Thousands March on Parliament to Demand 'Science not Silence'

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On an uncharacteristically sunny day in central London, thousands of smiling people in white lab coats holding placards adorned with Einsteinโ€™s equations and Neil DeGrasse Tyson quotations marched towards Parliament shouting โ€œscience notย silenceโ€.

The chant filtered back a half-mile or so down the road, and all of a sudden, thousands of similarly dressed, previously shy people had become vocal. It was a rare moment of activism from a group normally content to go under the radar, bunkering down in labs and libraries across theย world.

The chant quickly became the impromptu slogan for Londonโ€™s March for Science onย Saturday.

Between 7,500 and 10,000 people came out to march three miles from Londonโ€™s famous Science Museum to the House of Parliament to ask the government to support scientific enquiry in the UK.

The march was part of a global action, with over 500 marches taking place across the globe โ€” from spots as far apart as Washington DC and Sao Paulo, Helsinki andย Brisbane.

March for Scienceโ€™s aim is to persuade policymakers of the benefits of โ€œrobustly funded and publicly communicated science as a pillar of human freedom and prosperityโ€, according to the eventโ€™sย website.ย 

It was meant to create a โ€œcelebration of scienceโ€, according to Story Sylvester, one of the London eventโ€™sย organisers.ย 

The only way science can properly perform its role in society is if research budgets are preserved, and the government makes efforts to keep scientists in the UK post-Brexit, sheย said.

Scientists are โ€œfeeling threatenedโ€ she explained, so much so that they are uncharacteristically willing to take to the streets to call on politicians to make use of the findings they take years painstakinglyย researching.ย 

Britta Goodman, a molecular bioloigist living in London, agreed. โ€œthis is why the scientists are standing up, because theyโ€™re fed up of not being listenedย toโ€.ย 

โ€œIโ€™m a mother of two children and it gives me nightmares to think weโ€™re not acting as fast as we need to beโ€ on issues such as climate change, sheย said.

The concept of a March for Science originally grew out of a conversation on Reddit, aiming to replicate the high-profile Womenโ€™s march that took place the day after President Donald Trumpโ€™sย inauguration.

It quickly blossomed, with high-profile sponsors including the Earth Day Network, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the American Geophysical Union all getting onย board.

The US march was organised in large part due to concerns about Trumpโ€™s denial of basic climate science and his determination to roll back rules to cut emissions, and reduce funding for important research including Nasaโ€™s ocean and atmosphericย monitoring.

But the idea went global, with people taking to the streets not only in solidarity with US scientists but also to express their concerns and frustration about how science may be undercut in their ownย countries.

In London, many of the marchers were scientists, but plenty were just ordinary people worried about how science had become increasinglyย politicised.

The marchersโ€™ motivations were myriad, but plenty were concerned about the way climate science continued to be misrepresented by elected officials. And the issue is unlikely to feature in the upcoming 2017 UK general election.

Josh Berry, a โ€œscience enthusiastโ€ from London, said he was there to try and show that the general public supported the idea of science-based policymaking, including on issues like climateย change.

โ€œI think the politics is about 20 years behind the scienceโ€, he said. โ€œScience provides the tools and politicians need to use it to sort itย outโ€.

โ€œItโ€™s ridiculous that climate change is still a debateโ€, Rebecca Lakin, who is about to start a PhD at the University of Bath, said. She was there with a small group of friends, holding her hand-painted placard aloft, to highlight the โ€œcorporate influence of the coal and oil and gas industry on politics, and highlight the impact it has on theย environmentโ€.

Before the march, some scientists had expressed concerns that the action could portray science as simply another specialย interest.

But the organisers were at pains to emphasise this was not theย case.ย 

The March for Science was emphatically a โ€œnonpartisanโ€ effort, Sylvester said. โ€œWe support science-based policymaking, but itโ€™s up to other people make political choicesโ€, sheย argued.

While there was the occasional local green party banner, and one Liberal Democrat sign, most of the protesters didnโ€™t identify with a particularย group.

โ€œItโ€™s great that people are coming together from so many different backgroundsโ€, Megan Evans, a marine conservationist from Wales, said. โ€œIt shows optimismโ€ and โ€œdoes show people believe they can do somethingโ€ in what she described as โ€œan era ofย โ€˜post-truthโ€™โ€.

Scientists are becoming increasingly vocal about politiciansโ€™ efforts to cut science agency budgets and disregard evidence that is placed in front of them. But a march, supported by many whose scientific participation rarely extends beyond โ€œreading the occasional bookโ€, is still an unprecedentedย move.ย 

So how were thousands of regular people persuaded to hit the streets in the name of particle physicists, marine biologists, and atmosphericย scientists?

Because, as one bystander put it, against all odds, right now โ€œscience isย sexyโ€.

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Mat was DeSmog's Special Projects and Investigations Editor, and Operations Director of DeSmog UK Ltd. He was DeSmog UKโ€™s Editor from October 2017 to March 2021, having previously been an editor at Nature Climate Change and analyst at Carbon Brief.

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