Tens of thousands of people on Saturday joined a global March for Science, with Washington the epicenter of a movement to fight against what many see as an “assault on facts” by populist politicians.
US President Donald Trump passed dozens of protesters on his way to visit wounded soldiers at a military hospital.
“Stop denying the earth is dying,” one sign visible from Trump’s motorcade read.
Photo: EPA
Despite rain, the protesters gathered around the Washington Monument for a day of music, speeches and teach-ins by scientists disturbed by the rise of so-called “alternative facts” around crucial issues such as climate change following Trump’s election.
Protesters marched to the US Capitol to carry their pro-science message.
The movement was echoed in hundreds of events across the US and around the world, from Sydney to Accra.
Photo: AFP
At a time when the Earth has marked three consecutive years of record-breaking heat and ice is melting at an unprecedented rate at the poles, risking massive sea level rise in the decades ahead, some marchers said it was more important than ever for scientists to communicate and work toward solutions to curb fossil fuel emissions.
Organizers said the protest was non-partisan.
However, concerns about the challenges to the role of science in society have spiked under Trump’s presidency.
He has proposed deep cuts in funding for scientific research, elevated opponents of climate pacts and environmental regulations to cabinet-level positions and drawn support from conservative Christians who challenge the teaching of evolution in US schools.
Trump issued a statement defending his administration’s policies as aimed at protecting the environment “without harming America’s working families.”
“I am committed to keeping our air and water clean but always remember that economic growth enhances environmental protection. Jobs matter!” he said on Twitter, without acknowledging the massive crowds of marchers.
In London, hundreds of people marched from the Science Museum to the Houses of Parliament, holding signs with messages like “Science is Sexy” and “Less Invasions, More Equations.”
The London rally was attended by actor Peter Capaldi, who plays TV’s time-traveling hero of science, The Doctor.
In Ghana, organizers used the day for a teach-in at a beachside hotel in Accra about environmental issues of local concern such as the impact of plastic waste on the environment.
Vocal protesters in Sydney wearing white lab coats called on politicians to support the scientific community.
“We need thinkers not deniers,” one banner read.
Demonstrators gathered across Australia, in Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and other cities, as well as Wellington and Auckland in New Zealand.
Protestors in major university cities in Europe posted photographs on Twitter of marches in Bonn, Helsinki, Munich and Stockholm.
In Paris, a banner in French read: “We are the resistance against the orange menace in Washington! Defend science!”
Other rallies were scheduled in Brazil, Canada, Japan, Mexico, Nepal, Nigeria and South Korea.
“Seeing the assault on fact-based thinking, scientists are energized,” Paul Hanle, chief executive officer of Climate Central, an independent organization of scientists and journalists, wrote in an op-ed last week.
Scientists “are not famous for their camaraderie,” University of Edinburgh carbon management professor David Reay said. “We are trained to question, criticize and, where needed, contest each other’s work. That we are now marching together is testament to just how threatened our disparate community feels.”
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