
From the Washington Monument to Germany’s Brandenburg Gate and even to Greenland, scientists, students and research advocates rallied on an often soggy Earth Day, conveying a global message about scientific freedom without political interference, the need for adequate spending for future breakthroughs and just the general value of scientific pursuits.
They came in numbers that were mammoth if not quite astronomical.
“We didn’t choose to be in this battle, but it has come to the point where we have to fight because the stakes are too great,” said Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann, who regularly clashes with politicians.
US President Donald Trump, in an Earth Day statement hours after the marches kicked off, said that “rigorous science depends not on ideology, but on a spirit of honest inquiry and robust debate”.
Denis Hayes, who co-organised the first Earth Day 47 years ago, said the crowd he saw from the speaker’s platform down the street from the White House was energised and “magical” in a rare way, similar to what he saw in the first Earth Day.
“For this kind of weather, this is an amazing crowd. You’re not out there today unless you really care. This is not a walk in the park event,” Hayes said of the event in the park.
Mann said that like other scientists, he would rather be in his lab, the field or teaching students. But driving his advocacy are officials who deny his research that shows rising global temperatures.
The rallies in more than 600 cities put scientists, who generally shy away from advocacy and whose work depends on objective experimentation, into a more public position. Scientists said they were anxious about political and public rejection of established science such as climate change and the safety of vaccine immunisations.
“Scientists find it appalling that evidence has been crowded out by ideological assertions,” said Rush Holt, a former physicist and Democratic congressman who runs the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
“It is not just about Donald Trump, but there is also no question that marchers are saying ‘when the shoe fits.’”
But the rallies were also about what science does for the world.
Signs around the globe ranged from political ones – “Make America think again,” – to the somewhat nerdy “What do we want? Evidence based science. When do we want it? After peer review” to the downright obscure Star Trek and Star Wars references.
In London, physicists, astronomers, biologists and celebrities gathered for a march past the city’s most celebrated research institutions. In Spain, hundreds assembled in Madrid, Barcelona and Seville.
Organisers portrayed the march as political but not partisan, promoting the understanding of science as well as defending it from various attacks, including proposed US government budget cuts under Trump, such as a 20% slice of the National Institute of Health.
“The current (political) situation took us from kind of ignoring science to blatantly attacking it. And that seems to be galvanising people in a way it never has before ... It’s just sort of relentless attacks on science,” said co-organiser and public health researcher Caroline Weinberg.
Scientists find it appalling that evidence has been crowded out by ideologicalg assertions.
Rush Holt