Washington D.C. is still cleaning up the debris left by the Women’s March. However, it looks like the capital of the United States had better get ready for another group of annoyed people to descend upon it, yelling, waving signs, and listening to pompous speeches. The Washington Post reports that a meme has started on Reddit and is spreading across the Internet like a plague. Prepare yourself for the Scientists’ March on Washington.
Why a Scientists’ March on Washington?
Of course, it begins and ends with climate change. President Trump is a skeptic of human caused climate change and a champion of fossil fuels.
This stance has gotten a lot of white coated people’s knickers in a twist. Does not that man know that the science is settled? Apparently, he needs to hear from a half million (or likely less) scientists yelling and screaming at him from the streets of Washington.
Why is the March on Washington a bad idea?
Science is supposed to be the result of evidence, experiment, and debate, testing theories against observed and experimental data. A March on Washington will render the impression that climate science is the result of shouting and sloganeering. A march would also allow the media to have people on like Judith Currey, a respected climate scientist who was recently driven out of academia, who will explain that science supporting global warming is also the result of fear and intimidation.
Climate change zealots will have to decide whether they want to get on Fox News and get their heads handed to them by Tucker Carlson or whether they want to hide in the global warming bubble. Who wants that kind of publicity?
What should scientists do instead?
Politics may be called a science, but most scientists are bad at it.
James Hansen, the former NASA climate scientists, may get himself arrested at demonstrations, but all he accomplishes is to make himself look silly.
Instead of acting like politicians, the scientific community should act like scientists. Do some soul searching as to whether global warming is science or religion. Develop technologies for carbon-free power generation and carbon capture and sell it to industry, Leave the yelling in the streets to the professionals.
