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On Earth Day (April 22, 2017), tens of thousands of concerned Americans marched in hundreds of cities across the county, and throughout the world, to have their voices heard. Now more than ever, when politicians and global leaders seem to be doing all they can to set back all of the scientific progress we’ve made across every facet of life, this coalition of concerned individuals marched “because science is critical to our health, economies, food security, and safety [and] marched to defend the role of science in policy and society.”
Based on the recent budget agreement that Congress negotiated, The March For Science seems have done its job as science fared pretty well in the budget agreement despite Trump’s blah-blah-blahing of all the cuts he wanted to make . Below are a selection of moments that we were able to capture at the March For Science in Los Angeles, and certain reasons why I believe that fighting for Science is more important than ever.
Trump repealed President Obama’s wildlife protection laws. President Obama’s laws prevented hunters from “cheating”, prohibiting the killing of wildlife by means of trapping animals while the were in their dens with the babies, shooting animals from an aircraft or killing animals while they were hibernating. Now, we can kill animals while they are a sleep with their babies. Yeah … that’s real humane.
Look, at the end of the day, everybody should have the right to hunt for sport. But it’s got to be done in a relatively humane and fair way. Right? And once you take away the challenge of the sport, you’re basically just killing for the sake of killing. Is that where we’re at in humanity? I refuse to believe that we, as “evolved” creatures, believe in that.
Thank God that Congress basically told Trump to shove his idea of slashing medical spending and research up his tuckus by giving various scientific R&D programs in the most recent budget agreement a $2 billion bump in additional funding.
Basically, Trump wanted to take money away from scientific research and development for medical advancements and use that money to pay for defense spending. Well, if you’re going to bomb an empty (thanks, Russia) Syrian military installation at $93 million a pop, you’re going to need to find that money somewhere. I’m just thankful that it wasn’t taken from medical research projects.
There is a cure for cancer. We just need more time and resources to find it. Plus, when an enemy of ours decides to unleash some form of bacterial or chemical attack on us, I’m pretty sure we’ll need some money to figure out how to cure whatever it is we’re infected with.
Trump has got a serious problem with appointing people who apparently never took a chemistry or biology class in high school to positions with serious power. The EPA Administrator, Scott Pruitt? That dude questions whether carbon dioxide causes climate change (despite OVERWHELMING scientific consensus that it does) and keeps staffing more dunces who are climate change deniers (ahem …. Jim Inhofe … coff coff …. Steven Milloy).
The EPA suffered a few cuts, but remained relatively intact … but what happens the next go around with the budget agreement? Will Congress still be in a position maintain the leverage is has now for then?
And therein lies my reason why educating everybody about the importance of Science- and factual knowledge, generally- is so extremely important. The only way Congress (I’ve pretty much given up on Trump) will be able to keep science in the forefront of any budgetary discussions … to ensure that scientific research and development is fully funded for us and our future (kids) … is to keep reminding politicians of those #ScientificFacts that matter. Keep reminding politicians that our future is dependent on Science, and without a serious focus on scientific research and development we’ll have no future.
To learn more about the March For Science, please visit their website at https://satellites.marchforscience.com/
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